We took The Boy to the Tech Museum in San Jose last Saturday. This isn’t the kind of thing I’ve ever really given much thought before, but there’s a lot of cool stuff for kids to do in our part of the state, so we’ll be taking advantage of it periodically and I’m sure I’ll be boring you to death afterward. Especially after Screaming Little Person is born — only nine weeks away now, sweet Jesus. All posts will be written in baby talk and will smell like spitup. I’m not sure how we’ll take care of the spitup part, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually.
Anyway, if you’ve never been to The Tech, and you are in full- or part-time possession of a child who likes to touch every damn thing he sees, hie thee to the museum immediately. It might not be an absolute kiddie wonderland, but for ten bucks or so, you can let the grubby little demon in your life do a few hours of worry-free running around. It’s even sort of educational.
The Boy enjoyed himself immensely. He did throw a tantrum for about ten minutes because we made him eat lunch (”YOU’RE FORCING ME! I DON’T WANT TO!”), but I think that had a lot to do with us stupidly letting him fill up on popcorn during Charlie and the Chocolate Factory beforehand. Yes, The Tech comes with a movie theater — an IMAX screen, even. I think they normally show typical IMAX fare — you know, movies about dolphins or space — but I guess a regular kiddie flick must wind up on the bill from time to time.
So here’s the point of today’s post: I don’t like IMAX. It’s too goddamn much. I know this goes against one of the cardinal rules of being a guy, but I could really care less how big the screen I’m staring at happens to be. As long as I can make out the important stuff, I’m happy. When Dizzle the Drunken Jackass lived here, we agreed to put his big-screen TV in the living room so he wouldn’t have to pay to store it, and he was forever bringing people over to the house to stare at it. That thing was his pride and joy, and I guess it must be impressive to some people, but to me, it was an eyesore with a blurry screen.
The Tech doesn’t have just any old IMAX screen, either. It’s an insanely huge, dome-shaped IMAX screen, meaning that no matter where you sit, you’re staring up at the fucking ceiling. Watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in there was sort of like this:
Only worse.
And oh, God forbid the camera moves more than once during a scene — you have to choose between getting whiplash and not having any idea what’s going on. By the time we exited the theater, my head hurt, my back hurt, and my ass hurt.
So here’s my public vow: No more IMAX. It doesn’t make bad movies good, as I learned when I saw Sky Captain and the Waste Of My Ten Dollars on the big screen in Dublin. And it takes movies that are actually pretty darn good, like Charlie, and renders them painful to watch.
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