Miss the Revolution
Jen insisted on seeing The Matrix Revolutions tonight; evidently Carlos had seen it on an IMAX screen in Baltimore while she was doing a press conference on Friday and recommended it hightly. So, Kate and I were brought along to the Aquarium for a 6:40pm show.

Now, Kate had only seen the first on DVD and acknowledged that it might be a big deal on the big screen; I had liked it a lot more but wasn't too impressed with Reloaded. Even so, really, none of us were prepared for the vast amount of sucking that came from #3.

It's not a total loss; the forty-five minutes or so of the attack on Zion is impressive, if not quite in the same league as all hell breaking loose in Attack Of The Clones (which gets bonus points for the sheer variety of mayhem digitally unleashed). I'm not quite the same sort of highly-evolved film snob as Kate; I readily admit to being impressed by new and creative ways of blowing shit up. And - crucially - there was no cutting to Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss during that sequence. They are just godawful; Kate actually laughed out loud during an early scene that was supposed to be showing how they truly loved each other. By the end of the movie, we were constantly leaning over to whisper new mockery to each other.

Jen gave us a look as we got out, commenting that she was glad we at least had some kind of fun. Hey, I told her, sometimes you've just got to enjoy the train wreck.

This, of course, prompted her to get all catty about Dimitri and his barely-legal girlfriend. It seems that underneath Sam's almost-goth exterior is a girl who deeply terrified of flying, but who didn't know it until their flight was in the air. She'd just completely flipped out, locking herself in the restroom until another passenger offered her some sleeping pills. The next night, Sam had actually come to Jen for help stuffing her bra. It was kind of sad, Jen said, because she really did look even more like a kid when she put on a dress to go to the party with Dimitri, but whenever she tried to do something about it herself, her breasts looked square or asymmetrical or the like. Jen figured painting yourself as an outsider means you don't learn certain crucial skills.

("Well, I'll bet Michelle never learned that 'crucial skill' either." I stuck my tongue out at Kate and informed her I was a late bloomer. Hey, I didn't get boobs until I was almost 30)

Mark and his girlfriend were evidently weird too - Jen knew they'd both lived in Washington for a while, but they seemed to meet up with more old friends who "worked for the government" (with no more detail given or offered) that could be reasonably expected.

Strange company we work for, huh?

Yeah, Jen said, but they're good people. Dimitri didn't even complain about having to leave earlier so that he and Sam could take the train.You should find someone like that, she said, putting an ever-so-slight emphasis on the second syllable of "someone"

Hey, you can't say I'm not looking, I told her. She at least had the good grace to laugh at it. But, unless she's less willing to gossip about her friends than other folks, I guess my recent activity will be on the company grapevine. If there is someone at BioSoft who knows who I am, I guess that would be kind of interesting news to them. Who knows, maybe it'd even cause them to tip their hand.

-Marti

- posted 8:59 PM - - (archive use only)