Tag: movie

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Who’s Afraid of the Big, Black Bat?

I woke up this morning forgetting that I had lost an hour overnight. I thought I’d be up early enough to make breakfast after how early I woke up yesterday, but instead I just heated some cold brew coffee for Summer and took a shower before my parents came to pick us up.

We headed to Conway and, after some deliberation, settled on Sharks Fish and Chicken for lunch. I was worried Mom wouldn’t like how dingy it was inside, but everyone was pretty happy with the food. We’ll have to take them to Sam’s in town sometime, because I bet they’d like it a lot.

After we ate, we were going to shop for refrigerators, but evidently they had already picked out what they wanted in town. Instead, we went to Kohl’s and wandered around for a bit. We left there empty-handed to go to the theater, and fortunately we left early enough to get through some traffic that was caused by a flipped vehicle right off the interstate.

The movie was as long and slow as Eaddie described it, and I was surprised at how much they completely focused on it being a detective story. I guess it made sense, but it was less entertaining than I had hoped. There were certainly scenes that I enjoyed, and styles that I appreciated, but overall I didn’t at all feel glued to my seat. What I perceived as their big plot twist didn’t really carry any weight with me, and overall I thought it was relatively forgettable. The realistic wingsuit didn’t help, but I guess they really focused on realism on this one. There wasn’t an overabundance of having to suspend my disbelief as there has been in previous iterations.

After the movie, we headed straight home. As Summer started to head home, she showed me a piece of her car’s roof trim that had come loose, so I pulled it off to move the retention clips and then hammered the thing back into place with a mallet. Then it occurred to me that I had just fixed her car with a hammer, and that we should probably follow through with a plan before we’re forced to rely on a backup plan.

Once Summer left, I went to my parents’ house for some fish soup with them. We chatted for quite a while before I headed back home to try and get to sleep as quickly as possible. The new superintendent is coming to see the shop tomorrow, and I don’t know whether I’ll meet her or if I’ll be asked to disappear for the afternoon. I suppose I’ll at least brush my hair in case.

Something in the way, mmḿ?

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On Charting

Summer made a quick breakfast for us this morning, and then the girls spent the day working on school work and laundry. I wanted to go to a matinee to see Uncharted, but Summer was the only one that was really interested, which was perfect. She went to the gym, and then after showers we went across town for the movie.

I expected the theater to be pretty busy, and there were a lot of cars there, but our theater was mostly empty. Of course we had some people directly behind us with some loud candy wrappers, but they weren’t too obnoxious. The movie was entertaining enough, but wasn’t quite as charming as I had hoped. I’d never played any of the games before, but I assumed it would have Indiana Jones vibes.

After the movie, we ran by my house briefly to drop off sodas and pick up Summer’s replacement phone. Then it was back up to her place for the evening. When we got hungry, I pulled one of her gift steaks out and threw it on the grill. It turned out way more tender and juicy than I expected, which was a treat. It was a super quick meal with some instant mashed potatoes.

Everyone wound down pretty quickly, so I did a bit of shopping online. Then it was off to bed to prepare for a full week back at work after all the snow days.

This is my mag charger for my mag phone.

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Hot Ice

I woke up this morning and found myself to have quite a high blood pressure out of the blue. I’d gone several days without medication, so I was surprised to see it spike. I took some medicine and tried to chill out as I waited for the message that work would be closed due to the ice. I preferred Ben’s later policy that just said we were out of school was out, since at least then we would know well ahead of time. I felt bad for those that live further away and might have actually started the drive in before getting the call.

I never got up to much after that. I didn’t go back to sleep, though maybe I should have. I just sat around the entire day. I watched a little YouTube, played on my phone, and otherwise bounced around the house while constantly checking my blood pressure. At one point in the early afternoon, I started to doze off on the couch under the heated blanket.

The biggest thing I did all day was watch most of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I just love that movie. That just about got me to sundown, so I wound everything up super early and went to bed.

