Robot Dinosaurs and the Sassiest Stegosaurus

I recently attended a sort of class trip to the Franklin Institute with my wife and a bunch of her vet school classmates. There is currently a Jurassic World themed exhibit on display and this anatomy professor who also happens to be a paleontologist organized this extracurricular trip to go see it for any students who might be interested.

First of all, anatomy professor at an ivy league university and an actual paleontologist at the same time? Awesome.  It's like how Indiana Jones is an archaeologist but also a whip wielding, adventure having  badass with a PhD in being fucking rad on the side. This guy is all like "Yeah I teach anatomy at one of the top veterinary institutions in the world and by the way I've discovered and named six dinosaurs. No big deal."

Thankfully, spouses/partners of students who would literally punch a toddler for a chance to see a twenty foot tall animatronic T-rex were invited to attend as well if they wanted. This explains how I got there. No toddler punching was required.

The actual exhibit was not what either Emily or I expected, but it was still pretty goddamn awesome. Emily thought it was going to be a lot of fossils, bones and skeletons, while I was expecting more of a behind the scenes look at the technical stuff that went into making the movies. In actuality it's more of a walkthrough thing that they have set up to make it seem like you are a tourist visiting actual Jurassic World. You follow a little narrative as if you are a VIP guest arriving on the island and visiting different exhibits all the way up until the finale where the giant murder dinosaur gets loose, surprising no one.

While I would have liked to learn more about what actually goes into the creation of the practical and digital effects from the various Jurassic Park Movies, I'm sure as shit not going to complain about a ceiling high fully articulated brachiosaurus head.

I got this idea that it was really funny to take a bunch of selfies where my head is blocking most of the dinosaur, or it's out of focus or something.  It's like there is this enormous, lifelike hybrid marvel of engineering, science and art behind you and you just take a picture where your dumb head is blocking most of it.

Even Emily got in on this one. I kept taking all these crap selfies, until at one point one of her friends asked if we'd like her to take our picture, because she's a normal, polite person. She was all, "Oh, do you guys want me to take your picture in front of the dinosaur for you?" and I was like "Nah." She looked at me like I was kind of a crazy person so I elaborated that I was 'doing a thing' and that 'the pictures being bad is the point'. For some reason my clarification did not help.

In any event I did take at least a few pictures that weren't bad on purpose.

Emily wanted a picture of this baby dino here. This little guy and his mother who's giant legs you can see behind him are one of about 3524894734258 relatives of Triceratopsthat nobody give a shit about apparently because they don't have sick horns and aren't one of the four dinosaurs anyone knows the name of. It's a little sad, really that there are all these dinos floundering in obscurity while that limelight hogging hussy Triceratops takes all the glory. 

It's ok little guy, we know the feeling. We have the same problem with Jason Momoa

He's such a glorious piece of chiseled man-god that nobody gives a shit about most of us in comparison either.

Anyway, this guy was part of the exhibit too who I'm pretty sure is supposed to be the dinosaur they made up to be the uberdino that murders faces in the newest movie

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think this guy is a he. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a she because all the dinosaurs in the movie were female?... Or did it become a weird hermaphrodite... I don't know. To be honest a lot of the plot stuff they made up about the badguy dinosaur in Jurassic World was pretty shitty.

In any event, there was this whole sequence involving Murdersaurus Rex near the end of the tour, complete with machine gun sound effects and a bazooka where unseen park security presumably shoot it to death horribly in front everyone. Kind of a weird choice in my opinion seeing as it's an exhibit filled with small children but whatever I guess. If the kids don't learn about firing rocket launchers at rampaging dinosaurs now, how will they be prepared when they have to defend themselves against a real velociraptor attack?  

After the giant animations portion they had a bunch more kid friendly/ traditional museum-y displays. Naturally while all the graduate students who came as part of the class trip perused the informational plaques and chatted one on one or in small groups with the professor, I played with a bunch of shit like a child.

I made a 3-D dinosaur of my own creation at a station which let you email it to yourself when you finished. Here he is in all his glory:

Look at that sassy motherfucker. Just struttin' around with his pink ass. God he is so sassy. That has got to be the sassiest stegosaurus ever to fake-walk the digital imaginary landscape of the pretend earth. 

