mini golf and a new tire

I came downstairs this morning to my 5 year old watching a marathon of the Orange Island episodes of Pokemon. Personally, the Orange Island arc was my favorite, even though it was more cheesy than the newer episodes by a bit. I am a little irked by it, not because it skipped episodes a few times, but the last episode in the marathon was the first part of the championship battle, and thus ended with a cliffhanger. There were other oddities I thought in the arc, but hey, it was good to see them again. If I had the spare $20, I'd grab the boxset from FYE.

After the marathon, or the capstone to it, I guess, they played Pokemon 2000. Mark refused to let us switch in the DVD of the movie, he wanted to watch the TV version. To me, the washed out color was almost painful, but it is still a decent movie.

I understand partly why they had the marathon on. Tomorrow at noon we will go out and pick up Gold/Silver, once the mall opens. We did the preorder and all. What I don't really understand was the choice of what they showed. Yes, the Orange Islands began to show some of the Generation II pokemon, and the same with the second movie. (fittingly at least, the second movie takes place in the Orange Islands.) They could have shows some to the Pokemon Johto episodes, the ones taking place in the region of the games that come out tomorrow. Also, they could have shown the 3rd movie, which was a rather good one, though I admit to liking the second one better.

Once the movie ended, we loaded up in my wife's car, which I had to put air into the tire of, and went to the mall to play putt-putt. The local Salvation Army set up an 18 hole course inside the mall, and according to the fliers, today was the last day. I lost to Ruthie by about 3 strokes, but Mark came in dead last by at least 30 strokes. It might have been 50 actually, but I don't care to go look for the card. Enzo seemed rater put out that we didn't let him play too, can't imagine that turning out well though. Mark needs to play a bit more Gator Golf I think, Enzo needs to stop running with the Gator Golf clubs...

We went to leave after that, and I went out to get the car, where I found the tire flat again. Never a good sign for it to go flat twice in the same day, so we went back in and over to Sears to have it looked at. They told us according to their records, we had replaced 3 of the 4 tires with them, so we had about a 75% chance of it being free.

Now, I know that really means 'you'll pay out the ass' because it's never the covered ones that go bad. Miracle of miracles, it was a covered one. And, it was dead beyond repair, so we had to buy a new one. Well, miracle again, the coverage that was on the now dead tire took care of most of it, except that the same tire was out of stock, so we had to get a more expensive tire, and we ended up paying $10. I can't really complain, $10 for a new tire seems damn reasonable to me.

Waiting for the tire to get done, we walked the mall again. We had been about to buy Girl Scout cookies from a troop that was a good ways from here, I think 20 miles away, give or take. I have become partial to them, but they were packing up as we walked by, so I made sure when they would be back. Since we had last walked by them, a new group had taken over. Now, this second group is from here in town, afaik, and they were trying to get 'donations' for troops overseas, who I think deserve Girl Scout cookies, but I would think they would melt to easily. They also had coupons for milk, and they wore their uniforms. I walked past with Mark and Enzo, as Ruthie was getting her jewelery cleaned, and they asked if I wanted to buy some cookies. I said simply that I was partial to the group that was there before them, and I swear the one nearest to me muttered something under her breath that was rather nasty, not that I could make out the words, just the intent. Now, on principle alone, I will not buy from that troop.

Overall, aside from the rather nonstop rain, it has been a good day. Dug my shorts out of the closet, wasn't nice enough to wear a kilt, fitting as it may have been for minigolf, but glad to have something other than pants to wear for once. Spring can not arrive fast enough for me.