Now that it's been over a month ago, the "Sweet 'n Sour" story seems a lot less compelling. But I said I'd tell it, so here goes.

So I was at Bamboo Club, the super-trendy Asian-cuisine experience. Not the nice-enough one at Pima and the 101, but the two-story beast at Tatum and the 101 up north. There's rave music blaring from the speakers, and barely enough light to see your way around in. I mean, I don't like bright light too much, but I had to huddle close to the candle on the table just to read the menu. Anyhow, with our appetizer, the waitress brings a little two-sided serving thingy with what is obviously soy sauce and a second condiment which I took to be, after a precursory visual inspection, sweet and sour sauce. I even opened the lid and took a sniff... nothing seemed out of place, although the serving spoon was about as big as one of those sample spoons you get at Cold Stone Creamery.

Pleased that we had gotten sweet and sour sauce to go with our coconut shrimp, I loaded four miniature spoonfuls upon my tasty crustacean. I popped it into my mouth in one shot, and then came to the cold realization that it wasn't sweet and sour sauce, but rather Thai chili paste.

In the brief moments that my tongue was numb before the shock wore off, I managed to swallow the shrimp whole and quietly say, "That's not sweet and sour sauce." That was the last complete sentence I put together for five minutes. After I drank my water and my soda, I tried anything and everything to stop the burning. I even ate a piece of the cucumber garnish from the shrimp plate. Our waitress happened by and I begged in poor sign language for some more water, and pointed at the tub of Thai chili paste. "Oh, yeah, that happens a lot," she said, trying to be reassuring. Naturally, being an Asian-food place, they didn't keep milk on hand, which would have been the obvious answer. So I sipped ice water for 10 or 15 minutes until my mouth finally returned to normal.

So, anyway... yeah... now I know. Although I still can't figure out why they'd bring by 2 cups' worth of Thai chili paste when you're really only going to need no more than a half-teaspoons' worth for ANYthing. Gehh.

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There, so now that wasn't so difficult to do. I dunno. I just have to be in the right frame of mind to bang out a blog entry. I had also told someone that I was going to do a list of movies I liked, which I'll get to in the next paragraph, since this paragraph isn't about that. What I WILL tell you in this paragraph is that I plan to -- gasp!-- partially revamp my main page. I know! I haven't honestly updated there in a year and a half, the pre-blog pseudoblogging at the top of the page notwithstanding, and even THAT hasn't seen any action since this blog really got off and running a year ago. Anyway, I'm going to leave the old page intact, save for going through and fixing those ugly X'es where the old GeoCities code is still in. AT the top, though, I'm going to use it as a picture-gallery companion to this blog. I want to put in all of my trophy pictures, a few of just myself my mom took to run out the film in her camera a few weeks ago (one of which turned out really neat, so I scanned it), and also finish that gallery of receipts from the CHS Jazz Band's Europe trip seven years ago. I'm actually looking forward to doing that; there's a certain zone I get in when I get down 'n dirty with HTML work. It's akin to the zone I get in when I'm painting pottery at As You Wish.
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Okay, so I went to see Van Helsing last week, and the person I went with thought it was "great!!!", but I was more nonchalant about its greatness.

"It was okay," says I. "Not as bad as some I've seen, but not fantastic."

"Oh, come on! You sound like my brother! 'It was okay, it was all right...' Did you like it, or didn't you?"

"Well, I'm just saying I wasn't blown away, is all. It was no Lord of the Rings, if you want me to compare it to something I really liked. I just tend to save my superlatives, so that when I say 'Wow!!', you'll know it's something special." We progressed into a discussion about what movies we've really enjoyed, and I said I'd compile a list of movies which I used my precious superlatives on, so, here it be.

At the top of the list: The Matrix, or, more properly, Matrix I. Just the first one. The trilogy, on a whole, would probably be somewhere on the list, as is the case with #2 on the list, but the original Matrix is my favorite movie of all time until further notice. Just everything that went on within the film, all the subplots, all the concepts which made my brain hurt just trying to wrap my mind around them... it was phenomenal. Let's not even get into how the camera techniques changed the way action films were done. See the rest of the list for more on the rest of the trilogy.

#2: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, or, more conveniently, LOTR III. This is the only film I've ever gone to see three times in the theater. Normally, to be honest, if I'm not super-excited to go see it, I'll wait for the DVD. (I didn't see the first two in the theater, for example, though I did watch them before #3.) While I was stupefied by the Matrix, I was transfixed by LOTR3. The first time I went to see it, I cried like a baby for at least the last 30 minutes. The second time, I still shed some tears, and the THIRD time I still had a sizeable lump in my throat -- even though by then I could practically recite the dialogue. I haven't been affected by a movie like that since Rudy.