Notivation

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Heavyweight Champion

This morning started out pretty rough after I weighed myself at my heaviest ever. Apparently everything is sticking to my bones now. I thought momentarily that the weight I lost with COVID would stay off, but I gained it all back and then some in record time.

We had a pretty quiet meeting at work, since Thomas was still hoarse and Zach was still out with COVID. Greg was out for his birthday, so Gary sent the others to do a trash pickup at their offices while he and I decommissioned the old domain controller. We ended up having to walk over to the server room to restart the thing, because a drive failure kept it from spinning back up on its own. Fortunately that was the most trouble we had out of it, and everything else went smoothly after we bypassed the warning message.

I had to leave a little before lunch to meet my parents for a call with an accountant. He did share some additional insight, but I wasn’t sure the whole conversation was really what we were looking for. Hopefully it at least motivates them to look into some insurance to protect their assets.

I ran through McDonald’s and Taco Bell for a cheap lunch, that actually totalled $1. Then I went back to the shop to eat and get back to work. I ran to Oakland for a little while before school let out, and eventually headed home to change for Dale’s father’s visitation.

I’ve never experienced anything like this, which was a tiny room with two doors. It was practically a drive-through. Gary eventually showed up so the two of us felt slightly less awkward not knowing anyone else. We watched the slideshow for a while, and eventually filtered out since Dale was constantly gabbing with friends and family coming in.

The girls go to the house a little while after I had changed back into some casual clothes, and we went to my parents’ house for mango soup. Mom also made some sweet potato and shrimp fried fritter things, and some fried rice. The girls really loved the fritters. We chatted for a little while after we ate, and then headed back home to watch a movie.

Eaddie didn’t want to join us, so I made popcorn for Summer and we watched Idiocracy. It wasn’t quite as profound, and was quite a bit more stupid than I was hoping. At least I can finally check it off of my watch list, since it’s been bouncing around for years. Then we watched an episode of Modern Family before Summer went to bed. I tinkered on YouTube a bit longer, and then headed to bed myself.

That’s a long tour. Somebody must’ve run out of money!

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Taco Subscription

I made myself stay up when I first woke up this morning, because I knew if I went back to sleep I wouldn’t wake up for several more hours. We struggled to get out of bed though, and finally got up when Summer went to work on her laptop. I eventually took a shower, and then we left to meet back up at her house after I picked up some Taco Bell for lunch.

I decided to try the $10 30-day taco subscription, since the Doritos Locos Taco Supreme was on the list of options. I figure I can eat $10 worth of those in a month without any trouble. I didn’t get a taco with the purchase of the pass though, so I’ll have to go through again another time to redeem my first one.

We ate, and then Summer went to the gym after she got her laundry started. I thought I’d play a game or something, but ended up piddling on my phone while intermittently letting the cat in and out of the house repeatedly. She just didn’t want to stay in one place, and I kept obliging her every whim.

When Summer finally got back, we met at Harbor Freight to shop for some deals. I finally got a longer level and a multi-tipped mallet, and she picked up a bunch of stuff for work. I warmed up some leftovers for dinner, and then we laid on the couch for the rest of the evening until bedtime.

Minimum effort!

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Fire and Ice and Smoke and Mirrors

We got up this morning and tried not to dawdle too long, because we wanted to smoke some ribs for as long as possible. It was snowing, but we didn’t expect it to snow for as long as it did. I don’t think it ever really stopped all day.

Our first stop was Walmart to pick up what we needed. I got a huge bag of mixed fruit wood pellets, which will last years if I only ever use them in the little A-Maze-N tube smoker I got. Then we had to go to Summer’s to get the ribs and some other things, and finally we headed back to my house to set up the grill with a new tank of propane.

The smoker pellets took better than I expected, even after I dumped them off of the grill while wrestling the propane tank onto its holder. We used some of Summer’s Larry the Cable Guy wild game rub she had stockpiled years ago, which proved to be a mistake. I used way too much, but we wouldn’t know that until we ate them.

