Busy week

There was:

Wed: The Play Oh Man! after work. Not as acidic as I would've liked, but Kumar's stand-up routine during the interval was enough to make me want to go see him at the Boom Boom Room. (Yes, sadly, I've never been there.) Plus yesterday, on Discovery channel, they did Six Degrees on Singapore and one of the six featured was Kumar, so you know, it's a sign.

Thu: Dinner with the uncle and aunt visiting from England. We had really good North Indian food --- well, really good for the most of us, a little too hot on the heels for post-India-trip T. If anyone in Singapore wants to know where, it's this little corner coffeeshop at the intersection of Norris Road/Serangoon Road. It's not posh, but it sure is yummy.

Fri: Survivor, at home, with friends. Not very exhausting. On the other hand, my decision to stay up for another hour to watch some extras from the extended Fellowship of the Ring DVD? A treat for me (I hadn't watched these bits in almost a year), not so much a treat for my braindead/sleep-deprived shell.

Which brings me to the real highlight of the week: We have tickets to the Lord of the Rings marathon on December 17!!! All thanks to cousin Dan, who is nowhere as redneck as my appellation for him sounds (despite certain self-admittedly spazzed-out comments to the local TV crew regarding said purchase of tickets, ha!).

The story of how we got tickets and how Dan wound up on TV is kinda a mini-saga in itself, but here's the Cliff Notes version:

Thu morning, around 9 am: Dan SMSed to say that the major movie chains had announced their LotR marathon plans. Of course, they would announce this in the local paper on the very day that I was on course and didn't have access to said paper.

The rest of Thu morning: Frantic messaging between myself, Dan and assorted friends to determine who's in. The fact that Dan didn't have the cellphone numbers of various mutual friends meant I was the central point of contact, even though I should've been paying attention to the course I was attending.

Thu morning, before lunch: We've got our pretty confirmed list of who's in.

Thu afternoon: Dan updates us that the movie theatre we were planning to go to has no cool freebies. Orchard CineLeisure, in contrast, is centrally located and is offering free flow popcorn and drinks for the marathon. More frantic messaging to ascertain that no one objects to the change in movie theatre. Also had to check with people who couldn't make it for the 12-hour/whole-day marathon if they would want tickets anyway to just Return of the King, assuming we were allowed to get tickets for just that movie.

Thu evening: All is confirmed. Dan is ready to move into action at midnight when tickets go on sale.

Thu, midnight (or should that be Fri, midnight?): I'm asleep. Dan logs on.

12:18 am: I quote Dan's SMS: "Everyone and their dog is trying to get onto the websites." Part of the trouble was that two of the four movie theatres running the marathon didn't have any tickets uploaded for sale that night, so presumably everyone and their dog was trying to get onto the remaining two websites.

12:30 am or so: Dan finally gets onto the website in question. All online tickets are sold out but we can try at the box office.

Fri morning: I read Dan's overnight SMS and advise him no worries if we can't get tickets, we'll just do our own in-house movie screening, since we have/will have multiple copies of the extended DVDs between us.

10:13 am: A jubilant SMS from Dan: "Got the tickets!"

The tickets weren't all he got. He also got cornered by Channel NewsAsia, which had sent down a camera crew in anticipation of a crazy line of fanboys, but found all of three people in line. Dan spent the rest of the day hoping his interview would be pipped from the news on account of more newsworthy things happening, but as it turned out, they frequently used footage of him waiting in line and the 10 pm bulletin even showed his interview.

Now we just need to plan logistics for the marathon: food, blankets, pillows, etc...