SPONGEBOB MANICURE!
It’s totally been done before and much better than mine (this is what practice is for!), but I needed something sunny and cheerful today and there is very little more sunny and cheerful than Senor Squarepants.
On Friday, a group of us went to see Best Worst Movie at the Central Cinema, which may well become my new favorite theater because their upcoming events list looks amazing AND they serve beer. Coming soon: the Michael Jackson sing-along, Choose Your Own Adventure VHS, and a showing of The Room (the Citizen Kane of bad movies) WITH Tommy Wiseau in attendance.
I may well decide it’s worth my $60 if I can get Tommy Wiseau to record my new voicemail message: “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, MELISSA!” The desire to have this little bit of amazing for my very own, forever, must be weighed against the realities of giving Tommy Wiseau sixty dollars, well-knowing that he could use that money to make another movie. It’s a toss-up at this point.
Just a little bit of my desire has been sated with this, a talking Tommy Wiseau bobblehead. He speaks several phrases, including “I did naaaaaat!”, “Oh hi, Denny!”, “You know what they say: Love is blind.”, “I’m fed up with this world!”, and, again, my personal favorite, “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA!”.
Best Worst Movie was a very enjoyable documentary, not only focusing on the surprising second life of Troll 2 as a cult classic, but revisiting each of the actors (many of whom have not acted in anything else since), and the director, who cannot believe that anyone dares to call his artful masterpiece a bad movie. One of the actors, extremely likeable George Hardy, has given up acting to become a dentist, though he talked wistfully about how he wishes he could have done more, acting-wise. One of the actors has receded into madness. One of the actors was mad prior to and during filming, which explains a lot about his scenes in the movie. Another hit a genuinely sad note when he talked about how he’d frittered away his life, “but that’s what a life is for, right? Frittering away.” Even the majority of our group, who hadn’t seen Troll 2, found it entertaining and worth watching. They weren’t able to stay virgins for much longer, however, as immediately after the documentary, we were given a bonus showing of Troll 2, so no one was able to sleep peacefully that night.
During the movie, Brendan leaned over and asked a passing waitress if he could have another beer. I asked if I could have another as well, and she replied “Are you from Wisconsin?” I was confused. What had I said that was a regionalism? “Kenosha, Wisconsin?” she continued. “I’m Sonja S____.” “HOLY SHIT.” It was a girl with whom I went to high school! Halfway across the country! And she recognized my face/voice at a whisper in a dark theater! What are the odds?
On the only truly sunny, gorgeous day we’ve had this year, a group of attractive people met at Family Fun Center in Tukwila for Mike’s Pretty Pretty Princess Birthday Party.
Family Fun Center translates directly into “Could be a lot more fun with less screaming children and slow-moving families but they are cash cows so it’s never gonna happen unless you are loaded enough to rent out the entire building, suckas!”
…We were not loaded enough to rent the entire building. The building itself is very high-ceilinged, the better to reverberate the sorts of shouts and squeals and screams that children are prone to making, particularly little girls and the eardrum-damaging shriek they make when they are overstimulated. I swear that when we approached Family Fun Center, I could watch the building thrum from the noise inside. Hence, we did not spend all that much time inside.
We started off with minigolf. Minigolf, if you are unaware, is a game about putting mastery, taking the ball to the hole, not rimming the hole, but putting it in. It’s also about innuendo, smacking friends with golf clubs, whacking other people’s ball out of the way if at all possible, and riding said golf clubs like ponies through the brush. It also features some “obsticles”.
Some of those “obsticles” included ramps into old-timey prospector cabins, an employee who kept wandering through the middle of our game, and a hole filled with mysterious slimy water.
After we finished our game, we bravely ventured inside to play some laser tag. The majority of our group ended up on one team. The other team was comprised of eight year old girls, who were seriously not cut out for the business of war. One of them dropped her gun and ran shrieking; guns are attached to the vest, so it skittered behind her, which only served to make her shriek and run faster as it knocked into the backs of her legs while her vest informed her she was being killed over and over again.
Laser tag was fun, though I wish that we would have had a little more time to play–it didn’t seem that we got a whole lot of time for what we paid. I also think it could be even more fun ramped up a notch for adults. Perhaps not as painfully extreme as taser tag, but what if every time you died, you took what felt like a punch to the gut? What if you had to take a shot every time you hit the recharge station? These are ideas that I feel need to be revisited with a business license and some money behind them.
After laser tag, I discovered that the skeeball machine would not accept my prepaid family fun center card and would require me to pump more money into the place which I was not about to do, so I made my way out to the batting cages.
We (read: not me because I am uncoordinated and would certainly hit myself in the face with a bat) knocked the hell out of some balls, and then it was time for go-karts. Also known as Exxtreeeeeme Danger Karts.
To my great shame, I skidded around corners so poorly that Chris was able to pass me; I am clearly not cut out for the world of Exxtreeeeeme Danger Driving.
After go-karts, we’d all had enough and gorged ourselves at Famous Dave’s BBQ. I badgered the waitress to bring Pretty Pretty Princess Mike some dessert, but much to my chagrin, they don’t sing or dance or make a public fuss over him like I’d hoped.
Happy Birthday, Sir Dorks A Lot!