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Last night after work, Tery and I were invited out drinking by Gerry and Steve, who just happen to be two of my most well-tolerated co-workers (and, dare I say it, friends). The funny thing is that very morning Tery and I were fighting about yet another of her drunken nights out with Tabby. We had in fact spent the better part of the day not even speaking. "I'm sorry," I said reconciliatorily just before going into work, "I just don't understand what people do in a bar for 6 straight hours."
They invited us to join them at City Pub (nee Toby Jug) and we agreed. MyFriendDeb said she'd be along too, a surprising response from someone who usually acts like she'll vaporize if she isn't in bed by midnight (she ultimately didn't show after all, however, confirming that last statement). Tery and I ran home to put on some civilian clothing, leaving poor Steve as the only schmuck in a RGIS shirt. But Steve's a good sport.
We thus commenced having a pretty good time. I succumbed to peer pressure and had a rum and Coke, but then regained my resolve and switched to plain Coke thereafter. There was trash-talking of co-workers, there was singing of karaoke by Tery (to much acclaim), and there was playing of pool. Despite Steve and my protestations of not being very good, we achieved not one but TWO decisive victories over Gerry and Tery. There were those present who argued that winning by your opponent scratching on the 8-ball hardly constituted a "decisive victory." Those people are what we in the biz call "sore losers." To them I would (and did) say that I don't make the rules. I assure you, their sore loserness didn't take away one bit from the sweet, sweet pleasure of chalking up two marks on the scoreboard for Steve and me, and two big zeroes for G and T.
It wasn't all good, wholesome fun however. There was a couple at the bar engaging in some very heavy petting, the male half committing serious fashion overkill with his headwear choices: a bandanna covered by a baseball cap with sunglasses perched on top. Why not just add a damn sombrero? But they weren't half as offensive as a guy making the rounds collecting donations for his limping yellow lab, Sierra. Gerry didn't like the cut of his jib one bit, and his barely-disguised contempt deteriorated into seething rage and ideations of violence as the night wore on. Leading me to believe there's something in the air of that place that affects certain people this way. Remember little Tabby working herself into a belligerent frenzy over a total stranger rooting for the Chiefs instead of the Broncos? As these are not the actions of rational human beings, I can only blame some environmental agent. It took the combined strength of Tery, Steve and myself just to keep him from jumping the guy and crushing his windpipe. That's a lie. Actually we drank until last call and parted ways peacefully (although Gerry did apologize for making me witness his display of unaccustomed aggression).
As we got into my car and talked about what a good time we had, Tery pronounced solemnly, "THAT'S what people do in bars for 6 hours straight." I guess I'll be relaxing a bit about her going out all the time.
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Now for the Serenity saga. I had just enough friends on my F-list squeeing about the movie to pique my interest. I knew about Firefly but was never sufficiently interested, lacking as it did any involvement by my man, ASH. After reading multiple rave reviews of the shortlived series on various sites, I decided to make the leap into a Giles-less Jossverse. But I wasn't going to begin at the end, that would be retarded. I was going to watch the series DVDs first, THEN go to Serenity. I added disc one to my Netflix queue on the same Friday the movie came out. At the time, its availability was listed as "Now," so it was all good. Come Monday, its status had changed to "Long Wait." WTF????? Somehow all those other bandwagon-jumpers had gotten ahead of me in line. Grrrrrrrrr......
I decided to set foot in my Hollywood Video again after a 5-month hiatus. I was encouraged by the first section of the wall titled, "Hot TV shows on DVD," but no dice. I made a quick circuit of the wall of New Releases, then asked the sole employee present, a meek, teenaged girl, if they carried it. She glanced through their flyer of recent release dates and said no. Grrrrrrrrrrr....... I was even driven to return to the Blockbuster across the street, bastion of some of the world's rudest employees and a place I swore I would never darken with my shadow ever again. Thankfully my presence will remain anonymous, as they didn't have it either.
