We've had an incredibly ridiculously normal suurban weekend. Since there was no debate tournament we got to avoid spending our Friday-Sunday driving vans full of college students to college towns in the NorthEast and butchering pop-culture philosphy in relation to human rights questions, and instead, go on a date of sorts. I'm generally a very chill-at-home sort of guy. We have tivo and hbo/showtime as well as pay per view, so I don't need to go to movies for enjoyable entertainment. I think the fact that I spend so many weekends in various Econolodges and other meh-ish motel chains means that I want to enjoy my couch and remote control when I get the chance. Still, the upcoming holidays encouraged us to leave Hippo by herself for a Friday night.
The stage for that evening began to be set the night before, when Thursday ushered in our first lake-effect snowstorm of the season. It was beauftiul and sunny when I left the house for class on Thursday morning, around 8. The radio began to read a list of schools that were closed and I literally laughed out loud, assuming it was a joke based on the uncharacteristically mild fall-winter season we've had. Apparently though, as the cars in the UB parking lot testified, about 10 miles South of school, it was coming down in sheets. Every school in the "Southtowns" had been closed, as well as at least some of the community colleges in the downtown Buffalo area. It was apparently 6-ish inches of blowing snow since midnight, so nothing to scoff at. The band of precipitation didn't hit us until late that afternoon as Hippo and I plugged away at our analysis of "Kant avec Sade." I know that snow can be annoying, it can cause bad driving conditions, slow you down, etc. But fundamentally, I kinda like the snow. It looks cool and generally makes even pointlessly ugly parts of landscape fairly pretty.
I had to go in for a lecture on Friday, a very good one actually, though the turnout was less than I would have imagined. After some cleaning and grooming and the like, we left home around 6:30 on our way to the Red Lobster. I know RedLob is far from fine cuisine, but they do rock the unlimited shrimp boat pretty hard and I was in an all you can eat shrimp sort of mood. While I admit that their cocount shrimp is fundamentally no better than anyone else's coconut shrimp, their dipping sauce has a sweetness that no other one in my experience can match. Its like shrimp frosting, delicious. We were keeping up the long-standing Baxter-Kauf tradition of seeing Reese Withersppon movies on opening weekend, so we braved the Harry Potter crowds to see Walk the Line.
I had predicted that it was a good night to go to a movie that wasn't Harry Potter, and I was really dead on. a number of great things ensued: 1) our neighborhood Regal theater has an ATM/ticket buying machine in the lobby, which I adore. I just choose my movie and the number of tickets, run my card through, and it spits them to me. I have no idea why people were waiting in line for a teller when two of these machines were wide open on the side of the lobby, but as long as morons continue to populate Western New York by the assload I will take advantage. My only thought is that people were actually buying their movie tickets with cash. I think that the use of cash at virtually any establishment which isn't a bar or a hot dog cart is pretty ridiculous these days and although the Buffalo/Lockport area has improved drastically since I've been here, I'm still blown away by the idea that there are businesses that don't use them. Anyway, the good thing was simply that I got to skip by the line and buy tickets from a machine. 2) The lobby was divided in two: half for the Harry Potter fanboys/girls and half for the rest of us. That meant we got our own concessions with really short lines, we didnt have to stand with the people dressed as Dumbledore, and didnt have to interact with all the children up way past their bedtime. Seriously, the popcorn challenge in the HP pen was probably 5-10 minutes, I had one person in front of me. They were jammed in shoulder to shoulder and some of them had without question been there for an hour or more. 3) Our theater was way less full than a movie with this kind of buzz should be on an opening Friday. I don't think the movie is gonna have any problems, but at least some of the crowd was probably deterred by the snow and the over-representation of wizards. I could put my feet up on the seat in front of me, my jacket on the seat beside me, and not worry about anyone finding the necessary amount of seats. This was a 9:00 show too, I might add, not exactly out of primetime.
Unrelated to the Harry Potter situation, but still awesome, was the movie itself. I expected good things, especially since I am a fan of both Johnny Cash and bio-pics. I had read good things, since Katie had directed me towards a couple solid reviews. Still, I was very impressed. Joaquin Phoenix is legitimately incredible, with both quality acting and incredible singing. I mean, really, dude is legitimately good in addition to sounding an incredible amount like Johnny Cash. Going for the music alone would not be a poor choice. There are even a couple scenes where the camerawork and editing were brilliant and unexpected. Some of the things Katie read suggested that Phoenix was overshadowed by Reese Witherspoon's work as June. Her voice was good, a really hawt Southern twang, and she's good in the role. But on no level that I was aware of could she be said to outshine Wah-keen. Regardless, you should go see Walk the Line.
This morning I felt like Frank the Tank, when I woke up and Katie and I decided to run some errands. We had to go to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, the grocery store, maybe Bed Bath and Beyond. I don't know, I don't know if there'll be enough time. Seriously though, it was totally suburban couple-dom par excellence, buying shelving at the Home Depot, ice-scrapers and gravy seperators, and having lunch at Panera. I don't think I'm risking the little bit of indie-cred I had in the first place by confessing to all this. But maybe I should listen to Lifter Puller or something, just to be safe.
Hippo and Katie are napping on the couch at the moment, so I can't pretend that Hippo is demanding I go and play. I can, however, simply turn my attention back to the Iron bowl. Hippo does love her SEC football.
Peace,
MB-K
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