And the Periphery
Today was a long day.
Somehow in the period that I was in the shower, the sky darkened and let loose rain.
Today was the last day of the Circuit City sale, so I looked online for the local locations. I also had to factor in that I had to hit the one from last night to do a price-adjustment as well as a trip to Winter Park to catch Match Point before it completely disappeared from theaters. It would have been great if this were like last week when it was also playing at the Pleasure Island AMC, since I needed to stop by House of Blues to pick up tickets and save on that "convenience fee." If I wanted to include the Altamonte Circuit City, I'd have to make some sort of triangle trip or something.
After a quick stop for lunch at McD's, I hit 408 heading towards Disney. I needed to hit the Circuit City by Mall at Milennia, which was on the way, but I figured I better take care of the quick business before the uncertain-length stuff. It took me longer to get to I-4 than I would have liked, almost taking about as long as if I'd just taken Colonial. Parking at Disney is never convenient, so it's not like I was expecting to be just in-and-out. What was frustrating about this particular time was this: As I was slowly driving through the parking lot, I pass a parked car and see a woman talking on the phone. I assume she's about to leave because I sure didn't see her pull into that space during my slow idling towards the far end of the row. As I'm backing up, this teenage girl/young woman/whatever walks past me, into the row behind the car whose space I'm waiting to take. The woman pulls out, and I move forward and as I'm about to turn into the spot, I see the girl's car pulling forward through the spot. Okay, I figure she just wants to drive forward instead of pulling out backwards. But no. She parks her car and walks back towards Downtown Disney. Of course someone already took the spot that she'd left. What the fuck just happened here? Why'd she move her car one spot closer?
I'd never driven to Mall at Milennia from the other side of I-4, but fortunately I pre-scouted out the off-ramp as I drove past it on my way to Disney. The left-turn at the end of the off-ramp was blocked off by a firetruck, ambulance, wreckers, and maybe a couple of police cars. And some teenagers sitting on the corner. Looking more look "oh, crap" than crap. Looked like the traffic that was going down that direction down the road was blocked with no detour, unfortunately for them.
As soon as I walked into the Circuit City and saw it had the modern design, I cursed to myself, thinking that this store was new enough that they wouldn't have the outdated games I sought. I found a few, fortunately, but even though my cashier rung me up in the order I wanted, the computer regrouped things the wrong way. I didn't want to deal with it there, so I figured I'd fix that while I was doing my price-adjustment at the Circuit City on Colonial.
Thanks to my week and a half of driving to the Orlando Science Center, I was familiar with the Princeton exit off I-4 and easily found my way to Colonial. There was some unexpected hassle doing my return-rebuy. The Pokemon GBA Video I bought was able to be returned, but it didn't reappear in the system for me to re-purchase. My clerk had to get the manager (the same manager from last night) to figure out what to do. I don't know what happened, but they shoe-horned it to work. Doubly-fortunate, the manager once again didn't try to stop my shenanigans. Aside from that problem, how she did it was to put the return money on a gift card temporarily so we wouldn't have to do any juggling with my credit card. When I went out to my car, I thought that perhaps I should've gotten some leftover money on that giftcard, but I checked my receipt and saw that in the end I was in nearly the same situation as before. Oh well, I'll add that bundle to my return pile. (I also had a return to do at the Waterford Circuit City, but unlike the sale, I wasn't on a short (time) leash.) I went back in to pick up some more last-minute items, and what do you know, but the person who was at the register switched places with the clerk who'd helped me at the Customer Service desk. "Hello again!"
Time was running out until my movie. Ten minutes to get there and park? I think it's possible, I might just miss some previews. Y'know, even though I've never been where I'm planning to go. Holy shit, that Winter Park Village shopping center is a parking nightmare. Sure the main section was designed for pedestrians, but there were also places along the outskirts, so it isn't completely pedestrian friendly. It's really upscale, and I now know where I can find P.F. Chang's and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse if I feel like dropping a minimum of $30 per person. I really don't want to talk about the parking lot. Because I can't do the disastrous layout justice. But it's something like a clover. Something like it. Satan's own four-leaf clover.
I was aiming for a 7:45 show, but that definitely wasn't happening. The next one was at 10:35, so I had plenty of time to aimlessly wander the parking lots. In fact, I could've done so indefinitely if not for the fact that I was about to be running on empty. I came upon a Borders and decided that if I ever found a place to put my car, I could bide my time there. Here's another thing about the parking lot: the landscaping. Sure, many parking lots have trees to make it look more inviting, but usually these areas go from aisle to aisle. Here, they're circles, so it looks like there's a parking spot, but you can't park there. What's worse is they're not sized well enough, so there are these slivers of parking spots that seem like you can squeeze in...but you can't. Fuck this.
