Water Tower of Terror, Couchland, “The Recruit”, and Ultimate


Okay, trivia question time! Anyone know what movie the quote in the title of the last entry came from?
I’ve got a couple of stories for you today. The first one takes place yesterday, shortly after I shot the “Prepare…” billboard. The second one took place this morning, at my place. Settle in with a nice cool glass of water or something.
So, it was about 4:30 yesterday, and the sun was getting ready to set. I was driving along, NeoFunkcian’s new mix CD blasting in the stereo.
Somehow I managed to end up in a left turn-only lane. Home was straight.
But, instead of making the left and then turning around, I decided it would be fun to do a little exploratory driving. Moments after I made the left turn, I told exploratory driving to go screw itself. I knew exactly where I wanted to go. The water tower.
Now, the water tower is this thing from outer space that was somehow dropped in the middle of urban Sarasota. I’d passed it many times in my car, but I’d never had my camera with me till now. It’s much higher than its surroundings; it’s visible from a few miles away.
So I find the closest side street to the tower, and pull in. There’s a parking lot there — think I was on the loading-zone side of a Burdines. Found a spot and pulled in. There were few kids making noise in their Pontiac Firebird right where I wanted to take my shot, so I decided to hang out my car for a bit. Took a couple shots from my car, but I wasn’t satisfied with them. After a minute Firebird and kru took off with a screech of rubber in an otherwise quiet parking lot. Got out of my car and took a few more shots.
As I was walked back to my car, I notice a guy staring at me. He was by his car, parked opposite from me. To check if was really looking at me, and not just something behind me, I stared back. His eyes followed me as I moved toward my car. When I was just about to my car, he spoke.
Him: Where you from?
Me: <pause> Up near Seattle, actually.
Him: What were you doing over there?
Me: Just taking a picture of the tower.
Him: <funny look>
Him: Have I seen you sometime before? In a different parking lot downtown?
Me: No, I don’t think so.
And with that, I got in my car and drove off. I really hope that guy wasn’t thinking what I think he was thinking.


On Friday Simon asked if I would like the other half of his couch. He already gave me part of it a couple of months ago, so of course I wanted the other half. The couch, a huge purple monster with a hideaway bed, has been around the block a few times. I’ll be its third owner. Only one person has ever paid for it, and it’s not Simon or me. Simon got it from a coworker who bought a new livingroom set.
We chose this morning to bring it from his place to mine. Problem is, even though we’re neighbours and share a wall, there’s still about 200 feet and two flights of stairs between us.
But we’re manly men, and I’ve never backed down from a challenge before, so we decided to have at it. Us vs. the Couch. Battle Royale.

We got it out of Simon’s stairwell easily enough. Getting it up mine was more difficult:

Moving couches is hard work, especially lifting couches up awkward stairwells. Being the creative guy I am, I figured out a way to save all this effort. Get Simon to bring it up himself!

He wasn’t too impressed with my work-reduction strategy. Seemed fine to me!
Anyhow we got it into my apartment. It’s awesome. My entire livingroom is now one big couch!


After we moved the couch, Simon and I went to see the thriller The Recruit, starring Al Pacino. A three word synopsis of the film? Don’t trust anyone. Bottom line? It’s a renter. The movie starts off well; we follow the protagonist into “The Farm”, the top secret CIA training facility, and get to see and experience all sorts of interesting tactics used to determine new recruit competency. But about halfway through, it turns into one clich&#233d action sequence after another. Subway gun fights. Car chases. Nothing wrong with this stuff on its own, but the movie could have been a lot better. And when they spoke technical jargon in this flim, it was utter crap. Ah well.
After the movie we were going to go to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch, but it was closed, so we ended up going to Two Senoritas instead. Excellent food, glad we went.
After the restaurant, it was time for Ultimate! I got there a bit late — things normally get started at 4:30; I got there at 5:15. Got to play for 45 minutes before we started running out of light and people started getting hungry. Lots of fun nonetheless! I’m so glad a found a good group to play with.
Now if only I didn’t have to rave in my car.
mp3 [9:40, 192kbps, 13.3 mb]