Now, those first two, I don't figure I could do justice to how I feel about them by just going on and on about how good they are. It's that deep. The rest of these, I could probably convey it if I typed long enough, but I don't want to bore. So, I'll keep it brief. The following are not in any particular order, nor do I offer any guarantees that I remembered each and every movie I spent a superlative on.

• Matrix, M. Reloaded, & M. Revolutions: aka: Matrix I, II, & III, or just the Matrix trilogy: As aforementioned, Matrix I is my #1 to date. Reloaded is probably somewhere between 10 and 15, partially on the strength that it was such an anticipated sequel that they could have tried to convince me that the Matrix was actually run by a super-race of Spanish-speaking poodles from Chile, and I might've bought it. It was better than most, but it started to unravel just a hair towards the end, when he met the Architect (whom I kept expecting to tell Neo exactly what blend of secret herbs & spices went into his Original Recipe). Then, when Revolutions stumbled into theatres six months later, everything kinda fell apart. We were introduced to all these new characters, most of whom were killed just after introductions. "Hi, I'm Niobe." "Hi, I'm Dave. *slice!* Gakk! Agh, machines!" Now, a disclaimer: I understood the ending. Since Neo was plugged into the Source, when Smith replicated himself into Neo, Smith thereby returned himself to the Source, and the Source terminated him and removed all of his replicates from the Matrix. Since Neo helped the Source eliminate this dire threat to its existence, the Source promised Neo they'd stop trying to eradicate Zion. So, there it is. I get it; I just don't necessarily like it. Don't ask what I'd suggest, since I don't know. It just doesn't sit too well with me.
• Lord of the Rings: etc., etc., and etc.: aka: LOTR I, II, and III, for the sake of time and space conservation: Now, this film followed a trajectory inverse to that of Matrices I, II, and III, in that it started kinda weak and obviously finished tremendously well. "Fellowship of the Ring" was good, yeah, but on its own, probably not even in my top 20. But it was good enough to warrant my rental of "Two Towers", which was considerably better, but still probably between, oh, 12 and 17 or so. And then... "Return of the King" came, and it was good. Good enough to bring the trilogy as a whole onto my Tops list. If the three films were all one 9-hour movie (that's about as long as it'd be, right?), you'd walk out of the theater thinking... well, first, "I can't feel my ass!", but secondly, "That was a great movie." I think they kinda had to sacrifice some continuity in #1 and a little of #2 to get us fully introduced to all the factions and characters who would make #3 such a stunning success. Good piece of work.
• Rudy: Football and father-son issues. How could this NOT tug on any guy's heartstrings? I've always said this is one movie which a guy will never be ashamed to admit he cried at. (Another of which, according to my dad, is Old Yeller, which I've never seen, though I know what happens, and I'm inclined to agree.)
• Blazing Saddles: My favorite comedy ever. You've probably heard of it, at least, if you haven't seen it: A Mel Brooks film, so you have to bring an open sense of humor. But if you weren't offended by it, you were probably laughing all the way through. I'd have to say it's got the most wordplay and puns per minute of any movie I've seen.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: You know, that might be "and the QUEST FOR the Holy Grail", but I can't remember specifically. You just have to put aside your concerns of anything making sense and enjoy. I'll spare you a cavalcade of quotes.
• Brassed Off!: I don't tend to go for movies that don't involve some strong aspect of comedy, fantasy, or sci-fi, but this is one of a handful of exceptions. (Another of which is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I highly recommend, unless you got up and walked out of Being John Malkovich like my dad did, in which case I'll tell you "don't bother.") Anyhow, Brassed Off centers around a coal mine in England and their brass band, and follows several of the members through their personal lives as they face the impending closure of their mine. I've seen it several times and I'm still fairly moved by it each time. It's got probably my favorite movie line to date in it, as well: Girl: "You want to come up for some coffee?" Guy: "I don't drink coffee." Girl: "I haven't got any."

So, that covers what of my top movies I can think of off the top of my head.

