Saturday, July 13, 02002
A very beautiful woman gave me a free movie ticket and a soda this evening !
I went to the 6:40 show of "13 Conversations About One Thing" at the Shirlington Cinema, and there was a women in line fidgeting about. I figured she was waiting for someone who was late, or that and the line was moving very slowly. A lot of old folks paying with credit cards. The people in line behind me in line were particularly annoying - talking about how they were going to have to go into real estate now that the market had tanked. I'm sure they were making me fidget as well. But I digress.
Back to the woman. She finally turns to me and asks if I'm alone! I say yes, Turns out she's got a free pass, but it's for two tickets. They are a perk from her job. What was I going to see ? Turns out we were going to see the same thing. (Not really surprising - only 1 movie scheduled for around 6:40) Do I want the other ticket ? Sure I say. Can I pay you for it. No. Can I buy you popcorn or something. No she's covered there as well. The free pass gets you a medium popcorn and two drinks. I get one of the drinks as well. Now I'm pretty much caught off guard. I say something lame like "I think I should be doing something..." She says "Enjoy the show !", and goes off into the theatre.
I buy my own popcorn, and by the time I get into the theatre, the only aisle with seats left was hers, which was a little awkward. The movie itself was pretty good, but very depressing. But that really didn't matter because of the whole free ticket/beautiful woman buzz going. It actually worked in with the movie in a strange way I'm not witty enough to explain. I glanced over at her a few times, and she seemed to be enjoying the film as well, learning forward, very engrossed, still fidgetting a lot. If someone stood this woman up, that person is an enormous staggering fool. A pox upon them !
The movie ended pretty abruptly and I made a beeline for the restroom, and didn't get to see her again. Not that I would have pressed my luck by trying to buy her dinner or a drink or anything like that. The moment had passed.
So still this opens up a whole Borgessian exercise. Now when I'm watching a movie, I can imagine what if it would be any different had a beautiful woman given me a free ticket to see it. For instance, Amelie, already an excellent movie, would have been immensely more amazing had the whole ticket thing happened there. On the othe hand, Rushmore would have been much less enjoyable. A lot of movies would have been a lot more bearable had I not had to pay for the ticket....
So if by any chance of fate the beautiful ticket woman ever stumbles across this entry, thank you again. You gave me more than just ten bucks worth of entertainment - you gave me a whole new way to experience movies !
Posted at 10:01 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Whee-hoo. Just got over some plumbing trouble here at Pwanville. Without warning the toilet in the bathroom started running full blast. It sounded more like the shower than the toilet. So I pop the top and start poking around, and nothing working. Then I notice water coming out of the utility closet, so I open it, and there's water dripping down from the ceiling, onto the air conditioner, which has all sorts of wires coming out of it. So naturally I flip out, fearing the whole utility closet is going to blow up or something.
It really didn't help that I watched Jacob's Ladder DVD last night, complete with the deleted "Antidote" scene .. Really the last thing I needed was the ceiling of my apartment falling in on me, with or without some demon swooping in and munching me up in the process.
So I shut down all the power, and ran downstairs and told the building management. They sent up a maintenance guy who was wearing a tie (!!), and looked just like the employee from Six Feet Under, even down to the "they won't make me a partner" attitude. But he fixed the toilet with about 3 twists of his screwdriver, with his eyes closed and standing on one foot I think, and then went upstairs and fixed some leak in the apartment above mine. Very professional.
Posted at 04:10 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Thursday, July 11, 02002
Posted at 10:26 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Wednesday, July 10, 02002
For a while there it felt like I was living in a horror movie. Now it feels like I'm living in a horror movie sequel:
So went the murmurings yesterday on the banks of Crofton Pond in Anne Arundel County, where a throng of TV crews and eager teenage anglers gathered to hear word that the voracious northern snakehead seems to have spawned six baby fish.
Posted at 05:35 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Tuesday, July 9, 02002
A first ! I stumbled across one of my own pages today totally by accident. I still really like my Dead Mike entry. The winning entry was just way too busy.
Posted at 06:59 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Bush proposes doubling jail time for book cookers. Big deal. Zero times two is still zero. You can't reform a corporation by jailing a couple of its workers. That's like getting rid of termites by going after a few bugs. You've got to hit the hive.
Going after corporations means laying out fines, big fines, and ones that are proportional to damage being done. If you have to lay off 100 workers because of your shinnanegens that should translate to a hundred million dollar fine. For every million dollars misrepresented, the corporation should be barred from doing business with the federal government for 1 year. Same restrictions for campaign contributions. Something along those lines.
The fines have to have some bite, otherwise they won't deter squat. If they force the corp to go under, too bad. There are a lot of crimes a human can get killed for. It's about time there are some corporate death sentences as well.
Posted at 01:56 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Meanwhile in soccer news, the old school continues to kick butt. (thanks Vance).
Posted at 10:24 AM EST [Link][Comment]
My hungry ghosts all seem to be after one thing these days....
They might also be interested in EDS Lawsuits
Posted at 07:55 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Monday, July 8, 02002
E$$o gags Greanpeace.
My, how it must suck when the protest site outranks your corporate site on Google.
Posted at 07:08 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Sunday, July 7, 02002
I was in Easton over the weekend. Yesterday and today it smelled like leaves were burning, and the sky was really hazy because of this smoke from Quebec. The smell was very strong in Harrisburg this evening when I stopped for gas on the way back to Arlington.
Half the hometown Sunday paper front page dealt with this "smoke" story. The other haf, plus all of the second page, and half of page four dealt with, get this, a review of local hot dog stands. That's half the paper's world news section. The Afghani VP murder made it onto page A3 !
Unfortunately the link doesn't include the graphic of the light-saber duelling hot dots which must be seen to believed. I really should have taken a picture of it. Oh well. Perhaps one of my hometown readers will save it for me. Hint. Hint.
