Went to go see a free sneak preview of American Pie 2 tonight with Michelle at Mission Valley Cinemas. I agreed to go because (a) I was rather surprised at how funny the first installment was and (b) did I mention that it was free? Not to mention that, all bodily humor aside, there was something sort of charming about how silly the first movie was. After all, weren’t movies like Animal House consigned to the dustbin of history back in the 80s?

Was it good? Well, if you like this sort of thing, it was every bit as good as the first one. By “this sort of thing”, I mean excessive naughty bits and bodily humor, with a couple of contrived tender moments thrown in for legitimacy. Let’s just call it a guilty pleasure and leave it at that.

On the way back, we drove through a blackout. Most of southeast downtown Raleigh was left in the dark due to an explosion at a Progress Energy (formerly CP&L, of course) substation only a few blocks away from where my wife teaches. It was pitch black — much like the… robot… holocaust [ObMST3K]. The explosion occurred at 8:00 PM ET and left 20,000 people without power. This, of course, is bad because it is fairly hot and humid outside for 10 PM — the heat index is 86°F. What was amusing was watching the FOX-50 newscast when we got home. Some annoying anchorwoman said something to the effect of “…all these people out here are hanging out on their porches, trying to make the best of it”, all while smiling that fake made-for-TV smile. Yeah, at least you get to go and get cooled off inside.