The ribs smoked for about three or four hours before I covered them with some old leftover barbecue sauce and wrapped them in foil. Then I let them cook another hour or two while I baked potatoes and made some bacon. Summer made broccoli salad, and then we called it a day instead of making twice-baked potatoes.

It was still snowing big, fat flakes, but the roads were clear enough to get to my parents’ house. We ate and visited for just a little bit, and then headed back home to clean up. We only ate one rack of the ribs, and they were extremely salty. The rub was overpowering, so I couldn’t even really tell that it had a smokey flavor. It may help to eat the next rack with some plain rice to cut the seasoning.

As we settled in for the night, I got Summer to stay up late and watch The Prestige. I’d been wanting to watch it again for quite a while, so I was glad to check it off the list. Summer didn’t feel great for most of the evening, so we wound down pretty quickly and went to bed.

Are you watching closely?

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Re-Tired

I slept the worst I had slept all week last night, after waking up around 1:00 and lying awake in bed thinking my alarm was about to go off. When it actually was time to get up, I crawled out of bed super sore, but somehow I didn’t have to fight sleep all day.

We met in the shop and went over new COVID guidelines, which were basically nonexistent, or at the very least ineffective. I think they just accepted that everyone is going to get it super fast, so the primary goal is to keep kids in school no matter what.

After a little while, I went to Oakland to close out some work orders. Then I made it back to the shop just in time to pick everyone up to go to Old South for lunch. We had to wait for Zach and Greg to show up from their TV install, but then lunch was good.

Central Office went home at one, so we shut everything down as well. I hung out for a little while since Tammy didn’t have a ride, but then I had to head to my parents’ house to meet Pat, their retirement fund manager.

Julie didn’t show up because she was still sick, so we just had her on the phone. Pat seemed nice enough, but was mostly just vague in his gesturing that “there was enough money as long as he kept it there.” We did gain some insight, but I don’t think anything really changed. I’m tired of talking about it, but I still want to crunch the numbers ourselves so we can have a glanceable table of what to expect.

After he left, the rest of us had some curry for dinner, and then I headed home to meet up with Summer. I cleaned up most of the mess I made hanging the new track light, and then we watched Cool Runnings until bedtime.

Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme!

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Amazing!

I woke up pretty early today after an early new year’s eve. Summer got up and went home to meet up with the girls, who were home a day early from their father’s. Eaddie really wanted to come watch the Andrew Garfield The Amazing Spider-Man movies, so I picked up around the house until they came over with a bucket of chicken for dinner.

Just as we sat down to eat, Doug called from next door with a TV issue that I thought was going to be a de-synced remote again, but this time it seemed the volume on the TV was being constantly turned down. I couldn’t resolve it with a stuck button, so I told them it would just have to be replaced. I’ll have to go pick a new one up for them tomorrow.

I ate, and then we started the first movie. I had forgotten how good the 3D was in those movies, because it was actually properly shot in 3D by someone that actually took advantage of the technology and knew how to use it. We took a dessert break between movies, and then I made some popcorn for the second one. They were both pretty emotional movies that I just adored. I think even with the new MCU version of Spider-Man, Garfield was my favorite of all.

Eaddie and I stayed up a little later watching some YouTube, until she was ready for bed. I had to negotiate some space in the bed for her from Autumn, but they settled in pretty quickly. Summer had long been asleep, so I wrapped things up quietly before bed.

Gotta get back into the swing of things…

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WIN█

I got up early this morning after having some trouble sleeping, then ran home to shower. On the way out of town, I stopped by Casey’s for a cookie, and McDonald’s for breakfast. It was a long drive to Bentonville to get Mitch, so I put on The Matrix to listen to the original before we watched Resurrections at noon.

