The sun so bright, the sky so clear...

...how could anything go wrong on a day like today?
This is Charlie Brown's opening line in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, the original Broadway script. His reverie is broken by the entire rest of the cast trooping in and singing the title song.

At about 2 minutes in.

Today felt just like that.

I woke up early (for a Satyrday) hoping I could get ready and out the door and mails some packages at the PO and get to the audio installer's by 10. I was 10 minutes early.

The plan was for them to have the car till 4, maybe 5. I would go to Valley Fair Mall and catch Tonto at the movie theater there, hang out t Santana Row, then at the cute coffee shop a couple of blocks from the audio place and pick the car up.

Dropped the car off. Estimate came in $500 more than expected, but still okay.

Took the bus to the mall, discovered they do not have a cinema, and the one at the far end of Santana Row only had one first run film, Despicable Me 2. I had heard good things about it (it's not just a brainless kiddie show, it could be much worse, I only looked at my watch twice, etc.) and the next show wasn't till 12:20 so I wandered slowly there through Eye Candy Central (Santana Row). And I observed this:

Women of Hispanic and Asian descent clinging to their men as if they were either afraid of losing them, or handcuffed to their shoulder. I did not see Caucasian women doing this. I did see Caucasian men doing this with their trophy women, but his hand was either around her waist or on her butt. I make no value judgment, I merely observe.

Got to the cinema too early, sat on a park bench nearby and watched the people. The place was jam packed today. A perfect day to be at an outdoor table.

Sat down in the theater during the pre-previews, and was fine until a loud father with his louder son sat directly behind me. I moved to the back row.

Sometime that same day the actual movie began.


Mini-review. I cannot stand watching Steve Carell in the flesh, his characters are dull and boring. Had I not seen the credits, I would never have guessed that  he voice-overed the main part. The voice-over work ranged from great to amazing. The minions were especially fine with their own language, including Minion versions of I Swear and YMCA. The script is better written than any G rated animated movie has any right to be, not just the lines but also some of the recurring themes and Gru's relationship with his three little girls. Elsie Fisher was 9 when she recorded the part of Agnes, and is Adorable™. One touching bit near the start of the movie, Agnes says something upbeat and imaginary as only a young girl can, Gru pauses, looks like he is about to tell her how impossible that is, instead pats her on the head and says "Don't ever grow older". There are a handful of these moments in the movie.

It was great entertainment all the way through, including the closing credits which were injected with out-takes from auditions for Minions, The Movie.

2:30, took my time wandering back from the cinema to the place to catch the bus back most of the way to the audio place, planning on being at the coffee shop till 4 or 5. They have wireless. And I thought they had crepes - I was getting hungry. It took 15 minutes and I saw the bus come around the corner when I was about a block away, on the other side of the main drag.

There's a number to call, posted on the bus stop sign, which allegedly gives the time of the next bus for a given line/location. I called it. It said 3:30. This stop was in the bright sun, so I decided to walk to the mall transit center and sit in the shade. Just before I got there, the next bus was pulling out, 15 minutes after the last one. Looked on the schedule at the transit center and it said this bus runs every 15 minutes. Caught the next one, walked to the coffee shop, they stop serving crepes at 1, and they were down to only banana nut bread from their usual huge morning fresh-baked selection. Had an iced tea with it, played on the PC until 5, still no word from the audio place so I walked over there. For the next 2 hours they said it would be about 15 minutes more.

Turns out they had someone call in sick, and one of the desk jockeys did my install. And apparently kept getting it wrong.

Finally got the car at 7:15 (they close at 6) and it still has a couple of things installed wrong with the alarm, so I'll have to bring it back, but the speakers & amp sound fine.

Time for dinner, I went to Super Buffet, which is usually great, but this time there were two tour buses just ahead of me, the cooks couldn't keep up, and they had all sorts of dishes in all sorts of wrong places. The roast beef was labeled "apple pie". Honey walnut shrimp was made with mayo, not honey and no walnuts, and was labeled "BBQ pork". And so on. Many dishes had no labels. Mystery meat. Mystery vegetables. Deep fried mystery pieces.

Way too many flashes going off, and two birthday cakes brought out to the very loudly cranked up birthday song, which said "happy birthday dear you-you". By the time I went for dessert, only  handful of people were left.

Home, gave cats their treats, played on The Book Of Face, and here I am.

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The Zimmerman verdict. I watched most of the trial on CNN-HN and think the prosecution did what it could, the defense beat to death the "reasonable doubt" rule, and the bottom line is he was tried by a jury of his peers - stupid racists. I am puzzled why a murder trial jury has only 6 people, and how the prosecution allowed them to all be women.

But it's not over. Zimmerman has admitted shooting Martin, which makes a very strong case for a civil suit for wrongful death. And in a civil suit, he can be required to take the stand. There is also a chance of a Federal denial of civil rights suit, though Obama/Holder et al don't have a track record of doing the right thing in that regard.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Maybe see Tonto at a local to me theater.
Put away Wednesday's laundry

This will be short. I Think

Slept in. Went online and ordered leopard-pattern velour car seat covers. I may or may not actually install them. Also ordered replacements for the failing pumps in the cats' two water fountains.

Lunch was a Costco Croissant.

1-ish went to the Sunnyvale Historical Museum, a place I did not even know about. Weird because it is right behind the community theater, where I have performed and seen shows many times. The occasion was a local author's event, 40+ writers displaying, chatting about and hoping to sell their books. Theater friend Ande was there with her book about her parents. I bought a copy.

They had authors 2 and 3 to a table, most of them outside under tents on the lawn (it was a beautiful day) but some on the dront porch, and upstairs on the balcony, and Ande was upstairs in one of the display rooms which had been marked as the children's section but there were only 2 out of a dozen books up there which were in that category and 3 or 4 on the lawn tables which were.

It was a wonderful event, well-attended, and my only complaint is they made no attempt to put similar works together. So it was kind of embarrassing to be having an exciting conversation with the woman who wrote a book about her husband, who invented the space shuttle's heat tiles, while the woman with the tiny booklet of poems sat next to her with no one interested in her.

I had expected to only be there half an hour, and then go see the Tonto movie, and then coffee with Janice at 5. But I left at almost 3, and it was too late to see a movie and be out by 4:45.

So I went home via a gas station, 7-11's ATM and a slurpee and sandwich. Sat on the patio with the food & drink & started reading Ande's book.

Then to *$'s and Janice. And home again.

Dinner was pot pie.

Spent some time troubleshooting the USB 3.0 card, Win7-64 just doesn't like the drivers. Pulled the card. While the machine was open I saw I did not have enough SATA data connections to install the two additional drives I bought, so will probably buy a SATA card. Low priority because blue screen from the conflicting USB drivers last week made me system restore to prior to installing the backup software, so I need to do that 3-day backup all over again. :-(

But not right now.

News flash: Domino has also abandoned the crystal litterbox for the clumping litterbox. I'll use my Petco discount to order another one and retire both crystal ones. It was fun while it lasted.

Over on basfa's FB page I posted that I'm not going to boycott the Ender's Game movie just because the book's author/screenplay writer is an ardent anti-homosexual bigot. The book has nothing to do with the subject, and it has a superb cast. One BASFArian said he was boycotting so this author would not get more work in Hollywood, so I looked up the author on IMDB, and this is his 18th screenplay. Kind of too late to have an effect on that.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
BASFA (I have valuable auction items)