Mustachio

I can't really grow a mustache. Try and try as I might, it's not so much on the happening side. Alas. My beard, though, grows in quickly, wildly, and sometimes multi-colored.

In high school, the dress code forced us to be clean shaven. We were permitted a well-groomed mustache, however. Seeing as I had to start shaving when I was 13, and cannot grow a mustache, this was a bit annoying.

2001.

I didn't show up to school always clean shaven, but not with a bunch of facial hair. Kinda like a light coating. The girl I had liked at the time was Cameron, the en-reddened gymnast, the one I got a stick thrown at me for.

I looked less like a bum when I shaved, so I suppose it was because of that Cameron liked it when I shaved. So, one day, I made a point of shaving in the morning and telling Cameron. She liked it. I hadn't bothered shaving the few whiskers that grew above my lip, so she quickly pointed them out.

Defensively, I asked, "Do you know how hard it is to shave there?"

"As a matter-of-fact yes, I do."

"... what?"

She then explained to me that when she was little, she would watch her father shave. One day her dad gave her shaving cream and a razor without a blade and she "shaved." I thought it was a cute story.

I still hardly ever shave my mustache. It's still a pain and I still hardly grow any hair there. C'est la vie.

Chicken Cheesesteak Shot

I am not a gambling man. In a poker game, I can usually clean up, given a fair deck and long enough to read people. When it comes to the ponies, craps, or all that jazz, what's the point?

I learned this lesson early on.

In the 90s, I liked ordering food from the local pizza joints. We had two really good places just a few blocks from the house: Folcroft Pizza and Italian Style. A favored after school activity was playing basketball. For awhile we had a basktball poll behind the house. Then my neighbor did.

In 7th grade Bob was over. We went outside to play some basketball. I'm less sure of the buildup to this, but I'm sure we at least played Horse. Then, after making a few difficult distance shots, he set up to attempt a shot from two houses over. Well, after some bravado from both sides, he said that he bet me a chicken cheesesteak from Italian Style that he could make it.

What were the odds, neh?

We ordered food. Bob really enjoyed that free cheesesteak. Afterward we dubbed the spot of the shot the dreaded chicken cheesesteak shot. Bob had the best shooting average from that spot, by a longshot.

Getting into the Kitchen

I am a connoisseur of food. I have a wealth of information of culinary arts and at least a little bit of the science behind it. Whatever information I lack, I make up in bluster.

I cannot cook. When food is being made, however, I offer my services freely as a critic, or better still: as a criticizer.

1994.

I was enrolled in a summer program, a cooking one for children. I and 4 others went to a building and which had a kitchen. Every week for 5 or so weeks, we'd go and learned simple tips to take with us for the rest of our lives. Then we would make the recipe of the day and get to take home some samples.

I don't recall any of the tips, really, aside from using hot water to wash dishes. Oh, that and I can bake a really mean Mac'n Cheese when there's a cooking instructor going step by step through the recipe and 4 other kids to help.

The Sweetest Milkshake

Back in the day, I had a habit of catching midnight showings of movies. This was mostly to accommodate my friends' schedules and to get to watch movies in more peace than at the prime showings with plenty of teenagers. This also went well for big releases, since we'd catch the first showing.

After the movie, we would go to a diner, often the nearby Denny's, and eat. Depending on how much money I had, I'd have breakfast and a milkshake, or just a milkshake, or just water. In 2006, Denny's briefly had a promotion where employees would wear a sticker saying, "If I don't offer an appetizer, it's free." There were other stickers offering specific appetizers, or their ghastly fruit drink things, or a milkshake.

So one night, after seeing whichever movie, I was at Denny's with J. and Sentell. I had planned to order a milkshake. J. and Sentell ordered their food and then I didn't order anything. The server started to walk away when I said, "You didn't offer us a milkshake, so it's free, right?" The server was wearing the milkshake sticker and seemed to have forgotten about that. He quickly took it off afterward and then tried to say that milkshakes are for dessert. I didn't buy it.

When J.'s and Sentell's food came, there was my chocolate milkshake. It was probably spit in, but it was delicious.

Fun with Hall Passes

Being a part of Monsignor Bonner's Jazz Band was almost always a hoot. There were only a few of us but we were all kinda odd ducks so we generally always got along and had some good laughs.

2000, a year shy of the famous Odyssey.

