Over the past few days I have been on an adventure away from home (Gloucester). I took the train up to Richmond on Thursday morning since I had a meeting with my class advisor. Train rides are always great for catching up on sleep, so I slept the 45 mins up to Richmond and woke up right outside of the city just in time to see some really cool, really old, really shitty buildings that are off-limits and totally calling my name to go explore them.
The walk from the station in Richmond to my place was excellent.
I'm always looking out for cool places to wander into. Since it was almost as hot as Hell outside (Hell = 123˚), I figured I'd go check out a big ol' building close to the Shockoe Bottom area that I had been curious about for the longest time but never went into because every time I pass it I'm always in a big damn hurry to get to the station or go to my place. This trip was different - I had plenty of time to do nothing, and I was hungry.
The doors to the building were those cool spinning ones, but I had so much stuff in my back pack that I almost got stuck in it. I always worry about that happening because it would be stupid and I'd have to try to play it off like it was the door's fault. Then I'd worry about it for the next few hours, wondering if anyone saw it happen. Truth is, everyone else would instantly forget about it.
The interior of the place was pretty spectacular, almost futuristic. Fountains and arches, lots of gold colored metallic sidings and other various shiny surfaces to give the illusion of fanciness. I was pretty awed, then I found a sandwich shop/Arby's and remembered my mission was to eat food. Instead of ordering some fancy-ass specialty sandwich, I opted for a classic BLT. I never get BLTs, so this was a cool achievement for me. I sat in the area where people sit and eat food, and I ate my food. It was nice to just sit there, look around and observe some of the Old Richmond Business People having their breakfast. It's not all the time that I have the freedom to sit in silence and watch people like a creeper, taking note of their mannerisms; just overall weird stuff, so when I can - I do!
The rest of the day was mostly uneventful and hot. Thursday marked the beginning of this currently ongoing heat wave. HEAT WAVE. The whole advising appointment I went to was cool, but I found out I definitely won't be graduating until
at least next summer. So I'll be up to like 5 years of college. It's been a weird road. Hopefully I'll get into some of my past adventures from over the last few years when I lived in Arlington and then the whole transfer to Richmond. Plenty of insane journeys to pull from, I should probably write them down before I forget how awesome they were.
Friday eventually rolled around, I slept in and enjoyed the silence of my place in Richmond. My plan for Friday included: sitting around doing nothing, walking back to the train station and taking the train to Newport News so my older brother could pick me up and we could hang out for the weekend at his bro-pad with his kitties.
Fortunately I got a little bit more done than the "original plan of sitting around doing nothing". People are generally lazy and like to throw away perfectly functioning items, so I periodically check the trash room down the hall for things people have dropped off. I acquired a vacuum cleaner, a small black carpet and a toaster. Free shit. So for the rest of the day until I had to leave for the train I blasted good music and reorganized my entire room to 110% efficiency, taking breaks every now and then to be really annoying on my harmonica.
The walk to the train station was the worst one ever. I am aware that I have somewhat of an overactive bladder, so I prepared before I left my place by relieving myself. Literally as soon as I was 5 minutes down the street I had to go, really bad - like when you're at a movie and you have to go but can't because you'll miss the movie. Except I wasn't missing any movie, there were just no known restrooms between my place and the train station and I was in a damn hurry. So I just thought to myself, "Shit, of course this would happen." I turned up the music on my iPod to
really loud and tried not to think about how much it sucked that I really had to pee but couldn't just let it out because then people would be all, "OMG your peeing on the side of that building! groosss!"
When I got to the station and did my business, I heard a wonderful announcement come over the intercom announcing, "All Amtrak passengers riding Train 95 from Washington D.C. to Newport News should head to the boarding area now. Estimated arrival time for Train 95 from Washington D.C. to Newport News is 5:45". The train was scheduled to leave at 5:12. Awesome. So I rushed across Richmond on a full tank, with a backpack weighing like 50 lbs in 101˚ weather to find out I had plenty of time to pee anywhere I wanted. That's cool, lesson learned: If you're in a hurry, you're gonna be pissed.
