Last night, we (Alex, myself, and a couple of guys from my program) went to a Big Lebowski beer garden on campus, which entailed onerous lining up, for entrance, for drink tickets and then to exchange drink tickets for actual drinks, but this resulted in getting mildly tipsy in a movie theatre while watching the aforementioned film, which, for my money is not a bad way to spend a Friday night.

I was expecting the requisite quote shouting, which was almost made easier by the way everyone in that movie repeats themselves when they say something especially trenchant, but not the (invented?) “shouting ‘Lebowski!’ every time someone says ‘Lebowski’”, nor the jackass sitting behind us, who not only did the quote-shout, but also the “talk along with the lyrics of the songs on the soundtrack ” (seriously, it’s Creedence, you don’t deserve a Nobel prize) and fully explained totally obvious jokes like “See, because Ralph’s is the store? Where he wrote the cheque? They put the ashes in a coffee can!” I still had a good time, but this affirmed my long-held suspicion that my friends and I are smarter than most of the people in the world. (In other words, I had a great time. Superiority rules.)

This belief was not shaken by my Starbucks* encounter with a “network marketer” who was sitting at the next table and talking to her coffee date — from some nebulous financial services company — about her “product” and how when you sell things, you need a product and about how she herself is a hypocrite because she invests money in things that she disagrees with; but if it’s happening, she wants her piece! (Which…ugh, whatever.) Basically it was boring and loud.

So I tried to drown them out, reading Zizek on Lenin. Woo. Woo?

*Eggnog latte! If there’s one benefit to having Christmas decorations up even before US Thanksgiving, it’s the eggnog latte.