Knights of the Old Republic is pissing me off right now, so I thought I’d take a break and backtrack to fill in some gaps about what I’ve been up to the past few weeks. As for KotOR, apparently when your entire party is killed you don’t start back at the previous AutoSave point, but rather the last manual one. That necessitated repeating a fair sized chunk of story. Partway through doing that again, I came across a bug where the dialogue view got messed up and none of the controller buttons would work in selecting the next bit of conversation. Grrr.
Anyway, after leaving Toronto I returned to Waterloo for a brief pitstop. I had lunch at Vijay’s with Sarah T. Now that she’s working again at RIM, I can’t just say “Sarah from RIM” since that’s no longer a unique identifier. The “T” part will take some getting used to, as after being married to Leo for a year she’s now changing her last name.
Billie & Kyle picked me up that evening; we got Mike and Laura, and made our way to Chuck E. Cheese’s in Cambridge for a joint birthday bash for Kyle and Sven. We must have arrived much later than we did last year, because we didn’t have nearly as long to play the games. It was a good time, and we obtained an obscene amount of tickets to give to the birthday boys to get some cheesy gifts. Kyle went with the stuffed Coke delivery truck, and Sven got a stuffed bowling ball and pins set.
Apparently Sven wasn’t joking when he said a strip club was next on the itinerary. I wonder if anyone else in the world has ever followed up a trip to Chuck E. Cheese’s in such a manner. Anyway, I was hardly impressed by the whole thing. There’s something inherently sleazy about the concept, and the atmosphere and clientele were just kinda sad and a little creepy. And the “strippers” were bad. Between lame dances, they’d go offstage, and come back with fewer clothes … not quite the way you’d expect things to happen. Hey, I’ve got no problems with naked girls, but this kind of setting just doesn’t do it for me.
We headed to Sven’s parents’ place next to continue the weekend with Movie Day the 12th. People in attendance were me, Kyle, Billie, Laura, Mike, Sven, Mandy, Christine, and Sven’s friend Sheila and her boyfriend were there for a bit. Here’s a rundown of some of the movies:
My Life Without Me. Can’t go wrong with Sarah Polley, but after a repeat viewing I’m still somewhat disappointed with this film. The performances and story were good, but something just didn’t quite click for me.
The Pornographers. My movie. Visually this was very serene and effective, particularly being in black and white. Maybe it was just too early for this kind of movie, but I didn’t find the story all that captivating. Afterwards I was feeling pretty indifferent.
I slept through Meet John Doe. Videodrome was typical Cronenberg weirdness. Over twenty years old it looked really dated, but James Woods’ crazy intensity and the weird-ass plot made it a worthwhile watch. George of the Jungle and New York Minute were barely watchable, but I got through them. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter was pretty funny, albeit very cheesy.
The Freaky Friday remake was surprisingly good. Between that and watching Mean Girls while in Ottawa, I understand where Lindsay Lohan suddenly became an it-girl. Other highlights of Movie Day were welcome repeat viewings of Triplets of Belleville and the new Dawn of the Dead.
The drive to Ottawa with Billie and Kyle was much better than the usual bus ride. Much more comfortable, better company, and more silliness. We started talking about how when cars pass each other, many drivers have the tendency of looking over at the car beside them. What’s up with that? We just found it funny that people would have this overwhelming urge to check out people in other cars. So we started taking their picture to see how many “lookers” we could get.
Didn’t really do a whole lot while in Ottawa. I think that’s part of the influence of being in the “house of sloth”, as Dean has dubbed the apartment where Kyle, Billie and Ryan live. The first morning Dean, Kyle and I went out for an early breakfast. Part of that afternoon was spent tracking down my cell phone I had left in the rental car, but all turned out well.
Let’s see. One night was glow-in-the-dark mini-golf with Dean, Billie & Ryan. It was neat, but by the end I swear I was feeling queasy because of the lighting. Dean, Kyle and I saw the Aljazeera documentary Control Room. Another film that everyone should see to get a different perspective on media biases and ignorance. The house of sloth and I finally made a return visit to Bangkok Noodle House one night for dinner. I also got them to finally watch Mulholland Drive, the second time in a week I saw the movie and it never gets tiring.
Of course, there was also the Ziggy assault on Dean’s place. I fit in some tennis with Dean, lots of Super Monkey Ball 2 (baseball and soccer are so much fun!), and my first experience of Metroid Prime. If I didn’t have so much Xbox playing to get through, I’d be tempted to get a GameCube for some of the awesome games I’ve played on that system.
Well, that was basically Ottawa. It was relaxing, but not nearly as busy as Toronto, so it felt somewhat less fulfilling.
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