One day, we were waiting for our director to show up to begin rehearsal. Rather than take initiative and practice ourselves, we tried to find something fun to do.

Joseph Gribbons was a tall guy with red hair that played keyboards, guitar, and bass, as needed for the band. He was smart and knew a whole lot about music. So, Bochanski and I were talking and waiting while Gribbons was rifling through our director's desk. He walked up to us and handed Bochanski a hall pass he filled out.

Matthew Bochanski was to report to J(ustice) U(nder) G(od) immediately, as per the orders of Mr. Urethra.

Ah, good times. Though ... we never did use those passes to actually get out of class.

Easter Egg

I wasn't a fan of hard boiled eggs for a long time. It just wasn't my thing.

In 1995, I was in 5th grade and we had to bring in some decorated eggs. Not being inclined to decorate eggs, I sought help from my family. My brother helped me come up with some better ideas and my mom help me paint.

I can only remember two of my designs. One was a rocketship. The other was a result of a mishap. The back of an egg got cracked. So we glued a toothpick into it. We then painted on a really shocked face on the front and then a bunch of blood around the toothpick.

I don't recall if I won, but a lot of my classmates really liked that one.

Thank you, Easter Bunny.

Random Dog

I am not a dog person. I believe dogs to be evil and that their loyalty is suspect. That's how they get you, you know. First it's the puppy dog eyes to melt your heart and lower guard. Then, it's the old betray-them-because-I'm-a-dog routine. My wife doesn't believe me for a second and thinks that I'm just making it up.

One day, back in the dark years of somewhere between 2003-2005, there was a terrible rainstorm. The rainstorm wasn't the worst I'd seen, but it wasn't too pleasant. My brother had a friend over. They had been hanging out outside. They saw the weather turn and quickly hurried in. My brother had left something outside, so he ventured back out. He returned quickly, fairly wet.

Around this time, my brother's friend pointed out, "Hey Mo, there's a dog in the house." The dog was a retriever, the golden sort. He casually strolled through the living room and into the bedrooms before turning back. Our cats were not enthused at the intruder. Then, the dog returned outside and wandered out.

That was pretty weird.

Pomp and Circumstance

By Edward Elgar.

Ah, the standard graduation song. Starting in 1998, I had begun playing it for every high school graduation I had to go to. Since I was in band, that meant every one. And since Monsignor Bonner was the boys' school and I was in their Jazz Band and Archbishop Prendergast was the girls' school and I was in their orchestra, I had double duty for the schools.

Pomp and Circumstance is not a bad song, considering. It's a nice march and it sounds like what it's called. It sounds less nice when you have to play it again and again and again and again, year after year after year.

This memory comes at the bitter irony. The one thing I looked forward to was forcing someone to play it ad nauseum. So, one fateful night of 2002 in May, it was time for me to finally graduate. I was happy to do so, hoping to never see some people again and unfortunately not seeing some of them again too. As the time drew near the excitement was building.

And that's when the rain started. Downpour. Bad. Torrential, even. There wasn't really any lightning, but it was enough to get us worried about a cancellation. After about half an hour the rain had died, taking with it a large chunk of the audience, and the band.

We did not take a lap around the stadium, we just started the ceremony, without the ceremonial march. We didn't have our first speaker and instead our only speaker was ... Christina Cody was her name? I don't recall. What I do recall was the horrendous speech she gave. It involved an opening that got no response that she had banked on. It then involved saying that September 11th really helped the school become stronger. She said other things, but we had stopped listening to her.

So ... yeah. Not much to change about this one, other than building a weather control device first.

The Matrix (Revisited)

Say what you will about the trilogy as a whole; it deserves it and so much worse. The first Matrix was a good and important film until the foul taint of the conclusion ruined it all.

2000. By this point I had seen the movie quite a few times and I was dying to see where the story went. That alone is enough to make me want to change it if I had it all to do over again. Though, I was specifically more inclined to kill to see it anyway, rather than die myself.

Anyway, this particular memory comes from me trying to explain the Matrix to a friend of mine from high school, and his family.

Matthew Bochanski, a gifted musician, was an overall good kid, if a bit naive. I went over to his house one day to play some music and otherwise hang out. Over some food, I mentioned the movie and tried to wax poetic on some of the philosophical points brought up in the film. His mother was confused, so I did my best to reconstruct the film and explain what was what. Specifically, she, and Bochanski's younger siblings couldn't keep track of what was the Matrix and what wasn't. I tried bringing up things I had read like color schemes or the more obvious plugs and gaunt appearances and they still didn't catch on so well.

