the plot
I finally went to my second in-theater movie last night since the pandemic began, the first having been exactly three weeks before, and the first having been a far better experience.
The quality of the experience had nothing to do with the pandemic or other people or mask wearing or anything like that. It had to do with the movie itself: the Mexican film New Order just plain sucked, violent and nihilistic just for its own sake, so far as I could tell. Nothing about it actually invited the viewer in, and the longer time goes by, the more irritated I get with it. Why does anyone think this is what movies are for?
Luckily, even though technically I did, I didn't feel like I wasted my money going to it. I used the second of my discounted Regal tickets purchased at Costco sometime in late 2019. I'd had those tickets in my wallet so long, it felt like I just had a free pass to see the movie—even though, again, I actually did pay money for it, just a long time ago. Shobhit and I will be shopping at Costco after work tomorrow, and I plan to see if they're even selling these tickets anymore. They may not be; Regal is now offering a monthly subscription service. They were in 2019 too, but it was very new then; I can see them deciding these days that the discounted ticket sales are no longer worth it.
The thing is, once they start showing better movies again, I will restart my subscription to AMC, and I won't do more than one of those. Before the pandemic, generally speaking, any movie I wanted to see was playing at both theaters, and only occasionally would I need to go to Regal, so it worked out. Somewhat surprisingly, as theater openings begin to ramp up again, Regal has had more of the movies of interest than AMC. I expect this will steadily change as the summer goes on, hopefully COVID-19 transmission rates continue to fall as vaccine numbers rise, and bigger releases hit theaters again. So far there have still been very few bona fide blockbusters released.
Anyway. It was still fun to go to a theater again. I just wish it hadn't been that movie, which almost certainly will wind up on my worst-of list at the end of the year. I mean . . . yeesh.
I actually stopped working half an hour early so I could walk downtown and see a 4:30 showing of that movie. Add to that the trailers plus the time to walk back home, and it was coming on 6:30 by the time I got back home, even though it's a pretty short movie (thank god). I then made veggie burgers for dinner, and after that took the time I needed to write the review.
It was a quarter after 8:00 by the time I was done. Shobhit had an unusually late shift, getting off work at 9:00 and it was after 9:30 by the time he got home. I watched a little bit of an episode of The Simpsons with him before I finally went to bed.
One truly annoying thing from last night: some asshole's car alarm kept going off, literally for hours. It was much easier to hear with the window open, and was still discernible even with the window closed. When Shobhit got home, I found out it was actually a BMW SUV in our garage! I had assumed the car was outside since I could hear it all the way up through our 4th-floor window, but there are vent openings from the garage to the street, so that's what I was hearing it from. The damned thing was only finally stopped once I woke up this morning, but it was audible from around 8:00 at the latest until around 11:00 when I finally got to sleep.
Are car alarms even an effective deterrent? It sure feels like they go off ignored a lot.
I had sat down to eat my lunch and read my library e-book, and suddenly I got a FaceTime call from Karen. Oh, shit! I totally forgot we were having our FaceTime lunch today. Der. Well, it's a good thing I'm reliably at home at lunch time. She even mentioned she realized that I "always, always" confirm on the days we have lunch, and for some reason I didn't today. She decided well, I'll just call him anyway. Good thing! Otherwise if she had forgotten too, it wouldn't have happened at all.
It was a great chat as always, but a major announcement included: they put an offer in on a property in Tulalip, they're going to build a second, vacation home from scratch there, and she's hoping it'll be done by late 2022. I can't wait to see it finished! She even gave me the address so I could see the Zillow listing. It's on nearly two acres of highly wooded property.
She said maybe sometime this summer Shobhit and I can go out there with her to check out the plot, and even perhaps roast marshmallows. That sounds awesome to me! Yet another thing to look forward to this summer. In the meantime, I need to get back to work.
[posted 1:05 pm]