Fell's War of the Vegetarian Reubens

Such a great day. Nowhere to be, no commitments, no time limits. I started the day off with a trip to school to try to get my reimbursement for my New Mexico trip. I'm sure that will be quite a feat to get considering the person I have to find, so this first stab at it was not successful. The big news, though, is that I heard the new principal in his office. I guess he's there now. I hope he's good. I didn't go in and introduce myself because he was in a meeting, but I'm hopeful and am glad he's starting in July. The guy they hired last year didn't start until the end of August.

I've been toying with the idea of writing a nicely-worded manifesto to him telling him what I think all the issues with the school are. I feel like if the last guy had it, it could have helped. I mean, the school is so close to being a great school, and it just needs a couple of things instituted. I'm cautiously optimistic.

After going to school, I headed rather aimlessly to Fell's Point. I needed a phone number of a co-worker at the restaurant, and, while I could have just called, I decided to stop in; after all, the Polish girl was working. I got the number and hung out for a bit, then took a nice walk around Fell's Point, something I've rarely done in daylight hours. It was beautiful. The weather was great and everyone on the street seemed to be in a good mood. I had $7 in cash on me and I stopped at Liquid Earth on Aliceanna Street. They make the best vegetarian reuben known to man; I cannot believe how good this sandwich is. I stopped and ate, reading the City Paper. Afterwards, I stopped at Soundgarden. I was going to buy the new Common CD if it was under $10, but it was $12.99 and there were no used copies so I decided against it. I probably shouldn't be spending money right now anyway. I then walked back to the car, and head to the gym, where I had a great workout.

I walked into the movie theater out there in White Marsh after my workout at 2:55. The next showing of Batman Begins wasn't until 3:50, and the next showing of Rize wasn't until 4:10. Luckily, War of the World was on at 3:00, so I saw that.

I liked it, for the most part. My biggest problem was Tom Cruise. I've been a constant defender of him in the past. For one, I think it sucks when people make guesses about a person's sexuality, trying to "out" them or whatever, so I think the press's and people's discussion of that is crummy. Plus, I just think the man makes good movies. I mean, if you go to his IMDB Page, you'll see the guy rarely makes a mistake (in fairness, I have not seen The Last Samurai). No, he's not the greatest actor in the world, but he's certainly showed more of a willingness to stretch than, say, Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford - his turn in Magnolia, for example. And, year after year, he's shown he knows how to choose scripts, and I'd definitely count movies like Rain Man, A Few Good Man, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky and even Minority Report and of course Magnolia as good to great films.

That being said, he's annoyed the crap out of me lately. I share pretty much everyone else's opinion that the guy's off his rocker, and, while I don't think his relationship with Katie Holmes is all that weird (for my money, she's hotter than Nicole Kidman, mostly because, to be fair, Kidman would intimidate the hell out of me and Holmes has this feisty vulnerability that I'm really attracted to. [Re: The Polish Girl]), his argument with Matt Lauer and all the scientology stuff is really overwhelmingly strange. Plus, he really is coming off as an insincere asshole lately. So seeing him and his pearly whites onstage, trying to play a working class slob, was distracting, and I never felt like I was watching anything other than Tom Cruise fighting aliens. This is something that I've heard other people complain about with Tom Cruise, and I guess he just hit that overexposure moment with me. And, damn, those kids sure were annoying. I was definitely rooting for the aliens to get Dakota Fanning. The last disappointment in the film is the falling action scene (English teacher word there), which shows that while we think Cruise's character has made some sacrifices, he really hasn't.

That being said, cool effects, and many scenes were genuinely scary.

After the movie, I worked out again (cardio this time), then came home, where I'm seeing the Tigers beat up on the Indians. I thought about doing some porch-sitting this afternoon, but Jeremy Bonderman is pitching, and there are few things more pleasurable in baseball right now for me than seeing Bonderman pitch. He is the hope for the future, and tonight he's going to get his eleventh win. Hope that didn't jinx him.