Looking back, maybe they had it right, considering the end result.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: Sara Who Loves Life

Band's a repository of memories. This was probably the most random.

2003.

We were eating lunch before a game in the band hall. We didn't always have enough places for us to sit and eat at a table per se, but we'd find places to hunker down and eat. I had done just that with Robby and a few others by the lockers.

A clarinetist walked by and asked us if we had ever played the Locker Game before. We responded no and that we didn't know what it is.

She explained that it was a game where you take turns doing random things as you run past the lockers to make the other person laugh. She demonstrated by running and jumping like a ballerina. She was laughing all the while.

Robby, straight-faced and monotone, responded, "Wow, you must really love life."

She was a music major who was almost always bubbly and energetic and ... loving life. I've long since forgotten her last name, but we remember her as Sara Who Loves Life.

Lunch Money

Lunch Money, the card game. The game, Wikipedia tells me, came out in 1996. I had never heard of it until 2000.

I like card games, provided I'm good at them and they're fun. Lunch Money is one of those. It has randomness, sure, but it's still entertaining. You have attack cards, weapon cards, defensive maneuvers, and the ultimate trump card: the humiliation card. This trump card not only trumped the card it was played on, but allowed a free attack on top of it.

Sentell is the only person who holds a deck and thus he was that introduced me into. With Lunch Money in the rotation in addition to 13 and Egyptian Rat Fink, we had a healthy selection of time wasting card games.

Hispanic Dancing

There are many things I'm not an expert on, but I might try to pass myself off as one anyway. Dancing is one of these things. Sure, I'm not exactly graceful, but I can claim to know a thing or two ... even if I can't do it myself.

The reason why I can say this about dancing, though, is because I had someone break down Hispanic dancing for me.

2003 was a pretty good year, at times. I was in the beginner's class for fencing at UH. Our instructor was a heavyset man, from Guatamala, named Carlos. Carlos was a physics grad student who was pretty fit, but was stocky. Either way, he was an excellent instructor as he was thorough in teaching the basics.

One of my favorite parts about fencing, aside from the rogues' gallery I met, was the sense of community. Sure, practices lasted 3 hours, which was longer than most marching band practices, but afterwards, we'd eat together. I may have mentioned that I've always found eating to be a social event. Carlos would go with the beginners, often to Wendy's. After such a long practice, we would be hungry and tired, but still wired from all the work, so we'd talk for a long time, even after we'd finished eating. Sometimes, we'd go down to play some pool and continue to hangout. It was fun.

Carlos had the gift of gab. He's a gifted storyteller and had good comedic timing. So, when he'd tell us a joke, he'd take his time getting to the end, but the journey was always enjoyable. However, when he would tell a story, we weren't always sure if it was the truth or not.

One day, he told us about the secret of Hispanic Dancing. Being Hispanic, I was interested. He gave us a demonstrations as he spoke. He said that behind all the moves in all the styles the men's parts involved a lot of moving, but if we really noticed, none of that moving took place at the man's midsection. This was to make sure the man's belly fat didn't giggle. He continued dancing and sure enough, the arms, shoulders, legs, feet, and behind all shook but not the midsection. He then showed us what would happen if it did. Lo and behold, he was right.

I hadn't really danced prior to that but when I finally did start, this sagacious memory was always close to mind.

Memoirs

Where will I be in 2048? I was first asked that question in the spring of 1998 and I still don't have a convincing answer. Our final for 7th grade writing with Mrs. Crane was to write just that: our memoirs.

Seeing that far into the future as a 12 year old was a daunting task, in all honesty. Seeing that far is a little easier now, but in all honesty, still daunting. In my youth, I wrote that in my late 20s I was a fighter pilot that fought in a war akin to what the Cold War would've been if it wasn't Cold. I wrote that I was shot down a few times, but escaped with my life, unlike my comrades. We eventually won, and I retired to be a novelist. I lived peacefully and retained my sense of humor.

That assignment was probably the best thing I had written to that point. I do not have a copy to this day, but I wish I did. Things didn't go to that plan, but I never really intended to follow through with that plan. But it was the first time I had truly visualized it, that far into the future. To see what potential I had and what I could do with it. The world was getting more and more real. I was about to be an 8th grader, which was practically being in high school. Then I'd be off to Penn State and then ... and then?

