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heap 2003
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Ten Bucks for a Movie
J: Some of you may be wondering why we gave
Terminator 3 a yellow rating. Here's part of a reason why I liked it --
I had to pay extra to enjoy it more. Or rather, I had to pay someone to
hate it, and that let me enjoy it more.
See, on Saturday afternoon Chris Welsh, Kory Heath, Gary Kaplan, Gina
and I were all debating which movie to watch. Chris and Kory both voted
for mindless Termination, and Gary wanted to see The Italian Job. I
waffled, because on one hand The Italian Job looked like a better movie,
on the other hand I was in the mood for mindless Termination, and on
the third hand Terminator 3 promised to be crowded. I don't like
crowded theaters.
Gary said he wouldn't see a Terminator movie for more than $3.50, which
prompted Chris to offer that we could go see T3 and afterward if Gary
told us he didn't like it we'd each give him a dollar. Kory agreed, and
I liked the game so much I said I'd pay a dollar for Gina too. Gary went
for the bait and agreed to the terms.
We all piled into two cars and whisked over to the theater, which was
of course crowded (we had to separate to get seats) but they had
"stadium" style seating which is a little more comfortable when there
are crowds. So we all watched the movie from our different vantage
points. I sat with Kory, Chris sat by himself in the front row, and Gina
sat way behind us with Gary. According to Gina, about halfway through
the movie Gary turned to her and said something like, "This movie
sucks." I had a good time though, it was pretty much what I expected --
mindless Termination.
After the movie we all paid our dollars to Gary and then he spent more
than an hour over dinner trying to extract sympathy or apologies from
us, to no avail. The deal was done, we had already paid him the agreed
amount for his bad experience. In fact, our dollars bought us extra
entertainment, from Gary's complaints to our needless deconstruction of
the movie in front of him. We had a great time talking up the subtle
nuances (cough cough) of the plot, and how it fit in so well with the
rest of the Terminator trilogy. I suspect that next time we see a
questionable movie Gary will demand more money for his trouble.
Which brings me to the moral of the story, along with an advertisement:
Instead of being mean with your money like we were, you could spend it
on something nice, or even donate it to a good cause. Like our friends
who are walking from Annapolis to DC
to help our dear friend Greykell
Dutton. Thank you.
G: It's been
a long week filled with people and stuff. Chris came to visit on
Wednesday, and my sister Lori arrived on Thursday. That night we went to
a party at Duncan and Ann's place, and Chris was happy to have the
adventure of jumping the fence across the street to set up and set off
various fireworks displays that people brought. Lori had brought a very
impressive box of fireworks. You just light the fuse on the outside of
the box and it puts on a show that could be described as a miniature but
very good REAL display.
The next night we had our regular little monthly party. Alex, Renee,
and Diana walked with me down to the lake to watch Greenbelt's
fireworks. As usual, they were very good. There was an especially
impressive part during the finale, but those things are just too hard to
describe.
Later, back at the house, I got talked into playing Wheel of
Intoxication, which was a lot of fun - I got pretty intoxicated and I
won. It was the first time I'd played where everyone was actually
drinking alcohol. It's like most drinking games I guess - the more I
drank, the more I had to drink.
Lori left before we got up on Saturday, she went off on more travels on
the east coast and she thinks she'll be back this way before she's
finished. Later that night after the movie and dinner, Chris, Kory, John
and I played a new party game idea of Kory's that shows great
potential, and then we played The
King's Breakfast. We got to bed at 4am!
Nevertheless, we managed to get up in time to deliver Chris to the
train station, and have Jenny come over and go with us to a party for
Luisa's birthday (Happy Birthday Luisa!) in Towson at Chris Streb's
parent's house. It was pretty warm out, but we three managed a game of
Bocce Ball with Shaun, while others played croquette. They fed us veggie
burgers and salad and corn on the cob and vegetarian baked beans and
red peppers roasted on the grill. We met all sorts of nice people from
Chris's family. It was very nice.
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