I settled for disc two (which I'm sure will also have a long wait before too long) and that arrived Saturday. But it rankled me that I had to start even just three episodes in (though still a damn sight better than seeing the film first) so I didn't give it up. I fought mightily against the urge to just buy the DVD set based on the fantastic reviews everyone wrote about it, but I am trying to develop some modicum of restraint as far as running out and buying things the minute I decide I (might possibly) want them. After some investigation, I realized the DVD actually came out in 2002, so obviously my search for it among the new releases was futile (as well as teenybopper checking the new releases flyer for it). Hollywood's site claimed to have knowledge of it. I reasoned it HAD to be there, nestled in the shelves of the older releases (though of mild irritation was the thought that a video store, whose business it is to stay on top of the movie industry, missed an obvious marketing tie-in with a big, mainstream film release).
I had every intention of returning to the Hollywood after work last night, until we received that lovely social invitation. No matter, I thought. I'll just go first thing in the morning. At 9:54 a.m. I was there, ready to be the first one through the door. I clearly jinxed myself, because at 10:02 when I felt they'd had adequate chance to open up, I went to the door only to find a sign posted: "Sorry, we're closed due to computer problems. We'll open as soon as it is possible." Awwwwww, tits. No indication of how long it would take, so I decided to tough it out. Many customers came and went as I sat. People are sostupid funny. When confronted with an unexpectedly locked door, some of them will pull and pull and try to break it down before bothering to read the sign posted right in front of their eyes. We see this a lot during inventories as well; customers simply refuse to accept that stores might sometimes have to close during normal business hours. As amusing as it was to watch parents escort their happy, skipping children to the door, only to walk away again glum and disappointed, after two hours of it the entertainment value was decidedly waning. Yes, I sat there for two hours. I was haunted by the idea that they HAD to open any. minute. now. Plus you don't want to get between me and my DVDs when there's the possibility of a sexy new boxed set purchase in the offing.
When I FINALLY got in the front door, I was not in any mood to browse through the entire store trying to guess which genre they would classify it as. I went straight to the counter and the spotty, meek teenaged boy standing there.
"Yeah, I'm looking for that TV series, Firefly. Would you mind checking for it?"
"Okay...." he had to log in first, requiring him to perform so many keystrokes I thought he was booking me a plane trip as well. "Let's see...Fire and Ice, Firebirds, Firestarter....what was the name again?"
Oh for the love of...."Firefly."
His brow squinched up in concentration. "We've got Firefight....." he offered hopefully.
"I don't want just any movie with the word 'fire' in the title. I'm looking for just the one."
At this point his boss jumped in. She'd never heard of it either. I pointed out it had been out since 2002. Her best advice was to call around to every local Hollywood and check for it, since different branches carry different titles. I'm not quite at that level of insanity yet, so I'm hoping good old disc two here will help me decide whether I want to own it or not. I've caught a couple of episodes off SciFi. So far it strikes me as a huge rip-off of Farscape (without the awesome creature effects).
They invited us to join them at City Pub (nee Toby Jug) and we agreed. MyFriendDeb said she'd be along too, a surprising response from someone who usually acts like she'll vaporize if she isn't in bed by midnight (she ultimately didn't show after all, however, confirming that last statement). Tery and I ran home to put on some civilian clothing, leaving poor Steve as the only schmuck in a RGIS shirt. But Steve's a good sport.
We thus commenced having a pretty good time. I succumbed to peer pressure and had a rum and Coke, but then regained my resolve and switched to plain Coke thereafter. There was trash-talking of co-workers, there was singing of karaoke by Tery (to much acclaim), and there was playing of pool. Despite Steve and my protestations of not being very good, we achieved not one but TWO decisive victories over Gerry and Tery. There were those present who argued that winning by your opponent scratching on the 8-ball hardly constituted a "decisive victory." Those people are what we in the biz call "sore losers." To them I would (and did) say that I don't make the rules. I assure you, their sore loserness didn't take away one bit from the sweet, sweet pleasure of chalking up two marks on the scoreboard for Steve and me, and two big zeroes for G and T.
It wasn't all good, wholesome fun however. There was a couple at the bar engaging in some very heavy petting, the male half committing serious fashion overkill with his headwear choices: a bandanna covered by a baseball cap with sunglasses perched on top. Why not just add a damn sombrero? But they weren't half as offensive as a guy making the rounds collecting donations for his limping yellow lab, Sierra. Gerry didn't like the cut of his jib one bit, and his barely-disguised contempt deteriorated into seething rage and ideations of violence as the night wore on. Leading me to believe there's something in the air of that place that affects certain people this way. Remember little Tabby working herself into a belligerent frenzy over a total stranger rooting for the Chiefs instead of the Broncos? As these are not the actions of rational human beings, I can only blame some environmental agent. It took the combined strength of Tery, Steve and myself just to keep him from jumping the guy and crushing his windpipe. That's a lie. Actually we drank until last call and parted ways peacefully (although Gerry did apologize for making me witness his display of unaccustomed aggression).
