It's a hard salami

Our checker at the grocery store yesterday decided to play "hide the salami" with us — specifically, he hid my pound of Margherita hard salami in a plastic bag behind the counter, despite the fact that we'd brought our own bags and were bagging our groceries ourselves. The net result was that we went home, all unawares, without the eight dollars of salami we'd paid for. When I found out, I was mad enough to throw toast — specifically, the two slices of bread I was toasting for lunch, on which I now had nothing to put.

Other things happened yesterday to put me in a generally lousy mood. I don't usually throw toast. Now I've replaced my pound of hard salami (stop sniggering, Jenkins), but I'm still irrationally cranky about this.

Titans & Terrors

Two outings this weekend:

Friday I saw my third Cinematic Titanic live show. (Cinematic Titanic is the sequel, of sorts, to Mystery Science Theater 3000: movie riffing by Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, and other original cast members.) It was the world premiere of Rattlers, a movie I remembered from my youth (okay, I only remembered the bathtub scene). What I did not remember was how cheaply filmed, deathly boring, and ham-handedly sexist it was — which, happily, made it perfect fodder for riffing. The Titans were more comfortable and freewheeling than the last time I saw them live, 20 months ago, which I suppose makes sense. There were times I'm sure they had to skip riffs because the audience was laughing too hard. (In the bathtub scene, as the woman was twisting awkwardly away from the camera to avoid losing the PG rating: "I can't tell if that's modesty or scoliosis.") Because this was the premiere, the Titans were still refining the script, and we got a little peek at the process: a few scenes after an extended dialogue about voiceovers, which sort of confused the audience, Joel asked Trace, all innocent, "Hey, Trace, could you tell us about voiceovers again?" Trace said, "No, because that bit didn't work."

I was about six feet from the edge of stage left, wedged into one of the little chairs they packed the Wilbur's pit with, and by the time the show was over my back was killing me. Despite being diametrically opposite the start of the post-show meet-n-greet lineup, I managed to be 13th (or so) in a line that stretched all the way around the theater and met itself. Both Joel and Trace gave me a sidelong look and said I looked familiar, which made me all fanboy-happy, and I got to chat a little with Mary Jo about her opening act, Josh about his pitch-perfect rendition of Elvis Costello's Accidents Will Happen, and Frank about his gouty knees. (They're much better, thank you.) I walked out into 40 mph winds that almost snatched my autographed DVD insert.

Last night, adfamiliares and I attended the Big Broadcast of 1946, a live-action radio play by the Post-Meridian Radio Players. (I saw their War of the Worlds show last year, and various shows they put on at Arisia.) It was much tighter than last year's show (which topped 3 hours), with a first act of corny Noises Off-style behind-the-scenes radio station comedy, and a second consisting of two spooooky CBC radio plays, played straight, and no crossing of the streams. Before the show and during the intermissions, the cast and crew were in character as a 1946 radio cast and crew, with cigarette girls roaming the aisles selling Zagnut bars and Abba Zabas. Most of the sound effects were done on-stage, by a foley crew, and Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band provided the music. There was an unpolished, broad, community theater feel to the whole production, but it was a charming night out, and a lovely date with my lovely wife. We spent the bus ride home discussing Gary Gygax and the evolution of board games.

I'm not even going to talk about saving money on gas

Because I was riding my bike to work, I stopped buying MBTA monthly passes in June of this year. I just bought one for November. They're $59, so I ordinarily would've spent $295 on public transportation during that time. I actually spent $145 (because I do still sometimes take the bus / T).

My bike saved me $150 this summer!