Today we had a barbeque at the Appelcline residence, breaking in their new barbeque that the guys bought as a wedding present. Present were Shannon and Kimberly (of course), Dave Pickering and Dave Sweet, Donald Kubasak and myself. Later on Julie and Wendy arrived (after the morning game) to join the Labor Day Weekend festivities.

Attendance was a lot less than it could have been, and as usual there was way too much food. Starting with Dave's famous salsa and guacamole (two separate dips) which in restrospect some of us ate too much of. The guacamole is really good, and so is the salsa when it's wet and cold. Pick brought a hunk of pork loin (3 pounds) which he seasoned and slow cooked for an hour and a half.

There was a salad which I didn't eat. Corn on the cob, giant portabello mushrooms and vegetable kabobs, none of which I ate to conserve space. I brought a couple of Porterhouse steaks and some New York strips which were cooked last, so I ate last. My steak was good, although a bit dry. Grilled meat comes out a bit drier than pan fried meat, so I probably should have gotten a medium instead of a well done. I also had baked potatoes (really microwaved since apparently it takes a couple of hours to bake potatoes in a barbeque). Microwave is easy, 4 minutes on high, turn it over then another 4 minutes. Make sure to cut a slit in the potato so it doesn't explode and sprinkle water on it before you turn on the microwave each time.

It was a good and hearty meal, with everyone stuffed at the end. There was even cake which we ate later. That night's entertainment consisted of watching all three Scream movies, which Shannon, Julie and I hadn't seen before while the rest had seen at least one of the movies. Pick, Wendy and Julie didn't stay to the end of the marathon, which ended at 02:45 or so.

The Scream trilogy are horror movies, which I don't like to watch. But they're supposed to be funny horror movies, funny enough to watch even with the horror, or so I was told. After watching the three movies I can say that they are neither horror movies nor comedy movies. I'd have to say that they do neither well, but combine them both together to come up with the kind of winning formula that's spawned many knockoffs.

For me a horror movie has to leave me real scared, to the bone. Ominous music that builds up to a sudden hack and slash that claims another victim is only scary for a little bit. A movie that only does this is just a bunch of small peaks and valleys: you're scared, not scared, scared, not scared. Never really building up to make you really scared. A movie that's all buildup with a few well done death scenes is much more scary, but mentally draining for the audience. You're going to lose the audience if they don't have a chance to relax for 90 minutes.

As I've said before, what really scares me is the supernatural. Unexplainable monsters that defy the natural laws. The villains in the Scream movies are too fallible. Sure they kill people, sometimes gorily. But they fall down and get kicked around too much to be scary. The only time I was really scared was in Scream 3 with the scene with the dead mom walking towards Sydney's house. When she suddenly turned and you knew she was a walking corpse, that was scary.

I did enjoy the movies a lot. Lots of light moments to break up the horror. Well written dialogue and a substantive plot. Seeing all three at once, you can see the growing relationship between two of the characters that make it through all three movies, and that was nice. There are also a lot of relatively famous people in the movies, most of whom die of course. And not everyone dies, so it's a game to try to guess who besides the main character lives to the end of the movie.