As we got into my car and talked about what a good time we had, Tery pronounced solemnly, "THAT'S what people do in bars for 6 hours straight." I guess I'll be relaxing a bit about her going out all the time.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Now for the Serenity saga. I had just enough friends on my F-list squeeing about the movie to pique my interest. I knew about Firefly but was never sufficiently interested, lacking as it did any involvement by my man, ASH. After reading multiple rave reviews of the shortlived series on various sites, I decided to make the leap into a Giles-less Jossverse. But I wasn't going to begin at the end, that would be retarded. I was going to watch the series DVDs first, THEN go to Serenity. I added disc one to my Netflix queue on the same Friday the movie came out. At the time, its availability was listed as "Now," so it was all good. Come Monday, its status had changed to "Long Wait." WTF????? Somehow all those other bandwagon-jumpers had gotten ahead of me in line. Grrrrrrrrr......
I decided to set foot in my Hollywood Video again after a 5-month hiatus. I was encouraged by the first section of the wall titled, "Hot TV shows on DVD," but no dice. I made a quick circuit of the wall of New Releases, then asked the sole employee present, a meek, teenaged girl, if they carried it. She glanced through their flyer of recent release dates and said no. Grrrrrrrrrrr....... I was even driven to return to the Blockbuster across the street, bastion of some of the world's rudest employees and a place I swore I would never darken with my shadow ever again. Thankfully my presence will remain anonymous, as they didn't have it either.
I settled for disc two (which I'm sure will also have a long wait before too long) and that arrived Saturday. But it rankled me that I had to start even just three episodes in (though still a damn sight better than seeing the film first) so I didn't give it up. I fought mightily against the urge to just buy the DVD set based on the fantastic reviews everyone wrote about it, but I am trying to develop some modicum of restraint as far as running out and buying things the minute I decide I (might possibly) want them. After some investigation, I realized the DVD actually came out in 2002, so obviously my search for it among the new releases was futile (as well as teenybopper checking the new releases flyer for it). Hollywood's site claimed to have knowledge of it. I reasoned it HAD to be there, nestled in the shelves of the older releases (though of mild irritation was the thought that a video store, whose business it is to stay on top of the movie industry, missed an obvious marketing tie-in with a big, mainstream film release).
I had every intention of returning to the Hollywood after work last night, until we received that lovely social invitation. No matter, I thought. I'll just go first thing in the morning. At 9:54 a.m. I was there, ready to be the first one through the door. I clearly jinxed myself, because at 10:02 when I felt they'd had adequate chance to open up, I went to the door only to find a sign posted: "Sorry, we're closed due to computer problems. We'll open as soon as it is possible." Awwwwww, tits. No indication of how long it would take, so I decided to tough it out. Many customers came and went as I sat. People are so
When I FINALLY got in the front door, I was not in any mood to browse through the entire store trying to guess which genre they would classify it as. I went straight to the counter and the spotty, meek teenaged boy standing there.
"Yeah, I'm looking for that TV series, Firefly. Would you mind checking for it?"
"Okay...." he had to log in first, requiring him to perform so many keystrokes I thought he was booking me a plane trip as well. "Let's see...Fire and Ice, Firebirds, Firestarter....what was the name again?"
Oh for the love of...."Firefly."
His brow squinched up in concentration. "We've got Firefight....." he offered hopefully.
"I don't want just any movie with the word 'fire' in the title. I'm looking for just the one."
At this point his boss jumped in. She'd never heard of it either. I pointed out it had been out since 2002. Her best advice was to call around to every local Hollywood and check for it, since different branches carry different titles. I'm not quite at that level of insanity yet, so I'm hoping good old disc two here will help me decide whether I want to own it or not. I've caught a couple of episodes off SciFi. So far it strikes me as a huge rip-off of Farscape (without the awesome creature effects).
