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Jul. 10th, 2006 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jianantonicOn Friday, Ahren and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It was sold out all over Charlottesville, but we were planning to go to the nut anyway to paint, so I fandanwent (you know, the past tense of "fandango") some tickets for us in Harrisonburg. This was a mistake. See, I've been playing Virginia vs. Minnesota with Ahren for the last month or so, and until Friday, Virginia had a commanding lead. Then Ahren got a taste of Harrisonburg. In the words of Trogdor the Burninator, "The tables have turned!" Sigh.
We were late getting to the movie, because even though I did the fandango thing, I had to wait in line to pick up the tickets, and the line was a mile long, and when we finally got inside the theater, there were only two places that I could see with two seats side by side. One was in the front row, and one was in at the end of a row about halfway up. Perfect. I headed for those seats. Mind you, the previews were well underway at this point. There was nothing to mark that the seats were taken. As I started to make my move, the guy in the next seat over goes, "no, I'm saving those for my friends." I muttered (loud enough to be heard) "Of course you are, fuckwad," and headed for the front row. It's one thing to save seats while the lights are still up, people are getting popcorn, etc...but if you can't be there before the start time, I say, all bets are off. Besides, do you really *need* to sit with all your friends at a movie? Are you going to be talking to them? Why is proximity of the group necessary? Dude already had his own popcorn. No one wants to sit alone at the movies, but if you're in a big group, who the fuck cares if you have to split up into smaller, more manageable pieces? Sorry, this made me grouchy.
So, the movie...I won't give anything away, but...I didn't get it. Since I've committed the entire Curse of the Black Pearl to memory, you'd think I'd be able to follow the sequel. But it didn't make any sense. There were too many new characters, new twists, new developments, whatever. Ahren and I were able to piece together most of it in the parking lot after the film, but it really was hard to follow. It had its funny moments, absolutely, but it definitely reused a lot of the jokes from the first that were right on the edge of overuse by the end of Pearl. If I'm grading the writing, they get an F. The makeup and special effects people get A's. Acting - yeah, whatever. I wasn't nearly as impressed as with the first one. And yet, I *have* to see the third. Why? Because this one didn't have an ending! The whole movie is just a teaser. There's no resolution whatsoever! Fuckers!
Saturday, we did the Romano's thing, then we painted. We made a lot of progress, but I burned out in the late afternoon and called it a day before we finished the upstairs. We're really close on it, though. This week, hopefully, is it. We'll see.
Sunday we decided to leave early so we could make it back to Charlottesville for an afternoon bridge game. Why Ahren agreed to play bridge with me is beyond me. We'd had a terrible game on Thursday, then on Friday when he played with Jer, it was even worse. And we started off pretty badly yesterday, too. Once we got rolling, though, we really turned it up. My play was on fire (Ahren's was not so much), but all the major mistakes were my fault, which is actually better for us as a team because Ahren gets less upset over these things than I do. We ended up in fourth place, picked up some masterpoints, and left happy.
On the way home, we rented some movies I've been wanting to see - Ahren is too indecisive to pick something, so I got 4 chick flicks. He had his chance, but he didn't pipe up. Not my fault. At least I let him pick the ones we watched. Out of total coincidence, we went with two SJP flicks last night. First, we watched Failure to Launch, which is almost the exact same plot as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, even starring Matthew McConnahowdoyouspellit. It was completely forgettable. In fact, I did forget it - I had to IMDB Sarah Jessica Parker just to remember it, less than 12 hours after seeing it. Then we watched The Family Stone, which is equally forgettable and cliche (pretty much a lame retelling of Meet the Parents), but had the redeeming quality of Luke Wilson. The problem with that one is you don't even like any of the protagonists, so you're completely out of touch with the story. All in all, though, three bad movies in three days. Not my best weekend. The other two movies I picked up were Rumor Has It and Transamerica. I have high hopes for those two.
