PS12 - Parties

Some images from various gatherings, beginning with Sarah Hutchinson's party in the name of the late, great Hughie Grant.

Village Centre, home of Dairy Queen and Busters (not to be confused with Breakers across the street - a confusion we actually made!)

If that's the case, how can they sell their Children Burgers?

Leslie from "CLM and PAL" (but now much cooler) is second from the left, and someone who I'm not supposed to photograph makes a brief appearance - you can see her glaring at me =) ... I said I was going to clone her out, but you'd only make an identification with this photo if you knew her really well. Anyway, you can see most everyone here going over what to sing for Karaoke.

Leslie may be either moving her hair back behind her head or pulling it in exasperation: "If Will doesn't stop taking pictures, I'm going to..." =)

From left to right: Matt Amon, Sarah Hutchinson (Did I ever tell you that she's nice? She's really, really, really nice. Funny too! There are few better people to hang around with.), Scott Cluney (another buddy of mine from high school. He works at the SuperStore and likes FPS games.).

Here's the story of the evening, taken from my journal, and cleaned up to be publicly consumable:

Scott invited me to a little gathering at the private club of the father of one of my departed acquaintances. I got soaked on the way down my road to the bus stop when it started raining in earnest halfway to the heart of Bedford, but I got dried out eventually. I purchased a ticket to see WrestleMania XIX at the cinema, and I made it to the club for around 7:30. Only Matt, a fellow I knew mostly because he was in my movie (though he did crack a few good jokes about my Rifts Dolphin RCC), and his girlfriend Julie (very cool as well) were there, but I did suprisingly well conversation-wise and before long Scott showed up, then "Melissa," and then Sarah...

We all played some pool and had a few drinks, and all was good. I talked to "Melissa" after beating her at pool and I sort of jokingly asked her in a lull, "So, do you still want to sue me about my website?" (I put our prom pictures and an essay about prom night and Safe Grad up, eliciting an e-mail that began with, "GET ME THE HELL OF YOUR WEBSITE!!") She gave me a look indicating that she was very much not amused.

"Sorry, you don't look very amused... are you?"
....
....
[faint smirk]
"Just stop talking."

But she never did have much of a sense of humour. Anyway, back to the postive things - I met some new people and got reaquainted with some old ones and eventually we went back to Bedford to get something to eat and then hang out in a karaoke bar. I slaughtered Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," but later I came back and did a passable rendition of Simon's "Kodachrome®."

I started off by saying that I was on the take from the Fire Marshall; I went around to Karaoke Bars that were too full, and my singing would clear the places out. The MC said, "You know, it's pretty sad when your own friends are telling you to shut up." Anyway, the song began, and I modified a few lines as follows:

From verse 1: When I think back on all the crap I learned at CPA...
From verse 2: If you took all the girls I knew when I was single (all zero of them!)...

and when I sat back down again Matt said, "That was excellent Weird Al!" (by this he meant the style, but I only altered the two lines) But the weirdest thing was that when I started singing, all the women from the table in front of me got up and started dancing. Perhaps they had a few drinks in them. The MC said that it was the craziest thing he'd ever seen.

Whenever I go out, I take my camera, and whenever I'm with a group of people, I'm often inclined to take some pictures as a semi-permanent reminder of the night. Of events like Frosh Week at my university (which I'm looking forward to already, and it's only April), I'll take several rolls of photos and put them up on my website as a photo journal. Anyway, I tend to take my pictures very quickly and I only advise people that I'm going to take a picture when I have to, and on this night I took a picture of everyone without warning. The suddent flash elictied a few "ugh!"s but after my eyesight readjusted to the gloom I could see "Melissa" glaring at me like I had just killed her sister. A few seconds later she stalked over and said:

"Don't ever take a picture with me in it without my knowledge."
"Don't worry, I'll Photoshop you out of it."

... but in the end you can see I decided not to bow down to her. Anyway, I make a lot out of this issue because to me it's sort of an ongoing scary joke. Overall, I can't empahaize enough that it was a fun night.

The pictures to follow are from the night Mike, Joey, and I saw WrestleMania XIX at the Bayer's Lake cinema:

Jerry: "Oh my God, JR! Texas is leading by six, and they're at the free throw line!" JR: "It's looking to be a slobberknocker tonight. Michigan State is getting whipped like a government mule!" Jerry: "Look, puppies! Did I tell you how much I like puppies, JR? I love puppies! Puppy power! Let's see the puppies! Oh, look at the puppies!" JR: "Hold on a minute, the show hasn't started yet."

Mike and Joey setting up their Legendary Combo.

Coach: "Kill the children!" Actually, it's probably just my camera... I hope.

Now that I've got my quota of making fun of the announcers out of the way, I must say that WrestleMania XIX was a great show. It was far better than XVIII (X8). Here's a journal entry on the subject:

I just thought I'd share with you my e-mail concerning WrestleMania XIX that was posted on Wrestling Observer Online which I think is a tad harsh now (especially what I said about the poor Dudley Boys - I mean how can you disparage anyone who lays their body on the line to entertain people night after night), but it did sum up my feelings at the time that I wrote it (that evening):

I will remember WrestleMania XIX as a great show with some sad moments. HHH has buried everyone now, and here's my prediction for the WHT championship fight at Wrestlemania XX: HHH vs. Sting. (Oh, I hope not.) Great storytelling in that match, though. As a matter of fact, I find the storytelling more entertaining than the constant high spots because I'm numb to the nutbar moves now (but boy it sure was impressive to see Brock do the SSP - until the landing).