Well, I got over wanting to fly planes around 9th grade and I know I'll probably never write professionally. I never got to Penn State. Eh.

I will probably retain my sense of humor by the time I get to 2048. At least I hope I do.

Millions of Peaches

In 1998, I started high school, that lovable time when everything sucks and the world is stupid and you hate everyone and everyone's stupid and you're stupid and everything's so important because it's like the end of the world if x, y, and z happens but it's okay because if it does, you'll just play it off like you don't care and all.

Anyway, I took the bus to school. It was a fairly long ride. Sometimes I'd sit next to the girl I liked whom I had met in grade school, but was a year ahead of me.

She and I were contentious at times, but again I liked her and she didn't like me that way so on it went. One day after a tiff or whatever, she ended a conversation as the bus pulled into the school by saying, "You know, you remind me of a peach."

I spent the rest of the day baffled, wondering what the Hell she meant. That was ... more than a decade ago. Yeah, still not sure there.

A Pound of Flesh

I liked Fridays in grade school. We had specials like PE and Music and Art and often did funner things in regular classes.

One Friday in 1st grade, we had a competition. It was the great showdown of 1991, a chance for academic prowess to reign supreme. The class was divided into two teams: one was comprised of the boys and the other the girls.

We had a variety of fields, with questions ranging from 10 to 50 points. Titan that I was, I was confident in team XY's chances. We were lined up in single file and each side alternated taking choosing questions and values to answer. Whoever was at the front got to pick and had to answer alone, so teamwork wasn't an issue. When it got to my turn, I asked for a 50 point math question.

"Which weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?"

"Uh ... bricks?"

I walked back to the end of the line in shame, mostly at having failed myself, really. The next girl took my question and answered, "Bricks?"

The next few girls answered, "Bricks?" as well. Then a few of them answered, "Feathers?" I snickered since I had figured it out after a few more seconds of rational thought and here they were still tossing out bricks and feathers. I got my chance at redemption and finally answered correctly.

It was a good feeling this redemption. It beat the Hell out of being wrong; that's for damn sure.

Truth in Advertising

Teacher knickknacks are a good way to quickly communicate one's views to the children they have to instruct. A student spends a fair amount of time looking around the room they have to learn in. These can range from motivational posters to state mandated things. Then, there's some teachers who put other things up.

1995-1996.

Mrs. McLaughlin was a tough teacher. She was a force to be feared. She taught math and theology. She also yelled, a lot, often, and loudly. Get something wrong? That's a shout. Speak out of turn? That's a shout. Do anything you're not supposed to be doing and she'd let you and the neighboring classes know about it.

I liked her a lot. That's probably because I excelled in math and didn't get yelled at, but it definitely helped me with rote memorization that's key for early math concepts like fractions, percentages, and decimals. Whenever I think of fraction values I see the white chart she had hanging in her room. 1/3? That's 33 1/3% or .333. 1/12? 8 1/3% or .0833. It was all on the chart.

She had a variety of other things hanging around. I can only think of one other thing. It was a simple saying on her desk.

"Life is hard, then you die."

Well, we couldn't argue with that, could we?

Chair, Desk, Floor

At Saint Gabriel's my grade was a small grade, it was eventually consolidated into just one class. But before that happened we went through the years as two small classes. We graduated as a grade of 33, or thereabouts.

In 6th grade I was in Honors Math with two others, one Gaetano Castiglioni, the other Gabriella Costello. I'm possibly mangling the former's name, but it's a hard name.

Gaetan was short and very athletic, a hockey nut. He was always a bit of a clown, but at least he was bright about it. That made him especially entertaining. One day he derived a new routine. He didn't tell us the names of these things, but I'm going to go ahead and name it "Chair, Desk, Floor."

It consisted of him jumping onto his chair, saying, "Chair," then jumping onto his desk, saying, "desk," followed by jumping back onto the floor. He would do this in sets of 3 when he could get away with it. It was hilarious to us. He never got caught doing it by the teacher since he'd have the sense to wait until the teacher had made the mistake of leaving us unattended for longer than a second.

After we graduated from 8th grade, I saw him once more: playing hockey for Cardinal O'Hara against Monsignor Bonner at the Skatium.

I later heard he was injured and couldn't play hockey anymore. That's a shame. I hope he never lost the ability to entertain and his sense of humor.

