Post Birthday Makeover

I went back into makeup recently and made this video, partially to thank people for their gifts from my birthday!

Art commissioned by Frog50 animation from artist Necia Heda

One of the gifts was the above picture of Evelyn! ^_^ I love it! I’ve included the sketch version as well for fun!

Epilogue to my thrifty adventures into womanhood!

I know I said that I wasn’t going to post anymore of my Dollar Store Makeup Challenge videos, but hear me out… I wanted an excuse to buy a new dress and necklace… and a purse. Whoow. Glad that thats off my chest because… WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE?!?! No seriously, I end up explaining myself a little bit. Just a little though.

How feminism got me the last chicken sandwich: A Christmas Story

wonder_woman_1984Being an adult bachelor with no kids, I’ve had to be creative when the holidays did not quite align with how I had planned things out. For example, I only saw the Jumanji reboot on Christmas day because my roommate was out of town and there was no food in the house and the theater was the only place that I knew would be open that served food.

If this had been a normal year, I would have spent Christmas Eve at my aunt’s house, watching my nieces and nephew open Christmas presents and struggled with the names of cousin-in-law’s and their children. As many of you know, however, 2020 was not like any year in the last hundred years, let alone this current millennium.

This year after many movies that I had been dying to see were canceled because of the Covid-19 Pandemic causing theaters to shutdown and later reduce occupancy, I was excited that Wonder Woman 84 was being released on Christmas Day.

Freaky-Poster-1I had seen a few of the classics once the theaters re-opened: Back To The Future and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back, which both had very few people so it was a nice and safe experience. The only new movie that I had seen in theater was Freaky, which was maybe more interesting than the last one I had seen, Pixar’s Onward, but not quite as great as the surprising smash hit of February, Sonic The Hedgehog.

One of my favorite traditions when it came to new movie, but specifically Super Hero movies, is that the poster has the release date on it, but the actual movie used to come out at midnight the night before. After 2012’s mass shooting in Colorado at a showing of DC comic’s The Dark Knight Rises, the first showings were moved earlier in the day, and masks and some costumes were banned. Whatever. 2020 was going to go out with at least one late night comic book movie release.

I saw online that Wonder Woman was going to have a 7:20 showing, and the tickets were only $5. If 2020 wasn’t a terrible year, I would have thought that was insane for a brand new movie, but AMC theater and Warner Bros. Are having a fight due to Wonder Woman and all future movies for 2021 being released next year on their streaming service at the same time, so AMC had talked about lowering all WB ticket prices because of that.

Great, that means instead of $10 or more, I can pay $5, buy a soda and popcorn, and maybe beat the crowds!” I thought to myself.

EqC6v2KWMAEyAjYWhen I arrived, I felt more confident that I had made the right decision due to the parking lot being nearly empty. A security guard tried to explain that they were closed, but whatever. Theaters stay open late, and so I made my way to the stairs because the escalators were always out of service at night. Mind you, it was always only the up escalator.

I bought my movie from an automatic kiosk, was told that my theater was #13, and I then went inside.

I scoffed at the $15 price of a popcorn and soda combo, and went without my taste or thirst quenched. Movie theaters make most of their money off of concessions, so I felt a little bad, but I don’t want to pay 3 times more than my ticket for sub par food options.

I took a picture in front of the Wonder Woman 84 poster, as well as my ticket going into the theater. This was a movie experience I had been looking forward to for quite some time!

EqC6xw9W4AIlRpVThe theater was completely empty. I wondered why until I saw the screen remind us that streaming movies on Amazon Prime Video was a thing. It felt like AMC was just throwing in the towel, but at least they were going to advertise an experience other than HBO Max. I felt more reassured once a loud group of 4 women showed up right before the movie. During the trailers, a few more people showed up.

During a trailer for Wonder Woman 84, I started to worry. A light from a phone flashed for a few moments, and I thought ‘Really?’ I can cut a projectionist some slack showing an ad for the movie we were about to watch, but come on with the phones!

The movie began. A few moments later, after a Wayne truck brought Diana a photograph, she reminisces about her time on Paradise Island, and her mom starts the story of Diana’s origin story.

How much of the previous movie were they going to recap? Was I… watching the first movie?!

wonder womanAfter checking my ticket that said something like Wonder Woman FanFav on it, I exited the movie not 100% sure if it was the wrong movie. I approached the kiosk, found two of the women from my theater there, and the customer service rep asked “Are you wanting a refund for Wonder Woman as well?”

They thought that it was weird that so many people wanted to see their only showing of Wonder Woman that day, but maybe we had just wanted to watch it before the movie came out on Christmas Day. He then explained that they had been showing it at least all that week, but agrees that maybe they should have stopped showing it that day to prevent confusion.

So I got into my car and drove home. I stopped by Popeye’s to grab a chicken sandwich. I was the third car in line, and when it was my turn, and when I talked to the speaker they explained that they were actually closed, but they could sell me their last chicken sandwich. It was 8pm. Christmas hours.

chicken sandwichI heard the car behind me upset as the attendant explained to them that I had received the last of the food, The Classic Chicken Sandwich. The driver yelled to the cars behind them to go home cause there was no more food.

Any later, and I would have been upset for a second reason. Without attempting to see this movie, I probably would have eaten somewhere else and not have received this last chicken sandwich. I thought about this as I ate in the parking lot. Do you know what? That was the best chicken sandwich I had had all year long… after throwing the pickles into the grass of course. Pickles are just ruined cucumbers, which I love.