It was a very nice weekend. Lots of hanging out with friends and video game playing.
On Friday night, MK & I went over to John & Marion‘s place in Carol Garden for dinner. They prepared some very exquisite pasta and it afforded MK & I the opportunity to break open a bottle of Long Island vino from our winery hopping a few weeks back. After dinner, John showed me a point and click adventure game (a la Monkey Island) starring a teenage zombie that he’s been making. Like all John Green productions, its something which was done “on the side” and just by himself, but looks as if its been worked on by ten people at a professional studio. Then him and Marion decided to take advantage of the presence of company by having a four-person session of Mario Kart Double Dash. Much like MK, I’m not so hot when it comes to Mario Kart (I love Mario games, and racing titles, but the combo has never clicked with me), but it was still loads of fun, plus seeing Marion giving John grief for every little win was pretty amusing.
We got home sometime after two in the morning, but MK decided to continue working on my early Christmas present: a Popeye blanket made of fleece, to keep me from freezing in the upcoming months. So to mark the occasion, I decided to finally introduce (actually, more like inflict upon) her the live-action Popeye flick. And I’m extremely happy to report that she didn’t run out of the bedroom screaming or jabbed her eyes out… MK sat through the whole damn thing! I think it was the craptacular songs that won her over (with our personal favorite being Bluto’s big song, “I’m Mean!”). The next day, MK showed me the review Matt Singer wrote after he saw the film based upon my glowing recommendation. For some reason, its listed in the “Bad” header. Though one thing he said was the truth…. since seeing the flick, I haven’t heard from him.
Also on Saturday, MK & I went up to the Bronx to hang with Jason. Again we had dinner plus played games; I brought a number of games to test out Jason’s very sweet plasma screen, including Soul Calibur 3, which afforded a chance to finally dominate the competition. Jason got to try Katamari 2, and I showed of Shadow of the Colossus for him, which also managed to dazzle his daughter. Once home that night, MK & I watched Teenager From Mars, the MST3K edition, and then I went to sleep while MK stayed up till six in the morning playing Soul Calibur 3 and Katamari 1. Unfortunately, for all her effort, she only managed to acquire only one brand new character, Lizardman. I would later discover the next day the absolutely asinine requirements to be met for unlockables.
As for later that Sunday evening we saw Grizzly Man, which was, in a word, intense. The film examines what made Timothy Treadwell, the self-anointed friend to all bears, tick and while the man was undeniably insane to a humorous degree, he was also surprisingly complex, and ultimately sad, to an unsettling degree. Growing up in Washington, I’ve heard my fair share of stories about grisly injuries and deaths due to bear, so I found every exchange between Treadwell and the bears extremely unnerving if only due to the recklessness of it all. I haven’t seen all of Werner Herzog’s films, but this was easily the best I’ve seen from him, and my interest in his past work has been re-kindled.
And as for today, a co-worker who greeted me this morning had this to say:
“Hey, you’re having a good hair day!”
And yes. Yes I am having a good hair day.
