A weekend: I...had one.
I hate "here's all the crap I did this weekend" posts, but I'm afraid I haven't the energy for anything else today. Sorry.
Friday
Friday night, Jessi and I had dinner at House of Cheung with Samantha and Heather. It was a very nice dinner, complete with hot tea (perfect for a chilly evening), sweet and sour pork and egg drop soup. We talked for a bit and Samantha nearly choked to death. Good times.
Afterwards, we headed over to Trader's Point (with the exception of Heather, who had to get home) to catch a showing of Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. Although Jessi and Samantha are much more enthusiastic Harry Potter fans than I am, I'd just finished watching the first three films last weekend in preparation and was looking forward to a continuation of the story. Aside from a packed theater and some noisy kids (which is to be expected when you go to see a Harry Potter movie on opening weekend), it was a good experience. I'm not versed enough in the finer points of Harry Potter to provide a thorough review of the film, but suffice it to say that I liked it. As someone who hasn't read the books and enjoyed the previous movies primarily as idle "popcorn" entertainment, I thought Goblet of Fire was the best of the four movies so far.
Saturday
Saturday was a bit busier. I had an appointment in the morning and then we cruised out around 1:15PM to go down to the Indiana State Museum for their Lord of the Rings exhibit. The exhibit, at the museum through January 3rd, is a large display of props, artwork and other memorabilia from epic film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic. While it was not quite as large as I'd hoped (nor where there as many "hands on" exhibits as I'd hoped for), the sheer number of props and memorabilia on display was amazing. We got to see the weapons, costumes and other props used by the actors during filming, in addition to some of the original artwork done in preparation for the movies (much of which was by long-time Tolkien artists John Howe and Alan Lee, two of my favorites). They had a couple of "bigatures" on display, most notably the huge sculpture of Orthanc (probably my favorite miniature from the film, not only in terms of its actual look but because they adapted it directly from an Alan Lee sketch). It took us a little over an hour to get through the exhibit, and while I had hoped for more it was still well worth the $14, especially for a group of LoTR nuts like ourselves (it was myself, Jessi, our friend Kristen and Jo and Eric - we had gone for Eric's birthday).
That night we joined many of our friends at Longhorn for Eric's birthday dinner. While my steak was overcooked (medium-rare is hard to do, apparently), it was to be expected with the size of our party. Dinner was nice, and then we all ajourned to Jo and Eric's place for a few drinks and some Balderdash. A good time was had by all, but Jessi and I had to bail a little before midnight so we could get home and get some sleep in preparation for Sunday.
Sunday
Sunday we woke up and began preparing for my oldest nephew Ethan's 6th birthday party, which was to be held at our house at 1:00PM. We cleaned the place up, decorated a bit, bought balloons and ordered pizza. Everyone came over and had a pretty good time. It was nice to host a family get-together at our house, since I think most of my family still thinks I live in a cave. I have a girlfriend now guys, I'm forced to keep a fairly respectable house (although, in fairness, she does most of the "keeping" - you should see my side of the computer room O_o).
Anyway, that was my weekend. Here I am at work this afternoon, wishing I wasn't here. Thankfully it's a short weekend, and then we get to do the Thanksgiving shuffle on Thursday.
And can someone tell me why they feel the need to keep the heat up so much in this joint? It's 42F outside people, not 12F!
That is all.
-Sam
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