Goodbye Lazy Sunday

Since all I've done today is clean the house, I'm not going to talk about today as much as I'll talk about yesterday. Before noon, Liz and I met Brook and Wendi at the Bellevue Library, which is only a branch of the King County Library System. It was amazing. Larger than my college's library (probably about twice as big) and jam-packed full of books, it looks like a great place to do some heavy research. I couldn't believe that a public library could be so well stocked, but I suppose if any place would have such a library, it would be here.

After that, we went to the Burke Museum at the University of Washington to catch an exhibit on death customs that Wendi wanted to see. It was really nifty, although their portrayal of Celtic culture was a little more fanciful that fact-ful. There seems to be a growing movement to portray the Celts as a unified empire under one ruler, when in reality they were as unified as the American Indian tribes when Columbus landed. Which is to say, not at all. There were other great exhibits too, including a mastadon skeleton that came from Burning Tree Golf Course in Newerk, Ohio. I once got a gander at its intestines. How cool is that?

After that, we swung by my comic store and I picked up some funnybooks, including the trade paperback of Superman: Red Son, which I'm really digging, although the introduction makes it seem much more self-important that I think it really is. The concept itself is what makes it cool (that Superman crash-landed in the Ukraine instead of Kansas, and grew up as a Soviet super-hero instead of an American super-hero), but the introduction attempts to make connections to current American foreign policy that I don't think are present. I'll post more of my thoughts after I'm done. The next issue of Captain America was in there too, a comic I'm really coming around to liking. I'd love to start penning my own Cap script. That's one of my goals when I'm done with my novel (about 25,000 words from now).

Then we came back here, watched Reign of Fire and Out Cold, and it's amazing how good brainless post-apocalyptic sci-fi and brainless stoner humor look on the new TV. Then, we played Munchkin, which is a fantastic card game from our pals at Steve Jackson. And a large amount of alcohol found its way into our systems, which made the evening much more fun. We've finally got Amaretto in our liquor cabinet, so I can have my favorite mixed drink, ye olde Amaretto Sour.

Oh, I should also mention that I picked up two indie newspapers to check out the indie film scene, and I have to say the pickings are pretty slim right now. Some theaters are showing Perfect Blue, which I despised when I bought it blind on DVD three or four years ago. There's a new Robert Altman ballet movie called The Company, which reviews either say sucks or is great. I think I'm going to spend my indie film time getting caught up on Below, May, and The Fast Runner, which all should be easy rentals. But, I'm going to try to take advantage of the Seattle Film Festival as much as possible when it comes. Then, I shall be a real film schnob!