As kids return to school this fall, many of them will be assigned to write a report about their summer activities.  In the spirit of that time-honored tradition, may I present "How I Spent My Summer Vacation Hiatus."  My grasp on reality isn’t the best, but I think at least some of these things might have actually happened.

This summer I:

• Sweat;
• Lurked on your blogs without leaving comments (but that doesn’t mean you can lurk on mine- leave a comment dammit!);
• Became obsessed with "So You Think You Can Dance" again this season;
• Learned that despite what I may think, I can’t dance;
• Held a star-studded telethon to raise money for Noassatol awareness;
• Listened to so much Air America Radio that I’m pretty sure Karl Rove is now tapping my phone;
• Ranted on and on to Buckaroo about all the Bush wrongdoings I heard about on the radio; 
• Sweat some more;
• Spell checked Wikipedia- unfortunately my spelling skills aren’t too gud;
• Got caught blatantly lying to Congress (oh wait, that wasn’t me- it was Alberto Gonzales);
• Washed my car only to have haboobs dump buckets of dirt back on it;
• Wrote a sequel to the Bible- I didn’t like the way the first one ended (Jesus kicks some Roman butt now);
• Fought a losing battle against a takeover by the dog-hair dust bunnies;
• Claimed "Executive Privilege" as the reason for not answering every time Buckaroo asked me how my day was;
• Got thrown into jail for driving under the influence of too many Lo-Carb Monsters, but got released after I complained to my mommy that "it isn’t fair" because they didn’t have yogurt on the prison cafeteria lunch menu;
• Was subpoenaed by Congress to appear but didn’t bother to show up (oh wait, that was Harriet Miers and Karl Rove);
• Sweat even more (that’s the price for living in Phoenix during the summer);
• Annoyed the hell out of Buckaroo by constantly asking him "Hot enough for ya?";

And the the thing I did most this summer?

• Took lots of naps!

Yesterday both Buckaroo and I had the afternoon off, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to go see Spiderman 3.  Our thought was that being a Tuesday afternoon, we should be able to avoid the crowds.  I don’t despise crowds, in fact sometimes they can even add to the enjoyment of a movie, but it was nice not having to get to the theatre an hour before showtime to get a good seat.

Phoenix is the movie-watching capital of the world.  It seems we have megaplexes (AMC 24!  Harkins 30!) every block or so.  It’s the unofficial "official activity of summer" around here.  Well, that and sweating.  When the temperature hits 110°F or more, sitting in a cool, dark theatre watching the latest blockbuster sounds like a perfectly lovely way to spend the afternoon. 

Now because the theatre business is so competitive here, in the last decade or so all the theatre companies shut down their older locations and opened new stadium-seating, Dolby-THX-Digital-Blow-Your-Ears-Off movie screens.  There are really only one or two megaplexes I can think of that are more than ten years old.  One of those locations is more or less under a mall (Scottsdale Fashion Square), and that’s where we were headed.

The first clue that things weren’t going to go very smoothly should have been when we were just a couple of blocks away from the mall and Buckaroo realized he had forgot to bring the free passes.  No big deal, I assured him, as our movie showing would be at matinee prices.  We could save the passes for another day.  This was before I realized that I would need to put down a second mortgage on the house to afford the astronomical "matinee discount."  No wonder why Spiderman 3 broke box office records opening weekend; All they needed to sell were 20 tickets to accomplish that feat.

Upon entering the theatre, we realized that we weren’t going to be able to enjoy the movie on a huge screen.  The movie screen we got stuck with seemed barely larger than a parking space.  Believe it or not, this location actually has a smaller screen that they call "The Screening Room."  At least they warn you before you buy your tickets if your movie is playing in that particular theatre.  Again I told myself, no big deal; the actions scenes would still seem larger than life.

We found seats smack dab in the middle, and I began to feel pretty good about things again.  We both took pre-emptive strikes against full bladders by heading to the restroom before the previews began.  As we waited for the movie to start, the theatre began filling up which surprised me.  Remember, this was a Tuesday afternoon and school is still in session.  Where were all these people coming from?  Didn’t they have jobs?  Slackers!

