Pirates of the Coffee Bean
Went out to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End on Friday. alenxa wore her pirate costume again (previous versions at last year's Pirates and, in a more appropriate setting, on the deck of the H.M.S. Surprise). We got to the Irvine Spectrum around 6:15, and ended up about 30 feet from the front of the line for the 8:30 showing. We had pizza from the food court, and later chocolate chip cookies from Donna B's.
Since some moron genius decided to chop the courtyard in front of the movie theater in half and put in more shops (have they filled the shops in the last expansion, yet?), the theater has had to get a little creative in finding room for lines. Ours started between California Pizza Kitchen and P.F. Chang's. Being off in the corner, we only got to see the pirates in our own line.
Anyway, the movie was a lot of fun. My main objection was that it got hard to keep track of all the double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses. Despite what the reviewer for the L.A. Times thinks, it doesn't require intimate knowledge of the previous films. All you have to know are who the major players are, and how they stand in relation to each other. You can do that by seeing the other films once while sober.
It let out around 11:30, and we went looking for a place that was still open to get something to drink. We stopped at Coffee Bean, where we discovered all the employees were dressed up as pirates. The guy at the counter was impressed with Katie's costume, saying she was the first serious pirate they'd had all night (I guess they all stayed closer to the theater?) and gave us our drinks for free.
The rest of the weekend was mostly puttering around. We tried out a newish restaurant in the Marketplace called Taco Rosa, which was quite good. Caught the Veronica Mars finale, though we had to resort to iTunes again, because I evidently screwed up the VCR programming. I don't know what it is about VM, but I've messed up recording it more times in the one year I've watched it live than any other show in the past decade. Watched some more BSG. Tried some pineapple wine (Maui Blanc, surprisingly good). Got about halfway through rereading Camber of Culdi out on the balcony. We really spend a lot less time out there than we should.
Dropped in at the Block to see what Heroes shirts they had at the Virgin Megastore, but the selection was pretty limited. Just one saying "Save the Cheerleader" on the front and "Save the World" on the back, and another saying "Are you on the list?" I looked at the new Dolores O'Riordan album---I was a Cranberries fan back in college---but after listening to some tracks I decided to pass it up.