Friday night was a strange experience. The train finally arrived in Newport News close to 8 P.M. due to massive delays from the tracks overheating under the gaze of the record breaking heat. I woke up on the train to an insanely loud intercom right above my head. The conductor was announcing that we would be arriving in Newport News soon, only he did it in a very obnoxious manner I'm sure he was not aware of. Chiming in with a completely new announcement he'd start like this, "Once again, ladies and gentlemen - we will be arriving in Newport News, our final stop along the northeast Amtrak line, in about 5 minutes. Once again, we'll be arriving in Newport News in about 5 minutes. Make sure you check your seats and overhead storage for any personal items. Once again..." It would go on like that, extremely loud and annoying. I'm probably exaggerating details here, but to me it sounded like that and I was glad to get off the train.
My brother and I started off the night by ordering some Thai food from the place around the corner from his apartment. In a bold and daring move, we decided to watch the worst film ever made, ever: The Room. Directed by Tommy Wiseau, a creepy looking man with long black hair and an unplaceable accent. The Room tells the worst love story ever, complete with the worst acting ever, worst writing ever - all held together by the worst editing and directing ever. It's definitely a film anyone should watch if they need a basis for "good cinema" or if they just enjoy laughably serious films.
The instant temperature drop once night fell brought things from 100˚ and higher down to mid 70s in a matter of hours. Tornadoes are formed by temperature/pressure shifts creating winds in a vicious cycle. Friday became a large scale model of this meteorological phenomenon, thus creating what the news brains are calling a "land hurricane". Numbers are still rolling in, currently at 13 deaths caused by falling trees or electrocution from fallen power lines. What are the odds of shit like that happening?
My new favorite friend recently told me about a show called Adventure Time. I had heard of it before but didn't really look into at all, which is weird for me since I watch almost every TV show on air. She enjoys the same kind of weird stuff I'm into, so I figured I should probably check it out. Turns out it's one of the funniest cartoons ever made. It's the most random, nonsensical, stupid material I've ever seen in a cartoon. It's great to know other people do this sort of stuff, though the writers are almost definitely on LSD all the time. In the closing lines of the episode titled "My Two Favorite People", Finn the Human & Jake the Dog have resolved the episode's conflict and are happily hanging out when Jake comments on their stupidity. This was the point where I knew I will always love this show, forever!
After such an exciting night, Saturday brought in more scorching hot weather, foreshadowing round #2 of the temperature drop storm. My brother and I decided to go see Prometheus in IMAX 3D during the hottest part of the day, we thought it might be cool! Get it? Because movie theaters crank up the AC to a decidedly "cool" temperature, also Prometheus looked sooooo cool! Cool, cool, cool.
I went in to Prometheus not really knowing what to expect since I had not seen any of the Alien movies. I was not too concerned about this because Prometheus is supposed to be a prequel/origins story of sorts for the Alien series. It turned out to be
the most amazing theater experience I've ever been to. 3D has always been a gimmick as far as I'm concerned. But when Avatar came out a few years back, touting James Cameron's new Cameron-Pace 3D camera technology, I was honestly excited to see real 3D in action instead of the typical jump-out-at-you bullshit they've done in the past.
Ridley Scott, director of Prometheus and basically father of the Alien series, shot Prometheus entirely in real 3D using the most updated version of Cameron's camera equipment. The results are visually astounding. Entire sensory overload. Before the film turns into a sci-fi horror film it starts out as just pure sci-fi adventure. We get to see some beautiful landscapes during a sequence showing the "creation of life". Then the ship Prometheus is introduced and we make our way to a mysterious planet closely resembling Earth. There was something really cool about the shots showing Prometheus exploring the planet. Most shots showed the incredibly small scale of the ship compared to the massive landscapes around it, completely untouched by humans. Perfect imperfection. But the idea of the ship being completely insignificant compared to the rest of the world, the rest of the universe, fits perfectly with the film's themes of human origins and the meaning of life.
About halfway through the 2 hour long film, things get weird. Then it explodes into full-on sci-fi horror. You know that thing people say about awesome stuff where they're like, "You'll be on the edge of your seat!"? I did that. I was fully immersed in the visuals, the atmosphere, the exquisite detail in every frame of the film. I won't spoil the plot of the film, but I will say - yeah, it's scary. But it's a film, they haven't gotten into making interactive films yet, so you'll be safe.
Whelp, that's all for now. I'll write up another log once I figure out which crazy-ass adventure from my past I should recall.
