For a long time, I had one big question about Kill Bill vol. 2. That question was: What was accomplished in the story by making it a wedding dress rehearsal? (Even in the film, Bill comments that he'd never heard of a wedding dress rehearsal.) In other words, why not just make it either a wedding or a rehearsal? Then recently (20 minutes ago, actually, as I was mentally composing this entry) the answer came to me. The Bride had to be wearing a wedding dress, otherwise no one would refer to her as "The Bride." It also had to be a rehearsal to simplify the massacre - so the Sheriff and son wouldn't have to sort through a church full of bodies before finding The Bride.

Based on Kurt's recommendation, I reserved Marathon Man from the library, picked it up on my way home from work today, and watched it this evening. Kurt has good taste in films, and he didn't let me down this time. Marathon Man is a masterpiece. I have just one big question, though: Who threw the soccer ball?

Toward the end of the Outreach, Welcome & Nurture (formerly Welcome & Nurture) meeting yesterday evening, John and Tom mentioned that they were going to the Men's Group right after the meeting. I'd heard of Men's Group - it's an informal social get-together that's started fairly recently within our church. They invited me to come with them. At first, I turned them down - I was tired. But they invited me again, and Pastor Shannon encouraged me to go (even though she wouldn't be there, obviously), so I accepted their invitation.

I'd driven to the Outreach, Welcome & Nurture meeting, but I rode with Tom to Men's Group. John rode his motorcycle. Along the way, I learned the logistics of the group. It meets once a month at a restaurant or bar, hosted by a different person each time, and it's not about church business. Last night, the group met at Madrona Eatery & Ale House - a children-friendly tavern a block away from the Madrona-Sally Goldmark library. The host last night was Alexi. Carl was there, too. The group was expecting more people - we'd pushed a couple of tables together - but, for whatever reasons, they didn't show up. The five of us drank beers, ate dinner, and had lots of interesting conversations (a few of them involved our church). I had a great time. When Tom dropped me off, back at church, I thanked him for "dragging me along."

The Madrona Eatery & Ale House is, apparently a popular, neighborhood institution. I wasn't all that impressed with it. I had a Pike Place porter and a veggie sandwich with a green salad - all of which was good, but nothing special. If we lived in Madrona, I suppose, I'd think better of it.

There are two espresso stands in Harboview. I walk past the first floor "Bistro" twice every morning - once when I walk into the building, on my way to the main clinic, and then again after I've put away my jacket and bags and walk to the satellite clinic. The Bistro always plays radio station KWJZ - "smooth jazz" - on the overhead speakers, which fits it just right. This morning, when I walked past it the second time, The Bistro was playing "Sympathy For The Devil" by the Rolling Stones, which seemed rather unlike them. Now I have that song stuck in my head. I'm not complaining, though.

Phillip and I had planned to go to a Halloween-themed geocaching event in Tacoma yesterday evening. I was just not in the mood for it. Halloween is my least-favorite holiday, but I suspect there was something more to my mood. (I'm not sure what that something is or was.) As of yesterday morning, I had not even picked a costume to wear. I hadn't looked at the event page, or any geocaches in the area.

Meanwhile, there is a rather difficult puzzle cache that I'd been working on this week. I came up with what I thought might be the solution, and the coordinates were a short drive from home. So, I took off after it early yesterday morning, without confirming with the cache owner that I'd solved it. (Only one other person has found it, so far.) When I got to the location, however, I knew, without stopping the car, that I did not have the right solution. So I drove back home, logged a Did Not Find, and emailed the cache owner for help.

In the middle of the afternoon, after Phillip was up, I started looking at my old fedora. I decided to make a costume around it. I thought of going as either a 1950's business man or Indiana Jones. I decided on Indiana Jones, since it seemed to fit the theme of geocaching more. I got together the most beat-up clothes I could find and my leather motorcycle jacket (which I wish was more worn in), and then, a half hour before we had to leave, I started looking for that whip that went with that cowboy costume I've had around for a long time. After a half hour of searching, I still had not found that whip, and it was time to go. I coiled up a rope instead.

What surprised me, though, was that Phillip - who loves Halloween - hadn't put more work into his costume. It was a great costume, don't get me wrong, but it consisted of a clown hat that he'd happened upon in Value Village some time ago, and black clothes.

We got to the event, and it was a whole lot of fun. I had a blast. My mood turned around. The organizers of the event put a lot of work into decorations. (More than just some discount store vinyl wall hangings.) There was a fun contest to guess how various celebrities had died. Turnout was big, with many geocachers we'd never met before, and many geocachers we had. Several staff members from Groundspeak were there, and we learned that the story of "The Vampires' Request" is still a frequent topic of conversation in the office. There was a surprise bonus cache inside the event - and Phillip and I logged the First To Find. We spent a lot of time talking with a geocacher whom we'd met at a previous event. We've made tentative plans for a geocaching trip with her soon. She also pointed us to a geocache very close to the event. We drove home last night and logged finds 377 (the event), 378 (the bonus cache), and 379 (the nearby geocache).

Sometime yesterday, I got a reply from the owner of that puzzle cache. I had not solved the puzzle correctly, and he offered some hints. Early this morning, I solved the puzzle. The place I'd gone to yesterday was only a half-mile or so from, and on the same street as, the correct solution - which is amazing, since, I learned from the cache owner, my first solution had been based on only half of the required information. I decided to not go after the cache right away this morning, though. I was tired from last night.

Phillip and I rode the 8 bus to Seattle Center this afternoon for "Turkfest" - a celebration of Turkish culture. We got to Seattle Center, and the festival was not in The Northwest Rooms, the first place we expected it to be. It was not in Fisher Pavilion, the second place we expected it to be. Then we found a tent - a single tent, serving food, with a sign reading "Turkfest." That was the extent of the festival. We were both very disappointed. We didn't have any food, agreeing that we'd much rather go to a Turkish restaurant some other day.

We started walking toward the bus stop, on our way to our second planned stop of the day. As we walked past The Center House, I happened to look over just as the doors had opened, and I saw some festival booths inside. That was actually the third place we expected Turkfest to be, but since we thought we'd already found it, we hadn't bothered to look there.

We wished Turkfest had been bigger, but at least it was bigger that what we first thought it was. We enjoyed what was there - exhibits of Turkish arts and culture, dancing, and music. Then we rod the 3 bus downtown for our second stop: GameWorks.

When Phillip had gone out at 3:30 that rainy morning, a few weeks ago, and was First To Find that cache on Beacon Hill, the FTF prize was a $25 GameWorks game card. That's why we were at GameWorks today. (Generally, geocaching is not a profitable activity - monetarily, anyway - but every once in a while, a cache owner will include a valuable FTF prize.) I bought my own game card there, and we spent at least an hour shooting dinosaurs and zombies, and racing each other on motorcycles and Star Wars pod racers. We aren't very good at either type of arcade game, because neither one of us does it very often. We were disappointed, but not surprised, at the lack of pinball games at GameWorks. Still, we both enjoyed ourselves at GameWorks.

When we got home, I did a couple of loads of laundry. Then I went out, by myself, to find that puzzle cache. After nearly an hour of searching, interrupted by periods of waiting for muggles to pass by, I gave up, came home, and logged our second DNF for that cache. I know I was in the right area this time, though. So far, only one geocacher has logged a Find, and another geocacher has logged a DNF.