New Year's resolutions

My good friend Rita suggested that New Year's resolutions are passe. Instead, she suggested, you should pick a theme for the upcoming year, such as "Reaching out to old friends" or "Taking care of yourself". 

I like that idea and I'm thinking about possible themes. Mine are more like Travelling to all 50 states or Reading a book a day. My brother Peter, always a trend setter, started a theme in 2010 with picking the top 500 songs of his life. A more cynical person might choose a theme like "Weeding out old friends who never call" or "Top Grudges to maintain".

Wrapping up 2010 I did reexamine my resolutions, one of which was to "do a quad."  No, I haven't taken up competitive figure skating. The inspiration came last December when I went to the 16 plex theatre and saw the feel bad movie of the year-Precious- followed by the feel good movie--Blind Side.  I enjoyed both movies, but the real fun was simply walking from one screening room to the next on the same ticket.  I could have easily added a third movie, and considered  Twilight, the vampire movie, but opted for dinner instead.

The challenge materialized before me, as I rode home from the mall--one day, preferably Tuesday Movie Day, one ticket, four movies.  It had to be 4 because 3 seemed so easy to do and with an average length of 2 hours, 4 movies would add up to a perfect 8 hour work day.

As with most resolutions, I can't believe it is now the last week of December and I have yet to accomplish the quad. I've got the tactical plan:

FOOD--Make my one appearance at the snack bar and carefully choose from the menu-- a drink is probably best.  Too many appearances in the main snack bar area which is right next to the ticketing may raise suspicion even among the most jaded teenage employee. 

Jaded teenage employee:
Lady, I'm not counting, but isn't this your fourth bag of popcorn?
Me: 
No, no, that was my twin sister the other times.

I'm also considering packing a large handbag with granola bars, pb&j, fruit and a bottle of water.

TIME:  Start with the first show of the day, usually 11 a.m. and mission accomplished by 8pm. Must study the movie start times and running times to produce optimal viewing schedule. Try to avoid theatres 1 and 2 which necessitates crossing the lobby, where jaded teenagers work. Best to stick to the long corridor for screens 3-16.

CLOTHING: Dress in  nondescript, drab color clothes to blend with the crowd. Mission Impossible theme playing in my bedroom as I suit up would be a nice touch. Consider all in black with optional ski mask, but that just might defeat the purpose.

MOVIES:This is actually the toughest piece of the puzzle.  Are there 4 movies out at one time that you actually want to sit through?  This is the ideal week, as holidays bring a raft of new movies and best chance for a pleasant, satisfying "work" day.  But all this 3-D stuff. When do they give you the glasses? What if you sneak in without them and are forced to watch an entire movie with blurry images?

WEATHER: this snowstorm was an unexpected development, but I'm confident that all will be back to normal tomorrow.

Stay tuned.