0727 wedgie

I was watching a commentary of a comedy on DVD, when it spoke of a montage of scenes that represented some high school experiences. One scene showed a “nerd” being tackled by a “jock” and then being given a “wedgie” by the “jock”. The commentary said that the actor playing the “nerd” was given special underwear that would break-away, no matter how hard the “jock” pulled on it. That made it possible to exaggerate the action without causing any harm. However, in one take, the special underwear failed, and the actor playing the “nerd” received a real “wedgie”.

0726 time will tell

I had a friend tell me not to take the “Star Trek” movie so seriously (see my 7/20/09 post), and to look at it as a deviation of space/time. What happened in the “old” history still happened, but events in the movie will create changes in what is to come.

Hmmm. Maybe Nero put some things in motion that could eventually result in his demise. A lot of things happened between the Romulans and the Federation, so anything’s possible.

I wonder what would’ve happened if the Enterprise-C didn’t go back in time to defend the Romulan outpost on Narendra Three ....

0725 angels & demons

Kevin and Susan picked me up in the afternoon. We went to the Regency Redondo 3 Theatres, where they were still showing “Angels & Demons”, and after dropping Susan off at home, we met with Leslie and Jamie (her houseguest) to see the movie.

The movie was good, but some things were changed (of course!) compared to the book, which I first read about four years ago. The story was the same, and the changes told the story a bit more creatively.

The theatre was a bit warm, although someone thought it would get cooler once the movie started. Kevin suggested that it was like a jetliner; warm until the plane takes off.

After the movie, we went to Marie Callender’s for some dinner. Susan and Santi joined us for the dinner. I had the Double Shrimp Pasta and it was very delicious!!

0724 too much butter

Ching came by this evening and we went off to the Edwards Theatre in Long Beach Town Center to see “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. After getting the tickets, we stopped at the refreshment stand for some munches. Ching got the nachos; I got a bag of popcorn, which I had Ching grease with a liberal amount of “butter”. Then we headed for our seats.

We talked a bit while waiting for the film to start. Ching and I have a prearranged signal where I touch the tip of my nose with my forefinger, to indicate that I’m not finished talking (since she often asks questions as I’m taking a breath). This time was no exception, so I performed the signal. That’s when I realized that my popcorn was covered in “butter”, and now my nose was, too.

The movie was good, but kinda dark (the plot was dark). As Harry was slowly walking through a darkened hallway, I heard a crunching sound. Every time that Harry took a step, I heard a crunch. It took me a few moments to realize that the sound wasn’t coming from the movie. That’s when I turned to my left and saw Ching eating her nachos.

As the movie was nearing the end, Ching remarked, “This movie was really long. It’s just past two hours.” I replied that she must have not read my emails, since I clearly recall writing that the film was two hours, thirty-three minutes.

After the movie, we shared a “banana split” at Denney’s. I put the quotes up because she likes to substitute (see the post on 10/19/2008 for details). This time was no exception.

She dropped me off at home after we finished chatting. It was lots of fun!

Thanks, Ching!

0722 cool lunch

Ken came by today. Several years ago, he moved up to Fresno, but comes back to L.A. regularly to see the Dodgers play. Today was one of those days.

After chatting a bit and catching up, we went for lunch at the Elephant Bar in Lakewood Center. It was a hot day so we both cooled down with Strawberry Lemonades. Ohhhh yeahhhh! It was good!

We both ordered salads, since eating hot food on a hot day wasn’t appealing. We also had sides of Sweet Potato Fries. I wish more places had them. They were good.

Thanks Ken!

0720 where no one has gone before

Liz and Rome came by to pick me up to see a showing of “Star Trek” in a theatre. The movie’s been out for two months, but if you haven’t seen it and still want to be surprised, read something else. I’m gonna talk about what I saw.

The movie was showing at only a handful of theatres, but I found it at the AMC in the Marina Pacifica Mall in Long Beach. I have to say that, since a friend thought Marina Pacifica was in West Los Angeles.

After getting the tickets, we got some popcorn, soda, and candy. As I was stocking-up on Milk Duds, Liz asked, “Aren’t you restricted from eating chocolate?” I assured her that the restriction was lifted in 2007, but I hadn’t thought much about it. It was restricted not for nutritional reasons, but because chocolate causes saliva to form and at the time I was having problems with swallowing. A build-up of saliva used to cause me to choke. Fortunately, I overcame that. “Fortunately” because I am a chocoholic.

The movie was filled with action, but the director had changed some of the details. In the movie, Jim Kirk was an only child and his father died when he was born. In the series, Jim Kirk had an older brother and his father lived during his childhood years. In the movie, Spock’s mom was killed when the planet Vulcan was destroyed. In the series, Spock’s mom dies of natural causes at an old age and the planet Vulcan was never destroyed. And in the movie, there were scenes that suggested that the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) was Dreadnought-class, not Constitution-class, because of a third warp nacelle.

I know that there’s a sequel in the works, but I wonder if this “new” history will supplant the “old” one. The one that was the basis of five series (I don’t count “Star Trek: Enterprise” because that took place earlier in the timeline) and ten movies. I know that it directly affected episodes in The Original Series, The Animated Series, and The Next Generation. I’ll have to think about Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

There are other details that changed, like knowledge of the Romulan-Vulcan connection, Sulu’s first assignment on the Enterprise was in Botany, and that Pike was an admiral at the end (in the series, he retired as a commodore; he never made admiral). I guess I’ll have to wait and see the sequel.