HBK and Jericho I *loved* ... again, great mat / heel work. At least with this I can see it's not over like it might be for poor Booker T. I can see this going to the RAW-only PPV in June, along with Goldberg and the miscellaenous junk (Dudleys, Kane, HHH), so we'll have lots of great reasons to buy in. BUT they missed a golden opportunity to turn Jericho face. That should have been it when they hugged - then you could pull a mentor thing like Flair is doing with HHH (except that this would be about a thousand times better). Anyway, even with the dissappointing finish it was the match of the night in my opinion.

Worst match? The World Tag Team Championship match on Heat. The best thing it did was let the viewers at home take in the scope of the event (the size of the Field). As far as the match went, there was too much going on, and the commercial break was poorly timed. It should have just focused on Storm and RVD, and let Kane and Morley do moves on the outside. Having the Dudleys around didn't make much sense when you think about what they did. So what's their status now? Are they suspened yet again? Honestly, I couldn't care less. Send them both to the minors. They're so boring that people go "We want tables!" 30 seconds into their matches. It's worse than hearing "Booooring." Anyway, Storm and Regal was really the only good tag team on RAW.

The second-worst match would be Taker's handicap match, but it really wasn't that bad. Taker worked really hard and I liked the finish. Good call to keep Jones out of the match. I think the Miller Lite Catfight Girls were an insult to WrestleMania (but I really liked the Women's title fight - the heck with Tori, it's all about Trish! When does SHE appear in Playboy?), and I wanted Stacy to slap them for being such ingrates. I groaned when I saw Stacy and Tori roll over Coach. We've seen that a thousand times. Coach acts like some guy who can't get laid. At least he's not at the announce table this time. Speaking of announcing, JR and Jerry were better than usual. Tazz outdid himself, and Cole was okay but someone should have given him some freaking water or something at the end.

The WWE Tag Team Championship match just didn't go long enough - they should have kept it going like some of the other big tag matchs those guys (Los Gurreros & Chris Benoit) have had at previous PPVs and let the crowd get into it midway. The Crusierweight match had the same problem. Both should have went twenty minutes. And why couldn't they? It's PPV - they can go all bloody night if they want, can't they? They should let the wrestlers have more input on how long they want to go. I must go cry myself to sleep since HHH and Vince (great match with Hogan by the way (whod've thought?), that shot where Vince's crimson, smiling face comes up over the apron was a killer) have destroyed the future of WWE. (Gee, Vince really did come through on his promise before No Way Out 2002 to kill the WWF...) Hey, here's the #1 best thing about the brand extension, though it's been said before: HHH can only bury people on one show at a time. A few months (heck, even unto years) from now, everyone will look back on this night with a, "WHY?!" when they see how the RAW brand died a horrible death. I'll probably buy the DVD just to remember Jericho and Booker T and I'll always stop watching just before the finishes.

Looking back on this, I think I was a little over-the-top cynical. What I really want to tell you is that this was an awesome show that you ought to catch on DVD when it comes out. This show was one of the best WrestleManias ever (much better than XVIII/x8), with good matches from start to finish, and I think anyone would love to see it (though I admit that pro wrestling doesn't have quite the class reputation that baseball does; so it's quite possible that you'd have to be married to someone to get them to see it, and even then they probably will not admit that it was a great show =) ).

The Undertaker was on The Score tonight talking about how he didn't like how some wrestlers listened to people on the internet too much and when I look at my e-mail I think he has a point. I would gladly take back what I said about the Dudleys except to say that I'm rarely excited to see them on television. Still, though, I think HHH has no business being the World Heavyweight Champion. Oh, you know that he's engaged to Stephanie McMahon (both a writer and the boss' daughter), right? There's got to be some bias. But, even as I say this, he's not that bad. But that's beside the point; everyone's main gripe is that he is burying all his successors to main-event status. Pedigree clean in the middle? C'mon!

Remember, I am asserting that all comments here are overly cynical and too harsh.

These next pictures are from a nice gathering at Jen's mother's place.

Jen's smiling, so she must have sunk Jeremy's battleships. From left to right: Jeremy Strong, Jenny Allen.

Charles, star of Film Amateura. Charles is a very funny and very resourceful sort of person. Here you can see him using a Post-It® note to roll a- um, roll up loose tobacco. See, Jen likes saving money, so she buys rolling tobacco in tins, but tonight she ran out of paper. Yeah.

These next pictures are from a night where we went to Jen's father's place and started to make a zombie movie.

Paul Fox, from the band The Amateurs.

From left to right: Allyson Haas, Michael Fox, Joey Campbell.

From left to right: Charles Conrad, Jenny Allen, Allyson Haas, Michael Fox.

This was after I shot a scene (I was writing/directing said zombie movie) which required the use of stage blood. After this, Ally and Charles left, and the movie is still unfinished - a shame, because it would have been splendid. It was a guided-improv masterpiece. Maybe someday we'll finish it and put it on willmatheson.com! Ally: "This is the last time I work for Will Matheson!"

Joey, using a generation-2000 computer to play generation-1988 Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! It's funny; they've got all these modern consoles going and Joey's like, "Can I play Punch-Out?" That says a lot about the staying power of all those old NES games.

Mike: "Uh, yeah... Will's trying to document his life." From left to right: Michael Fox, Paul Fox.

Paul: "Man, these caps are something else!"

Paul: "... and enjoy a nice, refreshing Vanilla Coke!"

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