Look at him

JUST LOOK

SO. SASSY.

That beautiful sassy son of a bitch aside, the last room before you left the exhibit had a bunch of touch exhibits including a station with paper and crayons were kids could make rubbings of some little dinosaur etched slabs they had.

By kids, of course I mean me.

Not only did I make a dino-crayon rubbing at a station where I had to bend double to reach the table because it was sized appropriately for a 7 year old; I goddamn waited in line to do it. I also silently judged the creations of people ahead of me in the process. A yellow t-rex kid? Really? Take that amateur hour shit and get out of here.

 Mine of course is a masterpiece. You see that sweet illusion of perspective you get from that majestic ass foreground dino against the majestic mountain range in the back? It's truly majestic. Everything about this is Majestic. It's literally just shitting majesty all over your eyes right now.

Sassosaurus in my email inbox and crayon rubbing in hand we exited the Jurrassic World exhibit having learned basically fuckall about dinosaurs from the exhibit itself, a bunch of cool stuff from Indiana Professor the anatomy teacher, and having thoroughly enjoyed robot dino fun time.

A Night at the Movies (or: Why My Wife Will Probably Develop A Drinking Problem)

One of the things upon which my wife and I do not see eye to eye is going to the movies. 

One thing I will establish is that my wife is not big on movies in the first place. 

"What?!" you might ask "What kind of person doesn't like movies? Is she a serial killer? Did she suffer some sort of movie related emotional trauma as a child? Was her sense of fun surgically removed?"

To answer your oddly detailed series of questions in order:

1. I don't believe so, but if I disappear mysteriously, start asking questions,

2. Not that I am aware of

3. Maybe.

She has a hard time sitting through movies as she either feels like we've wasted two hours of our day not doing anything productive, or she gets put to sleep.

Trying to get her to actually go out to a movie theater is even worse. I think the idea of wasting three or four hours of her day not doing something constructive combined with the idea that we're paying money to do it makes her want to  bang her head into a wall.

Also I think watching me shovel pretzel nuggets into my face like a pig makes her a little sad.

There are a few reasons that this makes things hard on us sometimes. Firstly, I love movies. Watching movies and specifically going out to the theater has always been one of my favorite activities. I end up not seeing more than one or two movies a year because either she flat out refuses to go, or I feel guilty dragging her along somewhere she has no interest in going.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, pretzel nuggets may in fact be the single greatest nugget shaped food of all time. I LOVE pretzel nuggets more than a grown man reasonably has the right to. If it was possible for a man to enter into a polygamous marriage with one woman and one bite sized cheese dipped bread product I would join that cult, re-marry my wife, and take pretzel nuggets as my second life partner. If you have never had pretzel nuggets, go to literally any movie right this second, get some pretzel nuggets, eat them and then come back and finish reading this blog. I'll wait.

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Done? Good. If you are a decent human being you've now just had a life altering experience and are filled with an overwhelming sense of euphoria.

If you didn't like the pretzel nuggets you are a child molesting carnival of tortoise excrement that probably thinks Hitler "made some good points". You disgust me.

Anyway. You can see how my love of movies and pretzel nuggets clashes with her general disinterest in movies and dislike of me eating things that will slowly kill me.

However, once in a while there will come a time when the stars align in such away that something miraculous happens. For one reason or anther my wife will be willing to go out to the movies. Maybe there is something out that she is interested in, or maybe she is just throwing me a bone by going with me so I shut up for a few months.

This was one of those times, but we were in a further crisis. We each wanted to see a different movie. Because I am a sane and reasonable person I wanted to see Jurassic World. She, being a girl and clearly not understanding that there was a movie currently playing that featured Dinosaurs, wanted to see Pitch Perfect 2.

Now look. I've got nothing against Pitch Perfect 2. I more or less enjoyed the first one, and I'll happily watch anything with Anna Kendrick in it, but I can almost guarantee that unless there is a MAJOR plot twist, there will not even be one dinosaur in Pitch Perfect 2.

We seem to have reached an impasse here. I want to go to the movies and for once she is willing to go with me. But she wants to see Pitch Perfect 2 and while I'd normally not mind going to something that she had more of an interest in... dinosaurs.

