Spiderpig, spiderpig, doing whatever a spiderpig does...

So, a few days ago I got a brilliant idea. The Simpsons movie came out today, and I figured it would be a cool, geeky thing to go see a midnight showing of it. I really wanted to see it in the theater, and I hate to see movies alone, and I figured it would be a cool geeky thing to do. Plus, I live around the corner from the White Marsh Lowes/AMC, which was one of the few places that had a midnight showing. I tried to get a group of people together, but it ended up being bsom, his wife, and me. So I preordered 3 tickets from Fandago, in case it sells out, and planned for a geeky-cool evening.

So we get to the theater around 11, because a)we wanted to get good seats and b)we were hanging out at Casa De Mad, and bsom and his wife were complaining that it was hot because I didn't have the air on. Heat pussies - it was only like 80, and I don't turn the AC on unless it hits at least 95. That shit costs money.

As people start to trickle in, I start to feel old - it's mostly teenagers. You know, people who don't need to get up at 7am the next day and go to work. So the lights dim, the ads start playing, they sell candy bars to raise money for people afflicted with something or other. Then an AMC logo comes on the screen, the lights go on, and we see a number of theater employees, one holding a flashlight, tinkering around behind the curtain.

Finally, around 12:30, someone from the theater tells us the curtain is broken, but they are opening two other theaters. So everyone storms the exits. MadAnthony books it, using all all the skills I've gained at pushing people out of the way from my years of Black Friday shopping.

So I snag three decent-but-not-great seats, call bsom's wife on her cell and tell her what theater I'm in, and settle down and wait. And wait. Lights are on, nothing on the screen, crowd getting antsy. Finally, previews start playing. But they are messed up - it's like we're seeing double. The screen looks like the way TV screens looked in college after too many shots of the kind of vodka that comes in plastic bottles with pour spouts made in places that shouldn't make vodka, like Baltimore.

So they turn off the projector. Crowd gets angrier. We wait some more. At this point, I'm not as angry as the rest of the theater. I've worked in tech support long enough to know that technology isn't perfect, that stuff breaks, that yelling at the people who fix it won't help. But it would have been nice if we were kept posted. Rumors start to spread - they might not be able to show the movie, they won't give out refunds, they might give out passes, ect.

Finally, the previews come back on. Then the movie starts.

So, umm the movie. The Simpsons Movie. It was pretty good. The plot was a bit thin, but the visuals were impressive, and there were a ton of inside jokes, sight gags, making fun of themselves, and stuff for fans to quote.

Didn't get out of the theater until 2:30. Didn't get to sleep until after 3am, so I'm running on 4 hours of sleep. I got my coffee maker ready before I went to sleep, but forgot to hit the program button. So no coffee was ready when it was time for me to run out the door. I stopped at 7-11 and picked up a 24 ounce Fusion coffee with two extra 40mg shots of some sort of extra caffeine that comes in little creamer cups. I've been pretty awake most of the morning thanks to that, but I know I'm going to crash at any time. This is the first time I've come to work super-tired in years, since the time in 2003 that I camped outside an Ikea all night to get a free chair.

Despite the detour, I was still only 5 minutes late to work and beat two of my coworkers in. And I even brought donuts.