Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Lucky Me; I'm 43.




Yep. 43. Not old to some; but … yeah, not old to me either.

Yesterday was my birthday. And like all of my other birthdays (in recent memory) I had the day off from work.

The reason I take my birthday off (beside it's my birthday): I have had several horrible experiences on my birthday while I was working. While working as a telephone operator for a company who answered numerous doctor offices phones (about 50 of them), one doctor threatened to sue me because I did not attempt to contact him for a call. (The guy had a message on him that he was not to be disturbed for any reason.) Another fun experience was working for this harpy of a woman who ran the word processing unit of a major (at that time) bank. I swear she only hired me to belittle me (and I was young and stupid at that point to take her crap). After getting several complaints (from other people in the same unit--so it really wasn't me); she made a big theatrical episode of apologizing to us all and blamed it on menopause. The harpy has since left this plane of existence (I saw her obituary last year).

So instead of taking off the whole week (which I normally do), I just took the day. And I'm really glad I did.

The celebration started Monday evening, after I finally decided what I wanted to do. The Pocket Ferengei and I went to a drive-in movie. (Yes, they still exist). We try to find them and go to them at least one time a year (didn't last year--although we could have gone to one in Vineland, NJ (named: The Delsea Drive-In).

I found a theatre in Walnutport, PA called "Becky's Drive-In". It's a hike for us--took us about 1hour and 45 minutes (or so--without the Garmin; if we had gone back home and gotten the Garmin (which we forgot to put back in the car where it's supposed to be) we would probably have gotten there quicker. Thank you Google Maps.) It's an interesting drive. We went up the PA Turnpike to Allentown (which is no longer a "name" on the turnpike ticket (it's "Lehigh Valley" now), then you go through Allentown (which, at 7:00 pm on a Monday was quite busy), then you get into some mountain country, and at the last gas station you find (when you decide to stop to ask directions) the drive-in is right around the corner. [Dear Pennsy: Please make your street signs bigger and clearer. Thank you. Booboo]

The place is rather nice. And for only $8.00 (per person) you get to see two movies (new and mainly recent). They had: The Expendables/Predator on Screen 1; and The Other Guys and Inception on Screen 2. I asked the very pleasant ticket person if it was alright to switch movies during intermission and she said yes (which was great because we really didn't want to see Predator). So we got to see The Expendables and Inception.

The Expendables



Popcorn flick. That's all she wrote. It seemed like Stallone got sick and tired of hearing every other person in the world whine about seeing him and all the other action stars (young and old) on the screen together. Well, this was it. The plot: thin. The action: very good. The quips: some fantastic, some grin worthy. Definitely a "renter" (or, if you are lucky enough to have a drive-in by you, see it at the drive-in/discount theater (do they have discount theaters anymore? I know the few we had in New Jersey seem to have closed (along with the drive-in)).

Inception



My vote is still out on this movie (and it's two days since I've seen it). This is a "pay attention" movie. I'm not going to go into it here (because I will ruin it). But if you go to www.pluckyoutoo.com (look for the 8/17/2010 post); you will read a very well written review of the movie.

As for the acting: I'm already a Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan. In this movie he's doing a lot of fight scenes (and I hear he did them all himself--good for him); but I'm still not certain I would put him in the up-and-coming-action-hero role just yet. (Romantic lead--yes, most definitely.)

Leonardo DiCaprio-- I'm not a huge fan (sometimes he's good, other's "meh"--in this one, I guess he was good).

Ellen Page--very good. She's becoming another favorite of mine. (Hey she was the third person to play my favorite comic book character (Kitty Pryde, in the horrible third X-Men movie)). She had a very decent role in this movie.

As for Christopher Nolan (who wrote and directed this one); well, he's allowed to miss sometimes. I'm not a fan of his movie "Memento" (warped to the nth degree); but it was worth watching (once), and I will give him "Inception" as a two-fer (because I'm still trying to figure the damn thing out). The only other movies of his that I've seen were "Batman Begins" (good movie); "The Dark Knight" (fantastic movie); and "The Prestige" (swing-and-a-miss--there were two movies like this that year and I liked "The Illusionist" a whole lot more).

Give it a look and decide for yourself. (If you've already seen it, post a note and we'll talk about it.)

So, since the last movie (Inception) started at 10:15 pm (and it was a long movie--about 2 ½ hours give or take); we got home around 3:00 am. I'm so very glad that I had taken off on my birthday.

I didn't get out of bed until around noonish. I wasn't very productive for the rest of the day (unless you count my Farmville being very productive, then nah).

The Bubba had called and left me a birthday message (she was the only one). The PF's mom and dad called twice (but they never leave messages); so the PF called them back and they wished me happy birthday.

I wasn't very observant when I got up. Spazz was though. He was doing the "stealth kitty" thing he does when he gets scared. He was bobbing and weaving in front of the window (which I had opened-up myself). I finally looked outside and there were balloons on our front step railing. (The Bubba strikes again. She said she tried to get into our house (she's got a key), but we had the chain set on the door and she couldn't get in.) So tonight we'll be going to her house for dinner (chicken and rice; bar-b-que chicken, and other stuff--yummy).

The PF took me out for dinner to "Red Robin". It's a pretty good burger joint. (The PF almost got himself slapped by me when he told our waitress it was my birthday; but after finding out that they give free sundae's to people celebrating their birthday's made up for it. [I asked the waitress for my sundae without singing; and she said that's fine with them. Yeah, she got a good tip.]

Well that's all for now.

More later...Booboo

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