Redneck marketing. This woman had stuffed the plasicated crocogators on her table with little dolls. I thought that was pretty amusing.While coming back from Anderson, Donnie and I had the big conFab about who was bringing what tomorrow for the game. He's bringing vegetarian chili for me, which I thought was very nice. I'm making guacamole. I make great guacamole. I wasn't going to make it because I didn't know if anyone would eat it or not, but Donnie said it should be fine.
When I left there, I stopped in and saw the friendly antique man on exit #39 on the way home. I didn't find anything I really wanted (or really wanted to pay for) there either. The quest continued as I went out Poinsett to the new antique place I have been trying to get in since Christmas. They were open! Yay~! Apparently the guy had been out of the country. But they handle Fine Antiques: very nice paintings, European furniture, etc. Some pieces were very nice, and some just had Very Nice prices. When I found two Luminarc bowls (circa 1986 or so) for $70 each (or a pair for $120), I figured I had wandered out of my price range for good. You can buy those bowls at Goodwills everywhere for about a dollar. I did stop at both the Goodwill and Salvation Army thrift stores on the way back, but came up empty. Oh well, the hunt is half the fun anyway.
I went home for a bit of a lie down, and checked in with Russ and Billy about the vet trip. They were getting ready to go, and Billy said that Russ just didn't want to wait for anyone, he just wanted to go on. I can understand that. He spent some time with Oliver today.
Dinner
We agreed to meet up for dinner at 6, and Billy told me just to make the arrangements, which was fine. I called Miss Kat to talk to her. She chose Joe's Crab Shack for some reason. I had eaten there twice before. They have good food, but it's noisy and the servers spend half the time dancing. There is a very elaborate, embarrassing and noisy birthday ritual that kids apparently love. So there is one about every 15 minutes. For the adults there is a full bar, provided you can convince a dancing waitress to bring you a drink.
I have to say the food we had was very good. The coconut shrimp I tried were tasty, and the "great balls of fire" crab balls appetizer with jalapenos was telish. The crabby nachos I had for an entree were excellent. The crab stuff was very rich and cheesy, but kept from being cloying by a nice balance of black beans, salsa, and other fixings. It was as loud, noisy, and birthday-y as I remember, however. The waitresses alternated doing the Marcarena with a 50's version of the Hokey Pokey for the numerous birthdays. Yeah. Straight people. (I did notice that most of the waitresses were suspiciously pretty and vapid, but small-busted, which made me wonder if they were hiring Hooters rejects. Could the chains be related?) Then we got the check. I was drinking root beer, since they had IBC. I figured this was fountain soda, but oh no. They charged me $2.50 each for three sodas. Yeah I was pretty over that. But of course this trip wasn't about the dining experience. It was about being there for Russ and Billy when they needed us there. And the food was pretty good, even if it was kind of like eating in a skating rink.
The movie
After dinner, we were going to see a movie. Russ and Billy wanted to go see Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. This is the kind of movie I would never have gone to see on my own. I thought it was horror, and I've had a phobia about werewolves since I was a kid. There were werewolves and vampires, but it was actually a cheesy fantasy-type thing.
The vampire (I'm sure it was spelled vampyre in the script)princess was having an affair with the super-werewolf half-blood. The vampires kept the half-bloods in service to them, treating them like dirt and making them live in filthy damp dungeons under the castle when they weren't tied to the outside of it to protect the vampires while they slept. They had special collars on them that kept them from changing.
I just couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to get into it after the first half hour or so. I spent a good amount of time counting the ways they were ignoring the evil overlord list, asking myself questions, and counting plot holes.
First of all, this castle was filthy and wet all the time. Anytime a character hit a wall, landed on a rock, etc, there was a great splash of wet nastiness. So I start thinking, "OK, if I had an entire race that was subservient to me, would I not give a few of them buckets and rags and have them clean up a little bit? Or dig some kind of drainage system?" People like me should not watch these kinds of movies.
Later on, we see the vampire princess meets with her lover, the werewolf super-dude, and they make mad passionate love on a parapet of the castle under the moonlight. I'm sure it was supposed to be very romantic, but they had no blanket or anything, and I'm thinking, "That stone has to be awfully cold. Also, how long has it been since he had a bath? Or brushed his teeth?" Remember, he lives in a dank dungeon under the castle, with no toilet, sink or shower. He had visible smears of dirt on his body. Plus, you just know he had dog breath.
When the affair is discovered, the princess is of course locked in her room. There were dramatic close-ups of her distress. And I'm sitting there thinking they're going to
have to let her out at some point to get her lips re-injected. She had these huge bee-stung, obviously collagen injected lips. To the point that I found it distracting. I'm thinking "They have collagen injections, but no maids?"The male lead was an odd-looking guy. In his dramatic moments, he had these strange "Jack Nicholson-in-The-Shining" bug-eyes. This was distracting at first, but as the movie progressed, and the dampness and filth generally ran wild (along with blood, of course) they solved the problem by taking his shirt off and having a lot of damp filthy hair hang in his face all the time.
I kept my observations to myself (until after the movie anyway), and found the movie suitably distracting, on whatever level. And that was what we were there for after all. There was a small child only one seat over from me. I was agog. I would have been scared to death by something like that as a child, and there were some pretty racy scenes, particularly in the beginning (I found it amusing that they showed him taking her doggy-style, I have to say). I figured the child would be crying and stuff, but he actually fell asleep. In THX-surround, no less. I think that pretty much says it all.
I went back to the house and visited with Russ for a bit. We talked some about Oliver. Billy got a bit upset when he came in and Oliver's food bowl was gone (Ben had been de-Olivering the house that afternoon), but generally they are OK.
Russ and I made plans to go up to Barnyard Flea Market in Duncan in the morning. That will be fun!
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