I was shanghaied into seeing Iron Man on Friday, after the usual bi-weekly drinks (at Wong) with the coworkers.

The movie itself was a lot of fun, but the opening night crowd was about as obnoxious as you'd expect. I ended up sitting behind a boisterous gangster parody who reeked of vodka; although to his credit, he was occasionally amusing.

(The kids behind me were honest-to-goodness gaywads. They weren't especially annoying or anything, but I was more than a little surprised to find that such people actually existed.)

My personal gangsta wasn't the worst offender: the theater seemed to be infested with would-be comedians. Maybe I'm just being incredibly chauvinist about my introversion (actually: not maybe), but I think there's something fundamentally extroverted about shouting out would-be witticisms in a crowded theater. I just can't imagine myself trying to hijack a movie like that.*

My annoyance here is probably just another manifestation of my desire to experience art in its purest possible form: ideally it would just be me, the screen, and the darkness.

(Related: my militant anti-spoilerism and my inability to do anything else at all when I'm reading fiction. If I have a glass of water with me, I have to stop reading to drink it.)

I've been playing more GTA IV recently — with the shades drawn and the lights off, see above — and now that the world has opened up a bit more, I'm really getting into it. The multiplayer won't replace Halo 3 for me, however.

Videogames took up a fair chunk of my weekend, but last night Amy and Ben came over to tag-team watching the Sunday cartoons with us — all three shows were funny for the first time in recent memory. Later on, Matt and I finally got to use the fire ring and burn my six-month-old "Beers of America" box.

I predict more campfires, particularly when/if we pick up more camping chairs. There is currently a shortage.

*By which I mean: at a theater, with strangers. I've no qualms with whispering to my friends, especially if the movie is bad. And if I had my druthers, screenings of Josie and the Pussycats would be like watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show.