Not Just Another Day at the Movies… April 7, 2009

When we’re sitting around looking for something to do and someone suggests that we go catch a movie I usually groan with boredom. Everyone remembers those days growing up when you couldn’t drive and you weren’t old enough to do anything but get dropped off by your parents at the movie theater or the mall. On top of that “last-resort-entertainment” association, the price of movie tickets has skyrocketed in the past few years to as much as $15/ticket! Very, very rarely do I ever want to see a movie that much. The amount of other perverse, freaky, weird, and fun things I can do for $15 far outstrips a movie. But, thats not to say that it isn’t occassionally fun to go out and catch a flick. Luckily, Dallas has some better and cheaper places to go than the mega-chain theaters.

Independent movie theaters like the Magnolia and Angelika often feature not your typical multi-million dollar blockbusters, but more thoughtful, intellectual movies, the kind which often win millions of awards from some academy or another. Another bonus is that they have features that your mega-movie theater does not. At the Angelika, with locations at Mockingbird Station and in Plano, they offer student discounts (which are rare nowadays) so that a weekend evening movie averages about $7.50.  Many independent theaters offer a full bar so that you’re entertained even if the movie is too intellectual or weird for you to enjoy, which sometimes happens. The Angelika also features unusual events such as matinee movies specifically for mother’s to bring crying babies to sleep during, and special features where they play classic old movies such as “Breakfast at Tiffanys” or “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” on the big screen. The Magnolia is an indie theater in Uptown, where they also offer a student discount which brings ticket prices down to $7.00.

But, if you’re exceptionally broke (like me) and haven’t been out to the mega theaters lately, you might want to check out Cinemark’s Plano Movies 10, a discount theater at Park & Coit in Plano. Although the movies only come to this theater after they have left the big screen at full price theaters, the delay is usually only a month or so. And, tickets for a weekend night are only $2.00! If you’re looking for an even better deal, show up for 75cent tuesdays and save all your money for something better. The price being so low almost pushes you to see movies that you would never waste two-hours of your life on otherwise. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes you regret it.

Perhaps after watching Slumdog millionaire you find all of your movies missing a certain hint of insane dancing and hindu music. Never fear! I have a cure. At the obscure theater FunAsia Richardson located right off george bush you can watch Bollywood movies to your hearts content. I’ve never ventured out to do this so I don’t know if they actually have subtitles on these movies or not, but prices range from $2 – $10 and its certainly an experience you won’t find anywhere else.

So next time you do dinner and a movie, go out of your comfort zone and make it a little more exciting, as well as a little more inexpensive.

There is no greater motivation to stay home than being broke March 10, 2009

So, challenging myself this semester to get out at least once a week and experience Dallas, I knew this blog would be difficult. However, I expected the difficult part would be finding something unique to do and talk about. What I’ve found, is that there is no shortage of interesting things in Dallas if I can convince myself to go. The reality is that I just have to push myself to do things that are out of my comfort zone. Not that I’m one of those people who isn’t up for trying anything insane or challenging, kind of the opposite really. Anything is worth doing once if it makes a good story. The issue is that my “comfort zone” consists of a box of goldfish, my laptop, and couch. Up until now I’ve been pretty good about finding opportunities and taking them, anything to do that doesnt center around food or shopping qualifies in my opinion. What sucks is that adventuring in Dallas gets to be a little pricey for the typical broke and lazy college student. Especially when that college student got two, count them TWO speeding tickets last month. (Not that she’s bitter).

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So recently my challenge has evolved into something more – motivate myself to go out and explore, and make sure it’s cheap or relatively free. Lucky for me, my boyfriend is a gearhead and spends 95% of his day online talking with other people who love cars. the other 5% of his day could probably be broken down to 2% eating, 1% sleep, 1% pretend to listen to girlfriend while eating or thinking about cars and 1% actually talking about/ working on cars with people in real life. That last 1% led to my subject for this post, The Plano car meet.

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Every wednesday night when the weather is decent, around 9pm hundreds of crazy gearheads drag their girlfriends to the May Hua Parking lot at Park and Coit, park their ride and wander. Now, before you picture “the fast and the furious” in your mind consider this: having a passion for cars does not mean that you drive a nice one. Not everyone has Hollywood funding your corvette with green flames on it or whatever. Part of the fun of wandering the car meet is to see what kind of ridiculous home-made modifications people have made. In fact, the plano kids who come from wealthy families are almost looked down upon unless they can prove that they didn’t just pay someone to soup-up their 350z. True passion for the machine and knowledge are coveted here, as well as the fun and ridiculous. My favorite discovery of the night was an imported right-hand drive civic del sol with an automatic hard top. This might not make sense to anyone else, but my brother had that car when I was in high school, only I would attempt to take off the hard top of the convertible myself and nearly get crushed under it. Sometimes my neighbors would sit and watch me struggle for amusement.

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it's robo-car!

I will admit, I am a fan of cars myself, while my knowledge wouldn’t be enough to gain me any street cred here. It is enough interest however, to wander around and enjoy seeing the hard work that people put into their rides. Currently, my baby, a 3000gt VR4 twin turbo is getting an engine rebuild right now, but as soon as she’s fixed I will be showing her off in the May Hua parking lot.

my baby!

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Amazingly enough, the Plano police who tend to be bored and abuse their power by writing tickets for “loitering” and “bad thoughts”, actually leave the car meet alone. This is unusual since any collection of gearheads and machismo almost always turns into a pissing competition of some sort, in this case street racing. Occasionally you might see someracing up and down Coit, but for the most part it is frowned upon on the off chance that the police will decide to break up the party.

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There used to be a car meet called Rice Killers in the Central Market parking lot on Monday nights, more of a mix of people with expensive toys than those interested in mechanics, but it has since been dismantled because of street racing on 190. Although I’ve been less of a fan of that meet due to the overwhelming amount of douchey mid life crisis guys with power-ranger-esque street bikes, the remainders of the Rice Killers meet has decided to join the wednesday night crew and has turned it into more of an event. And of course, the best part is that it’s free! So, if you find yourself getting restless on a wednesday night, even if you don’t know anything or really care for cars, come to the meet and wander around. You might just learn something. Or if you’re a single girl, you’ll probably get hit on. Just be warned that anyone there will probably always care more about their car than you. But don’t take it personally, you just dont have 300 horsepower.