I mentioned that my dad left Being John Malkovich. He didn't, really: I'd rented it and he was at my apartment in Tucson, and he watched half an hour and decided it was "stupid" and went to bed. I thought it was all right, honestly. He and my mom DID get up and walk out of The 5th Element at the theater, though, several years ago, and on his advice I never bothered to watch it until last year, when I happened to catch it on Cinemax and wound up thinking it was a good movie. Again, not superlative-worthy, but I certainly wouldn't've walked out of the theater on it. To be frank, I probably wouldn't walk out on ANY movie, since, hey, I've already paid, so why bother? I mean, I was pretty tired of The Punisher by the time it blissfully ended, but I stuck it out. My dad, though... different story. And like I alluded to, he WOULD get up and walk out of Endless Sunshine. It's that kind of a movie. There's been one movie that I rented and didn't finish watching: Stuck On You. Geesh, I figured that was going to be a can't-miss laugh riot, and about 2/3 of the way through, I gave up hope and shut it off. And this was while I was at my dad's place in West Virginia, so it's not like I had a whole lot else to do with my evening, either. (True to form, he'd gone to bed 20 minutes into the movie, citing its "lack of humor." He's, ah, hard to impress.)
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So, anyhow... that's a month's worth of blogging jam-packed into one post. *shrug* What can I say? I just have to get into the right frame of mind.

*sigh*

I'm letting my public down. I'll try and get this done later. It's just one of those things that keeps getting shuffled to the bottom of my To Do list.

I know, I know. I still owe everyone a story about sweet and sour sauce. I'll post it tomorrow. Just wanted to tell anyone who's interested that I have Randy Johnson's perfect game on Tivo (I caught the re-broadcast today on Fox Sports Net). If you want a copy, let me know and I'd be happy to make one.

(By the way... looks like my blog is indexing correctly again. Blogger tends to post new site interfaces without working out all the bugs first, I've found. *shrug* Overall, it's a decent site, though.)

Well, I'm fixing to fly out of here in the morning. I'm still at my dad's place in West Virginia. Technically, he's somewhere between Beech Bottom and Wheeling. His physical address is within Wheeling's city limits by default since it's not within any of the other small towns in the mountains around here (my cell phone bill registers "West Liberty, WV" when I call his house, for example), but his post-office box, which is not far down the road, is in Beech Bottom. I dunno. There's lots of little townships floating around in the hills up here.

Let me start describing things for you. My mind is so full of all sorts of things I want to talk about, and this is probably going to get pretty wordy. I've been all over the map during this trip, and I've seen all sorts of countryside the likes of which I've yet to see before. So I'll start from where I started the trip... Monday morning, April 26th.

Sky Harbor is not a fun place to be at 7:30 AM on a Monday morning. It's got to be the busiest time for the airport, what with everyone starting business trips or heading home from a weekend's vacation. Our guy driving the shuttle from the travel agency just stopped in the right-hand lane of traffic and told us this was our stop; it would have been futile for him to try and pull in closer to the curb. So, traffic backed up behind us as we fumbled all of our luggage off of the shuttle bus (my dad had been in town for three weeks and we were flying to Kansas together). Then, we got to the ticket counter... and found that Dad had been placed on a flight four hours later than mine by his inept travel agent. Great. The Skycap got him a standby ticket, since the flight was oversold already, and sent all of our luggage through. We got to take the express lane through security since we were so late getting into the terminal after waiting for a new ticket, which was cool... there had to have been 1,000 people in line, and we blew right past. Shoes off, everything into a plastic tub, ooo-kay. I got that little nervous rush that I get every time I walk through those little checkers at the door at Fry's. I mean, I know I didn't steal anything, but what if they go off because of something else I'm carrying, and then I have to empty my pockets, and... so on.

We got to our gate with 10 minutes left in boarding. The attendant at the counter told us we basically had no chance of Dad getting on the flight, but she'd see what she could do. We made a quick contingency plan as to where I'd meet him at KCI when he finally got there, after I picked up the luggage for both of us that was already on the plane. Just as the lady was preparing to close the door, the attendant told us, "You're on. Here." -stamp, stamp- "Get in there. They're about to close up." We came to find later from the attendants on the flight that they had offered anyone willing to take one of the two later flights a $500 airline voucher, and one person in first class had accepted. They promoted someone from coach up there for free, but that was the only seat that had opened up. They gave it to Dad because he was the only single passenger looking to get on; there was a group of 3 and a group of 4 in standby as well, but we got the nod. Good for us.

