Visiting Neighbors

Cheap Entertainment

Romney and I were pretty sad when our main source of cheap entertainment closed down just a few weeks ago.

Photo from scrivner of flickr.

Restaurant Row Theaters was the dollar theater of Honolulu. For a total price of $2.00 (pricing had recently climbed to $3.00) we used to be able to see some of the interesting, or not so interesting, movies just before they came out on DVD. The theater had a 50 year lease at $1.00 a year with the plaza it's in and it's been there for 15 years so far. But recently the plaza was bought out and the new owners are trying to "clean up" it's image. They think the cheap entertainment attracts the "wrong" crowd of people. (I guess that includes my wife and me along with the hundreds of other young couples I've seen go there.) So the plaza offered the theater millions of dollars and bought them out of their lease. Bye bye dollar theater.

Our last option for cheap movies is the "Red Box" or "DVDPlay" at the grocery stores. It's cheap and easy to use, although the movie selections are minimal. But, $1.00 beats the $10.00 you'll have to pay at the full-priced theater or $5.00 at Blockbuster to rent.

Picture from videobusiness.com

Legend

So Romney bought her brother the movie Legend for his birthday. I remember watching it when I was younger.

I had mixed feelings about it; I remember it being cool, but scary at the same time. Anyway, I had forgotten the movie even existed until we saw it on his wishlist. I really want to see it again. I remember something about the boy (who I now realize was Tom Cruise) jumping into a lake or river and becoming trapped in it. I think that's the part that scared me to death as a kid. Anyway, the next time we visit Taylor we'll have to get him to let us watch it.

Happy Birthday Romney!!!

I know this is a bit late, but we really haven't done anything worth blogging about so this is the most exciting thing I could think of. Well, Romney just turned... You really don't think I would tell you how old she is, do you!?! Whatever her age, let's just say she's younger than me. :(

I didn't know what I was going to get her for her birthday. Every time I asked her what she wanted, she said she didn't know. I was ready to buy her something off her Amazon wishlist but she finally started saying what she wanted: a pair of work sandals. *Sigh* She's so practical. However, the family members helped get her some fun things though, including Stranger than Fiction (I usually don't like much of Will Ferrel's stuff and apparently Taylor, Romney's brother, thinks similarly, but we both liked this one, as well as Romney), CandyLand, a Hello Kitty lunch bag that she absolutely adores, a Japanese-character notebook (I don't know which character it is), and another thing or two I don't remember. Plus we got some cash which we used to go out and eat a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. We ended up asking our friends, Justin and Tomoe Call, to come along with us. We also went to Yogurtland for frozen yogurt a new fad that seems to be sweeping Honolulu.

I also made Romney a strawberry cake with vanilla frosting and some "wavy" candles. As she was going to blow the candles out, Justin and Tomoe asked where our video camera was to tape it. With the candles still burning, we started running around looking for the camera but couldn't find it anywhere. Meanwhile, the candles had almost burned out so Romney had to quickly make her wish and blow them out before they sputtered out and died. We were pretty disappointed. Later that night, we found the camera under one of the bedroom nightstands since we really didn't have anywhere else to put it, but I forgot that I was the one who put it there...so it's all my fault. If I hadn't "lost" it, there could have been a short video of Romney blowing out her birthday cake candles. Anyway, happy birthday Roms! You're the best.