prep / review
Another slow day. I've been wondering how often, if at all, I might update this blog next week, outside of the daily morning Twitter digests? Probably not much; most of next week will probably have long days of driving through Yellowstone National Park. Shobhit did tell me a while ago he will indeed bring his laptop, so I can upload photos along the way through our trip, as otherwise I'm sure to be overwhelmed with such a task when we get back home -- and I already have plans most of the day with Danielle the very day after we return on the 16th.
Claudia very graciously lent us her National Parks annual pass. She left it on her desk at work last night, for me to pick up this morning. Shobhit figured out it would only cost us about $30 just to get a weekly pass, but hey -- every dollar counts. I think we'll pretty effectively take this trip on a budget and spend far less than most people taking the same trip would -- the only truly major expense is the seven nights at hotels (two in Wallace, Idaho and five in West Yellowstone, Montana). He's gotten several things pretty cheap at Big Five, with both their prices not being too bad to begin with and his staff discount, including a new cooler -- we'll take both that and the one we already have. I had no idea how small the one we alrwady had actually is; this one is probably 50% bigger. Having two will serve us well in the future too, as more than once we were unable to fit everything we needed to into just one. We'll probably be able to fit what we need into just the new one a lot of the time, but for this trip we're taking both.
Shobhit also got a new flashlight, and even a utility thing that has a compass that we'll definitely never need. It's not like we're going to go hiking and get lost in the wilderness. He's even insisted on bringing his tent as insurance: "What if someone sees my face and doesn't give us the room?" That's not going to happen. "It's happened before," Shobhit said. That's actually true, although it was a long time ago now -- the moment the lady at the place we had a room reserved, and even confirmed again later by telephone, took one look at us when we arrived for Danielle's wedding in Oysterville, WA in 2005, she insisted her rooms were full and we could not stay there. It's honestly the single instance of brazen discrimination I ever experienced in my life. We found a room at the nearby Motel 6 and it was in a far better location closer to the beach, so whatever.
Anyway. I feel pretty strongly that this type of behavior is actually far less likely in and around Yellowstone National Park, one of the biggest tourist attractions in the entire country, with people coming in droves from all over the world.
Last night I took myself to the eighth and final SIFF movie for me this year, Sadie, which turned out to be yet another local production -- Shobhit recognized one of the cast on IMDb as the guy who murdered him in the first movie Shobhit was ever in that got a theatrical showing (it was just the one-time screening but it counts), Blank. The guy was not one of the main characters and I think maybe he was one of the brothers of the boyfriend? Anyway, I didn't even recognize the production as part of Seattle or any nearby area -- but then I saw in the screenshot I used that there was a sticker for Rat City Roller Girls on the wall behind Sadie's head in her bedroom.
To be honest, this was my least favorite of the eight films I saw in the festival this year:
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (5/27): A-
Three Identical Strangers (5/22): A-
Prospect (5/30): B+
Leave No Trace (6/1): B+
The Most Dangerous Year (5/29): B+
Love, Gilda (5/26): B
Catwalk: Tales From the Cat Show Circuit (6/2): B
Sadie (6/6): B-
I had ten tickets actually, but used two tickets at two movies: one for Gabriel to join me for The Most Dangerous Year, and one for Shobhit to join me for Catwalk. Anyway, Sadie had good things about it, but ultimately was the least competently structured and written of all the movies I saw in the festival, and the acting wasn't always great either.
I was home for a little under an hour before going to get in line at the Egyptian an hour early, and I made myself a veggie "chik" patty sandwich for dinner, and made Shobhit a veggie burger at the same time. Shobhit was surprised my weight was up slightly this morning, but I also used the second-to-last of my popcorn punch card I got from SIFF when I renewed my membership in April.
I came home and wrote the review, and that really left no time for much of anything else before I went to bed. I did create three new Fleetwood Mac playlists in iTunes: one for their late seventies output; one for the eighties; and one for the "later years" of the nineties and early 2000s. I did this mostly because there are too many great late-seventies tracks that otherwise get omitted from the several other playlists I already have, which span either half or all of the band's history. I wanted to make some playlists that zeroed in on more specific eras.
[posted 12:24 pm]