Do Not Eat at the Tick Tock Diner

Please. Do not eat there.

D and I intended to meet D's friend M at a diner last night prior to seeing Batman Begins.

D said "Yeah, you know, I'm getting there at 6:00. M's getting there whenever, so, you know, just get there whenever."

D called at 6:00 and said "Don't go to that diner. There's filming going on and it doesn't look like they have a bar. I'm going to walk around and find somewhere else to eat."

I left work at about 6:15 and went home to grab my hoodie, since it was winter yesterday. I called D who said "We're at the Tick Tock Diner, on the northwest side of 34th and 8th."

Word.

By the time I arrived, D and M had already had drinks and inhaled mozzeralla sticks.

I looked at the menu and decided what I wanted. Fifteen minutes passed and still no waiter. I was getting slightly concerned because I wanted good seats for Batman.

The waiter finally appeared and said "Can I get you anything else?"

We were like "Well, we'd like to order our dinner."

"Oh, right."

"I'd like the Santa Fe omelette," I said, and was met with a look indicating that suddenly I had seven heads.

"The Santa Fe omelette?" I repeated.

Still a blank stare.

I pointed to it on the menu. He shook his head in disbelief and wrote it down. He then said "What toast would you like?"

"What kind do you have?"

"Toast."

"Yeah, but what do you have?"

"All kinds of toast," very judgmentally.

"OK. Well, do you have raisin?"

"No."

"What do you have?"

"You know, toast."

"What kinds do you have?"

All confused "White? Rye?"

"I'll just have white."

Fine.

The food didn't come for a while and we started to get concerned again.

The waiter reappeared and said "Oh, I lost your order. I just don't know where it is. Can you give it to me again?"

We re-ordered.

The food still did not come, nor did our drinks.

He reappeared and said "It's coming soon..." and we said "Um, could we have the waters? And the beer? And could I get some silverware?"

Nothing appeared.

Finally the food came. No beverages. No silverware.

I said "Our beverages? And silverware?"

The beverages came out about 5 minutes later, and still no silverware.

I asked the lady in the booth next to us if I could have her extra set of silverware.

Finally we were able to eat!

The food wasn't bad. We were sitting at a really small booth so I had my toast sort of on the edge of the table with my knife hanging over the edge of the plate. A waitress blew by frantically and knocked the knife off of the plate, into the air, it bounced off of my shirt and then my pants and finally onto the floor.

She got all huffy, as though it was my fault, picked up the knife and stormed off. She didn't apologize, nor did she return with a replacement knife.

Terrible experience all around, and late to Batman Begins.

We ended up having to sit in the second row of a theater with a huge screen. I wasn't too upset about it, as I'd seen Spiderman under similar circumstances and rather enjoyed being that close to the action.

We ended up, however, having to sit in front of some woman who had her three year old daughter with her. First of all - who brings a three year old to see Batman Begins? Second of all - who brings a three year old to see a 9:00 showing of Batman Begins? Third of all - yeah. Needless to say the kid was screaming and making horrified and amused noises throughout the entire movie. Very annoying.

Also annoying was the fact that many people decided that it would be acceptable to talk throughout the movie. There was a huge thug factor at this movie, and I was convinced that a knife fight or shooting would break out. An argument erupted somewhere in the stadium seating about 15 minutes into the movie. Two groups of people literally screaming at each other. What was the fight about? No idea. Probably "Yo, assholes, stop talking" and then "I can do whatever I want!" and then "Shut the fuck up!" A lot of people left entirely, some people switched seats. Mostly people were just screaming and murmering and getting out of hand. I don't know how it was resolved, but the first half hour of the movie is basically lost to me.

Also annoying was the fact that the movie theater was 3 degrees. I had my hoodie zipped all the way and the hood on and then pulled it up over my face and was still shivering the entire time.

Also annoying was the fact that I have been sick. Well, I don't know if I am sick but something has been awry for the past few days, starting with Tuesday when I took a three hour nap in the middle of the day. I have been exhausted, but not like flu exhausted. Like weird internal exhaustion, and today I am exhausted and am sometimes having a fever and sometimes my hands are shaking to the point that I can't label tubes. Weird. I averaged at least one yawn a minute during the movie, and nearly fell asleep a couple of times.

This all being said and having seen this movie under duress, my opinion is: FUCKING AWESOME AMAZING WOW BLAM POW PERFECT!

My thoughts:

1. Christian Bale - best Batman thus far. He was amazing. He played it believably dark and smartly.

2. Katie Holmes - not nearly as annoying as I'd feared. (On a similar note, I saw the preview for Dukes of Hazard and I feel really bad about it, because I think that the casting of Jessica Simpson is goint to prevent anyone from seeing it. Her annoyingness quotient far exceeds the coolness factor of the rest of the movie).

3. Gary Oldman - he somehow managed to not be creepy! Who knew that was even possible? He is endearing and wholesome as the future Commissioner Gordon.

4. Michael Caine as Alfred - ADORABLE. We had to fill out an audience survey and you had to pick your favorite character, and I went with Michael Caine. He is so cute and wonderful in this movie.

5. Cillian Murphy - WOW. He is going to be a huge star. I fell in love with him in 28 Days Later. I had a hard time choosing between him and Michael Caine as my favorite character. He is beautiful. There's something enchanting about his face. He's pretty. And an amazing actor.

6. Morgan Freeman - yeah. Of course he was wonderful. He always is. He is a national treasure. The most exciting thing about Morgan Freeman in this movie is that he is a scientist! He was throwing around "receptor" and other terminology. D became spastic at one point, punched me and said "That's a gas chromatograph (or something to that effect - I don't know anything about chemistry)!" Morgan Freeman was all "I analyzed your blood and receptor content and catalyst and blah blah blah - it was difficult" but then managed to develop an antedote to the chemical in the same day. I love movie science.

7. Other cast members such as Tom Wilkinson, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe - all awesome.

8. The strength of this movie is the characters. Everyone is perfect. I can't stop gushing about this movie. I am still high from it.

9. The fight scenes at the beginning between Liam Neeson and Christian Bale are quick and gorgeous.

10. My only complaint might be Gotham itself - it was a little too CGI and shiny.

11. Thematically it was intense - fear and guilt and duty etc. It was tortured without being cheesy.

12. Script - perfect.

Yeah. I could go on and on. Net: I loved it and you must all see it.

That is all.