I luckily found a space on the absolute outer rim and went into Borders. I made my way to the bathroom to wash my hands after all that dusty shelf browsing at Circuit City. (Oh, that reminds me. Someone totally mucked up my nice bin-organizing that I did last night.) I was hoping to grab some sort of frozen s'mores-type drink while waiting, but they didn't have one offered, unfortunately. I grabbed myself the new issues of ToyFare (Batman LEGOs!) and Play magazine and sat down.
Afterwards, I hiked myself towards the movie theater to grab a ticket. I really needed dinner but didn't feel like waiting around for a restaurant (at this point, I didn't really care about money). Being that this was an upscale shopping area, I was bracing myself for frightening prices at the pizza place. Fortunately it was about the same price as Sbarro's, so I grabbed a slice. The crust was amazingly crisp, and it tasted great, as well. Pizzeria Vildiano. There's hardly any space in the restaurant, so I somewhat wiped down one of the wet seats under the awning outside.
I still had more time, and the rain had pretty much ceased, so I scouted the parking lots. Looks like people were more willing to leave the shops (or maybe it was just so late the shops closed) and spaces became open. So I hiked my way back to my car and moved my car closer.
I entered with something less than an hour before showtime, so I sat on the bench outside the theater, playing Animal Crossing. The theater emptied with people chatting about the movie. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears and hum. But decided against it. So I just and loudly in my head.
There were a few interesting previews before the movie. I'd seen posters for a movie called Imagine Me & You and never gave it a second-glance, convinced it was just another rom-com. Well, it is a romantic-comedy. But the trailer had a lesbian DDR scene, so I'm sold.
I'll give you some time to try to figure out what the hell that could possibly mean.
There's also this new Mel Gibson-directed movie entitled Apocalypto. It seems like Logan's Run meets the Mayans. Something tells me it will take a cue from Passion of the Christ and won't be told in English (if people still speak the language). I'm very interested to see how this one turns out.
Somehow in the period that I was in the shower, the sky darkened and let loose rain.
Today was the last day of the Circuit City sale, so I looked online for the local locations. I also had to factor in that I had to hit the one from last night to do a price-adjustment as well as a trip to Winter Park to catch Match Point before it completely disappeared from theaters. It would have been great if this were like last week when it was also playing at the Pleasure Island AMC, since I needed to stop by House of Blues to pick up tickets and save on that "convenience fee." If I wanted to include the Altamonte Circuit City, I'd have to make some sort of triangle trip or something.
After a quick stop for lunch at McD's, I hit 408 heading towards Disney. I needed to hit the Circuit City by Mall at Milennia, which was on the way, but I figured I better take care of the quick business before the uncertain-length stuff. It took me longer to get to I-4 than I would have liked, almost taking about as long as if I'd just taken Colonial. Parking at Disney is never convenient, so it's not like I was expecting to be just in-and-out. What was frustrating about this particular time was this: As I was slowly driving through the parking lot, I pass a parked car and see a woman talking on the phone. I assume she's about to leave because I sure didn't see her pull into that space during my slow idling towards the far end of the row. As I'm backing up, this teenage girl/young woman/whatever walks past me, into the row behind the car whose space I'm waiting to take. The woman pulls out, and I move forward and as I'm about to turn into the spot, I see the girl's car pulling forward through the spot. Okay, I figure she just wants to drive forward instead of pulling out backwards. But no. She parks her car and walks back towards Downtown Disney. Of course someone already took the spot that she'd left. What the fuck just happened here? Why'd she move her car one spot closer?
I'd never driven to Mall at Milennia from the other side of I-4, but fortunately I pre-scouted out the off-ramp as I drove past it on my way to Disney. The left-turn at the end of the off-ramp was blocked off by a firetruck, ambulance, wreckers, and maybe a couple of police cars. And some teenagers sitting on the corner. Looking more look "oh, crap" than crap. Looked like the traffic that was going down that direction down the road was blocked with no detour, unfortunately for them.
