July Round-Up

Once again, a monthly round-up comes almost in time for a new month's round-up. Oh well.

Movies Seen: Thirteen--that seems to be the magic number, with two seen in a theater. One was "Ratatouille," which was great. I don't think I can say anything more than that. It was great. There's no reason not to see it. The other theatrical experience was "1408." Yeah. I don't really know why I chose that one. I guess I was hoping to finally see a scary movie that was actually scary. And it...wasn't. It had its moments, but the biggest scare was given away in the trailer, which pisses me off to no end. I wouldn't say the movie was bad, it was just relentlessly adequate. As for the DVD movies, they were all just kind of meh. The most fun was the 1975 satanists versus a Winnebago epic "Race With the Devil," starring Peter Fonda and Warren Oates. I'm not saying the movie is good. But c'mon. It's satanists chasing two couples and their RV! That's entertainment!

Books Read: Four, and here's the weird thing. Three of them have the word "thinking" in the title. “What Was She Thinking?: Notes On a Scandal,” “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” and “Rethinking Thin.” I'm thinking! Say that word a few times..."thinking." It's pretty goofy! As for non-thinking reading, that would have to be Paulina Porizkova's "A Model Summer," which was surprisingly good. Not great, but a lot better than a summer read--or a book written by a former model--needs to be.

Fancy Dinners Out: Two. One was at Ducca in San Francisco, which was good, but the place really feels like a hotel restaurant; one of those huge dinning room places. I can't really remember the meal, but I remember thinking it wasn't incredible. The other dinner was at Starlite in San Diego, and that was great. It's a really cool looking restaurant, with a great bar and interesting drinks, and the food was delicious. I had a steak, with fingerling potatoes. (Dirty!) It was yummy.

Live Shows Seen: None. Unless you count Comic-Con as one long, exhausting, four day show. But I've already talked about that at length elsewhere. I will say a few words about where I stayed while in San Diego, though. The Hotel Del Coronado!

Which was beautiful. It's right on the beach, and the building is stunning and antiquey, and the room was nice. But none of it was worth the amount of money we had to spend to stay there. The base price of a cheap room is already ridiculous, but then they tack on a 20-27 dollar a day parking fee, and a 20 dollar daily "resort fee" which entitles you to the use of....the hotel! You know, stuff like the beach and the pool, and a crappy daily paper, and Internet access, stuff that usually comes with a hotel room. Why do they tack that on separately if there's no way to opt out of it? Why not just include that in the base cost of a room? And for that kind of money, I would expect incredible service, and it just wasn't. We had to wait forever for our room, only to find out we didn't get the double we had reserved months ago--and the people around us were having the same issues. (Is there any reason to even make reservations and room requests anymore?) One morning we had breakfast at one of the hotel restaurants, and had to wait in a huge line even though there were plenty of tables open in the dining room. And I also had the most bizarre poolside experience I've ever had at a hotel.

Since most of my time was spent at the convention, I only got about an hour of pool time for my entire stay at the hotel. I got there around 6pm, just in time for the sun to go behind a building and cover the whole pool area in shade. Doh! So I got in the pool for a few minutes, which was swarming with kids, and then just sat on a lounge chair and relaxed. Soon, this loud obnoxious guy on a cell phone walked by, swearing into his phone saying things like, "They're fucking us up the ass! And they know it!" You know, business talk! And he kept on doing it, just walking around the pool area, loudly talking into his phone for the entire time I was there. A lot of the parents around me were giving him dirty looks, but he was oblivious. One complained to a pool boy, but he did nothing about it. So there was that. Then a guy on crutches and one leg came to the poolside, put down his crutches and dove in--while wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

And then a midget walked by.

And then--THEN!--a pool boy told everyone to get out of the pool because there was...something in it. And they had to figure out what that something was. It was a poo scare! So they scooped it out, and lo and behold, someone had pulled the old "Caddyshack" candy bar trick.

All that for only 20 bucks a day? What am I complaining about?!

Shoes Bought: None! But I did bowl in my new bowling shoes, and I think I had my highest score yet. Still not 100, but close!