Fantastic!

....Four was an awful, dreadful, no-good movie that kicks off today's blog.

And the reason I'm starting off by digressing about the Fantastic Four is because it's the last thing I can think of note that happened since my previous blog about car sales. Due to the fact that I'm quite green to this whole blog thing I figured that I should just blog about everything and eventually narrow my blog focus to just one or 2 things, thereby guaranteeing that I get quoted on CNN or a local newspaper somewhere.

Alright now that we've established a foothold on the reality that is the blogosphere, I'm going to fast forward to the immediate present that is right now as I'm typing to let everyone know that when your eye is sort of pink or red, then you should NOT be putting your contact back in yet as it makes you really tired and looks like you are crying all the time. If however this is a preferred state of your being, then by all means proceed.

So then, my dad has trouble sitting down and having a real conversation around the house oftentimes because he is frequently dwelling on what he views as his own money troubles. Most of the time when he wants to "talk" with me he'll ask me to go the store with him or get a burger or something, in this case the movies it is. He thought it didn't matter what movie we watched, that it was just important that we spent time together - he was wrong.

As we drove to the movies, we had a good time talking about me moving to New York while I was eating a Baja Gordita from Taco Bell. Basically we were having a good father and son bonding time, which he apparently thinks we didn't have enough of when he was younger because he always sounds way too wistful when discussing "how we used to be".

My local giant multiplex movie theater had a rule when it first opened that you could bring outside food and drinks into the theater. I know this for sure because I read about it back in the heady days of waiting in line to buy tickets for Star Wars: Episode I. I even met the owner of the theater personally at the time and thanked him for bringing such a taste of class to our obviously podunk town. Despite all of this, my dad asked me to smuggle our 20-ounce Coke and Diet Coke bottles into the show in my pants with the giant pockets that I bought from Wal-Mart. I begrudgingly agreed to this, despite the fact that the left and right sides of my legs were now becoming slightly cold and wet, because I knew that he was paying for it, and I could use my AMC movie watcher card to get more 2 points. I should mention that with every 10 points on this card you get something free, in this particular instance I got a free movie or a large drink and popcorn. Naturally the dad wanted to swipe this free token, but I declined his offer pointing out that I had already bought him a drink and so it would be a waste to get another free drink with his free large popcorn.

On a side note it should be mentioned that my father feels that it is a crime to watch a movie showing with fresh popped popcorn and there is no length or breadth to which he will not go to enforce this cardinal rule. In one instance this summer I had managed to drag the dad and my brother to the new Jet-Li movie "Unleashed". Despite the fact that we had managed to arrive there auspiciously late and I was going out of my mind since I had already seen it and could only imagine the "good parts" that they were missing, the dad, much to my chagrin, made a beeline for the nearest source of large, yellow, fluffs of popcorn, non-buttered of course.

Shortly after the Fantastic Four showing began my dad began to ask me questions like "I thought this was a good movie?" I explained to him quickly in hushed undertones that I didn't think it was a good movie but I hadn't prepared myself for this and I didn't think it would be any worse than Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and I had already seen everything else as asked in the pre-movie watching briefing to determine what movie we were going to watch. However, with steel eyed resolve we pressed on watching marginal actors deliver sorely out of place lines, and jokes that probably sounded funny to the pr guy they were delivered to in the making of the movie come off as highly scripted, stilted, and most importantly not funny. I also pointed out that with even with her newly bleached blond hair, Jessica Alba certainly didn't pass my inspection of what the head of genetic research of a major company (her character) should look like. Another five minutes later had my dad nearly reaching for a sedative; out of desperation I checked other movie listings in my phone and asked him if he could hold out 35 more minutes for the showing of what would certainly be a better movie. He could not. And so, with extreme confidence I informed him that the movie theater would refund us the purchase price of our ticket, the large tub of popcorn and the small amount of butter I connived him to put on it however were on him.

My faith was rewarded by a small-mouthed high school girl outside, who after checking the time that the movie started, informed us that she could give us a refund because the movie was not yet halfway over. I was glad that I didn't have to bust any heads to get our tickets refunded, and more glad that we were now on our way to the bookstore for more father and son time. After all I had my free movie ticket or large drink and large popcorn coupon for the next time.