Holiday Weekend (A nice long rambling post)
A fun weekend spent in B-ton is culminating tonight with some early fireworks. I skipped class today so I could have an extended holiday with Anna. We went to see Superman Returns on Friday. I wasn’t super impressed (sorry for the pseudo-pun). It had its good and its bad. Anna sums it up in a review for No Blasters.
After that, we hung out with my old college friends Kyle and Jen. We played some cards, sat around, and finally after we started telling old stories over again (this is when Anna is usually ready to leave) we took off.
Saturday we met up with some of Anna’s school friends. I have wanted to play putt putt at this place in Ellettsville for a while. I always pass it on my way up to b-ton and it looks cool. A huge lighthouse and what, from the road, looked like the mast of a ship was in the center, surrounded by cliffs and caves.
Well, come to find out, the course was based on places of interest in Indiana, and, like most of the places, it was so run down that the game itself sucked. The place was a total Monet!
They did have a classic Mrs. Pacman arcade game. If it would have been the table top edition I would have been there all night! We hit the Chocolate Moose for ice cream afterwards, so that made up for the crappy game time.
Yesterday, we studied for a while and then hit the movies again to see Click. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this one. I really wasn’t looking forward to it. The big reason is that I think the whole stopping time concept has been overused and I remember it well from the Twilight Zone episode “A Kind of Stopwatch.” I thought that they should at least say that they got the idea from there, not that they really did. Well, what I found was a very Dickensian sci-fi every man tale that reminded me more of It’s a Wonderful Life (though not as good) than Twilight Zone. It had some bad Sandler humor, but there were some funny parts and some real tear jerker moments. It avoided what I hate about Sandler movies like Big Daddy. I actually didn’t mind the moral being shoved down my throat at the end, because it was done in a creative and sympathetic way.
Speaking of Sympathy (I am jumping around on this one), I have been hard at work on the readings for my Independent Study of early American Gothic and Sympathetic fiction. This weekend I read J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s Letters from and American Farmer.
This work, published 1782 is a wonderful read for anyone who wants to know what life in the agrarian based society of the Revolutionary war era was like. St. John (Crevecoeur’s narrator) tells some tall tales, but all of his work is historically interesting and very enjoyable to read. His tales of dealing with the animals that surround his farm and his frantic letter before rushing away from the violence of the Revolution to live with the Indians are two of my favorite things about the work. Maybe I’ll tell a animal story later.
Lastly, I made Thai Red Curry Chicken last night. I had bought Red Curry paste in C-dale, only to get it here and realize that it contained shrimp. I have a childhood fish allergy that I have not tried to revisit as an adult so I avoid fish and shellfish at all costs. So, Anna and I headed over to a great local B-ton place called Sahara Mart, where I found some paste for 99 cents a can. I made it with egg plant last night. It wasn’t as creamy as the dish I get from the local Thai place, but it was pretty good. We are heading back for left-overs here in a few minutes. Here’s hoping it is even better the second time around.
After that, we hung out with my old college friends Kyle and Jen. We played some cards, sat around, and finally after we started telling old stories over again (this is when Anna is usually ready to leave) we took off.
Saturday we met up with some of Anna’s school friends. I have wanted to play putt putt at this place in Ellettsville for a while. I always pass it on my way up to b-ton and it looks cool. A huge lighthouse and what, from the road, looked like the mast of a ship was in the center, surrounded by cliffs and caves.
Well, come to find out, the course was based on places of interest in Indiana, and, like most of the places, it was so run down that the game itself sucked. The place was a total Monet!
They did have a classic Mrs. Pacman arcade game. If it would have been the table top edition I would have been there all night! We hit the Chocolate Moose for ice cream afterwards, so that made up for the crappy game time.
Yesterday, we studied for a while and then hit the movies again to see Click. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this one. I really wasn’t looking forward to it. The big reason is that I think the whole stopping time concept has been overused and I remember it well from the Twilight Zone episode “A Kind of Stopwatch.” I thought that they should at least say that they got the idea from there, not that they really did. Well, what I found was a very Dickensian sci-fi every man tale that reminded me more of It’s a Wonderful Life (though not as good) than Twilight Zone. It had some bad Sandler humor, but there were some funny parts and some real tear jerker moments. It avoided what I hate about Sandler movies like Big Daddy. I actually didn’t mind the moral being shoved down my throat at the end, because it was done in a creative and sympathetic way.
Speaking of Sympathy (I am jumping around on this one), I have been hard at work on the readings for my Independent Study of early American Gothic and Sympathetic fiction. This weekend I read J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s Letters from and American Farmer.
This work, published 1782 is a wonderful read for anyone who wants to know what life in the agrarian based society of the Revolutionary war era was like. St. John (Crevecoeur’s narrator) tells some tall tales, but all of his work is historically interesting and very enjoyable to read. His tales of dealing with the animals that surround his farm and his frantic letter before rushing away from the violence of the Revolution to live with the Indians are two of my favorite things about the work. Maybe I’ll tell a animal story later.
Lastly, I made Thai Red Curry Chicken last night. I had bought Red Curry paste in C-dale, only to get it here and realize that it contained shrimp. I have a childhood fish allergy that I have not tried to revisit as an adult so I avoid fish and shellfish at all costs. So, Anna and I headed over to a great local B-ton place called Sahara Mart, where I found some paste for 99 cents a can. I made it with egg plant last night. It wasn’t as creamy as the dish I get from the local Thai place, but it was pretty good. We are heading back for left-overs here in a few minutes. Here’s hoping it is even better the second time around.