The flight was uneventful, as were our first couple of days in Kansas. We drove around, rubbed elbows and shook hands, watched a few of the races at the National meet, which was our purpose of spending those first 6 days in Abilene. Then I got walloped with the flu. Wednesday night, we had driven to Wichita to watch a few races there. We've got a kennel there, which I may have mentioned before, and I'd never seen the facility. It's about 100 miles south of Abilene, and I felt fine all the way home from there. Then I wake up Thursday morning and I can't breathe. Well, I *could*... it just felt like I was holding a wadded-up towel in front of my face, and I was struggling to get air in. It got progressively worse throughout the day, and I suffered through the Hall of Fame presentations that night. Friday morning, I was in lousy shape... shivering, sweating, couldn't eat, couldn't drink. I got what medicine down I could, and thankfully by Saturday around noonish, I was starting to move a little again. My dad dragged me out of bed Saturday morning and made me go with him to McDonald's -- "It'll be good for you to get up and move around", and though I couldn't stand up straight without bracing myself against a wall, I ordered an extra-large Powerade, which suddenly looked very refreshing. I think that burst of electrolytes got me moving again, and by Saturday night I was feeling peachy. We flew out of there Sunday morning on a brand-new airplane. It was from a new Brazilian company called Embraer, and they said this particular jet had only been in service two weeks. Whoo. The pretzels were still fairly nasty. We landed in a glum, rainy Pittsburgh and drove over to Wheeling in his truck, which had been parked in long-term for so long they didn't have it listed in their computer.

My dad's trailer had been locked up tight since April 9th when we got here on May 2nd. The air reeked of stale cigarette smoke that had leeched out of everything in the trailer in his absence, and all Sunday night I couldn't breathe. Cigarette smoke gets to me anyway, but with the extenuating factors of my recent flu and the concentrated nastiness of it, it really knocked me out. That, and I was fighting the Sasser worm. My dad never set his virus program to update its definitions, and also never applied any of the Microsoft patches the computer downloaded. Then, he left it connected when he left, so there it sat. The worm just walked right in and set up shop. It took a few hours, but once I finally figured out what to do, I obliterated it. (When you connect to the Internet, the worm multiplies itself 128 times and each instance creates a random IP address to try and send itself to. Once they're all done, the worm shuts the system down, sooo... what little you could get done with those other programs sucking up your bandwidth would be terminated anyhow. So, I called my brother and had him print out and fax me the Symantec pages on it, and I got to work.)

Monday morning I set out on my grand journey to Williamsburg, Virginia. Our trainer up here lent my dad his pickup, and I thus took my dad's pickup on the trip. I'd printed out the map before I left, made reservations at the Patrick Henry Inn, had everything set up. Looked to be about a six-and-a-half-hour trip on paper. Well, come to find out that Mapquest sent me down the route between the Pennsylvania border and Richmond, Va., that approximately 78% of the population of the Eastern Seaboard drives on during the weekday. Goody. So, the trip took 10 hours. It was a heckuva beautiful drive, though. I've always liked driving places I've never seen before, and this trip was flush with gorgeous countryside. Above all else, I was struck with the loud greenness of everything. You just don't SEE that in Arizona. So, it was all right, even though it took a while. I had my CDs and plenty of refreshments. Finally got to Williamsburg around 7:30, gave Lindsay a call, drove over to her place. She'd told me her address, but when I tried to Mapquest it, it wouldn't come up. She said the development was too new to register yet. She wasn't kidding. The first two streets were nothing but foundations and frames. When I did get to Burgundy Road, the street sign was posterboard stapled to a 2x4. Nice neighborhood, though... at least it looks like it'll be when they finish it. It was cold and drizzly, so she gave me the driving tour of William & Mary, which was really neat, seeing all those austere historical buildings. Back at her place, we played a game which I can't remember the name of, but involved these little cardboard tiles, and you tried to build cities out of them, and... ahhh... I can't remember the name. Kind of a cross between Risk and Scrabble. Sort of. But it was a blast. Rolled out of there at 11:30 and... the whole city was pitch black. I mean, when she said stuff closed early there, she was serious. I thought for a minute there'd been a power outage the minute I walked out of her front door, until finally I saw a distant glow... a 7-Eleven. THAT was a relief, because I needed a soda. They're apparently truly all open 24 hours, even in a roll-up-the-streets-at-dark town like Williamsburg. Went back to the hotel room, got engrossed in the Wings-Flames game, which proceeded to head to overtime scoreless. Calgary finally scored with less than a minute left. Woohoo! Go underdogs!

I had figured to get up around 9:30, catch Lindsay for breakfast, and sightsee some on my own around the town. Faced with the daunting prospect of another 10-hour drive, though, I decided to skip the tourism. Besides, someone had awoken me at 6:30 AM pounding on my door. BLAM BLAM BLAM! I stumbled over and I could hear someone quietly shouting (if such a thing is possible) in the hallway. "Amy!!" BLAM BLAM! "The key won't work! Let me in!" BLAM BLAM!! I peeped out of the peephole (can you "look" out of a peephole? I think they'd've called it a "lookhole" if you could), and there was a guy holding an ice bucket out there. I took a deep breath, and in my best basso, I rumbled, "Wrong... Door." *grin* He jerked his hand back, kinda looked around, then realized that, yeah, he was one door too far over. He went one to my left, and I heard the lock click as he put his electro-key in. *shrug* Don't know if he forgot his glasses, was drunk, or what. The doors WERE fairly close together, though.

