Friday afternoon I picked Sonya up after work. Both of us were feeling quite sick of our jobs, and for pretty much the same reasons: too much work, ridiculous deadlines and having to work with the profoundly retarded. I might add that none of my direct coworkers are mentally challenged, and I don't think Sonya's are either. It's just all the other day-to-day idiots we come in touch with that frustrate us so.

Sometimes it's hard to be the biggest fuckin' genius in the whole damned world.

So we went to Midtown Video to grab some movies, which we watchd over the course of the weekend. Here are the mini-reviews:

• Half Baked: Good stupid resin-sticky fun. "I got some booty! I got some botty!" At one point Dave Chapelle was in a room full of pot.

  "I'd never leave the house," I chuckled.

  "You'd never have to," Jen observed.

  "Munchies," Sonya warned.

  "Jack's is right across the street," I noted.

• Elizabeth: Stunning. And thrilling. It was a combination period movie/political thriller. Cate Blanchett was too pretty. And that Shine guy was too cool as the Queen's problem-solver. See this one.
• The Faculty: Someone gave Robert Rodruigez a budget. Praise the Lord. There were holes in the plot big enough to drive a truck through, but the bad guys were very creepy. The teachers in high school are weird enough, you know? Kids don't need this kind of horror. I liked it.
• The Governess: Minnie Driver? Topless! Jonathan Rhys-Meyers? Naked! Gerald from The Full Monty? Naked! A nice little costume gothic (like Frankenstein, not Bauhaus) and very English.

We were both still disgruntled when we left Midtown Video, so we treated ourselves to seafood at Landry's. This did help. Then we went home and watched some movies with Jen and James.

Six-One-Six, a venerable alterna-joint on the Memphis scene, has closed recently. Wilbur, the owner and a Riff-Raff lookalike, finally got tired of the lawsuits and declining popularity and sold it off. It has been rechristened Apocolypse and reopened Friday. We drove by Friday afternoon to check it out. They've got a stainless steel entryway, and gargoyles on the roof. And lots of black velvet in the windowed lounge.

These are good things, in my opinion.

But I drove by a little while ago (taking the movies back, actually) and there were a bunch of yuppie goombays sitting out front on their crotch-rocket motorcycles. You know what I think when I see those sleek, overpowered bikes?

"Gee, guy, sorry about the tiny penis!"

So I don't know. We may have to check out this joint later. I'm not hopeful, though. If I want a really cool club in this town I may have to open it myself. There's an unused police station about a block from my house. It's a really nice piece of semi-classical architecture, matching the courthouse across the street. I'd like to take that police station, throw in a good sound system and a couple of bars and call it Precinct. That sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? Memphis has never had a place with snooty, selective doormen, either, so I'd get some big ponytails to work out front and abuse the clientele. The East Memphis Meat Wagon crew would beat themselves to a bloody pulp trying to get in. If only I had the cash.

Saturday? Did some shopping! Sonya got a nifty shiny coat and some shades at Burlington Coat Factory (which is, actually, more than great coats). Then we did the technology envy thing at Best Buy and CompUSA. Then Wherehouse (formerly Blockbuster Music) for the South Park soundtrack - screamingly funny - and the first Switchblade Symphony album, which is pretty darned spooky. Got a tattoo-and-piercing magazine, too, which we enjoyed looking through and wincing occasionally at. Then we hung out and drank beer the rest of the night. I managed to knock a pilsner glass off the counter in the kitchen, which went off like a goddam glass bomb when it hit the floor. Glass everywhere, including all over me. Which reminds me of a funny story...

Several years ago during the summer I went to the K&B, back when it was still the K&B. I was wearing flip-flops. I went back to the back to get a six-pack of beer out of the cooler. I got a pack (Goldcrest, a now-defunct beer brand) off the bottom shelf.

Somehow, this six-pack - and more specifically, its cardboard bottom - had gotten wet.

I began to lift the six-pack. Once I got it up to about waist level the bottom let go, dropping all six beers like a B-1 releasing all its bombs at once.

POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW!

Very noisy, very messy. As the echoes died out around the store I found myself covered from the knees down in beer and broken glass; my flip-flops were full of suds.

The manager came running up.

I didn't say a word. I just held up the now-empty carton, showing him where the soaked cardboard had given way.

"It's okay," he said, "happens all the time."

I got some more beer and left, my shoes squeaking all the way.

Today we went to see Sonya's grandparents out in the countryside of Crittenden county. Sonya's granny told us a very entertaining Sonya Story.

Apparently, when Sonya was a little thing, she had a little rocking chair she kept at her granny's house. One day, Sonya wanted to move the rocking chair from the bedroom to the living room. She wanted help, but her granny wanted to see if Sonya could manage it by herself.

Sonya did, and when she finally got it to the living room she sat in in and said, "goddamned rockin' chair."

That, to me, sounds just like Sonya.

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