300 + 1

I went to see 300 tonight, with Snow. It was actually a pretty good movie - the visual style was spectacular, the light in particular appealed to me. It was unnatural, utterly created, but beautiful. It made a remarkable contrast to the absolute violence of the film, which was executed somehow gracefully. I'm not really a huge fan of violent films, or war films in general, but I was thoroughly engaged.

What broke the scene for me, though, were the fuckheads in the back row of the theatre and their running commentary, their throwing of peanuts, their inappropriate laughter. These little imbeciles managed to nearly ruin a movie that Snow graciously payed $19.50 for us to see. After a fairly polite (or, amusingly sarcastic depending on your view) request from M. for them to shut up, and finally an uncharacteristic outburst from me in the form of a loud, "What the FUCK is wrong with you?", they finally left, leaving the last 10 minutes of the movie for us to enjoy.

This is why people are crazy about building home theatres. No one to throw stuff. No color commentary from the peanut gallery. No sticky floors, no over-loud audio, no skipping video (why on Earth would a movie have visible flaws in it, when it costs that much? It's not reasonable). In short, a perfect movie experience, for only a few grand in audio-visual gear.

When I get a house, it'll be high on my list.

(For those curious, also on my list: fruit trees and a wine cellar)

Plotting a mutiny is very cathartic.

blurg

It's summer! Well, it feels like summer. It's warm enough to be summer, and that means my windows are open.

As it happens, my upstairs neighbours have an annoying summertime habit. It's actually more annoying than my previous annoying summertime habit-having neighbours, who used to hibachi grill in such a way that the whole block was full of smoke, and my fire alarm would go off nightly.

Yes. No. Don't do that, kids.

Anyway, when the weather gets nice, everyone opens their windows. That means we're all to one extent or another living outside. We hear each other's dishes clanking, conversations and well... anything else.

Now, keep in mind that these neighbours are what can only be described as vocal in their bedroom behavior, the rest of the year. (See also: I'm pretty sure she fakes it). But they do something even more annoying.

When someone is having a party in another building, or some people outside are talking, they yell at the top of their lungs out the window. Repeatedly. It is in every case more annoying than the thing they're yelling at, so I'm guessing they just want to express themselves.

Anyway, this is all rote neighbour annoyance. What made me laugh was what the first thing that came to mind was --

"I bet they blog, too."