My friends and I do movie nights each month as a way of keeping in touch since we all live in different towns — some closer than others. July is my turn to host and show my movies. I planned on showing Be Kind Rewind, The Triplets of Belleville, and if there was time, Lars and the Real Girl. Unfortunately, MP couldn’t make it. As Movie Night rules state, if one of us can’t make it, it has to be cancelled. I then rescheduled it to last Saturday. But, lo and behold, AY texted us all telling us she won’t be able to make it this time. Sadly, it seems my July movie night is cursed…

OK, ever since I stopped eating fast food after reading Fast Food Nation about 2-3 years ago, I have been an avid devotee of Panera Bread, easily one of my favorite eateries ever (2nd only to Tokyo Tokyo in the Philippines). I am fan of their Half/Half concept — which is probably not the official name — where you can pick 2 halves (half sandwich, half bowl of soup, or half salad) with a side. I usually pick a half sandwich and a half salad with potato chips on the side, which I reason will be balanced with the healthy-ness of the salad. It also doesn’t help that my sister works at one near home and they offer a 50% discount to family and friends of employees. LOL. Plus, on occasions when she’s there to close, she can make the food for free… so there’s that too…

There’s a Thai restaurant near where I work which rates their food on a 5 pepper scale. My coworker, RC, who lived in Thailand for a year, was challenged to eat a 5-pepper entree by MC. Many of us went out to lunch together to witness the challenge. Unbeknownst to RC, MC was planning on playing a prank on him. He didn’t intend to ever eat a 5-pepper entree because a 4-pepper entree he eat 2 weeks before totally made him tear up and gasp for water. (It was actually a funny sight.)

Anyway, once we got there, MC conveniently needed to go to the bathroom after we had ordered our food. On the way to the bathroom, he cornered the waitress and let her in on his plan. MC changed his order from 5 peppers to 3 peppers. He definitely played the challenge very well. Well acted. RC was definitely fooled, but he was a good sport about the whole thing.

I see symphonies as events geared more towards the socially elite and older folks. Most young people, like me, aren’t too keen on spending $100+ on a symphony or are all about orchestral music.

Last week, I attended a video game symphony. Yes, video game. What drew me to the symphony were the advertisements about the music that was going to be played. To be specific, I was stoked to hear they were going to play Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts music. So, my friends and I bought our tickets to check out the symphony. It was great! They played Super Mario Bros., Sonic, Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, and many more.

Unfortunately, they did not play any FF music! That was heavily disappointing and I could tell most of the people there were very disappointed too. A majority of the people were there for Final Fantasy! All in all, it was a great first experience… but it left me feeling a bit disappointed. It was false advertising…

I checked out Artscape with my friend this Saturday. Artscape is tagged as America’s largest, free public arts festival and was featured in many magazines as a great place to check out. Artscape was definitely huge and not really a place you can check out in one day. Unfortunately, the heat prevented us from getting there earlier so it wasn’t until the evening that we decided to venture out and check it out.

There were some pretty famous acts like Sisqo, Mario and Dru Hill. Unfortunately, they’re not my kind of music: I’m more of the Fall Out Boy, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, The Academy Is…, Panic at the Disco, etc. type. The sheer amount of arts, crafts, and whatnot for sale was amazing. I really wish I had a bigger wallet so I could purchase the assorted pottery, glassware, and paintings that were available for sale!

Besides food, my only purchase (sadly) was a shagbag. Shagbags are fashionable, reusable bags that get softer the more they are used. What drew my eye – besides the fact that they were environmentally-friendly – were the designs. I purchased the Shagbag signature bag.

It’s been working good so far. I used it to lug 10 frozen meals last night from the grocery store in the pouring rain and it protected my meals. Plus, it felt like it could take the weight, which I was worried about. We’ll see how it goes. For now, though, I would recommend it^_^

So I was one of those excited people who went to see The Dark Knight at midnight (12.03a) on Thursday/Friday. Needless to say, I got there about an hour before the showtime anticipating a huge crowd. I didn’t expect the crowd to be so big! It seems a local rock radio station was holding a costume contest — possibly to give way free tickets — because there were quite a few people dressed up as Batman characters, mostly Jokers.

The movie was truly great! I really think it was worth the hype! Christian Bale is definitely my favorite Batman! Heath Ledger’s Joker was amazing. There are rumors to a potential posthumous Oscar nom. He is certainly deserving. Jack Nicholson has nothing on him!

I’ve been seeing quite a few Batman movies circulating on TV again… probably to capitalize on the success of The Dark Knight. All the older movies just seem so cartoon-ish and unrealistic compared to the 2 new Batmans. Kudos to Christopher Nolan’s visual stylings and directing.

In one of my past postings, I think I’ve mentioned my excitement over the filming near my work. Well, they came back on Monday and have been filming again. Needless to say, my excitement is over as they’ve taken over parts of the road near my work inconveniencing everyone. I’ve found my commute home to take longer because of the road closures

On a lighter note, rumor has it that Verizon is starting to install FiOS in my area, which will allow its subscribers access to “blazing fast” internet, better tv quality, etc. More information about FiOS can be found on Verizon’s FiOS site and on Wikipedia. For someone who has been stuck on dialup for quite some time, this is definitely great news! For now though, we’re gonna have to settle for Comcast cable internet…