Mussels, beer, a documentary on the praying mantis, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and more!

Had dinner at Jeremy's with Eric, Jon, Jeremy, Darryl (Jeremy's roommate who actually came home later), Christon, Jen, Erin, Vivian, Andrew, Alan, his friend Jack, and Dallas. It was pretty good... on the way over, I was being weirdly random with Eric. (he told me to get out of the car, heh... he's going to roast Jon tomorrow, and make fun of his blog / his chest slaps / some other things) The highlight story / video of the night had to be Jon and Dallas telling us how they'd shook a LOT of water out of the mussels they had to buy at T&T ($4.50 a pound?!) since it would be cheaper that way. (water is the heaviest part, and since they were sold by weight... two people kinda looked at them funny and asked if that was the way to choose mussels, haha!) We talked about the PNE, the grad banquet tomorrow (Erin says that Steph's roast had better not include Powerpoint, and Dallas says that he / Nathan / Jon shot a seven-minute video today), how the roasts would take so long since there are at least 15 graduates, Erin's embarrassing "maxipad story" not being really publicly shareable for a grad OR wedding banquet, the story of "Sarne," my brother's ringtone of my sister screaming, Isabel's birthday yesterday, Big Two, what we did this afternoon, Jeremy's beer being more hoppy than last week's batch, L'Arche, Toronto friends, gin and tonic, cookies, SNAKES ON A PLANE, Long Island Iced Tea, and a lot more stuff.

After dinner, Darryl started up a U2 video on his huge projector screen. ("if you've heard one U2 song, you know how the rest of them go!") Then we watched a Discovery channel documentary on the praying mantis: entertaining, yucky, AND educational! (they can eat hummingbirds and snakes alive, as well as eat their own kind) After that, most everyone left before Jeremy had a chance to kick them out at 11 except me and Jon. We helped clean up since nobody else did ("they just pretended to be interested in the documentary... they really couldn't leave fast enough!"), then settled in to watch most of the PUMAMAN episode of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000. Darryl couldn't believe we hadn't watched an episode of that at all (we just haven't been exposed to it even if Jeremy does always tell Jon it's very awesome!), so we apparently had to see why they always butchered stuff on TV / had a snarky sense of humor. It was quite hilarious, with a LOT of crazy references! (Ma Barker, "Aztec messaging," "Tequila Mockingbird," etc.) Good times, but hopefully I'll have a break from going out Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday. (though I still have to renew my stuff and get cash to pay back people and such... $33 now, plus a bubble tea)

Quotes from the night:

1. Darryl, talking about SOAP: "The only sad part about that line is that you can't say the whole thing! 'Get these mother *pause* snakes off this mother *pause* plane!' I mean, really... it doesn't have the same effect!"
Jeremy: "Yeah, we were playing Scattergories yesterday. One of the clues was a word that started with F, and which had four letters. Gee, could it be Samuel L. Jackson's favorite word?"
Jon: "Maybe... I mean, it is probably his best-known line, like, ever!"
Darryl: "Yeah... although all the bloggers loved that line long before it was inserted into the movie!"

2. Narrator on documentary mentions something about a preying mantis and its predator. Darryl's running joke quickly becomes "And we put this *insert name of animal* [or children, at the end] next to this praying mantis to see what it would do! Because obviously, they didn't sit around waiting to see what would happen, right?"

3. (Narrator on documentary mentions something about a praying mantis and its poop on a branch) Christon: "That looks like siu yok [Chinese dish]! I'm telling you, man. If they serve that tomorrow at the grad banquet, I'm NOT EATING IT!"
Jon: "Hey, one man's excrement is another man's treasure!"
Dallas: "Man, why does my camera always have to be off whenever this happens?!"
Jon: "You have BAD TIMING! Do the line again!"
Jeremy: "Nah, it won't be as funny the second time!"
Jen: "Shh! I'm trying to LISTEN!"

4. (scene of praying mantis eating its mate) Jen: "Oh, ew! That's so gross! She's eating him and they're still mating!"
Jon: "Yeah, it doesn't pay to be a male in that world, I guess!"
Vivian: "So how do they live on as a species if all the males get eaten?"
Jon: "I guess they have like 50 babies at a time!" (which was confirmed later on)
Alan: "I can't believe how they're still mating, and she's eaten his head and half his body already!"
Jen: "Ew ew ew! Oh, that's nasty!"

5. (various scenes of praying mantis killing its prey, or being killed by snakes / lizards) Jeremy: "Watch out... here it comes! CHOMP! That animal had NO CHANCE!"
Jen: "Oh gross!"
(then there was the scene where a praying mantis was killed rather violently by its predator) Jon: "Oh, yum. Who wants more rice and stuff now? That's the most violent death I've seen on this thing!"

6. Jon: "I think this gin and tonic needs more hops. Then again, the rice was good coz it was soaked in apple cider! I poured beer on the mussels too!"
Dallas: "Yeah, Tomlin... but I dunno. Maybe we should do that next week with your Thai curry!"
Jon: "That's a GOOD IDEA!"

7. Vivian: "Here, have some lemon-cranberry cookies I made at Chrystal's this afternoon."
Dallas: "Hey, these look like the ones that the kids were selling today!"
Vivian: "Eh, at least they're different flavors! Although they were a better deal than the Chinese congregation's stuff!"
*segue into discussion of Hannah, Natalie, Zoe, and whether there are any nine-year-old boys at church.. one, Steven!*

8. Jon: "Yeah, I read your blog, Jen. I even know who you called last week at your place! 'Oh, hi. I'm just really tanked right now...' "
Jen: "I didn't say THAT!"
Me: "Yeah, coz I told you this morning..."
Jon: "Eh, shut up, you little girl."
Me: "Cheh... no bubble tea for YOU!"

9. Jon: "Man, I've had nine hours of sleep in the last two days! I'm tired! *chest slaps Jeremy as we leave at 12:30* "
Jeremy: "Oh man!"
Me: "Isn't he going to bed soon, too?" (Darryl had gone to bed ten minutes before)
Jon: "Yeah! That'll give him energy to crawl into bed!"
Me: "Uh, if you say so... thanks, Jeremy! See you tomorrow!"