Thursday, December 23, 2010

Movie Mix Up

Ian and I planned to go see the movie: "How Do You Know" at 10:20pm at the Ultra Star Cinema in Poway on Tuesday. It wasn't a date or anything, we were setting it up and several friends were joining us. We planned it around 11:30am and I thought that was it. First off, it should be noted that we ALWAYS go to Ultra Star because its the only theater in Poway, and the only one we ever go to.
During the day, I got a call from my friend Nicole, who was also going, to make sure that I could go to the movie. I guess she was trying to get in on the planning too. Later I got a text from her (and I knew it was a mass text) that said the plan was to see "Black Swan" at 10:20 at Edwards. I should have been concerned that the movie and the theater changed (to a theater a lot further away b.t. dubs) but I went with it because the time was similar and Black Swan was a movie I wanted to see too, and it wasn't playing at Ultra Star.

I was giving Nicole and Ian a ride. As we picked up Ian, Nicole called David to see if we could pick him up to to join the 'party van'. He had just left, but turned around to go home to get picked up. Right after Nicole hung up, I pleaded with her to call David back and tell him to drive himself because he lived on the opposite side of town and we would be late if we picked him up. (Party pooper, I know). So she called David and told him, and he grumpily got back on the road.
Well I started heading towards the freeway (because the movie is THAT far away), or so I thought. I went straight at a light to head towards the freeway when Ian blurted out from the back "Where are you going? Why didn't you go left?" to which I replied "Don't tell me the best way to get to the freeway from here." "Why do you need to go on the freeway? We're going to Ultra Star" Ian said. The ensuing conversation brought up the fact that Ian still thought we were going to Ultra Star, like originally planned, and that Nicole mixed it all up. We weren't even sure if there was Black Swan playing at the other theater at 10:20pm. Nicole and Ian started arguing, semi-playfully all while I was driving to the freeway trying to get an answer: What are we going to do?
Well we decided we'd go to Ultra Star in Poway so we called David again and told him to turn around. He was just about to get on the freeway himself, and wasn't too pleased about having to turn around again. I was forced to get on the freeway because that was now the quickest route. As we cruised along towards the exit, Ian and Nicole started talking about how we should just go to Edwards anyways. Ian checked the showtimes and Black Swan was playing at 10:15pm at Edwards, which was an enormous stroke of coincidence. So, we decided to go to Edwards like we originally planned (mistakenly).
That meant another call to David. Ian called this time instead of Nicole because she couldn't bare to tell him to turn around yet again. David was pissed upon answering the phone, especially when Ian said we were really going to Edwards now instead of Ultra Star. Again.
"You know what, I'm just gonna go home" I heard David say. Ian pleaded with him that this was the FINAL plan and convinced him to turn around and go.
Finally we could concentrate on where we were going, now that we knew. Well as we went down the freeway, I saw some break lights ahead. I slowed down a bit, but then as the lanes shifted, a giant semi-truck started changing lanes right into me! I slammed the breaks and swerved into the lane to the left, which luckily had nobody in the way. As if near-death wasn't bad enough, all the traffic stopped. We were completely still on the freeway for like 15 minutes, which meant we were going to be late for the movie. David was in a similar predicament.
Now that we realized that we weren't going to make the movie, Ian looked up other showtimes. Black Swan had no other ones, and the other movies didn't really have convenient times / we didn't want to see them. So, we decided to see "How Do You Know" at 11pm. Traffic finally moved again and we got to the theater at 10:30 - just too late to make our original plan.

So to summarize, we made David turn around 4 times and almost died in order to see the same movie we originally planned to see 40 minutes later at a theater farther away. And it was pouring rain on the drive back- definitely hydroplaned on the freeway going 50 mph.

Identical Thought Process?

So the other day my brother and I were doing our Christmas shopping. As usual, we ended up wandering through a bunch of stores. At one point, we were at Target, which is where our story begins to get interesting. We saw a kid walking around the store; nothing out of the ordinary, he was just a kid about my brother's age (like 18). As we continued to wander about Target, we passed by him again and kind of glanced at each other in recognition. It's always weird to see the same person in a different part of the same store. Well after a while, we checked out of the Target, and started walking to the car. As we were on the sidewalk next to the parking lot, we passed by the same kid again! Crazy? Not yet.
We got in the car and drove to Wal-Mart, then to Barnes and Noble. As we were walking around the bookstore, we SAW THE SAME KID AGAIN! Now that's insane because Barnes and Noble is completely across town from Target. I had to say something, since we both obviously recognized the fact that we were going to just about every store at the same time. "I hope you aren't going to In-N-Out next" I said (since my bro and I were going there next) and he said, "Oh, nope I was just there." Hahaha wow. It was just a weird coincidence where my brother and I seemed to have the same thought process as this one random kid, who turns out, was in one of my brothers high school classes (so they recognized each other but weren't friends or anything).
That's it. Now that was crazy.