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Austin, day 3. Tichu and Lights, and 61*
Today's afternoon got all messed up. We were going to have two of my PP friends come up and play board games with us, but some combination of them randomly renting a movie and also apparently having a bad cellphone and not getting my multiple phone calls and not trying to call me back resulted in Nick and I spending most of the afternoon playing Tichu with Adam and Rehana (with some Through the Desert mixed in for good measure). I'm a little disappointed in how things worked out with said PP friends given that I thought *they* wanted to see *me*, but ah well. I guess it all worked out because I'm starting to sort of finally get the hang of Tichu.
Well, anyway, after an afternoon full of games, we went to wossname, Mother's Cafe or whatever, a vegetarian restaurant that Sheena wanted us all to go to. Zach was also there, and Sheena's sister and parents and grandparents who are all visiting Austin for the week. The place was a little weird, and I didn't think the food was particularly great, but it was still an interesting experience, and good to hang out with Sheena again.
She had the idea that we should go cavort around 37th street and see the Christmas lights before they were all taken down, so we did. It was really pretty cool, the street was just full of lights, and this one awesome house had like, EVERYTHING possible lit up. Each house had different stuff, one had a "Free Martha" theme, one had a Grinch theme, one had a George Bush burning on a throne theme, one had this huge volcano thingy with red flowing lights, and also had a big spinning lit up icosahedron. They even had lit up the stop sign at the corner. The big house had like, yogurt container lights and tic tac lights and starbucks shotglass lights and everything. Pretty funky.
Afterwards Nick and I came back here to start the extravaganza of watching baseball movies. We started tonight with 61*, which is the movie about the summer of 1961 and the "race" between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to beat Babe Ruth's home run record. The movie was really good for several reasons. First, Billy Crystal went into SERIOUS detail to make everything perfect, to really reconstruct what it would have been like watching the 1961 season. Second, the actors playing Maris and Mantle were dead ringers for the real ballplayers. I mean, seriously, dead ringers, especially Maris. Third, it was a baseball movie that was really ABOUT BASEBALL, that I could watch for the baseball. Field of Dreams, for example, is maybe considered a baseball movie, but it doesn't really have much baseball in it, if you know what I mean. But, 61* was like, a movie made by a baseball nerd, for baseball nerds. How awesome. After the movie we watched the "making of the movie" thing on the DVD, which was pretty long, but also pretty awesome, showing how they turned Tiger Stadium in 2000 into Yankee Stadium in 1961, and how they taught the actors to BE the players... the Mantle actor was like "I've never played baseball. I don't even have my own swing. The only baseball swing I know is Mickey Mantle's."
And of course, here we are up too late again. On the other hand I think we have lunch plans for tomorrow so we'll have to actually, like, wake up on time.
Well, anyway, after an afternoon full of games, we went to wossname, Mother's Cafe or whatever, a vegetarian restaurant that Sheena wanted us all to go to. Zach was also there, and Sheena's sister and parents and grandparents who are all visiting Austin for the week. The place was a little weird, and I didn't think the food was particularly great, but it was still an interesting experience, and good to hang out with Sheena again.
She had the idea that we should go cavort around 37th street and see the Christmas lights before they were all taken down, so we did. It was really pretty cool, the street was just full of lights, and this one awesome house had like, EVERYTHING possible lit up. Each house had different stuff, one had a "Free Martha" theme, one had a Grinch theme, one had a George Bush burning on a throne theme, one had this huge volcano thingy with red flowing lights, and also had a big spinning lit up icosahedron. They even had lit up the stop sign at the corner. The big house had like, yogurt container lights and tic tac lights and starbucks shotglass lights and everything. Pretty funky.
Afterwards Nick and I came back here to start the extravaganza of watching baseball movies. We started tonight with 61*, which is the movie about the summer of 1961 and the "race" between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to beat Babe Ruth's home run record. The movie was really good for several reasons. First, Billy Crystal went into SERIOUS detail to make everything perfect, to really reconstruct what it would have been like watching the 1961 season. Second, the actors playing Maris and Mantle were dead ringers for the real ballplayers. I mean, seriously, dead ringers, especially Maris. Third, it was a baseball movie that was really ABOUT BASEBALL, that I could watch for the baseball. Field of Dreams, for example, is maybe considered a baseball movie, but it doesn't really have much baseball in it, if you know what I mean. But, 61* was like, a movie made by a baseball nerd, for baseball nerds. How awesome. After the movie we watched the "making of the movie" thing on the DVD, which was pretty long, but also pretty awesome, showing how they turned Tiger Stadium in 2000 into Yankee Stadium in 1961, and how they taught the actors to BE the players... the Mantle actor was like "I've never played baseball. I don't even have my own swing. The only baseball swing I know is Mickey Mantle's."
And of course, here we are up too late again. On the other hand I think we have lunch plans for tomorrow so we'll have to actually, like, wake up on time.
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I will remedy that this week.
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