"Movin' On Up"

So yesterday I helped Ev move into a new apartment. He's now two buildings over from me, right across the parking lot basically. Which is cool, because now I can annoy the hell out of my coworker at will.

But the man has a lot of stuff. It's mostly books and papers and God knows what else, but there's a lot of it. The fact that we were able to get it all moved to the new apartment in about 8 hours total is pretty damn impressive...especially considering that his last move (back over the summer) took place over a few days and had more people helping. I chalk most of it up to the fact that he hadn't unpacked most of his stuff from that move still, and the fact that he got virutally everything else boxed up before we started the move. Having things already boxed should not be taken lightly--that single aspect saved us countless hours, I'm sure, because we spent most of the time during the previous move boxing up all the loose stuff he has.

Granted, the fact that he got rid of like 12 boxes worth of crap between moves really helped, too.

All told, my arms and legs are a bit sore today from all the lifting (amusingly enough, I'm one of his stronger friends...which tells you quite a bit about the people he usually hangs out with). I'm not hurt to the point of immobility, mind, just kinda sore.

Anyway, I basically spent all afternoon and part of the early evening helping Ev move. Then I went and hung out with Beth for like eight or nine hours. We watched the two Toy Story movies (which I hadn't seen since my last trip to Virginia...and that was back in August of 2002, right after I got back from Yellowstone). I'd forgotten just how funny those movies are, and how well-done they are. You could see the improvement from the first one to the second one. It was almost startling. I'd never watched them back to back like that, and though the first one is amazingly well done, it's nothing compared to the second in terms of the art and the images. They're both very funny and warm movies, and I really wish I could find them on DVD myself.

Anyway, after our little mini movie marathon, we channel surfed for a while (digital cable's pretty damn cool, says the man who doesn't even have basic cable and never really watches TV). Ended up watching a downright ancient episode of Saturday Night Live (had Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd doing the Coneheads, and Andy Kauffman), then flipping through random channels until we found this old '70s movie called Image of the Beast. Think of the Left Behind books and movies. Now imagine they were made in the '70s, only without any sort of decent acting or special effects or script or anything like that. It was really, really bad, but in that trainwreck sort of way that kept drawing you in to it, to the point that you couldn't understand why you were fascinated with it, but just had to keep watching. I think Beth was finally able to turn it off simply because leaving it on meant we kept laughing at how straight-faced all the actors were while they delivered some of the campiest lines I've ever heard. I felt almost bad for laughing at it, given the subject matter. I mean, it dealt with matters of prophecy and the end times and the like, and while this can be done well (this was not such an instance, but I know it can be done well), you feel bad about laughing at it when it's done badly. Almost like you're laughing at Jesus, I dunno. Though I've probably already earned myself a personal spot in the lowest bowels of hell for other things (unless God has a really understanding sense of humor...it's my only hope, really), so I guess laughing at this absolutely atrocious movie wasn't going to do me much harm.

My main issue with it, though, was trying to figure out who the movie would appeal to. My main guess was folks who already believed in the ideas and values the movie espoused. In which case, there was really no reason for the silly thing to be made. It probably wasn't likely to make many converts--those who would be tempted to believe what the movie talked about and proported wouldn't likely feel that the movie itself did a good job of presenting its case. Those who wouldn't be convinced wouldn't see the movie anyway. It all just seemed so...pointless.

But it was amusing at 3.00 am, I'll give it that. And considering we stayed up for a good two and a half hours more after that, I'd say we were at least entertained by everything.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Sheryl Crow, "Leaving Las Vegas"