On Friday Megan and I decided to go see the new Indiana Jones movie. We headed out for the dollar theater, but before we hit the theater we needed to pick up some cash. So we stopped at a convenience store and I got 20 bucks back on $1 worth of Laffy Taffy(tm). We headed over to the theater and spent part of our money on tickets for the movie, popcorn and a delicious beverage. The movie was not terrible, but not as good as any of the other Indiana Jones movies. I think I would've been really disappointed to drop 10 bucks on that movie, but the benefit of having a dollar theater is that you're not blowing a bunch of money to go see a movie, so your expectations for the movie aren't as high. Mainly, I think Spielberg needs to lay off aliens for a while. I think the movie would've been way better if it 1) included actual historical or archaeological facts 2) didn't have aliens, which is the most hokey premise for an Indiana Jones movie ever. Other than that, it was fine.
On Saturday Megan and I were going to do some yard work, but we don't really have any yard work implements. So we decided to go out and hit some yard sales and see what we could see. We were a little disappointed because there weren't too many yard sales near our house. We drove by a few sad-looking yard sales without stopping. We found one last yard sale in our area and we decided to stop. When we got out of the car, Megan recognized a girl from her old ward. As it turned out, the girl and her fiance were having a yard sale so they wouldn't have as much stuff to move when they got married. So they were telling everyone, "We're not trying to make money, we're just trying to get rid of everything." As we pulled up they were trying to convey to a guy who didn't speak much English that he could take everything he could fit in his truck for $10. Megan and I ended up getting a few things for ourselves. I got a bookshelf for my video games, Megan got some clothes and that small-holed waffle iron she's been wanting, and we also picked up a couple Seinfeld posters for decorating our casa. Specifically, we are now the proud owners of these two posters:
Both of these posters are now hanging in the entertainment room, which is growing more and more awesome (more on that later).
The next place the $20 took us was to buy a fire pit we saw on craigslist. We picked up the fire pit for $5, which was a steal. Once again, the guy was moving and was just trying to get rid of things. The fire place was the last impressive thing the $20 bought us. After that it bought us lunch at Costco and made a small donation to charity. By the time we reached the end of the $20, we just had to stand in awe of what all it got us. Let's review, shall we?
* Two Movie tickets
* One Large Popcorn and Drink
* Three shirts
* One Jacket
* One Waffle Iron
* One Bookcase
* Two Seinfeld Posters
* One Fire Pit
* Lunch for Two at Costco
* One Small Donation to Charity
That's a long way for 20 bucks to go in this day and age.
Well, I have to wrap this up in less time than I'd like. I've been working on this entry in short spurts for way too long. The weekend I'm talking about was over a week ago. I need to just finish up and let y'all read this.
There are two other things we need to cover from this weekend, one thing that we bought after the 20 bucks were gone, and one thing we saw on the side of the road that blew our minds.
The other thing we bought was a little something we found at DI (aka The Land of Wonders). Megan and I were looking to see if anyone gave any useful lawn care tools to DI, but as we found, those aren't the sorts of things people give away. I guess if you find a good shovel, rake, or lawnmower you just keep it until it's too old and broken to be donated. Anyway, while we were in DI, I saw a little black box that looked a little familiar. It looked like a small TV, but the screen wasn't like a TV screen at all. It was narrower and if it was a printed page, you'd say it was a portrait rather than a landscape. I recognized immediately that I was staring at a Vectrex that DI was undoubtedly selling as a crappy TV. Vectrex was a contemporary of the Atari 2600. It was (and still is) the only home gaming system that had its own vector graphics monitor (hence the name Vectrex). Vectrex was kind of a rare beast, seeing as how it came out shortly before the video game crash of 1983. The console itself normally sells on ebay for upwards of $200. We bought our Vectrex at DI for $15. I knew right away what a steal we were getting. Unfortunately, there were no games included with the system (save of course the amazing Asteroids clone that comes built into the system). Anyway, long story short, we now own yet another gaming system. I can't tell you how smart I feel to have picked it up. Now all I need is to invest in a multicart (a specially made cartridge where some programmer throws all the games ever made for the Vectrex on one handy cartridge) and I'll be iron like a lion in Zion as far as the Vectrex is concerned. If you haven't googled it yet, here's what a Vectrex looks like:
It really is one of the more unique and rare gaming systems in the universe.
Aside from my video gaming high, Megan's keen eye spotted something as we were going to find the guy who was selling the fire pit. We were just driving and she said, "Oh man! Oh man!" Then she turned the car around. I didn't know what to think and I couldn't tell what she was even talking about until we turned around and saw one the most amazing things I've ever seen in my entire life: an all-original 1968 Pontiac Bonneville Ambulance. Back after the truck died, I was looking at a lot of hearses and ambulances. I wanted something awesome and unique, and especially if it had suicide doors. Anyway, I had seen pictures of cars like this online, but I had never seen it in real life. Seriously, you really have to see this beast to fully appreciate it. It had all the original paint and chrome. It had been actually used as an ambulance right up until the guy was selling it. It was in service as an ambulance at one of the local racetracks. So all the lights and the siren worked, and it had stretchers and all the other ambulance accoutraments you could hope for. There were only 50 of these cars ever made, only 8 of which are still around. So this was a rare and awesome beast. The price tag? $4,500. Megan and I both really wanted to buy it. Because it was an ambulance, it only has 28,000 original miles on its 400 big block engine. It truly was a thing of beauty. Megan and I took some pictures, but they didn't survive somehow. I found a picture of the car at the race track which made me love it all the more. Check it out:
Unfortunately the picture is black and white, but you can really get a sense of what an awesome machine it is. Too bad I didn't have $4,500 burning a hole in my pocket.
Anyway, this is the umpteenth straight day that I have added to this entry and it's officially time for me to stop messing with it and just post it. So there ya go.