This entry is not keeping score

I had a startling amount of social interaction this weekend. My college friends seem to be in constant flux, moving away and moving back, but at this point I have three more of them back and so we had Game Night on Friday. I have to say right now that I am not a competitive soul. Well, I am, I tend to restrict it to academics, box office numbers, and secret jealousy of other writers. I don't play sports, I don't keep up with sports scores, and when I play Scrabble, I don't bother with the numbers. My idea of tennis is to have no out-of-bounds and just try to see how long the two of you can keep batting the ball back and forth, which can involve great heroics of leaping and flailing since there are no bounds. The only reason I see to keep score in a game is because that's how games tend to function, and they fall apart otherwise, but it's not really about who wins; feats of particular hilarity greatness are to be lauded by all.

Of course, the less charitable among you might point out that perhaps I don't care who wins because I never do. This is a slander and a calumny, as there was a game of Candyland I actually won back in '85. It is true, however, that we have a tradition of naming our teams when we play games like Taboo or Cranium, because of one particularly heated bout between Team Lunch and Team Breakfast back in '02, and I kind of hate Team Breakfast because 1) it always wins and 2) I'm never on it. But Friday night, I realized that, really, it's not about Team Breakfast and Team Whatever Else; it's really Team Cleo and Team Not Cleo, and Team Cleo never, ever wins. There was something kind of liberating about realizing this, as if I had finally discovered my place in the world. And I suppose that it's fortunate that I don't care about winning, since I'm apparently never going to--it works out pretty evenly that way.

And then on Saturday night we went to IHOP, because everyone's a winner when there's pancakes.

(Brett the Vet and I ended up going to a late showing of Pirates--what? He hadn't seen it yet!--on a whim, and I had an ill-advised frozen Coke, and y'all nearly got another THE CRICKETS IN MY BRAIN CHIRP SO LOUD EEEEEEEEE post about four-thirty this morning.)

Linkspam:

Mel Gibson puts forth a truly exemplary apology, except for the part where I wonder why he would go straight to "fucking Jews" in the Drunken Insult Rolodex, if you get what I'm saying. (Plea to Hollywood: "Shun Mel." Oh, come on now. He's about five minutes from setting up camp in the Unabomber's old shack as it is. Plus, Apocalypto and the Mayan and everything? He's already taken his ball and gone home.)

Dina Lohan continues to Not Get It regarding her daughter.

A promising review of Talladega Nights.

Ryan Phillippe rumored to play Two Face, as Christopher Nolan inches nearer to his goal of The Prettiest Batman Movie Ever.

Fire Chars British Set of New Bond Film. Neil Gaiman noted on his blog that the last time Pinewood (where they also filmed Stardust) burned down, it was during Legend. Which you can hear all about on the big director's cut DVD of that movie, btw.

A new writer's meme: write a letter to yourself from one of your characters. I actually have a character I'm having a tough time keeping consistent, so this might be a fun exercise.