I made it up there with enough time to get a little food, so headed back to Fayetteville and went into the Buffalo Wild Wings right outside the Malco theater. It was exactly how I remembered it in Russellville. So much so, that we had trouble getting out in time to make it to the movie. I didn’t even have time to get through concessions for popcorn.

The theater was really nice. I had been to a movie there once before, but it was a really long time ago. The Dolby theater with reclining seats reminded me a lot of the one we visited in Dallas, but through all of the trailers and bumpers, I couldn’t tell that the height channels were used at all. Even the feature film didn’t have any obvious Atmos sound, which was super disappointing. The movie itself was pretty good though. They could have cut the runtime in half if they hadn’t included all of the clips from the original, but I guess it served to point out every one of the callbacks.

After the movie, we went to Arcadia Retrocade for a little bit. Mitch had never been, and I thought we’d spend some time there and reminisce. He had been struggling with some anxiety all day though, so we ended up playing a few games for just a short bit, and then heading on back to his place.

On the way back, we stopped by Big Whiskey’s for a while. I finally got my soda, and eventually we got some dinner as we chatted away. It was really great getting to catch up some more, and I’m excited he’ll be closer in Conway soon. We stopped by Mac’s liquor store on the way back to his place, and I picked up a stout that he recommended after they didn’t have the Bentonville Brewery flavor I had a sip of at the bar. The lady at the counter was super sweet, which seemed very different from every liquor store I’ve been to before.

After I dropped him back off at his apartment, I looked for the largest Walmart I could find. I ended up at the one across from the main office, but had trouble finding the actual entrance. It was weirdly obfuscated from the road, but I made it. The store was very large, but outside of an empty clearance area that was half the size of ours, and two entire aisles worth of bicycle helmets, there wasn’t a whole lot very special about it. I had to wait in line a while to check out, and then I was on my way home.

The trip back was rough, because for some reason people wanted to park in the leftmost lane the entire way back. After I finally got on I-40, I ended up behind a truck and another slow car trying to pass one another at like 65 miles per hour. Another guy behind me got mad and passed me on the right shoulder, all to cut off the guy in front of me. By the time I got home and cleaned up a bit, I was too tired to lug anything over to Summer’s, so I just went to bed.

Always the plan.

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People That Clap at Movies

I kept waking up last night as though I was completely full of water. I couldn’t even really sleep in very late because of it. The girls were already awake, so I got up and picked at some old leftovers. Then when Summer and Autumn went to the gym, I left to clean up.

On the way home, I stopped by Ridgewood Brothers to see if they might be free to see The Matrix Resurrections with Mitch and me next week. It didn’t sound very likely, but I had to try. Gary never responded either, until I called him out on it late in the evening.

When I finished getting ready at home, I went to pick up the girls and we made our way to Conway. They really wanted to eat on our trip, so we went to Red Robin first and had some pretty good burgers. I still don’t really think they’re worth the prices they charge, but at least it’s something a little different.

After lunch, we went to Sam’s Club for a bit, then Target. That place was absolutely packed and it was pretty difficult to get around the place. The checkout line stretched back to the cosmetics, but fortunately we pushed a cart around for absolutely no reason and bought nothing. By then, we didn’t have time to dawdle on the way through traffic to the theater.

The Cinemark was packed as well, with several theaters showing the new Spider-Man: No Way Home. We got snacks, sat down, and then I got up for more popcorn just in time to make it back before the previews. The movie was pretty good, but didn’t really have many surprises after all the rumors and spoilers that have been going around. I enjoyed it, and so did the rest of the room as evidenced by the constant clapping any time a character returned. I was pretty disappointed in the 3D, mostly because of the darkness of the projector. I guess I’ll have to just prioritize the large format screens from now on.

When we got back home, Summer and Autumn went to bed pretty quickly. Eaddie and I stayed up and watched several episodes of House, so we’ve only got three more episodes to go.

Planning with adults is stupid. Families are much easier, because they can’t leave.