Busy Weekend

On Friday, I left work early and went to the gym (ahh, the gym). I briefly entertained the idea of sitting in the sauna after my workout, as I hear it's supposed to be good for your immune system. However, after seeing the two portly, naked, gentlemen inside, I decided not to see if this is true. :) Cindy brought over food from Noddles and Company, which was delicious. Then, Danny and Jen came over and we watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yes, this is the same movie as we saw the play of last week (with Danny and Jen). We decided after seeing the play that seeing the movie may make the story make more sense. Nope. The opposite was true; the play made more sense. But atleast we got to do the Time Warp dance again. We also had some delicious wine (Firestone Reisling for me and Cin). Ahh, wine and a campy, cult, movie. Sweet.

On Saturday, Cin was at a swim meet. I spent the day helping my friends Scott and Erin (same folks we went to Paris with last summer) move from their apartment in DC to a house they just bought in Ellicott City. There was some horrible construction on New York Ave going into DC at 10AM on this Saturday morning. I got there and Erin let me in; Scott called a couple of minutes later saying that he was there with the moving truck. We went down and Erin stood in shock about the truck Scott drove up it. This was not the 10 foot moving truck he was reserved, it was atleast twice that long (no smaller trucks in stock). Normally this would be great, but we're in the middle of narrow-street, sharp-turns, DC here. Anyhow, we loaded up the truck (their whole apartment could fit in there), and headed to Ellicott City. I found their new house OK and it's really nice. It took much less time to unload than to load and after the usual pizza and beer, we departed as they needed to return the truck before 5pm (it would have cost something like 3x to return it in Ellicott City). After that I headed home and met Cin at the mall later. We walked around a little bit and then met my parents to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The movie was really good, but I'm convinced I like the books alot more than the movies. Still, top notch film.

On Sunday, I ran some errands and then met Cin at her house. We bought some groceries and took then to a mall off US40 for MIX106.5's annual Stuff-A-Bus event (they load up MTA buses with food for the Maryland Food Bank). We were both a little disappointed that you give then your food and they put it on the bus; we had wanted to load it up ourselves. Oh well. Then we watched the end of the Ravens game (why do we start playing so well - except for some really stupid mistakes from Boller - now that we're out of any hope for the playoffs?). Anyway, it was a REALLY good game. I then watched the Indy/Cincy game. Since when were the Bengals this good? Marvin Lewis is one helluva coach. This was simply the best football game I've seen in a long time. I ran to Giant and got some turkey burgers for dinner and then we watched The Simpsons - which was probably the funniest episode of this show that I've seen in a while. It's just been a good day for entertainment this weekend.

That's the weekend. Back to work tomorrow (until Thursday - love those holidays!).

The Legitimate Theatre...

Plan for Saturday night: Join Danny and Jen at the Spotlight Theatre in Baltimore for The Rocky Horror Show with dinner before hand. Here we go.

We went over to Danny's apartment around 6.00pm and headed up to Baltimore. We drove down Lombard Street, past some boarded-up houses and came upon our dinner destination, Patrick's of Pratt. This is a small (VERY small) bar/restaurant that Danny's been going to for years. The whole place is about as big as my basement. Turns out that Danny knows Patrick; his family has owned and operated this place since the 1800s. It's a traditional Irish pub in every sense of the word. We ordered some drinks and dinner and sat down to wait (it was quite busy - we had the last available table). Around 7.15pm we were getting quite nervous as we had an 8.00pm show to make and we had to claim our tickets by 7.45pm. So we asked, he went and checked on our food, and said it would be ready in four minutes. It turns out that Patrick's wife, Anne, is the cook, and her helpers didn't show up that night - she was all alone in the kitcken, hence the wait. We paid the check in advance and then our food came out. All of it was simply delicious. I had salmon, Cin had pasta, Jen had a wonderful crabcake (I had a bite - it was awesome), and Danny had a ribeye steak (I had a bit of this too - very, very good!). After eating at amazing speed, we split and piled into Danny's truck. This place was really nice. Very friendly atmosphere, very small but delicious menu, and great service. Patrick himself seems really cool. Other interesting point - it's definatly a small business. Danny's been there late at night before and when realizing they were the only ones left in the place, asked when they closed. The answer: "we're really just waiting for you." They just close when folks leave. What a cool pub. We'll head up there again when they're less busy and we're less rushed.

We drove down Pratt Street at a high rate of speed to get our tickets. We dropped off Jen and Cin and me and Danny found a "public parking lot" to park in. It was between two buildings and we had to pay some guy standing around $6 to park there. Kinda sketchy. But the truck was there when we left the show, so it all worked out. We found the girls at the Showcase Theatre, where we were going to see The Rocky Horror Show. Both Danny and Cin had seen the movie, but it was a firsttime experience for both me and Jen. This was a REALLY small theatre - maybe one hundred folks total all around the stage. The show was "interesting." I'm not really sure how to describe it - I think anyone who has been the show will know what I mean. It was quite enjoyable though. Plus all four of us were doing the Time Warp dance all night. :)

After the show we headed back to Patrick's to see if they were still open and we could get some drinks. No dice; they were closed. All the folks must have left. So we headed to Vaccaro's in Little Italy as Cin really wanted a canoli. She got that and then we headed to Howl at the Moon, as neither Danny or Jen had ever been there. That was alot of fun too. Around 12.45am or so we headed out and got some required Power Plant Live pizza, which was OK, but not as good as it normally is at 2.00am.

That was it for all of us. A short trip home and both me and Cin collapsed on her bed. ZZZZZZZZZZZ......

A nice, relaxing, day

I love federal holidays. Here's my schedule for the day.

9.30am - woke up and played with my cat
10.00am - ate breakfast (Fiber One cereal)
10.30am - went to the gym
11.30am - went to the mall for lunch (Caesar salad w/ tomatoes and fat-free dressing)
12.15pm - went to grocery store #1 (David's Natural Market)
12.45pm - went to grocery store #2 (Roots Market)
1.30pm - got home and watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
2.30pm - took a shower and got some laundry done
3.00pm - had some tea
7.00pm - picked up Cindy and went to Fuddruckers for dinner. I really wanted to try a ostrich burger, as I hear they are great. Apparently, they're also not on the menu at Fudd's anymore. Nuts. So I had a buffalo burger. It's as tasty as ground beef (better, based on my one experience with it) and it's 97.5% fat free and low in sat fat. Sweet.
8.30pm - went to Bad Movie Night (every year, on his birthday, a friend of mine had people over to his house and we all watch a really, really, bad, movie). This year we were a day late as he has law school classes on Thursday nights. Tonight's movie was Flash Gordon. Ugh, how horrible. :) We also had some of his handmade grapefruit wine, of which I'm the only person that seemed to like it.

What a sweet day.

Crash

Tonight I watched Crash on cable on-demand. This was a damn good movie.

IMDB describes it as "Several characters of different racial backgrounds collide in one incident. The different stereotypes society has created for those backgrounds affect their judgment, beliefs and actions. This in turn causes problems for each of them." See the whole IMDB entry here.

That really wasn't what it was all about, but it was surely a look at race in America today and the stereotypes that everyone experiences at one point or another. It was a very powerful movie. It made me think. Really think, which is something a movie hasn't done in a while.

Plus it had Sandra Bullock in it, which can't hurt. :)

What's odd is that at the end of the movie I decided I never wanted to watch it again. I say that because I want to remember this movie just like I saw it tonight, the first time. I think I might see things differently knowing how things were related at the beginning and I think that would have detracted from the movie.

So, watch Crash. It's well worth the two hours.