The Christmas season is upon us once again. My gift buying is still not complete. I have bought several items for myself, however. So far, it's not gone as swimingly as I'd hoped. The gifts I'd intended to get for brothers Geoff and Garrick where funny, but much too expensive for "funny"gifts. As humorous as I find 12'' Bruce Lee Dolls that come in different outfits- leisure suits, overalls, disco outfits- 80 dollars was a bit much for them. I'd seen them a year ago, and since then I'd been planning on getting those for this year. It wasn't until last Thursday that I went back to the store in Chinatown and actually saw how much they were. So we're on the plan B. And Miss Charming Melodee's grandiose gift will not arrive until around the New Year, which is terribly disappointing. And I'm not feeling very motivated to leave the house. I kind of want to just sit around and play Halo, which is a wonderful video game that was just released for Mac and PC, and which I played a lot of on the Xbox. I recommend it.

    The last few days have been filled with the usual holiday season hullabaloo. Had two job Christmas parties, and both were better than I expected. After the day-job party on Wednesday, MCM and I took a car down to Red Hook to meet up with some of her friends for a little birthday celebration. The bar, Sunny's, would have been in the middle of nowhere, except it was by the river, so I guess was on the edge of nowhere and the East River. When the car got there, we were like "What the fuck..." The driver included. But inside, it was a warm, festive, friendly scene. It reminded me a lot of the bar the Right Bank in Williamsburg, which last I heard may have closed down. Both are old houses that generally don't seem to abide by any proper business codes. Smoking is still allowed, nay, encouraged, at Sunny's. Which is fine by me. I like my bars to feel and smell like bars. Which means loud, smoky, and cheap. Anyway, it was nice to walk in from a cold, terribly windy night, into an inviting little atmosphere. I might've found it so nice because I was already a little drunk from the office party. Who's to say? The few downsides to Sunny's: being so far out of the way, it's only opened three nights a week. And you basically need a car or a lot of patience and walking to get there.

By the way, for some reason lately I've been going a lot of places that require a car to get to, and every time I do I want to make reference to Archie's Atomic, but no one gets the reference so I just gave up. But Archie's Atomic is the place the Coreys are trying to get to in the movie "License to Drive," the place where no buses or trains went that you needed a car to get to.  Am I the freak for remembering this? Haven't we all had our own personal "Archie's Atomic"'s? By the way again, I was looking at the job section of the NY Times yesterday, and the front page of the section feature a young woman, my age actually, working with kids or some such thing. Her name? Corey Feldman. Does that qualify as a mixed blessing?
 
    On Thursday I took the day off from work and spent it running around in Manhattan. I lunched with Caryn at a place near her office, then went to meet Miss Charming Melodee around Union Square. As luck would have it, when I got on the 6 train, she happened to be sitting right there in the same car that I got on. After separating to do a little more shopping, we met up at the UA theatre to catch the Return of the King. I'd wanted to see this movie so badly, and I was mildly concerned for the past few months that something terrible would happen to me or the world and I'd never get to see it. Well, I saw it. And it was wonderful. I had to carefully ration my liquid intake all day to make sure I'd make it through all three hours and twenty minutes. It was just epic in all aspects. Everything good about the first two movies was upped for the third. It was visually stunning on the whole, meaning the computer effects blended seamlessly with the real life footage. With only a few exceptions, you could barely tell the difference. The best part about the effects was basically that they didn't distract from the story but added to the whole, and the characters really carried it. I basically knew what would happen at each turn, but it was still a fantastic movie-going experience.

   After the movie, we walked over to Yama, the sushi place on Irving Place, but there were more people waiting to get in than were actually seated in the small restaurant, so we walked over to University Pl. and ate at Japonica. That place may actually have the best sushi of anywhere I've eaten, but it's also the most expensive. The sashimi I ordered was plentiful and delicious however, and was just about worth the price. I'd say I got my money's worth. After dinner we humored the idea of going to see the new Tim Burton movie Big Fish, but figured that would be overkill. I would've gone though. I could see five movies a day if I had the means. I just love sitting in the theatre. It's the best escape from reality, but at the same time, I love re-entering reality after seeing a movie. I love going to movies in New York in December for this reason. It's just a great feeling to come out of a movie in the early evening, and it's dark and cold yet festive, and your night is just beginning and there are so many things you could do (though for me most of them involve eating or drinking). Love it. It's one of my favorite things to do in New York.

   I ended up going into the city today for some last-minute shopping. Actually, to get three of the five gifts I bought this year. Mission accomplished. Had dinner with Geoff at a nice sorta french place in Soho. I had ground beef and potatoes and a ginger ale. Then home, where I found Miss Charming Melodee. Not surprising, since she does live here. Thought about going into the city to catch Big Fish, but settled on going to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see the Triplets of Belleville. I like having a movie theatre so close to my home. It's a three minute walk. Just enough time to talk about the movie on the way back. Also, the movies at BAM are generally your arthouse-type movies, so when I'm feeling like seeing a movie but also feeling lazy, I've no choice but to see a movie at BAM, which is good, as few of the movies there feature explosions- gratuitous or otherwise- gun fights, or Ben Affleck, and contain actual plot, compelling stories, interesting dialogue, and occasionally, Audrey Tautou.  As for the Triplets of Belleville, film itself was fascinating. Animated scenes of France from the 30's through the 60's.  I didn't know that there was no real dialogue, but the story was told effectively enough. As far as movies for the holidays, the brothers and I have to decide on a Christmas Day movie. For as long as I can remember, we've seen a movie on Christmas, save for the infamous "Castaway v. Dude Where's My Car" stalemate of 2001. I can't believe that was even a debate.

 

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