It was about this time when a guy and gal, both probably in their late 20’s or early 30’s, grabbed the seats directly behind us.  I happened to catch them saying something about saving the rest of the seats in their row and additional seats in mine.  Evidently they were the first wave of what was going to be a large group.  Once again I tried to remain optimistic and told myself "no big deal" as their age dictated that they should know how to behave at the movies.  Then the rest of their group began to arrive.

Remember back when you were a young child and your teacher or parents had to remind you to use "your indoor voice?"  This group must never have had that taught to them.  As the previews started and each of them arrived, they would yell across the theatre to one another.  They talked loudly about who was still at the restaurant and had yet to arrive.  For some reason, it was necessary to call these missing members of their group every two minutes and ask where they were.  The group also compared how many drinks each of them had at lunch.  The average was three.  Despite smelling the alcohol on them, I still held out hope they would quiet down once the movie began.

As my luck would turn out, I had the pleasure of sitting a couple seats away from "obvious lady."  You probably know her type.  No matter what the scene, and no matter how obvious the action about to happen was, this lady felt compelled to announce it to her friends.  "Oh he’s in the truck!"  "MaryJane isn’t going to like that!"  "Spiderman had better hurry!"  On and on it went, and every time her friends would guffaw with all the subtlety of a heart attack.

Behind us was "witty comment man."  His job was to add a humorous (at least in his mind) quip to every scene.  "Oh man… Spidey didn’t execute." was his favorite phrase to which all the other guys would give him verbal high-fives.  This seemed to make him awfully proud of himself and encouraged him even more.

A side effect of their "three" drinks seemed to be that every single last one of them had to get up at some point in the movie and stumble over everyone on the way to the restroom.  I felt I was in a vibrating chair as many times as my seat was kicked.  When I thought it couldn’t get any worse and there was only about half an hour of the movie left, the final stragglers from their group arrived drunk off their ass.  There was much shouting back and forth as they found seats, and then of course the topic of where these last few had been needed to be discussed… loudly.

I had had it at this point.  I thought that someone else in the theatre, someone closer to the aisle than Buckaroo and I, would have summoned an usher by now, but no one had.  I announced to Buckaroo that I was going to the restroom and immediately headed out to find the manager.  The unfortunate thing about movie theatres today is that they don’t seem to employ anybody over 25 and under 70.  The manager on duty was a young girl who seemed quite apprehensive about confronting the group as she headed into the theatre.  I really did head to the restroom to disguise my tattle-telling, and when I headed back in, I found  the manager was doing little more than standing near the exit.  Some help she was.

When the movie finally ended, I felt relieved the torture was finally over.  I could never really get into the movie, but in all honesty, I can’t blame that entirely on that group of loudmouth drunks.  As you probably have heard by now, Spiderman 3 is extremely disappointing. 

I won’t give anything away here, but the movie just drags on and on.  I liked the first Spiderman, and I loved Spiderman 2, so I had high hopes for this one.  Everything they seemed to do right in the first two movies, they did wrong here.  MaryJane was annoying, Aunt May seemed to be spouting the same folksy wisdom over and over, and Peter Parker was… well, he was just a weepy mess.  I didn’t count, but it seemed like every other scene was a shot of him crying or looking pensive.  Unlike David who liked all the tears, this hyper-sensitive Spidey got on my nerves.

Even the three villains were boring.  Note to filmmakers: more villains does not equal more fun.  (Did the Batman movies of the early 90’s teach you nothing?)  The most interesting villain (Venom, although we never hear him called that) hardly received any screen time.  I hear that Sony/Marvel is already outlining Spiderman 4, 5, and 6 for production.  My suggestion to them would be to develop the villains more.  I would love to see more of Venom, and a female baddie would be a nice change.

Despite the unpleasant movie-watching experience, I still enjoyed the afternoon with Buckaroo.  If nothing else, it gave us something to rant and then laugh about.  That made for a happy ending after all.

P.S.  Buckaroo found this on the web which pretty much says it all: