I went to SM Mega Mall on a Saturday night, which is an indication of how much of a masochist I must be. 30 minutes to drive there, 30 minutes waiting to get into the parking lot. But I figured I could find almost everything I was looking for in one place and I had nothing else to do, ergo ….
First order of business – buy a surge protector. I made the dumb mistake of checking The Wirecutter for recommendations first. Dumb because of course I already knew in advance that whatever they’d be recommending wouldn’t be available here – here being the relatively large Cyber Mall on the 4th floor of Mega Mall. And I was right! Their number one choice – Tripp Lite – no one ever heard of it. Their number two choice, a specific model from Belkin that sells for all of US$31 (gasp!) on Amazon apparently is too expensive for this market.
One shop I went into had a cheaper Belkin, just one model, two pieces on the rack. Another shop had several different Belkins and a couple of models from a company called Silvertec.
My experience can be summed up by this exchange:
Him: Good evening. Can I help you?
Me: Yes, I’m looking for a surge protector.
Him: What?
Me: A surge protector.
Him: For what?
Me: (?????) For my computer.
Him: Oh. How many inches?
Me: That’s a rather personal question, isn’t it?
Him: ????
Me: Thank you!
Dinner at Mighty Quinn’s. Brisket, dirty rice, cole slaw and three kinds of pickles including pickled jalapenos. No complaints.
Then I figured I’d hit a movie (Logan) and had two hours to kill before the next showing. Walked around. Looked in a bunch of shops. Almost bought a new pair of prescription glasses but decided to hold off a couple of weeks.
Went outside for a smoke. Walked past Gerry’s Grill. There’s a family of 10 dining outside there. And here’s what “outside” looks like when you’re eating outside of this branch of Gerry’s Grill (red arrow):
Yeah, you’re sitting in a tunnel, with about 10 FX vans and 20 taxis parked there, all revving their engines to keep their air cons going, not to mention standstill traffic in both directions. People are sitting there eating? Inhaling a solid wall of CO2 along with their food? And then this family is finished, they get up to leave, the kid who couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 stands up and deliberately spits on the ground – hocks up a huge loogie on the ground right where he was sitting and right next to another table where people are sitting. He couldn’t even be bothered to walk the 2 feet over to the curb to spit into the street. No one says a word. No one. Not one word.
Anyway, eventually it was movie time. Logan. It’s the third weekend it’s playing here, it has plenty of competition (Beauty and the Beast, King Kong Skull Island, Power Rangers something or other), it’s still playing in one of the bigger rooms in the multiplex – an 800 or 1,000 seater. No Imax, no 3D, no reserved seating, so tickets just US$5. Cannot complain about that.
And even though it’s currently rated an 8.5 at IMDb and gets a 92% at Rotten Tomatoes, I thought it was good (and definitely different enough from the rest of the X-Men films, which have grown quite tiresome in many ways, not the least of which the way in which they waste talented actors) but not great by any means. I guess I got more of a kick out of seeing Stephen Merchant (Ricky Gervais’s possibly more talented and definitely taller frequent collaborator) buried under tons of make-up, not to mention Richard E. Grant and Eriq LaSalle. And it was good to see Hugh Jackman without the stupid hair do and facial hair.
And now I’m home and, well, that’s about it!
(Actually Friday night was better. I was introduced to a group of local tattoo artists, spoke to them about maybe shooting in their shops at some point, started thinking about my next tattoo and flashed on this melting clock from Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory:
Or maybe Dali’s The Melting Watch, if I wanna get really ambitious about it:
Perhaps draped over my right shoulder (and yeah, I know, doing it there will hurt like a motherfucker, but it seems like a logical place for it) so pass the tequila and let’s get it on … maybe.)