Like all great disputes in our relationship. This would have to be settled by fate. Time to flip a quarter.

The rules are simple. Whenever we can't agree on what to do or have an important decision to make like if we should go home and cook dinner or buy Salad Works, we flip the quarter. One and done, fate decides and we live with the consequences. Two out of three is for little bitches.

So we flip our coin. Heads is Jurassic World, Tails is Pitch Perfect 2. C'mooon fate...

F#@k.

Whelp It looks like we'll be going to see Pitch Perfect 2. Fair is fair, we let fate decide, and I lost. I am a man of honor and I will respect the sanctity of the coin flip.

But if you think I'm going to do so quietly, you are very wrong. So very, deliciously wrong. I'll see Pitch Perfect 2. But I'll do so under protest.

So let's see. How can I go to this singing lady movie whilst still making a statement that the addition of Dinosaurs to literally any situation would make it instantly more awesome. 

I head to Target because when I need to buy something for an elaborate and foolish prank I always head to Target. They never let me down and this time was no different. Lets see what we've got:

Naturally. Jurassic Park logo fake vintage looking t-shirt. That is practically a given. What other Dino stuff you got for me Target?

Foamy T-rex head lookin' hand puppet thing? Check. I can hardly imagine going to the movies without this. How else would I hold my drink if it got too cold for my hand? What would I use to make loud 'OM NOM NOM' noises while rooting around in my popcorn? This is a good start, but so far I'm just a guy with a t-shirt and a puppet and I'm pretty sure that's how you get on To Catch a Predator. We can do better.

Small inaccurately painted plastic dinosaur figure? Yep. Now I have something to hold in my other hand while I watch the movie. Along with my dino-fist hand I've practically added enough Dinosaurs to make Pitch Perfect 2 just as good as seeing the real Jurassic Park. Almost done but something is still missing... I really need an accessory to tie the whole thing together, but what?

Safari hat. Nailed it. It'll be like I literally stepped off the screen of Jurassic World and wandered into the nearest adjacent theater which just happened to be a movie about singing ladies.

Whelp now I'll be ready for our date to the movies and my wife can add another thing to her future divorce case against me/topics of discussion in therapy. 

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   UPDATE

I wrote this piece whilst still in the planning phases of operation: Make a fool of yourself at the movies. 

Specifically. I wrote this in the couple of days between buying all of the dino-swag and when we were supposed to go to the movies. Best laid plans, as they say. I purchased all of the stuff without accounting for my wife's ability to lose enthusiasm for going to the movies.

We ended up not going to the movies when we had planned to, and in fact, it took so long before guilt at depriving me of a movie trip after promising me one overwhelmed her, that not only was Pitch Perfect 2 no longer in theaters, Jurassic World was nearly finished it's run by the time we actually went.

Her procrastination worked out in my favor really, as it took her so long to agree to go that we ended up getting to see Jurassic World anyway. Point, me.

I did however find myself in a dilemma. I had already done all the leg work and spent money on this idiotic gag, but the fact that we were going to end up seeing my movie anyway kind of ruins the joke. I had to ask myself very seriously what course of action to take at this juncture? Do I admit defeat and accept that timing has rendered the punchline to my joke obsolete? Do I shrug and forever let my plan have been the fond memory of an unfunny and humiliating thing I almost did once just for the sake of annoying my wife?

Nope.

I wore that Jurassic Park t-shirt, Safari hat and t-rex hand puppet and carried that little green inaccurately painted dino-toy like a champion. 

While the original joke may have been ruined in that I didn't get to sit in a theater full of enthusiastic acaplla fans in full dino-gear, I did get to go to a movie dressed up in a crappily slapped together outfit one might expect to see from someone standing in line for a midnight release a full month after the movie opened been out.

Since, as stated the movie had nearly completed its theatrical run, there was almost nobody besides us there. In the end it may only have been funny for me, but isn't that what the point was all along really? Plus to be annoying to Emily and that, I assure you, went off without a hitch.

Notice her resolutely ignoring me as I loudly hummed the Jurassic Park theme song at the side of her head with the puppet. 

If you look closely though, you can see her planning my murder.