Annotations - 6/21/99

Well well well. It has been a few days, hasn't it? It's been a busy time, so I apologize for the delays in updating this. On the other hand, back in the beginning I warned you I'd miss a day or two or even a week or two as all this went along. So, four days isn't that bad, is it?

Don't answer that.

So, let's cover the last week or so, shall we?

Mason got in, as reported. He spent most of last week arranging for his apartment, which he can't actually get into until last week. So for the moment, I have a roommate. But it's just for a week, and I honestly enjoy having Mason around. He's a lot of fun, and he understands me.

This didn't mean we didn't have to "move" him, of course. He couldn't very well afford to keep a U-Haul for another week. So, we loaded all his stuff into the basement of the building he's moving into. This was Saturday, and we met the current tenants and he saw the place.

Now, the apartment was immaculate. I mean it. It couldn't have looked better. The bed was made. But Gretchen, the attractive teacher who lived there, apologized more than once for the 'mess.'

Man, it's a lot easier to honestly be messy.

Gretchen and her friend, up from Boston, looked attractive, but an attractive sixteen or so. I'd normally avoid looking at girls like her so I didn't seem like a pedophile. But they're at least twenty-two, and likely more. College graduates, with career paths.

I must be getting old.

But I'm having a good time. The basement we moved Mason's stuff into had about five foot ceilings with lowering pipes. So, we had to move all the stuff, including lots of furniture, crouched over. Of course, we had to put it all in the very back, where the webs were thick. I hate spiders, and I'm not afraid to show it. Occasionally with firearms. The entire thing was creepy -- it only needed steam for James Cameron to film it. I kept thinking "Game Over, Man! Game Over!"

Mason seemed to have Marathon Flashbacks. He kept murmuring "They're everywhere!"

So, my back hurts, since it's functionally impossible to move stuff properly and crouch at the same time. But we got it in and you know, despite sweatiness and aches, it felt good. Just darn good. Good to have Mason here, and good to work with hands and feet.

A neighbor introduced himself. Next year, he's going to be a Brewster Father. We talked computers for a while, and moving and the like. At the end, he said "it must be nice to have your brother up, working with you." Which stunned me, as Mason and I made the observation based on online photographs that we must be brothers years ago. We refer to each other as "bro." It's fun.

To have someone else just assume we must be related, by our appearance and attitude... strange. It's like how Frank and I used to attract people assuming we were related as well, back when we lived together in Ithaca. Amazing stuff. I need to get Mason and Frank in the same room sometime.

Before Mason's mother left, we went out to dinner and watched Austin Powers. The dinner was at the Olive Garden in Portsmouth, and it was marked by Environmental Disaster.

Walking towards the restaurant from the parking lot, we were facing a large plant of some sort, with a single tall smokestack coming out of it, which had a small trail of moderately unhealthy looking smoke on it. Nothing unusual.

As we approached the Olive Garden, however, things changed. Oily, black, malevolent smoke began to roil out of the smokestack. It looked like a bottle of ink opened at the bottom of a glass of water. We stared, stunned, as the Evil Smoke rose and boiled and rolled and billowed out. Small amounts became huge amounts, forming a black cloud of deathly evil, which no light could penetrate.

"Wow," I said.

"Yeah," Mason said.

"Let's eat," Mason's mother said. We concurred.

The smoke boiled out for a good half hour. So, I have to assume all three of us breathed in enough carcinogens to sue a few hundred companies. But the food was excellent and the company good and the day bright and sunny, save when the Blackness of Evil blotted out the sun.

We still don't know what happened, but it was apparently at least an uncommon occurrence. I asked a police officer what was going on and he sort of shrugged. So, it wasn't apparently an "oh my God we're all going to die" calamity.

Still, part of me has to wonder if it was a nuclear power plant or something.

Speaking of movie news <cue 30's Newsreel music>, Mason and I went and saw Tarzan last night. I didn't have huge hopes, but people liked the soundtrack and the animation looked good, so what the heck. I hadn't seen a Disney cartoon since The Lion King and I was about due.

I've been avoiding Disney animated features since Pocahontas. It offended me that they would reinvent real historical events (including aging the lead by seven years, so a child who saved the life of John Smith and then married another Englishman later on became a love interest with enormous Disney Breasts) to fit the Disney formula. The Hunchback of Notre Dame horrified me. How they could take one of the great melodramas and tragedies of all time and give it a happy ending I couldn't understand at all. It wasn't suitable for Disney as written, so don't use it. Hercules bored me even in concept. It looked "cute." Mulan looked interesting and I heard good things about it, but I never made it -- no one really to go with. I did enjoy watching them develop the Barbie Doll-knockoffs for it with removable hair and weapons. Targeted to young girls but clearly meant for butt kicking action. Can Barbie-as-Lara-Croft be far behind?

So I didn't have a lot of expectations, but what the heck, as I said.

Tarzan is easily, hands down, the best movie I've seen this year. I enjoyed it far more than The Phantom Menace. It easily smoked Austin Powers. It got the book as right as it possibly could, it's got a good Disney villain, and Tarzan himself worked.

And they had the Johnny Weismuller yell. This was sheer fun, and I can't wait to see it again. This one, I might need to own.

I haven't seen The Matrix yet, so that may displace it (if folks like Russ are right), but I'm not sure how.

I still need to talk about my car, but by gum this is a long enough entry already. I will mention that it's the Summer Solstice, and a nice one at that. I'll also mention that apparently for the first time in decades Druids were going to be allowed to celebrate the Solstice at Stonehenge, but that onlookers tried to break through police lines (I don't know why), there were mass arrests and it was canceled.

Somehow, I'd like to believe that some kind of Cthuloid Plot (not perpetuated by the Druids) had been somehow foiled for two thousand more years. It would certainly be a better explanation than either high flying new agers not able to let enough alone or fundamentalist Christians not able to mind their own damn business.

So, tomorrow for the car. All is well here.