Enjablog

Ian and I went with a few friends to go see Wall-E this weekend and it was fantastic!

The first half hour had no dialogue and was phenomenal. Pixar did an amazing job with the animation, music, everything.

I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone, so I’ll just give away this one thing… ;) My favorite throw-away joke in the movie was a scene with a robot with one appendage pecking at a keyboard. They pan past the keyboard and you can see that all the keys are 1s and 0s. Haha! Binary is funny!

The second time that I watched Transformers this weekend, I noticed that the big battle is fought in Mission City. I was making fun of that for a while, until I went to go track a package today and saw that it went through Earth City. I figured I should look and see if Mission City is a real place before I continue making fun of it: Mission City, FL. Although this is nowhere near the Hoover Dam, it’s still technically a real place. I guess I shouldn’t make fun of the name. I apologize to Transformers. They are indeed more than meets the eye.

P.S. Transformers on DVD was even better than I remembered it being in the theaters. And I thought the first time around was *awesome*.

Just finished watching Must Love Dogs and I loved it. I must be feeling sappy or something, but it really matched my mood tonight. There have been a few movies where I really didn’t like John Cusack’s characters, but I found myself rooting for him in this one. Granted, I was supposed to. But that never stopped me from disliking his characters before.

This is so cool! I was watching a DVD with Dellilah and was fast-forwarding through the previews when I discovered that she plays movies at increased speeds. So, you can still hear the dialogue when fast-forwarding. This was especially awesome because I was watching Letters from Iwo Jima and there was a lot of talking accompanied by not that much in subtitles. So, I watched a 2.5 hour movie in 2 hours. So efficient!

QOTD accompanying a Stetson cologne ad with hunky Tom Brady: “I want to be his wide receiver.”

Wow. What an amazing movie. A midwife finds the diary of a Ukranian girl who dies during labor on her shift. She follows it to find out where the girl’s family is so the baby can be raised by them and ends up in the middle of an organized crime ring. It was a bit bloody and violent for my taste, but the storyline was engaging. And Aragorn was fantastic.

I do think I need to start looking around for a new theater though. There’s a very nice theater near us with about 24 screens, but with the nice theater come the morons. Every time Ian and I have seen a movie there, there have been inconsiderate, stupid people. We’ve never gone before 8:30 and have progressively been going later and later. There have been crying babies, restless children, and people walking in and out of the theater throughout the movie. Who does that? And if you’re going to do that, leave through the exit on the side nearest your seat. There’s no reason to cross the screen if there are two exits that lead to the same main exit.

So, last night was the first time without the threat of crying babies. Instead, we were sitting next to this group of three, two girls and a guy. And the two girls would not stop talking. They had some knowledge of the Russian language and were either learning/practicing or disagreeing with the translations. I’m not sure which, but they kept repeating the things they were saying in the movie and making comments. Four times is too many times to have to shush people.

Then, there were the guys behind us who couldn’t keep up with the plot. There is a mildly misleading part in the movie, which you can figure out as it unfolds if you’re watching the movie and thinking like the mafia would. But 10 seconds after the fight scene starts, “Ohh, that’s why they did that…” Yeah, dude. Trickery was involved.

Holy cow. Ian scored us tickets to a sneak preview at the Arlington Cinema ‘n’ Drafthouse for Superbad. It is so much funnier than it looks in the previews. I was laughing through the entire movie.

Sonny: when you’re back in town, go watch it with your friends. Hilarious.

Also, before the movie started, they had a comedian come out for a few minutes. Highlight:

“I’m married to an Asian chick. So… that’s awesome.”

“The first time she brought me to her house, she asked if I had ever been to an Asian home before. I told her no, but I’ve played Dance Dance Revolution.”

Other highlights:
Happy birthday, NewGirl! And, she brought in birthday cookies. Woo!
Got Bust-A-Move Bash from my sis for my birthday and it’s so fun! Played for like 5 hours this weekend and unlocked the extras. And it can play 8-player. Now, I just need 7 friends…

As Ian and I were heading out on the town tonight, around 9:30pm, we were met in the lobby with a couple screaming at each other. They walked out of the building at the same time as us and we tried our best not to make eye-contact. But as we walked down the loop in front of our building, they were met by another man and two children (girls, about 3 and 9). The profanity and yelling increased. There was shoving between the two men.

Ian and I headed toward my car as they crossed the street to a moving truck. We turned to keep an eye on the scene and the angry man was back to yelling at the woman. He had backed her up against the truck and it sounded like he spit on her… and she spit back at him.

