They Don't Have Memorial Day in Brazil
It was generally a pretty low-key Memorial Day weekend with a few notable events that should be documented because I haven't posted in six days and my LiveJournal is feeling lonely.
On Saturday, I took my cans to be recycled and reclaim some of my CRV money. I made a whopping $3.12, which I know is bullshit because I had two whole bags of cans. Way more than thirty cans at ten cents a pop, which is what I paid when I bought them. I miss Michigan, where I put each can into the machine so I knew that each can meant something. None of this weird-ass weighing bullshit.
Anyway, I used that $3.12 to buy some sushi from Trader Joe's. Spicy California rolls for lunch!
That evening, I met up with Lisa (danea), Rick (ellric), and Cat (ceolyn) for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the Grand Lake Theatre. After we got our tickets, we headed over to Lakeshore to have dinner at Spettro, which I had just recently rejected but then been recommended.
The decor was kind of quirky, with lots of Christmas lights everywhere. It was sort of a mixture of Mexican and Italian. This is California, where we're all about fusion!
Cat pointed out the chicken tortilla soup, which led to her ordering it. Followed by Lisa's ordering it. And then Rick's ordering it. And I love chicken tortilla soup, but I'm also really cheap, but I'm also highly susceptible to peer pressure and didn't want to be the only person not enjoying chicken tortilla soup. So. It's a wonder I don't drink. The chicken tortilla soup was amazing, though. It was extremely tasty and full of more vegetables than I'm used to. Cat said it was more like chicken tortilla stew.
For the main course, I got chicken canneloni, which were like Italian enchiladas! Also very, very good.
We walked down to Gelato Firenze for dessert, a Grand Lake tradition since you get a free upgrade with your movie ticket. I decided on super chocolate, pistachio, and cinnamon. The super chocolate was incredibly rich and yummy, and the pistachio was good, but the cinnamon was way too strong. It tasted like cinnamon candy, like a Red Hot.
It was a half hour before the 9:45 showing, so we headed to the theatre, where we...got in line! There was a line outside to get in! Oh, opening weekend. And at the very end of the line, there was a couple who were dressed up! Oh, opening weekend.
The Grand Lake is one of those old movie theatres where you get an organist playing a Wurlitzer before the movie. And, as we had hoped, he totally played the Indy theme right before the show started. We cheered.
Indiana Jones and the Really Long Movie Title was very fun, and there were monkeys. Reactions on my flist have ranged from OMG FOUR THUMBS UP to OMG SUCK, and I found myself in the middle with a positive leaning, which is where I am most of the time, really. It was an Indy movie with great action sequences (and, okay, some gratuitous CGI), but the main plot didn't really hold together for me. Not that it mattered because the movie was so fun in all its throwback glory. I want to watch the old ones now, though.
On Sunday, I did a little apartment cleaning because...I should do that once in a while, right?
Then I BARTed into the city to meet Melanie (grammargirl) for dinner! You guys remember her, right? One of my very first LJ friends (along with foresthouse)! She was the inaugural recipient of the not being a serial killer tag!
She met me in the lobby of the Westin on 3rd, and we walked down the street as she told me of all the touristy things she had done. She craved Mexican food since California could actually do Mexican food, unlike New York, so we went to Chevy's, which was close by. It appeared to be prom weekend or something. Also family time weekend, as we sat next to a table with five kids. One boy was doing helicopter noises for, like, five minutes while we were eating.
Melanie craved guacamole, so we ordered some. They actually did make it fresh right in front of you, scooping out some avocadoes and smashing it all up with the other component parts. Unfortunately, one of those parts was cilantro, so I had to pick around it. The guacamole was good but ridiculously overpriced: nine dollars for a little bowl? Are you kidding me?
For dinner, I decided to try the shrimp and crab enchiladas with a habanero-pesto cream sauce. Because it sounded interesting. They were really tasty, although I only tasted a little bit of shrimp. The crab was hard to taste among everything else. But I think I like crab.
(Two days in a row, however, I paid over twenty bucks for dinner, which I don't normally do unless I'm on a business trip. Eating out is expensive! Is this how real people eat?)
As we left, I noticed that Melanie was carrying a Twilight bag. Jesus, that shit is everywhere. How/when/why did it get so goddamn big? (When I remarked that she was one of those, she explained that she worked for the company that published the books, so she felt like she owed them some free advertising.)
When I got home, I watched City of Lost Children. That is one weird-ass movie. I don't even know whether I liked it. I know I'm supposed to, but it felt like it was more concerned with being weird than being a movie. I liked Ron Perlman and the little girl, though. Ron Perlman is a strange-looking man.
This morning, I had to do some work, as expected. Global safety reporting waits for no holiday!
But, really, the most notable thing that happened today was that I SEWED A BUTTON. It took this YouTube video and forty-five minutes, but I was able to sew a button back onto my pants. And then I DID IT AGAIN. In maybe fifteen minutes, this time.