I have no idea what I'm doing tonight, but it's Ahren's last day in town for a while - I *might* see him for two days in August between something in Louisiana and Hunt Valley the next week, but definitely not before, and who knows when he'll be back through - so I want to do something fun with him tonight. But I'm so tired. I didn't sleep much last night. And it's Monday. Blech.
Peace.
We were late getting to the movie, because even though I did the fandango thing, I had to wait in line to pick up the tickets, and the line was a mile long, and when we finally got inside the theater, there were only two places that I could see with two seats side by side. One was in the front row, and one was in at the end of a row about halfway up. Perfect. I headed for those seats. Mind you, the previews were well underway at this point. There was nothing to mark that the seats were taken. As I started to make my move, the guy in the next seat over goes, "no, I'm saving those for my friends." I muttered (loud enough to be heard) "Of course you are, fuckwad," and headed for the front row. It's one thing to save seats while the lights are still up, people are getting popcorn, etc...but if you can't be there before the start time, I say, all bets are off. Besides, do you really *need* to sit with all your friends at a movie? Are you going to be talking to them? Why is proximity of the group necessary? Dude already had his own popcorn. No one wants to sit alone at the movies, but if you're in a big group, who the fuck cares if you have to split up into smaller, more manageable pieces? Sorry, this made me grouchy.
So, the movie...I won't give anything away, but...I didn't get it. Since I've committed the entire Curse of the Black Pearl to memory, you'd think I'd be able to follow the sequel. But it didn't make any sense. There were too many new characters, new twists, new developments, whatever. Ahren and I were able to piece together most of it in the parking lot after the film, but it really was hard to follow. It had its funny moments, absolutely, but it definitely reused a lot of the jokes from the first that were right on the edge of overuse by the end of Pearl. If I'm grading the writing, they get an F. The makeup and special effects people get A's. Acting - yeah, whatever. I wasn't nearly as impressed as with the first one. And yet, I *have* to see the third. Why? Because this one didn't have an ending! The whole movie is just a teaser. There's no resolution whatsoever! Fuckers!
Saturday, we did the Romano's thing, then we painted. We made a lot of progress, but I burned out in the late afternoon and called it a day before we finished the upstairs. We're really close on it, though. This week, hopefully, is it. We'll see.
Sunday we decided to leave early so we could make it back to Charlottesville for an afternoon bridge game. Why Ahren agreed to play bridge with me is beyond me. We'd had a terrible game on Thursday, then on Friday when he played with Jer, it was even worse. And we started off pretty badly yesterday, too. Once we got rolling, though, we really turned it up. My play was on fire (Ahren's was not so much), but all the major mistakes were my fault, which is actually better for us as a team because Ahren gets less upset over these things than I do. We ended up in fourth place, picked up some masterpoints, and left happy.
On the way home, we rented some movies I've been wanting to see - Ahren is too indecisive to pick something, so I got 4 chick flicks. He had his chance, but he didn't pipe up. Not my fault. At least I let him pick the ones we watched. Out of total coincidence, we went with two SJP flicks last night. First, we watched Failure to Launch, which is almost the exact same plot as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, even starring Matthew McConnahowdoyouspellit. It was completely forgettable. In fact, I did forget it - I had to IMDB Sarah Jessica Parker just to remember it, less than 12 hours after seeing it. Then we watched The Family Stone, which is equally forgettable and cliche (pretty much a lame retelling of Meet the Parents), but had the redeeming quality of Luke Wilson. The problem with that one is you don't even like any of the protagonists, so you're completely out of touch with the story. All in all, though, three bad movies in three days. Not my best weekend. The other two movies I picked up were Rumor Has It and Transamerica. I have high hopes for those two.
I have no idea what I'm doing tonight, but it's Ahren's last day in town for a while - I *might* see him for two days in August between something in Louisiana and Hunt Valley the next week, but definitely not before, and who knows when he'll be back through - so I want to do something fun with him tonight. But I'm so tired. I didn't sleep much last night. And it's Monday. Blech.
Peace.
