Dinner and a Movie

A distraction was needed last night so Mrs Notthat, The Boy, and I went to an early dinner and a movie.

For reasons that are a bit complicated, we went to the Olive Garden restaurant in Palo Alto. We got there are 5:20. Yes, it was a Saturday, but 5:20 is an absurdly early time to go to dinner. We were astonished to find the parking lot nearly filled (Mrs alertly noticed a spot that I was able to squeeze into - I have no idea how that SUV that stalked us when we left managed to fit into it, but I'll bet it was entertaining). There were people standing around waiting for tables - we were told it was a 20-30 minute wait.

Keep in mind, this is at 5:20. The only logical conclusion was that the food must be fantastic. The food was fine but not remarkable or particularly a good deal. I'm sure you could have a nicer meal for the same cost at many of the local restaurants - is this place so busy just because it's a chain? When we left about an hour later, the crowd waiting to get in was twice as big. I really don't understand why, unless they all had our same complicated reasons.

In any case we headed from there to see Ghost Town. If you like Ricky Gervais, you will love this movie. Tea Leoni is icing on the cake. It's a peculiar story that makes little sense, but we laughed lots and really enjoyed it.

So we ended up with a nice, distraction-filled evening and a couple of styrofoam containers of leftover pasta. 

See the movie but you can maybe do better than the Olive Garden. (You can also easily do worse though.)

That's it - move along...