well last saturday Rory and I went to see I am Legend. It was playing in the IMAX but Katlin could not get us in, so we had to pay. We discovred that if you buy tickets from the machine you can get the senior rate. As I am an old man, we thought that it was worth saving the $2. The movie was pretty good. I liked how they made WIll Smith a little bit of a psycho. I thought they could have cut down the amount of time where he was the only person in the movie though. Also, the first five minutes was about a bank robbery. There was a Joker involved. And then Batman showed up. For a while we thought we were in the wrong movie. But no, the new Batman trailer is not a series of clips like normal trailers are. It's a five minute scene from the movie. It was kind of weird. Although, thinking back, I saw Batman Begins in IMAX though, so it makes sense that the new one might come out in it too.
Sunday mom and I caused a Commotion by bringing food to grandma's on Auntie Moe's day. I don't know why mom doesn't call auntie Moe, and I don't know why Auntie Moe went nuts about it instead of just putting food in the fridge and saying eat it tomorrow. So I just hung back and got very interested in the Sun Times. Then we went over to Uncle Jimmy's because they'd put Shane to sleep that day and everyone there was kind of a mess. Understandably. They'd planned theirfamily vacations around that dog so he'd never be left alone. I think Uncle Jimmy spent more nights sleeping on the floor with the dog than he did in his bed. We sat over there and watched their old home movies. One of them was xmas at Gram and Gramps in 1986. I got some GI Joe's and as I'm opening it, you can hear my dad yell "More Cobras??? We're going to need to build a bigger house!" Eric and Dan have been repeating that comment all week. It was funny to see theirmovies though. It just kept going back and forth from Easter and Christmas for like six years. and in every year Mike is wearing the same robe and heavy gold chain, Dan is wearing a wife beater, and Eric has no pants on. it was rather amusing.
Monday I headed down to Urbana for New Years. I helped Helen clean and get ready for peole coming over. Ruth got there a little later, and SHawn and Ben a little after that. Then the three of them went for some OJ and champagne and Helen and I made thai food. Emilia and Aurora came over and we played some games and hung out. I liked the apples to apples game. and we played catch phrase! it was a really fun time. around ten someone else came over and brought some friends.
tuesday we woke up at 11 when Shawn and Ben came back over to get their car. We all went otu to breakfast at the Original Pancake House
Helen: what are you going to get?
Matt: I dunno, probably just some hash browns, maybe chocolate milk
Helen: that's alll?????
Matt: I've never been much of a breakfast person
Helen: It's 11:30!!
Matt: but i just got up!
after breakfast, we went back to Helen's. Helen Ruth and I played solitaire and watched the commentary from Love Actually. then we met back up with Shawn at Biaggis. Let me tell you, during the Rose Bowl, when the Illini are playing, there is NO better time to go to Biaggis. No wait. there were like eight people total in the restaurant. I had a pizza and a salad. Helen had GF fettucine alfredo. It was all good.
Wednesday Helen did not have to work because it was 2 degrees outside. We were lazy and read for a while, then played Scrabble. Helen beat me as usual. I had a long string of vowels while helen invented new words like fajasty and mjoggin. we went to the store, at which point Helen realized she had a typing interview for the extra help thing. I didn't find anything i wanted at Target, and helen bought the last of the Ramona books with her gift card. :) after her interview we went for a walk around campus. i took pictures of the Alma Mater dressed up for the Rose Bowl. then we made a pizza! our pineapple and pepper pizza kicks ass.
Thursday she had to work so i came back north. so last thursday we went out with Grandma H, who went to the Rose Bowl with Uncle Mike. Now I made a comment without thinking and offered to pick her up from the airport, not knowing when she was coming in. well it turns out she was coming in on wednesday at night, when i was planning on being in urbana still. so dad offered to pick her up instead. her flight got in at midnight and they waited two hours for the people to unload the luggage. apparently there were seven plane loads of people waiting. i'm not sure why. so dad didn't get to palatine until after 3am. so since he did me a favor and it turned out to be a pain, i bought him his birthday gift of Rush Hour 3 early and we chilled and watched it, while Micki was out with friends and mom was out with school people.
Last night we went over to Gram and Gramps again. Dad brought everyone Paneras and mom made peas and macaroni for gramps. i went out to buy this book Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish that Gramps had heard about and wanted to get for Uncle Jimmy. Dad and I did the cross word with Gramps "help" and he kept us laughing with his stories of trying to go grocery shopping. dad askeid him if he wanted us to bring steak one night and his response was "i haven't had steak in 20 years. ever since the damn colon operation. i've had chicken for twenty years. it's a wonder i havent laid an egg yet." then we stopped over at Jim's. As we're walking in the door...
Auntie Karen: does it still smell like burnt popcorn?
Mom: no
Auntie Karen: oh, well it smelled terrible when i got home
Eric: no, it wasn't that bad
AUntie Karen: the fire alarm was going off!
Eric: we have a fire alarm that works???
today i'm working on burning my dvd data backups for 2007. wheeeee. then apparently later i'm stopping over at HS German Rob's, whom I've seen once in the last eight years. so that should be entertaining.