At this point, still standing across the street from this ruckus, we decide we should probably call the police before leaving the scene. Ian calls, gives the location, describes the situation, etc. And as we’re standing there, describing the people and their vehicles, the angry man gets into the moving truck and drives away… with the woman and second man chasing after, trailed by the older child trying to carry the younger one and keep up. They get about half a block up the street before turning around to get back into their car.

Woman and children stay in the car while the man goes into the building. An unmarked police car arrives with 3 officers inside. They get out and try to talk to the woman in the car. A minute later a second, marked, car arrives, followed shortly by a third… and fourth.

And then, um, Ian and I left to watch The Bourne Ultimatum, which was so much cooler than domestic violence.

I’ve had this tab open for me to blog for about a week now and I keep getting side-tracked and distracted by other things.

Monday - SuperDave was in the area for a job fair, so a bunch of the people from my floor at work met up with him for lunch. He’s just getting his resume out there and looking for something new. He doesn’t seem too concerned about lining up his next job though. Just taking it easy.

Then, there was the SNAME turnover dinner. There was a 2 hour meeting before the dinner, but at least there was a definite end point when we needed to get to the restaurant for dinner. It was fun… we created a kiddie table for the under 30 crowd. The outgoing chairman gave a nice, short speech. He thanked all the significant others for their support throughout the year and didn’t even have to look at Ian awkwardly. It was good. I received a section of our website burned to CD. A former coworker stopped by to apologize for not catching up with me earlier, but he’ll definitely email me, so we can, uh, catch up. (READ: Come back to our company before you get laid off.) He’s a nice person, for the most part, and means well… but this is also the guy who came and yelled at me after he heard that I had submitted my resignation a year and a half ago.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were busy with class and homework. I can’t seem to get everything done as quickly as I want these days.

Friday night… combined happy hour with Ian and my coworkers. Not a big turnout, but still fun. From there, we headed over to watch The Simpsons Movie! Oh, it was non-stop laughs. So funny. It was pretty much a 2 hour long episode, including lots of gags.

Ok, gotta get to the parents’ for lunch!

Transformers

was

awesome.

Squidgey wrote a review of it and I agree with most of it except for the Voltron part. And, of course, I would give it an A since I’m not a heretic. ;)

To sum up:

It was awesome. There was fighting and explosions. The Transformers were *real*. It was awesome.

Finally got around to watching March of the Penguins last night and it was great! I had no idea that penguins’ lives were so hard.

Before watching this movie, I had heard about this movie being promoted by religious groups and whatnot. I think that’s ridiculous. The idea that this is “proof” of intelligent design and that penguins demonstrate conservative family values is just wrong. I mean, unless “conservative family values” includes trading spouses each time you procreate or trying to steal someone else’s young if something unfortunate happens to yours. And intelligent design? If they were designed intelligently, wouldn’t they have chosen a place to breed that wasn’t -80°F, destroying an egg seconds after contacting the ground?

Anyway, it was cool. The penguins were adorable and the peek into their lives was amazing.

Ian took me out Friday night for a birthday dinner. So good! We went to Rustico in Old Town. They’re relatively new. They have great pizza and an extensive beer menu. I wasn’t so interested in the beer, but they did also have some tasty sangria. And when I was done with that, I had my choice of root beer and cream soda, which was fine by me. :)

After that, we came home and retrieved the awesome package BFF sent me. A delivery from Burdick’s that the mean lady at the front desk was actually nice enough to store in the fridge for me. So exciting! There was a cake inside and a traditional Burdick’s hot chocolate mug with a package of the chocolate concoction. Mmm… chocolate overload.

Decided to just stay in the for the rest of the evening since we had a big day planned on Saturday and watched A History of Violence. Surprisingly rated R for things other than violence. But also pretty violent. Good movie, though I probably wouldn’t recommend it to my parents.

Went out to Reston and watched Pirates with SPJ and Ian. Throughout the movie, I kept picturing how they would turn certain scenes into amusement park rides. I don’t know if that was on purpose, but I’m guessing it wasn’t completely accidental. Cool movie. I don’t want to give anything away, so if you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one too.