One nice thing about remaking it now. A Russian actor (Anton Yelchin) played Chekov and a British actor (Simon Pegg) played Scott, so accents were relatively accurate. However, when Anton saw tapes of Chekov from The Original Series, he said, “Real Russians don’t talk like that.” So he had to learn to talk like Chekov.

After the movie, we had dinner at the Acapulco Restaurant. Rome and I had Mango Mojitos, while Liz had a Margarita.

Dinner was good, but so was the stroll along the water afterwards. We parked by the theatre, which was on the other end of the parking lot. So we “walked” dinner off and looked at boats in the marina.

Rome was driving and he said, “We’re taking you home, but we’re not going straight home!” They treated me to a driving tour of Second Street, Ocean Avenue, and Shoreline Drive, before heading home on the 710 freeway. Some things have changed, but other things have stayed the same.

It was a lot of fun, and seeing a movie in an air-conditioned theatre on a hot day was a good idea. Rome and Liz, thanks a bunch!

0718 starting Isaiah

After the service, our bible study group met as we began our journey into Isaiah. There was Mike, Carol, Judy, Lillian, Gary, Kiyomi, John, and myself. We were joined by Lance, a new addition to our group.

We were talking about how it took three years to cover Revelation’s 22 chapters. Isaiah, with 66 chapters, will be challenging. Carol was the designated facilitator, but Mike kept things running. I tried (unsuccessfully) to put Mike as the facilitator, thus skipping over Judy, John, and myself, in the set order.

No one bought it, so I’ll be facilitating our next meeting. Wish me luck.

0718 honk if you love Jesus

Pastor Ken continued his “What The World Desperately Needs” series with this weekend’s episode of “Live The Life”. He talked about how many of us wear our Christianity, but sometimes we don’t always practice it. The unfortunate occurrence is when we do something “un-Christian” while wearing something that identifies us as a Christian. If a non-Christian sees us, then we are passing along a message that is wrong or confusing.

As he was closing, Ken talked about Joey, our worship leader. Joey has been undergoing chemotherapy to treat cancer. This past week, Joey received some good news. The cancer has disappeared. But Joey’s white blood cell count is zero, so he has no immunities. He’s not out of the woods yet. But he’s headed in the right direction.

0717 filling up

John M came by and picked me up for a group dinner. The group is loosely associated and has the moniker of “Eater’s Ink”. The premise is that we’d come up with some sort of criteria to seek nominations, vote on the nominations, meet and eat, and then write up reviews based on our experiences.

Tonight’s selection was Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City. When John and I arrived, we met up with Akiko, Linda, Cheryl and Walt. A few minutes later, Dawn arrived and the group was complete.

The menu was interesting. One of the items was “Kobe Beef Cheeks”, which prompted questions about which cheeks were being referred to. Then we saw a list of the Nightly Specials, and an item on that list was for “Halibut Cheeks”. Now we were really confused. A helpful server assisted us and alleviated some of the confusion.

There were enough of us that we ordered a selection of what was on the menu, in order to get a spectrum of tastes.

Cheryl was picking a guy up at LAX later. One of the appetizers was fried clam, served on a bed of shoestring fries. As Cheryl moved a piece of clam toward her mouth, a fry was along for the ride, but dropped down the front of her blouse at the last second. We were wondering if her friend would find it. As luck would have it, she found it before she left the restaurant.

Dessert was especially adventuresome. One of the items was a pineapple cake with honey vanilla ice cream. A torte had peanut butter ice cream, topped with candied bacon. What did we do? We ordered both, of course.

The criteria for the next meeting has been set. We need to nominate restaurants that serve cuisine of countries whose name contains the letter “P”. The last thing we did at the table was brainstorming countries.

0711 directory assistance

I was watching a DVD today (I won’t mention the name of the movie) and listened to the director’s comments. A character was ad-libbing when the director said to listen to the line.

The character said, “So this girl called me and asked me for my number.”

0708 all for one

My mind wanders while I’m doing exercises. I’ve been thinking of “The Three Musketeers”, but I can’t seem to name all three. I remember Porthos and Aramis, but I can’t seem to recall the third one. I know that they were joined by D’Artagnan, but I can’t remember the other one’s name. I guess I’ll have to Google it.

0705 rock on!

Since it was a holiday weekend and since our lifegroup had just completed the group study in the “40 Days of Love”, Koinonia met at Sam’s for a potluck lunch.

Sherilyn gave me a lift after the second service at SBCC and we arrived at Sam’s shortly afterwards. Getting around wasn’t difficult, since the flooring was common for all the rooms that we were in (I guess you figured I was using the walker).

Some of the group was playing a modified version of “Spoons”, using cards and forks while sitting around a table. Ed brought out his “Rock Band” video game, complete with two guitars, a drum set (four pads and a foot controller), and a microphone. Everyone took turns using the different instruments. I still don’t have full use of my right hand so I opted out. But the left hand was still capable of holding my camera, set on video mode.

The lunch was great! There was quite an assortment to choose from, and it was all good. Sheri brought a birthday cake to celebrate the three birthdays that were close to today (Steph, Eric and Sam). Although Eric was spending the day at "the Happiest Place on Earth" (hint: it wasn't Fry's).

Ed gave me a ride home because Sheri had to leave early. It was lots of fun!