As soon as I walked into the Circuit City and saw it had the modern design, I cursed to myself, thinking that this store was new enough that they wouldn't have the outdated games I sought. I found a few, fortunately, but even though my cashier rung me up in the order I wanted, the computer regrouped things the wrong way. I didn't want to deal with it there, so I figured I'd fix that while I was doing my price-adjustment at the Circuit City on Colonial.
Thanks to my week and a half of driving to the Orlando Science Center, I was familiar with the Princeton exit off I-4 and easily found my way to Colonial. There was some unexpected hassle doing my return-rebuy. The Pokemon GBA Video I bought was able to be returned, but it didn't reappear in the system for me to re-purchase. My clerk had to get the manager (the same manager from last night) to figure out what to do. I don't know what happened, but they shoe-horned it to work. Doubly-fortunate, the manager once again didn't try to stop my shenanigans. Aside from that problem, how she did it was to put the return money on a gift card temporarily so we wouldn't have to do any juggling with my credit card. When I went out to my car, I thought that perhaps I should've gotten some leftover money on that giftcard, but I checked my receipt and saw that in the end I was in nearly the same situation as before. Oh well, I'll add that bundle to my return pile. (I also had a return to do at the Waterford Circuit City, but unlike the sale, I wasn't on a short (time) leash.) I went back in to pick up some more last-minute items, and what do you know, but the person who was at the register switched places with the clerk who'd helped me at the Customer Service desk. "Hello again!"
Time was running out until my movie. Ten minutes to get there and park? I think it's possible, I might just miss some previews. Y'know, even though I've never been where I'm planning to go. Holy shit, that Winter Park Village shopping center is a parking nightmare. Sure the main section was designed for pedestrians, but there were also places along the outskirts, so it isn't completely pedestrian friendly. It's really upscale, and I now know where I can find P.F. Chang's and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse if I feel like dropping a minimum of $30 per person. I really don't want to talk about the parking lot. Because I can't do the disastrous layout justice. But it's something like a clover. Something like it. Satan's own four-leaf clover.
I was aiming for a 7:45 show, but that definitely wasn't happening. The next one was at 10:35, so I had plenty of time to aimlessly wander the parking lots. In fact, I could've done so indefinitely if not for the fact that I was about to be running on empty. I came upon a Borders and decided that if I ever found a place to put my car, I could bide my time there. Here's another thing about the parking lot: the landscaping. Sure, many parking lots have trees to make it look more inviting, but usually these areas go from aisle to aisle. Here, they're circles, so it looks like there's a parking spot, but you can't park there. What's worse is they're not sized well enough, so there are these slivers of parking spots that seem like you can squeeze in...but you can't. Fuck this.
I luckily found a space on the absolute outer rim and went into Borders. I made my way to the bathroom to wash my hands after all that dusty shelf browsing at Circuit City. (Oh, that reminds me. Someone totally mucked up my nice bin-organizing that I did last night.) I was hoping to grab some sort of frozen s'mores-type drink while waiting, but they didn't have one offered, unfortunately. I grabbed myself the new issues of ToyFare (Batman LEGOs!) and Play magazine and sat down.
Afterwards, I hiked myself towards the movie theater to grab a ticket. I really needed dinner but didn't feel like waiting around for a restaurant (at this point, I didn't really care about money). Being that this was an upscale shopping area, I was bracing myself for frightening prices at the pizza place. Fortunately it was about the same price as Sbarro's, so I grabbed a slice. The crust was amazingly crisp, and it tasted great, as well. Pizzeria Vildiano. There's hardly any space in the restaurant, so I somewhat wiped down one of the wet seats under the awning outside.
I still had more time, and the rain had pretty much ceased, so I scouted the parking lots. Looks like people were more willing to leave the shops (or maybe it was just so late the shops closed) and spaces became open. So I hiked my way back to my car and moved my car closer.
I entered with something less than an hour before showtime, so I sat on the bench outside the theater, playing Animal Crossing. The theater emptied with people chatting about the movie. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears and hum. But decided against it. So I just and loudly in my head.
There were a few interesting previews before the movie. I'd seen posters for a movie called Imagine Me & You and never gave it a second-glance, convinced it was just another rom-com. Well, it is a romantic-comedy. But the trailer had a lesbian DDR scene, so I'm sold.
I'll give you some time to try to figure out what the hell that could possibly mean.
There's also this new Mel Gibson-directed movie entitled Apocalypto. It seems like Logan's Run meets the Mayans. Something tells me it will take a cue from Passion of the Christ and won't be told in English (if people still speak the language). I'm very interested to see how this one turns out.