AFI Silver Screen and Macaroni Grill, Silver Spring

Went to Silver Spring with Joe to see Good Night, and Good Luck. I enjoyed it, despite the slight reservations Liz put in my head. Even though we were in a blackbox theater, it was still nicer than your average theater. The seats were comfy and rocked back a little – good, since we got stuck in the first row. Thank goodness I have a theater like the AFI Silver Screen that is so accessible. It would suck to only be able to see mass-market movies at the overpriced Regal in Chinatown.

[I take this moment to interject that I compose in word before I post online, and I *HATE* that XP word now deems it necessary to underline with little purple dots those words or phrases it identifies as addresses or locations. I KNOW it’s a location. In fact, it’s a rather interesting one, and that’s why I’m writing about it. I do not need M$ to remind me that Silver Spring, Maryland and Chinatown are places. You’d have to be an idiot not to know that. And as we all know, idiots should not have computers. It speeds up the dissemination of stupid.]

Afterward, we met up with the Monkey and ate at Macaroni Grill. Monkey and I decided to try a Shiraz, since I’m always up for trying new reds, and we bought a bottle. [Apparently Shiraz is a location, too, which makes word even more irritating, for not being able to realize that I am not talking about place-noun, but thing-noun.] It made the evening more entertaining for a very sober Joe, I am sure, and I ended up sleeping like a baby.

I was a bit of a shrew to the waiter, as I was very demanding. Not mean; just demanding; I’ve found I do that more as I’ve gotten a bit older and a bit more confident, and while confidence is a nice thing, I’m concerned how my assertiveness comes across now and how it will come across if I ever change my last name to [insert obvious Jewish last name here] and wear gold jewelry. I’m so signing on for oppression and discrimination, which, in self-fulfilling prophecy, will make me more assertive and less apt to let myself get pushed around. I’m a little excited to find out what type of post-feminist pillar of womanhood I’ll become. Anyhow, digressions aside, I have a very particular set of criteria when I go out to eat. I hate having to ask for water – one never need ask for WATER. Also, I hate having only two minutes to settle into my seat and in the same two minutes I’m expected to make up my mind about my drink order – which is worse when you say “just water for now,” and the waitperson snatches away the drink menu. Needless to say, the waiter we got was trying to be too friendly and flamboyant (and maybe flirting with Monkey a bit much) to be an attentive server.

Macaroni Grill has a decent spinach cannelloni, which is saying a huge amount for a chain restaurant. I had the Pasta Milano – a sundried tomato butter cream sauce with mushrooms chicken and pasta. But then, that’s what I always get. Their proprietary olive oil is horrendous though, which is why we steered clear the proprietary chianti and went with the aforementioned shiraz.

The waiter talked us into the fried ravioli – which is basically snickers-stuffed raviolis fried, sprinkled with powdered sugar and served on icecream. It was rather good, but I have to say, since the Great Peanut Scare of 2003, I don’t really like snickers anymore.

My favorite part of Macaroni Grill: the proprietary crayolas.