How does this thing work again?
Oh yeah, I have an LJ.
Saturday, Ashleigh and I were hanging around, trying to figure out what we were going to do. For the last month or so, we've both been pretty busy on the weekends (I moreso than she), and the sudden appearance of a weekend where neither of us had to work was a bit of a surprise. So we went to Portland. To see Charlie And The Chocolate Factory on IMAX. Talk about a whim.
We grabbed some clothes and various provisions, but nothing too fancy or involved, since we had to be there by 8. (That's when the show started.) An hour and a half of driving later (she drives kinda fast -- and usually while typing on her sidekick and playing with the stereo remote) we arrived about an hour early for the show. This turned out to be a good time to look for some hotels in her AAA book.
As an aside at this point, THERE ARE NO AVAILABLE HOTELS IN PORTLAND. WTF? We called 15-20 different hotels, and not a single room was available -- well, except for that one that WAS available at the start of the phone call, but was occupied by the time he actually went to check the price. In the end, we had to choose between the Travelodge on the outskirts of downtown and the University Place on the not-quite-so-outskirts of downtown. We went with University Place, since it was cheaper and closer (to booze). It was actually kind of funny, because we called the Travelodge back to tell them we wouldn't need the room, and they weren't actually holding the room for us.
The movie was great. They started out with these slides and a little introductory video to the "IMAX theater experience" which was on this small, un-impressive portion of the dome... and then played the ACTUAL intro on the entire thing. It's quite big. You should go see something on IMAX if you haven't. The movie was good, although it got a little uncomfortable sitting in the same position the whole time. And it was sort of annoying to see every pore on Johnny Depp's face. The people sitting behind us were annoyingly kicking Asheligh's chair the whole time, too.
Post-movie, we tried to get to the hotel, which was almost exactly on the other side of the river, less than a mile away. First, there was a train blocking traffic for about 15 minutes. Then it turns out you can't get to the other side of the river without going north for about a mile and a half, and then back south 2 miles. Once we got to the other side of the river, there wasn't any way to turn the right direction to go downtown. We sort of took the "long, long, scenic, long route," but we eventually made it.
Quick stop at the front desk, went up to the room -- oh look, bad sheets. Cigarette burns and some unidentifiable stains. After calling back down, the dude at the front desk came up and took us to a different room. It must have been the "show room", because it was much nicer, and seemed like nobody had been in there in quite a while. Except we found out the next morning the shower sucked. And the remote didn't match the TV.
Anyway, we changed (well, she changed into her hot outfit instead of her driving outfit. I hung out.) and then took a cab downtown. The cab driver was large enough that he was literally spilling into the back seat. I am not exaggerating. He also decided to tell us that the last people he had heard of being from Seattle were involved in a shooting a few blocks away. This was also not the only thing he told us. He was really big on talking about nothing we really cared to hear about.
The cab dropped us off at Kell's, which is an irish pub. Although this is not the Clever Dunne's type of irish pub, this place was almost classy and had an actual irish band singing folk songs in the corner. We ordered shephard's pie and a side of fries. (They dropped them off at the bar, and I managed to burn my thumb carrying it back to the table.)
Then we went bar hopping. Sort of. Second bar was a little hole in the wall that didn't really have anything noteworthy about it. Shanghai or something like that. Third bar was the Ash Street Pub, which is sort of like a goth version of Clever Dunne's. Funny that came up twice. They had an Elvis pinball machine we played a bunch of games on, and I got a martini that was rather meh. Ashleigh said the bartender seemed a bit new. They also had an original Asteroids Deluxe machine, which was rather impressive.
After that, we decided to just head back to the hotel. This cab driver was the hottest cab driver I've ever seen. Not that she was all that hot, but she was a cab driver, and not repulsive. I think she wanted me.
In the morning, after some tossing and turning, we decided to go for some dim sum. It was good. Very good. Better than the dim sum from the place that was raising mice in the int'l district. We drove around a bit, then headed home. Stopped off at the Mt. Saint Helens visitors center gift shop (hello, random!).
After getting gas, we saw this guy in a really crappy RV drop his drive shaft. There was a lot of loud noises and the drive shaft kept bouncing between the road and the bottom of the RV. Sucks to be him. I'm surprised the rest of it didn't fall apart as a result.
And then we drove home. (Well, we stopped off at the tacoma mall, and got mongolian grill in Kent. And traffic sucked. But that wasn't particularly noteworthy.)
