~Saturday~ I stopped by Food Lion on the way to Durham and used today’s Krispy Kreme Challenge as an excuse to bring a dozen of their plain, glazed donuts to our Manbites Dog Theater board meeting.
I arrived at Manbites right at noon to an appropriate amount of thanks and affirmations, both for the donuts and in recognition of the tremendous amount of work put into having the minutes from our 25th Anniversary Planning Meeting of January 23rd—all 15 pages of them, who’s counting—ready in time for today’s meeting.
Ed had printed copies of them for everyone, and I have to admit that it gave me great satisfaction seeing the pages all lined up, collating them in order to staple them together. I felt accomplished and appreciated.
We had a good meeting, which ran almost a half hour over its scheduled 1.5 hours, but it was a very productive two hours at least.
On the way out, I stepped next door to finally try Kings Sandwich Shop, whose owner, TJ McDermott, was at that planning meeting I did the minutes for.
I reflected on the difference it makes to have a relationship with someone, when TJ asked me if I wanted to go ahead and make a combo out of my cheeseburger (with ketchup, mayo, and jalapeños), adding fries and a drink. If I didn’t now “know” him, I probably would have declined that upsell.
And then when he said, “That’ll be $7.31,” I normally would have thought, “That’s a little steep,” but instead I thought, “Well, the guy works hard, and he’s contributing to the resurgence in downtown Durham, just like Manbites is.”
Jen and I went to see the 9:00 showing of The Social Network at the NC State Campus Cinema, where it’s $1.50 to get in, and the large popcorn is also $1.50.
I absolutely loved this movie. In my opinion, it’s worth the price of admission just for the opening scene of dialog between Mark Zuckerman and his girlfriend, Erica Albright, in a restaurant. OMG.
Other things that I liked about it:
- The two boys (who I later found out were played by one person, along with a body double for certain shots) who played the Harvard crew team twins were absolutely flawless.
- Justin Timberlake is always easy on my eyes.
- I didn’t know that the founder of Napster played a small part in the evolution of Facebook.
- If any portion of this portrayal of Mark Z is true, then I can totally understand why he wouldn’t want to see it.
- It’s so relevant.
- It’s fun to watch smart kid “snap, snap” some people who thought they’d one-upped him; fascinating to watch a genius—but pretty much unlikeable—kid go from a nobody to a gabillionaire; and riveting—as Jen later framed it—watching two best friends essentially “breaking up.”
I want to see The King’s Speech next and then see how they both do in terms of their Oscar nominations.
Running two hours, the movie finished at 11:00, after which I headed down to Flex. As I crossed over Glenwood on Hillsborough, I found myself behind an SUV that had a picture of a young black man taking up the entire left window, and this text across the entire right window:
|
In loving memory of Ezekiel A. Crowder |
which a quick Google search once home led me to this story: Man killed, another injured in double shooting. I remember that being in the news.
I joined the drinking already in progress, where I met Joe, Alex, Steve, and Brother.
We stayed there way too late—until the lights came on, and believe me, that’s too late—and in the last 30 minutes or so, we met Rich, who was 40 years old but looked much older, and was a fun guy. He had designs on Jay, the bartender, although there was no indication one way or the other if it was mutual.
We left as the stools were being stacked and the floor cleaned with bleach, which believe me, it needs.