Venting My Spleen

So I read this book the other week called 'Sahara' by Clive Cussler. I like Cussler books for a bit of mindless entertainment. I find them quite fluffy and good page-turners. Anyway I was surprised but happy to discover they made a movie out of 'Sahara' and that it was coming out in a week. That one flew under my radar as I usually keep up pretty well with movie news.

Anyway as a bonus, it starred Matthew McCounawhatsit and William H. Macy both of whom I adore.

I never should have gone to see it tonight. opening night. The theatre wasn't packed or anything. And just a few minutes before the previews I was happy to find myself with only short kids behind me and empty seats behind me. I hate packed theatres because people annoy me at the movies. Going to the movies is an experience for me and I want to take all the nuances in. I don't want to hear the cell phones ringing, the candy wrappers crinkling or feel the kids kicking my seat. I can live with a bit of whispering and I can even live with having a tall person in front of me if I have to. I mean, I can't have it *all* my way. But I go out of my way to respect my fellow moviegoers in case they would you know, actually like to watch the movie rather than listen to my commentary throughout.

Just as the previews begin, the seats unfortunately fill up behind me with the most obnoxious, most rude, most annoying women and their dates you could possibly imagine. Turns out the short people in front of me also belong to these people.

I don't often have violent thoughts. I don't normally fantasize about grabbing someone's head and slamming it into my knee. Just when I'm uber-annoyed and someone is showing obvious disrespect and disregard for the other people in the cinema.

This one women in the group. Oh. My. God. First of all, I still have her Fran Drescher-esque squals and shrieks echoing in my right ear. Secondly, my jaw hurts from gnashing my teeth and making elaborate plans to somehow insert my drink down her throat. I've never had the displeasure of someone this horrible at the movies, in all my years of traipsing off to the theatre.

During the previews which featured my daughter's hunk of the moment, Orlando Bloom she actually sat behind me moaning loudly. Either her boyfriend was doing something I don't care to think about, or she thought Orli was hot. Pretty sure it was over Orli because shortly after another trailer came up for Tom Cruise's latest whom she also apparently finds hot.

Then during the actual movie that I'd been looking forward to for a week, she carried on with the moaning in between spates of casual conversation with the children sitting in front of me. Not whispering mind you, but actually conversing as if they were outside trying to be heard over a thunderstorm. I shot them a dirty look but it didn't seem to do any good.

Everytime there was any kind of humourous moment or pivotal arc in the movie, she'd shriek. Right in my fecking ear. Even if no one else in the theatre thought it was funny or scary. Her cackle would echo around. And she didn't care.

I think that's what pissed me off the most. She didn't care she was disrupting the show. No matter how much she was shushed by me, other audience members - even by people in her own group - she just carried on as if she were at home. By the end of the film I was so angry at having the whole thing ruined by her that I seriously contemplated confronting her on it afterwards. Luckily I decided not to otherwise I'd probably be blogging from a holding cell.

I did nearly run her over though as I drove past her. She stared directly at me as if to say 'How dare you nearly run me over.' So I smiled as if I didn't care and drove on. It was very satisfying.

Wish I had though.

Ahhhh.

What a lovely period of time I've been having. I'm not going to spoil it by waiting for the proverbial hammer to fall. I've got my loverly new XM radio (Thanks Gary!) that I'm having a blast with, I made it to the top 2 in the office basketball pool thing and if Illinois wins tonight I get first place and a spot of cash. How nice :) The majority of other employees aren't too chuffed with me especially since I know jack about basketball and picked my bracket based on a very scientific method of 'who won more games between the two teams playing?' and 'Ooo I've been to Illinois, I'll pick them!'

I've heard a lot of grumbling in my direction today, hehe.

What else... well I'm still loving the RSS thingie and have sucked a couple other people into it. I designed a website for Matt the Cat that he seems to like very much. Learned how to do rollover images within an image while I was at it as well so, yay me. And I'm dead excited to learn I've only got 5 more car payments to go before it's mine all mine. Woot!

And Ooo it's 24 night, always a plus.

That's about the extent of my excitement around here. Things have just been going nicely lately and I'm digging it the most. Seems odd to say that while the world is enduring the loss of Pope JP 2. I understand the grief and the ceremony and solemnity of it all is really interesting to watch. My small eulogy for the man is pretty mundane as I'm not Catholic and he wasn't really an inluence on me, but it goes like this: I send my condolences out to Catholics who are mourning him. He stood by his principles and I respect him for that even though I didn't agree with some of them. But I've never been vehemently opposed to him as some I've seen, but then as I said I'm not Catholic and therefore not under his large sphere of influence. I read a blog today that was , well it was pretty outspoken to put it mildly and I also can respect that some people hated the Pope. But it's obvious he was well-loved probably moreso than he was hated, Sinead O'Connor aside, and did a lot of good in this world. A TCZ-er very nicely and simply said, Requiescat in pace, Karol Wojtyla. Ditto from me.

And there you have it, my bit about the Pope.

And now I'll sign off with a few hilarious quotes from another person who passed away this week, Mitch Hedberg:

"I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish-kabobs."

"I would imagine if you could understand Morse Code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy. "

"I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammible and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit. "