SPELLBOUND

I was at the corner of Granville and Broadway today at 10am. Early! I had to drop some crap off with a friend and that was the only time she could meet me.

Afterwards, I did a little window shopping at Restoration Hardware, Multimedia Technologies, and Pottery Barn. Gaming software and home furnishing. It’s what Carmack does on his weekends for sure.

I didn’t buy anything at those places, but I did pick up the new Black Hawk Down : Deluxe Edition over at Future Shop. I got home around 1:30pm and resisted the temptation to play tennis with Arash and Mitchell.

Instead, I had to send out some e-mails and I popped in Black Hawk for a quick spin. I just started it and did my e-mailing as I went. I’ve seen the movie before, but I was impressively reminded of why the sound guys on that film won an Oscar. I couldn’t finish the film because I had softball to get ready for.

I’m the team captain for softball, which isn’t a testament to my leadership abilities, but more for the fact I was the sap who decided he would organize the whole team. I send out e-mails, remind people of their games, make sure everybody has all the equipment, and in general rally the troops. We meet at 4pm in our courtyard and I’m relieved to see we have exactly enough people to prevent a default. We head off to the fields and we get one more on the way, so we’re totally in the clear.

At the field, I see our opposition, the Metals and Materials Engineering grad team. It’s like 12 guys throwing around the ball. The bases are all set-up and ready to go. I leave my team to warm-up and I jog over to the MMAT team. I figure out who’s their captain.

I ask, “Where are all your ladies?”

“They’ll be here soon.”

I give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s 4:25pm and game time is supposed to be 4:30pm on the dot. I go back to warm-up with my team. Ten minutes pass and none of their girls show up. I go back to their captain at 4:35pm.

I ask him again where his ladies are. He assures me again that two of them will show up. I tell him we can’t wait forever. He assures me again that he’ll have his ladies. He asks me if his two females show up, can he have eight players in total. I tell him that the rules are 7 players total with only with two girls. Generously, I agree with him that if by 4:50pm if he doesn’t get his girls then his team defaults.

I toss the ball around with my team for the next several minutes. Around 4:48pm one of MMAT’s girls shows up. Time advances to 4:50pm. Our team goes over to the other team.

“So, MMAT what’s up, where’s your other girl?”, I ask.

“The second girl should be on that bus right now, she should be getting off at that stop”, MMAT captain responds.

He points to a bus that’s on the street parallel to the field. He then points to the stop down the road. Everybody is now watching the bus as it whizzes down the road towards the stop.

I tell my team if a girl gets off that bus, we have a game, otherwise we win by default. The bus barrels down the road and shows no sign of stopping and it blows by the stop with emphasis.

MMAT captain turns around and concedes defeat to me. I accept. I suddenly realize that I have just won my first game/match as a member of a St. John’s College sports team. I also realize I don’t give a damn that I won it by a technicality.

Both teams agree to play for fun, and they smoke us. Then again, it wasn’t really fair. And who cares really? We won already.

We return back to SJC for dinner. During dinner Arash and I, convince Patrick to go see Spellbound with us. It’s playing at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas.

I’ve always known it for being an art house theatre where the literati go to see their “arty” films. It’s my first time going. We’re in Cinema 3 and as we sit down, we notice there’s a balcony.

Several seconds later, we’re in the balcony and approve of its sight lines. I’ve never watched a movie in a balcony before. I am excited, possibly visibly so. We’re early, so Patrick, Arash, and I embark on a very interesting conversation, the contents of which do not belong anywhere near a blog.

Spellbound is a documentary about eight contestants in the 1999 American Spelling Bee. It’s a fantastic, entertaining, and candid look into the high-pressure world of spelling bees. When done right, documentaries can be some of the most compelling films. If you’ve been looking to try something new in your movie-watching ways, I strongly suggest Spellbound.

So, now I’m home and at the end of this rambling post, fueled by the cheese nachos I made myself about twenty minutes ago.