the city approacheth

I'm actually sitting in my new apartment; it still feels like Vidya's, but the deluge of all of my stuff is quickly transforming it. I met my movers at the storage facility I had used in San Jose this morning; it took them four hours, including the drive from San Jose to San Francisco, which was pretty good. As I mentioned to Vidya, the cost of movers is well worth it, particularly since I don't think I could find any friends who would be willing to move the sheer quantity of stuff that I have. It's really quite appalling. I think it's because I've been historically impatient to have the trappings of an adult life (adult in the grown-up sense, not the porn sense), and so I've upgraded many things like dishes, bedding, furniture, etc. that many people don't bother with until much later (if at all -- I'm also a packrat, compared to some of my more minimalist friends). But it's pretty telling that, once Vidya sold her bed and couch (which she seemed to have no trouble parting with), the remainder of her stuff fit into ~3 carloads -- whereas my stuff was stored in a 7'x12' space and couldn't be fit into any number of carloads given the preponderance of furniture.

So today was pretty much taken up by the move, but when the movers were done, Vidya and I walked down the street to the movie theatre and saw 'Mamma Mia!'. It's gotten mixed reviews, and I would actually give it a mixed review myself -- it was heavy on musical, not so heavy on plot or development, a couple of the songs were completely pointless and unexciting, and I think it could have been a little bit shorter. However, I laughed harder than I've laughed at a movie in a long time -- Meryl Streep was as fun to watch as she always is, and the trio of suitors included an entertaining Colin Firth and an even more entertaining Pierce Brosnan, who was entertaining mostly because he couldn't really sing and seemed horribly aware of it, which made his performance completely hysterical. Also, there were several points where various members of the cast were wearing ABBA-style costumes, which was awesome. And I liked the weird Greek chorus going on behind most of the musical numbers, since out of nowhere the staff of the hotel would appear, dressed for the moment, to sing backup, and they were all much uglier than you usually get to see in a Hollywood movie. So I'd say that if you like musicals, or like to watch Pierce Brosnan make a fool of himself, go see it. But you can also watch Pierce Brosnan make a fool of himself in 'The Matador', which is by far a better movie, even if Greg Kinnear isn't quite as amazing to watch as Meryl Streep is.

Okay, no more blogging -- I'm going to get in my car now and drive to Berkeley, where I'm going to spend the night. I need to wash my sheets before I can sleep on them, my dust allergy is clearly kicking in since I've now spent several hours unpacking dusty stuff, and I need to get the rest of my stuff out of John and Jess's house tomorrow anyway, so I might as well spend the night there. Then tomorrow, it's back to the evil city and back to the fun game of trying to fit all of my stuff into an apartment -- wish me luck!