Idle thought

At the theater to see Julie and Julia yesterday afternoon, the crowd was — well, let’s just say there were a lot of senior discounts. And it was about 65-35 female to male.

At showtime, when the trailers were supposed to begin, the screen just froze. We all (it was fairly full) sat and chatted and waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually people started getting restless. Donna said she’d call and started looking for the number. Presently a woman to the left in our same row got up to go tell someone.

Time for NewMexiKen to swing into action. I opened the Fandango app on my iPhone, touched Theaters, selected the theater we were in (which the GPS knew), and touched the phone number. The phone connected to the theater and I told them there was a problem.

That took so little time that the brave volunteer woman was not even to the exit. I announced the theater knew there was a problem. She or someone asked how I knew they knew. I held up my phone and said, “Hey, it’s 2009.”

It was interesting that then, knowing the problem would be attended to, the crowd collectively relaxed. The woman in front of me suggested to all that we talk about health care.

Fortunately the first of the seven — yes seven — trailers began and we didn’t have to beat anyone up.

And the movie was terrific.