I was scheduled to work as inside crew today. I don’t like doing it, but we’ve all got to help out, and we’ve been understaffed lately. It figures, then, that today would be super busy. But I’m a professional, so I decided not to bitch and moan about it, even though it meant missing out on a 15% gratutity on a $440 order. You do the math.

Well, of course, Sketchy was taking the big order. Forty some odd pizzas and a few salads. Did I mention that Sketchy drives an MR2?

So Gary threw me the keys to his Jeep Wrangler, and I wound up taking half the order. The brightside to this was that I got to drive a Jeep Wrangler! The downside, of course, is that it only fueled me desire for a Jeep of my own (even though Gary owns one of those stretched “ultimate” Jeeps - that’s also an automatic, yuk!).

Anyway, the other upside is that I got half of the tip. And had to do half of Sketchy’s deployment, but, hey, I’ll make the sacrifice for thirty-smackers.

After that initial rush - two hours or so - things started to die down, and I finished what prep we had left to do, and cleaned up some of the tables. Well, we had the store radio tuned to 98-Rock. And Sara mentioned something about WHFS 99.1.

Now, our store radio sucks ass, so Noah ran out to his car and came back a minute later. His eyes were wide open, his jaw hanging askew. “I … I … it can’t be true…”

Let me explain something about 99.1 for those of you not living in the Baltimore area. 99.1 is a radio station that broadcasts to the DC/Baltimore metropolitan areas. They’re a little bit of everything - rock, hip-hop, and some pop. Every year they throw a music festival, the only one I went to was in ‘99 at Raven’s Stadium. Some of the groups performing were Live, Offspring, Blink 182, Mighty-Mighty Bostones, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The older I’ve gotten, the less and less I’ve liked 99.1. My radio listening these days is usually either 98-Rock or Live 105.7, although really, Mickey Cucchiella needs to stop interupting songs as they’re playing to proclaim, “I AM GOD!” Or maybe he doesn’t do that anymore, I don’t know because I’m usually listening to Don & Mike.

“WHAT?” we demanded of Noah.

And he told us.

So, uh, no more HFStivals, then. Like, ever.

Wow.

I can remember watching “The Sixth Sense” and making the observation, “Hey, Bruce Willis is dead!” In response to this, my “date” punched me in the arm and told me to shut up. After the film, she accused me of reading a spoiler on the film. I hadn’t, but that didn’t matter, I never saw her naked. Dammit.

This past summer, someone spoiled The Village for me. It was at AICN actually, then that was instantly countered by someone else saying, “No, no, that’s wrong! He did it that way to trick the spies! There’s actually another ending altogether!”

Well, I should’ve listened to the first guy.

Rented the film tonight. Just finished watching it. And despite all the bad things I’ve been hearing about it, I really enjoyed it, and it was better than Signs. On the other hands, Signs was better than a lot of things - like, say, a root canal without any funny gas.

They say that what’s fun about going somewhere isn’t arriving at your destination, but rather the journey. I think I’m forced to agree, and especially here. Mind you, anyone having to travel anywhere on the New Jersey Turnpike probably would disagree. Or be looking for a firearm and a drink.

I don’t want to spoil the movie too much, but since I was convinced that what every instinct in my body was telling me was wrong, I was expecting the story to go for a wild twist - and when the Noah creature attacked Ivy in the woods, I was sure it had.

But, no, of course not.

M. Night’s formula was innovative six years ago. Now its just getting old, and predictable. Which doesn’t mean he can’t spin a good yarn. Except for, possibly, this.

The ending is the absolute weakest part of the film. From the second Ivy reaches “town”, the film takes a total nose dive in order to accomodate M. Night’s cameo and some rather blatant exposition material.

The coolest thing about this DVD, though? The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy teaser at the beginning. “Don’t Panic!”