"Looking Out On The Substitute Scene"

Spent most of yesterday at school rearranging and redocoration the classroom with our student-teacher, Ms. Yassai. She's quite an engaging person, really, which is good I suppose. She's really approaching this whole thing as a team effort, which I like, and she's just generally a swell person to be around. To say I've got a mild crush would be accurate.

We also had a school Happy Hour yesterday afternoon: booze and food on the boss! Anytime the boss is willing to buy you alcohol, accept it, I say. I mean, how often do you really have the chance to see half of your coworkers tipsy after a single drink? Not often enough, I say. I'm half-tempted to take a bottle of tequila to work on Monday (since it's another workday) and see if I can't get some blackmail material.

I've only got one parent-teacher conference scheduled for Monday, which means I've got plenty of time to figure out grades and write up my quarterly reports on all my students (well, I say "all," but really I only have to do 4th period, which is fine by me. Those quarterlies are ridiculous). We've also apparently got some sort of stupid training meeting thing that I really don't want to go to, but what can you do?

Michelle and I went to see King Kong Thursday night (which was why you didn't have a comic. Deal with it). It was a pretty decent flick. Peter Jackson has a great visual sense, though you could look at certain camera angles and techniques and say, "Gee, that wasn't lifted right out of Lord of the Rings at all." Admittedly, part of that is because it's part of his style to use those sweeping pans of the landscape (constantly), but I honestly don't think they were absolutely necessary nearly as often as he used them. Special effects were uniformly excellent, and Jack Black as a semi-serious actor actually worked, frighteningly enough. I still think you could've cut about an hour's worth of stuff from the film and not really lost anything. There were a lot of scenes that lasted longer than needed, a lot of scene setups that could've been parred down, a lot of worldbuilding that just wasn't necessary. It's 1930s America, we get it. The Hoovervilles are a nice historic touch, but totally not needed. We understand that it's the Depression, now get to the giant monkey already.

Anyway, going to Fredericksburg here in a little while. Cris is apparently having a party of some sort, so we're gonna make the trek and raise some heck (what? It rhymed. I like to rhyme sometimes). Alcohol may very well be imbibed. Uncouth jokes will most likely be told at inappropriate volumes. There may even be all sorts of hanky-panky in backrooms, though I doubt I'll have a chance to have anything to do with that. Such is my lot in life.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Ringo Starr, "I'm the Greatest"