Now, I am going to watch a yet-to-be-determined movie. Comcast has all kinds of free movies OnDemand! It's awesome! While I do that, I leave you with the following poll:
Poll Battle of the Summer Movie Title Characters
On Saturday, I took my cans to be recycled and reclaim some of my CRV money. I made a whopping $3.12, which I know is bullshit because I had two whole bags of cans. Way more than thirty cans at ten cents a pop, which is what I paid when I bought them. I miss Michigan, where I put each can into the machine so I knew that each can meant something. None of this weird-ass weighing bullshit.
Anyway, I used that $3.12 to buy some sushi from Trader Joe's. Spicy California rolls for lunch!
That evening, I met up with Lisa (danea), Rick (ellric), and Cat (ceolyn) for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the Grand Lake Theatre. After we got our tickets, we headed over to Lakeshore to have dinner at Spettro, which I had just recently rejected but then been recommended.
The decor was kind of quirky, with lots of Christmas lights everywhere. It was sort of a mixture of Mexican and Italian. This is California, where we're all about fusion!
Cat pointed out the chicken tortilla soup, which led to her ordering it. Followed by Lisa's ordering it. And then Rick's ordering it. And I love chicken tortilla soup, but I'm also really cheap, but I'm also highly susceptible to peer pressure and didn't want to be the only person not enjoying chicken tortilla soup. So. It's a wonder I don't drink. The chicken tortilla soup was amazing, though. It was extremely tasty and full of more vegetables than I'm used to. Cat said it was more like chicken tortilla stew.
For the main course, I got chicken canneloni, which were like Italian enchiladas! Also very, very good.
We walked down to Gelato Firenze for dessert, a Grand Lake tradition since you get a free upgrade with your movie ticket. I decided on super chocolate, pistachio, and cinnamon. The super chocolate was incredibly rich and yummy, and the pistachio was good, but the cinnamon was way too strong. It tasted like cinnamon candy, like a Red Hot.
It was a half hour before the 9:45 showing, so we headed to the theatre, where we...got in line! There was a line outside to get in! Oh, opening weekend. And at the very end of the line, there was a couple who were dressed up! Oh, opening weekend.
The Grand Lake is one of those old movie theatres where you get an organist playing a Wurlitzer before the movie. And, as we had hoped, he totally played the Indy theme right before the show started. We cheered.
Indiana Jones and the Really Long Movie Title was very fun, and there were monkeys. Reactions on my flist have ranged from OMG FOUR THUMBS UP to OMG SUCK, and I found myself in the middle with a positive leaning, which is where I am most of the time, really. It was an Indy movie with great action sequences (and, okay, some gratuitous CGI), but the main plot didn't really hold together for me. Not that it mattered because the movie was so fun in all its throwback glory. I want to watch the old ones now, though.
On Sunday, I did a little apartment cleaning because...I should do that once in a while, right?
Then I BARTed into the city to meet Melanie (grammargirl) for dinner! You guys remember her, right? One of my very first LJ friends (along with foresthouse)! She was the inaugural recipient of the not being a serial killer tag!
She met me in the lobby of the Westin on 3rd, and we walked down the street as she told me of all the touristy things she had done. She craved Mexican food since California could actually do Mexican food, unlike New York, so we went to Chevy's, which was close by. It appeared to be prom weekend or something. Also family time weekend, as we sat next to a table with five kids. One boy was doing helicopter noises for, like, five minutes while we were eating.
Melanie craved guacamole, so we ordered some. They actually did make it fresh right in front of you, scooping out some avocadoes and smashing it all up with the other component parts. Unfortunately, one of those parts was cilantro, so I had to pick around it. The guacamole was good but ridiculously overpriced: nine dollars for a little bowl? Are you kidding me?
For dinner, I decided to try the shrimp and crab enchiladas with a habanero-pesto cream sauce. Because it sounded interesting. They were really tasty, although I only tasted a little bit of shrimp. The crab was hard to taste among everything else. But I think I like crab.
(Two days in a row, however, I paid over twenty bucks for dinner, which I don't normally do unless I'm on a business trip. Eating out is expensive! Is this how real people eat?)
As we left, I noticed that Melanie was carrying a Twilight bag. Jesus, that shit is everywhere. How/when/why did it get so goddamn big? (When I remarked that she was one of those, she explained that she worked for the company that published the books, so she felt like she owed them some free advertising.)
When I got home, I watched City of Lost Children. That is one weird-ass movie. I don't even know whether I liked it. I know I'm supposed to, but it felt like it was more concerned with being weird than being a movie. I liked Ron Perlman and the little girl, though. Ron Perlman is a strange-looking man.
This morning, I had to do some work, as expected. Global safety reporting waits for no holiday!
But, really, the most notable thing that happened today was that I SEWED A BUTTON. It took this YouTube video and forty-five minutes, but I was able to sew a button back onto my pants. And then I DID IT AGAIN. In maybe fifteen minutes, this time.
Now, I am going to watch a yet-to-be-determined movie. Comcast has all kinds of free movies OnDemand! It's awesome! While I do that, I leave you with the following poll:
Poll Battle of the Summer Movie Title Characters