Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Holiday To Be Named Later

My dear husband created a holiday last year that I'd prefer to call 'movie fest', but that is actually called 'hotobanala' (see post title and figure out how he got the name). It is celebrated the second weekend in April. Last year it was Saturday, April 10th, 2010 and this year it was Saturday, April 9th, 2011. The rules and regulations, according to him, are quite extensive, but I think I can be a bit more succinct.

The main points:

1. All participants bring a movie that is to remain secret until the time that it is shown
2. You must wear pajamas
3. Regardless of number of participants, we will watch four movies over the course of the day
4. Your movie is played if you win (or in the case of 5 participants, if you do not lose) the game of Apples to Apples.
5. The order in which  you win Apples to Apples determines order of movies shown.
6. If you lose Apples to Apples you go to the circle of ridicule in which you sit in the center of all of your friends/the participants and they each say something mean about you. To add insult to injury, the song, "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus is played.
7. Everyone brings a small object to break outside following the circle of ridicule. The loser of Apples to Apples gets to break their own object AND break someone else's object as a consulation.
8. Movie play begins upon return to the indoors
(9). Jessie provides three square meals.

Participants arrived at 10:00am.

Last year, I chose the movie Chocolat. However, I also lost Apples to Apples and my movie was not played. I withstood the circle of ridicule. I then ended up hurting myself when breaking my object. The first 'movie fest' did no go so well for me.

This year, I chose the movie Into the Wild. However, I again lost Apples to Apples and my movie was not played.
The final card came down to trying to guess what Carl would say was "popular".

 

I put down Yoda. Carl chose The Word Series. 
The mean things that were said to me in the circle of ridicule included, but were not limited to:

-You are wearing silly pants
-You are very bad at Apples to Apples

This time, the object-breaking ceremony went very well for me. It served it's purpose of consoling my failed Apples to Apples play and therefore failure to play my movie, again.

I received this book for free and refuse to read it. I also had great difficulty giving it away. We have no more space to store books in our house. I burned and hammered it. No disrespect to 'Mariah Stewart'.



Safety goggles and gloves to prevent another injury, of course.

 


 I got to break Carl's ear buds


Mary broke her old cell phone



Steiner broke an old ipod. What a modern technological bunch we are!


And my dear husband broke our old Target trashcan that used to constantly rip our trash bags open and was a cyclinder so narrow that we (he) had to wrestle with it for a half hour every trash day.


The movie play went in the order of wins: Adam, Mary, Carl, Steiner.

Adam chose

That's my boy! His synopsis:
When a government experiment into the reanimation of dead tissue is accidentally released into an illegal strip club, the club's patrons are left wanting more and its owner (Robert Englund) seeing dollar signs. After Kat (Jenna Jameson), the club's star performer, is infected she becomes even more popular, which leaves the rest of the girls with one question: to be or not to be...a zombie?

Jenna Jameson was hot as a human stripper and a zombie stripper. The others...Not so much. Oddly, many of the costumes and makeup design in this film was highly reminiscent of Lady Gaga.

Next, Mary played what she described as a "feel good movie"!

 

Carl, in proper Carl fashion, chose a three hour movie. 


Unexpectedly, this was my favorite movie of the day. This is atypical because it was over 1.5 hours (my attention span) and had an intermission (meaning even the producers knew it was long). However, the intermission provided some relief and refueling of my brain and the movie sure did capture the human condition and indeed every film shot looked like a painting.

And, in proper Steiner fashion, 

Evil Dead: Army of Darkness
This film was a nice end to the evening, wrapping up around 9:00pm.




Beatrix hates Hotebanala.

As we say on this great holiday, "May your eyes be filled with splendor!"-Adam

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

How cheap does it have to be?

The Blockbuster down the street is having a closing sale, meaning that everything including shelving fixtures and sodas are dirt cheap. Each week, the big "prices starting at" sign goes lower and lower. It started at $7.99 and has steadily decreased to $5.99, $4.99 and now $2.99. Adam and my purchases began around the $4.99 mark. We have now been there three times in the past week and a half.

The first time we went in, DVD's were still at the unacceptable price of 7 to10 dollars. What the did have, though, were stacks and stacks of the DVD art on cardboard that usually sits behind the row of rental DVD's to show what had been there when they've all been rented. We snickered at the idea of scouring the stacks.... until we found out they were 5 cents each. That means we can get 40 for $2.00!!! So we got 40. They are now used as coasters.

 



Our next trip was on 3/29/2011 at 20:18 o'clock, as reported by our receipt.
I purchased the first three discs of In Treatment. There are a total of 7 discs but I couldn't possibly buy them all at $4.28 each.

Adam chose out 8 DVD's at $1 each. DVD's included: Son of Rambow, Milk, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, The Wrestler, Die Hard, The Amateurs, Be Kind Rewind, and Idiocracy.

I also threw in a king size M&M's into the mix without knowing how much it was, just to see.

 

 

 

Apparently, my In Treatment discs were an additional 60% off and ended up being  about $1.72 each. In conclusion, I went back on 4/1/2011 at 17:02 for the last four discs. Oh and king size candy was 80 cents, so we also went back on 4/05/2011 at 19:30 for a shit ton of candy.

 

The candy was again 80 cents, The Brothers Bloom was $3 and the most pricey item was the Rihanna Rolling Stone magazine at $4.49. But look how hot she is!

In this same trip, I was going to buy season four of Weeds but when I asked how much they were per disc the dude said $4. I think he was mistaken and this might have been before taking 60% off, so I probably should have double checked. But, I figured out what my top line was for buying Weeds. And it's not $4 a disc. It's like $1.50 a disc.

The candy is for this weekend's movie fest. More on that later.