An interesting part of the movie-going experience was the person sitting next to me in the theater. (No, I don’t mean Ian.) There was a guy sitting next to me eating an entire Chinese take-out meal with chopsticks. He made one slurping noise, but shut up after my first dirty look. I gave the kid behind me a dirty look, too, after he kicked my seat. Only happened once. My dirty look must be getting good. ;)

Anyway, halfway through the movie the guy next to me pulled out his cellphone to text message someone. I assume his date, because he was looking at the phone and typing stuff while looking down the row at her. Oh yeah. She was sitting on the other side of the row because they came into the movie late and couldn’t find seats together. Too bad… I think he had her dinner too. And this is why I hate going to movie theaters. At least her phone was silenced, I guess.

Before the movie, Ian and I made a trip out to Taco Bell to try their new Spicy Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme. (Yes, advertising works on us. Shut up.) It was quite tasty. Smaller than they looked on TV, in my opinion, but still filling. While we were there, we discussed how beef tacos are to Taco Bell as french fries are to other fast food places. This seemed strange to me because they have nachos and other things that would work as more comparable sides. But all the meal combos seemed to have a side of taco.

Alright, back to The Crossing. It’s turnip day! :)

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

I’ve felt very busy this weekend, but when I think back on it, I don’t think I did very much.

I got in to work early on Friday and left early with my coworkers for happy hour.

Ian and I ventured over and helped Sonny move on Saturday. We lounged a little bit afterward watching the World Cup until his power mysteriously went out. Everyone got on their cell phones calling people who would be watching and then we all headed out. No use staying somewhere without power and tv. ;)

Ian and I watched Team America: World Police on Saturday night. It was… interesting. I am a few years late on this, but I finally got around to it. I would not recommend this one to my parents. That’s about all I have to say about that.

Loafed around a bunch on Sunday. Did some Sudoku, watched some tv, and looked for sales on dishwashers. Did the usual Sunday dinner thing.

Went to the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in DC yesterday. Learned all about Alberta. It was pretty nice. I went a couple years ago when they had displays out about boats and golf courses. Hm… that may have been two different years. In any case, they had a lot of different kinds of music, crafts, and technology displayed. Very cool mix of culture.

Went swimming a few times this weekend, including today… where our building had a July 4th potluck planned. Ian and I hadn’t really decided whether we wanted to go until today and then we didn’t have anything planned to bring with us. I didn’t really have anything around and didn’t feel like making cookies, especially not for all these people I didn’t really know. So, I made a tray of jell-o. Cheap, quick, easy.

Headed down and found that a lot of the people there were really not the kind of people we would choose to hang out with. But we didn’t want to just grab food and leave, so we stuck it out. Granted, we didn’t meet anyone new or talk to anyone. We were polite though, unlike some of those people. Buncha busy-body, line-cutters.

Now, the reason I mentioned what I/we brought… I made the jello in a pyrex dish. I needed the dish back, but didn’t care for the jello. The problem? No one had eaten the jello. I don’t know if it was because no one liked jello or because it was really bad jello, though how would they know if no one had tried it? Or it might have been because it was freakin’ hot out and the jello had liquefied. Oops. So, now what do I do? Take my dish back and be seen with the jello soup? Leave the dish behind and hope no one knows I was in any way associated with it? Send Ian over to retrieve it and let people stare at him?

Unfortunately for me, Ian’s plan was to leave and let me deal with it. That left me with a sloshing dish of jello soup, with a towel falling off of my waist, and no hands free to open the interior door into the building. But there were only 4 witnesses, so whatever. It’s not like I was trying to make friends with any of those people anyway.

And my theory on our building. With this many people living in this building, it’s improbable that everyone who lives here is cranky and unlikeable. It’s probably just the people who plan/attend these building events who are like that. There are probably nice people in the building who, like us, have learned that those events are boring and filled with rude people, so they just don’t come out anymore. Too bad.

Went with Ian and his parents to see An Inconvenient Truth yesterday. Very well done. I would highly recommend it to people who enjoy living on this planet. If you don’t care or have some other kind of exit strategy planned, then good luck with that. But for everyone else, make the time to go see this.

Watched Crash last night. Yeah, I’m a little behind the times, but I got around to it…

It was very cool how they intertwined all the characters. I understand that all the characters were supposed to be exaggerations of how people are in real life, but they were all so mean. It was hard trying to find someone to root for. No heros or heroines in the movie. Everyone had a very bad moment and most of them had a moment of redemption. I guess this was supposed to make me root for humanity or something like that… hoping that in everyone’s lives, the good moments out-number the bad.

Good movie, overall. The characters were so extreme at some parts (Sandra Bullock), they were unintentionally(?) funny. At the very least, I could empathize. And that’s something.

QOTD: “No I mean it, that is like death to me. I’d rather sit in church.”