So just a quick recap of my weekend here, then I may be off to bed. Yesterday my step-sister, Kathleen, got married over in Pasadena, so naturally I attended. I got up at around 2 in the afternoon, got dressed in my suit and went and picked up my sister Rebecca and we headed over to Annandale where the wedding and reception were held. Kathleen had asked if I would videotape people and ask them if they had anything to say to the bride and groom so that they could review the tape later, and I had said yes. I realized when I got there that I was not really going to want to do this, as I am definitely not the social butterfly kind of person to go around and talk to a whole bunch of people I don't know, let alone interview them. Also, I wasn't really sure when I was supposed to do this, but I figured that dinner would probably be the best time. The only problem is that during dinner, naturally I just wanted to sit there and eat and talk with my sister and my Dad, and not go from table to table with a videocamera. However, in the end, I realized that would be the quickest and easiset way for me to get around to everyone just by going from table to table and making a general announcement that I was recording for the bride and groom if anyone wanted to say anything. Luckily this didn't last that long, maybe 30 minutes, as most people didn't seem too overly anxious to say a whole lot (few people relish being videotaped like that, I suppose).
After my videotaping duties were over, I gave the recorder back to the guy who had loaned it to me (he was in the wedding party), and he being pretty drunk by that point then kinda took over and went around filming all kinds of stuff throughout the night, so that was good. I spent most of the remainder of the evening talking with Rebecca and just kinda observing all the goings on. Kathleen and her husband Jeff seemed to be having a great time, and it was all in all a smashing success I would say.
Afterwards, Rebecca and I changed into more comfortable clothes and went to go see the movie "Elephant", as it was playing in Pasadena, and we'd both wanted to see it. The movie was very short, or so it seemed to me, but it definitely made an impact. It makes very little (if any) commentary on what can make people do the things that the kids in the movie do (which if you're unaware of what the movie is about, it is a fictional story which is clearly based on the shooting at Columbine back in 1999). I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't see it (although it's not really the kind of movie one can spoil), but it is very straightforward in it's simplicity, which is pretty admirable considering the subject matter. Quite frankly I was expecting it to tackle all of the surrounding events leading up to an event like that and the fallout afterwards, but it is really stripped of all of that, and that gives it a lot of power as a result. After the movie I dropped Rebecca off and went home.
Today I slept in again (shocking, I know), then got up and went to the Laker game tonight with Cookie. He came by and picked me up, and we first went to Phillippe's for some French-dipped sandwiches. The place was extraordinarly crowded, but it was worth the wait as their sandwiches pretty much rule. After eating, we made our way to Staples Center to watch the Lakers take on the Miami Heat. We had gotten the tickets from Liz, who's boyfriend has season tickets, but who wasn't going to use them this weekend as they were both going to be out of town. So Cookie and I took them off her hands because we were both quite anxious to see the Lakers with their new additions of Gary Payton and Karl Malone. The only down side was that the Heat are without question one of the worst teams in the league, while the Lakers are probably favored to win it all this year. Predictably, it was a rout, but I enjoy watching the Lakers dismantle anyone, so I had a great time. Actually, the last couple years the Lakers have had the unfortunate tendency to play down to their opponents' level, and have frequently been lazy or uninspired against the bad teams and have frequently lost or almost lost games against the cellar-dwellars of the NBA. Thankfully tonight was different as the Lakers held a double-digit (and even 20+) point lead through most of the game.
So anyway, that was my weekend 