THE END.
Saturday, Ashleigh and I were hanging around, trying to figure out what we were going to do. For the last month or so, we've both been pretty busy on the weekends (I moreso than she), and the sudden appearance of a weekend where neither of us had to work was a bit of a surprise. So we went to Portland. To see Charlie And The Chocolate Factory on IMAX. Talk about a whim.
We grabbed some clothes and various provisions, but nothing too fancy or involved, since we had to be there by 8. (That's when the show started.) An hour and a half of driving later (she drives kinda fast -- and usually while typing on her sidekick and playing with the stereo remote) we arrived about an hour early for the show. This turned out to be a good time to look for some hotels in her AAA book.
As an aside at this point, THERE ARE NO AVAILABLE HOTELS IN PORTLAND. WTF? We called 15-20 different hotels, and not a single room was available -- well, except for that one that WAS available at the start of the phone call, but was occupied by the time he actually went to check the price. In the end, we had to choose between the Travelodge on the outskirts of downtown and the University Place on the not-quite-so-outskirts of downtown. We went with University Place, since it was cheaper and closer (to booze). It was actually kind of funny, because we called the Travelodge back to tell them we wouldn't need the room, and they weren't actually holding the room for us.
The movie was great. They started out with these slides and a little introductory video to the "IMAX theater experience" which was on this small, un-impressive portion of the dome... and then played the ACTUAL intro on the entire thing. It's quite big. You should go see something on IMAX if you haven't. The movie was good, although it got a little uncomfortable sitting in the same position the whole time. And it was sort of annoying to see every pore on Johnny Depp's face. The people sitting behind us were annoyingly kicking Asheligh's chair the whole time, too.
Post-movie, we tried to get to the hotel, which was almost exactly on the other side of the river, less than a mile away. First, there was a train blocking traffic for about 15 minutes. Then it turns out you can't get to the other side of the river without going north for about a mile and a half, and then back south 2 miles. Once we got to the other side of the river, there wasn't any way to turn the right direction to go downtown. We sort of took the "long, long, scenic, long route," but we eventually made it.
Quick stop at the front desk, went up to the room -- oh look, bad sheets. Cigarette burns and some unidentifiable stains. After calling back down, the dude at the front desk came up and took us to a different room. It must have been the "show room", because it was much nicer, and seemed like nobody had been in there in quite a while. Except we found out the next morning the shower sucked. And the remote didn't match the TV.
Anyway, we changed (well, she changed into her hot outfit instead of her driving outfit. I hung out.) and then took a cab downtown. The cab driver was large enough that he was literally spilling into the back seat. I am not exaggerating. He also decided to tell us that the last people he had heard of being from Seattle were involved in a shooting a few blocks away. This was also not the only thing he told us. He was really big on talking about nothing we really cared to hear about.
The cab dropped us off at Kell's, which is an irish pub. Although this is not the Clever Dunne's type of irish pub, this place was almost classy and had an actual irish band singing folk songs in the corner. We ordered shephard's pie and a side of fries. (They dropped them off at the bar, and I managed to burn my thumb carrying it back to the table.)
Then we went bar hopping. Sort of. Second bar was a little hole in the wall that didn't really have anything noteworthy about it. Shanghai or something like that. Third bar was the Ash Street Pub, which is sort of like a goth version of Clever Dunne's. Funny that came up twice. They had an Elvis pinball machine we played a bunch of games on, and I got a martini that was rather meh. Ashleigh said the bartender seemed a bit new. They also had an original Asteroids Deluxe machine, which was rather impressive.
After that, we decided to just head back to the hotel. This cab driver was the hottest cab driver I've ever seen. Not that she was all that hot, but she was a cab driver, and not repulsive. I think she wanted me.
In the morning, after some tossing and turning, we decided to go for some dim sum. It was good. Very good. Better than the dim sum from the place that was raising mice in the int'l district. We drove around a bit, then headed home. Stopped off at the Mt. Saint Helens visitors center gift shop (hello, random!).
After getting gas, we saw this guy in a really crappy RV drop his drive shaft. There was a lot of loud noises and the drive shaft kept bouncing between the road and the bottom of the RV. Sucks to be him. I'm surprised the rest of it didn't fall apart as a result.
And then we drove home. (Well, we stopped off at the tacoma mall, and got mongolian grill in Kent. And traffic sucked. But that wasn't particularly noteworthy.)
THE END.