Anyhow, so I met Lindsay at Mama Steve's Pancake House, and I had creamed chipped beef over biscuits. That was quite tasty, and it seemed somewhat indigenous, too. I'd wanted to try something local. The biscuits were fresh, and the sauce was thick and hearty. Got on the road afterwards at about 11:00. Managed to hotfoot it through the DC area just before rush hour hit, which saved me some time. Rolled back into my dad's driveway at 8:30. It was great fun, though, just being out on the open road. I went through this massive tunnel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike... the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel. Just a whole lot of grand, sweeping countryside, a lot of places I'd never seen before.

My dad's address is 118 Callie Drive. The guy who owns the land subdivided it into two houses -- his own, and a trailer he rents out. When he tried to get electrical service for the trailer, the city told him it needed its own physical address, so the ruts in the ground that lead to what is now my dad's driveway became Callie Drive, named for his mother. It's literally two ruts in the ground -- not even a gravel or dirt road. Right through the grass behind Russ's house. Dandelions grow thick in between the two tire tracks, why, I don't know. North Fork Short Creek runs by in front of my dad's yard, about 50 yards from his front door. He's got a great spread up here -- I call it "trailer", because it resembles one, but in reality it's a manufactured house. It's about as big as a good-quality two-bedroom apartment, if all the rooms were strung end-to-end instead of being in a cluster. He's quite up in the hills; no cell phones up here. It's 10 miles from anything retail -- save for the Domino's Pizza down at the eastern end of NFSC Road. Yeah. Weirdest damn thing. It's literally 15 minutes from any other sort of retail thing, halfway up this mountain, and then... there's a Domino's Pizza. And they deliver. Dad had it once and said it was terrible, so we didn't try it while I was here. He has a tendency to not give anything a second chance. Heh... don't mention Boston Market in his presence. Eleven years ago, he gorged himself on food from there and got sick, and blamed it on the "rotten" food. That's been one of the nicest things about living on my own these past five years -- eating at Boston Market whenever I damn well please. I love their creamed spinach.

The area up here is really in decline, in general. The major industry up here was steel manufacturing, and when the steel mills started to close down a few decades ago, no new industries really popped up to pick up the outflow of workers. There's scores of deserted buildings around here, especially downtown near the racetrack in Wheeling. The racetrack itself is actually on Wheeling Island, in the middle of the Ohio River between West Virginia and Ohio. To get there you can either come across on the big interstate bridge and wind your way through a bunch of surface streets, or you can disregard the 2-ton limit on the 1850's-era suspension bridge and come across on that. (Literally. It was rebuilt in 1856 after being destroyed in a fierce storm and has stood ever since.) The island is only about a mile wide by three miles long or so. The racetrack is in the very southern tip of it. The big casino, which has made Wheeling into the best track in the country, is on the inner-island side of the track. They're connected, but worlds apart. The track has been here a while, but when you step into the casino, you're transported to Vegas. On a whim, while touring the facility with my dad before dinner on Wednesday night, I plopped down at a dollar slot machine and fed in $20. Gradually, I went up and down until I was at $28. "How far should I go?" I asked my dad. I hit "Bet 2 Credits" one more time, and it spun and spun and... Bar, Bar, Bar. Just single bars, but still, a look up said "Pays 10 to 1." So I was at $26, and I won $20, and up came "Credits: $46." I almost pulled a bicep hitting the Cash Out button. I know when my lucky number comes up, THAT's how far I should go.

Anyhow, the week has floated on by. Just a lot of sleeping and laying around on my part. It's been really nice not having to use my brain for much of anything. I think that's the point of "vacation", though... to vacate. But I'm looking forward to being home. I've had my fill of small towns. This has been a nice change of pace, staying in Abilene and Wheeling for a couple of weeks, but neither is a place I'd like to move. They're nice enough now, but give me that Phoenix winter any year.

I'm at my dad's place in West Virginia. My head is just SO full of stuff to write about... but I don't think I'll get to it tonight. Maybe tomorrow when I've naught else to do. But I haven't forgotten the blog. It's 1:40 AM here, already... I've just been chitchatting, and the time's slipped away.