demon barber of lincoln square

Yesterday I met up with Graham for the first time — we planned to have some Thai food and see Sweeney Todd at Lincoln Square. But, what? I’ve already seen it! Yes yes, but I didn’t mind seeing it again (without chair-kicking fuckwits behind me) and Graham worked backstage of the show before and wanted to see the film version. Also, Johnny Depp.

We met at Bellevue Square, at a fountain outside of Macy’s. He came from the parking garage across the way and I from within the mall, so there was an awkward moment where I recognized him before he recognized me. I gave him a couple small gifts (a totally-gay deck of playing cards and some Japanese candy) for late-Christmas which broke the ice a bit before dinner.

Before we saw the movie, we walked a (round-and-)round-about route to a nice Thai restaurant in Bellevue named Chantanee. I had the “Princess Favorite Chicken” which was chicken in yellow curry with cashews, broccoli, and carrots. Tasty tasty! I’m not sure if Chantanee is better than Buddha Ruksa, but it easily beats the piss out of any Thai places near Southcenter, or what I remember of Sawatdee in Minneapolis. The staff was very friendly and we were out of there sooner than expected.

So, we arrived at the theatre about 45 minutes early and to kill time fed $4.50 of tokens into Jurassic Park III, a really bad light-gun game. We fought a Spinosaurus and the fucker went down three times before he finally died and our in-game avatars tried to hide their man-love feelings from each other as the credits ran. Graham had triple my score at one point, but if anyone asks, I let him win to be polite.

After the movie I waited for the 55x back to Seattle and as I boarded a bus the driver shooed me away from the fare box and instead asked me to sit up front and talk to him. That was a bit.. odd.. but I obliged. I guess he thought he was doing me a favor saving me $2.50, but I already paid up-front for my bus pass, so /shrug. He seemed a nice-enough old guy, though clearly a bit sad and lonely. We discussed my move to Seattle from Minneapolis, differences between the two cities and Bellevue, and the impending light rail system before he dropped me off and I walked home.

All in all it was an enjoyable evening. Graham is a very nice fellow. Bellevue is also surprisingly lovely — everyone I encountered was polite and friendly. Even the people with little kids went out of their way to be courteous.