Skins

Eating and conversating with friends and family is amongst my favorite things to do. I believe I may have mentioned this before.

In 2004 I was in an ensemble with Brandon and Robby. We went to lunch together afterwards. We added a fourth, Candi.

One day, the lot of us went to lunch at the BBQ place at the University Center. Candi mentioned that she really wanted a baked potato. Both she and Robby ordered one. We ate a decent meal and had an excellent time hanging out together. At one point, Candi said something along the lines of she hadn't thought she could finish the whole thing. Robby pointed out that she still didn't.

"If you don't eat the skin, it doesn't count."

It was a contest, you see. Candi didn't know that in the baked potato eating contest that the skins are part of the potato and she therefore lost. She argued, futilely, and thought that it was a stupid rule.

Hey, it's not like we invented it.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: The Time I Almost Got Kicked Out of Band

A little backstory for this one: our band director was on the warpath around October of 2003. Saturday was game day, baby, and we had important practices on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The Friday before this game, Herr Direktor kicked someone out of band. This poor soul "talked back" to the director, a mortal sin. The director responded by telling him to get off the field and not to come back. The band was either a majority music major or just about music major majority by this point. This day was pivotal since the non-majors really felt as if we were no longer needed.

The day of the game it was rainy. Not raining, per se, but rainy. We were given our water ponchos, a bright yellow, monstrous affair, to protect our wool uniforms. When we started on our traditional parade to the stadium it was rainy. At the completion of the parade, I think less than 1% of the band had brought their ponchos. The director was irate. When the director yelled at us, "Why did you think we gave them out today!?"

What happened next was mostly reflex, honestly. I was a smartass and saying things as a flippant and humorous response was natural. So I said, too loud, much louder than I had intended, "Because I paid for it last year."

The director barked out, "WHO SAID THAT!?"

I did the only responsible thing: hide. I didn't want to get kicked out of band, after all. After about 5 seconds of uncomfortable silence and trying to make it look like I was apalled at the gall of an individual to make such a comment. The director then moved on. I'm pretty sure he never found out it was me and if he had, that would've been the end of my band career.

Good times.

Things Ain't Going Well

In my musician days, prior to my imbuement as a composer, I used to be a pit musician, from time to time. Ah, those were simpler days.

2000. There was not blood this year.

I did my time in the trenches, working my way through Andrew Lloyd Weber and all. I signed on to do a gig for St. Andrew's, I believe. It was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show was held at Archbishop Prendergast, on their main stage.

There's a few memories to be had from that show, but the first and most salient occurred one night where everything was a little off. The star came in late a few times, the narrator missed a note or two. This was a parish show, after all, but it had very good standards since Prendie's Choral Director (a South African man named Mr. Mayes, was it?) was the musical director of the show. A few minor errors were bound to happen but didn't really ruin the show. But this show had a few minor errors clustered together. The musical director was visibly frustrated but soldiered on.

About halfway through the show, when Joseph is imprisoned, we had a heavy set of bars set off the the side. Well, the stage crew must've slacked or something, but during the chorus' part, that set of bars fell, taking out Mr. Mayes' music stand and narrowly missing him. He had shrieked, the flautists screamed a little too, and so did some of the cast.

After everyone recomposed themselves the narrator picked up where she left off. "Poor, poor Joseph, things ain't going well ..." which got a pretty big pop from the crowd. I couldn't help but laugh, and so did Doug and the flautists.

Clarinet Trio

Writing music is not easy. It's easier when you have an expensive program that handles must of the scut work, though.

2001, or so it says on the music file.

I don't know why I first sat down at the Band Hall's Music Library's computer. The Music Library was a small office that had (probably) thousands of pieces of music. There was also enough room to hold private lessons comfortably but that's about it. There was also an old computer there. It had Warcraft and a few other old games on it as well, or it did from time to time. It also had Finale.

One day, I was waiting for something or other and my friends were hanging around the band hall as well. We ended up at the music library and passed the time. For some reason, I opened Finale. I tried to see what I could do at first, but it wasn't much.

The next day, or thereabouts, I sat at the computer again. I started a new piece with a clarinet, tenor sax, and trumpet. I think I was trying to remember the blues scales I had learned at my old school and wanted to use all Bb instruments to make it easier on me. It was pretty bad.

Some time later, I started a new file with three clarinets. Instead of trying to do blues scales, I just tried to write. And write I did. I learned how to better use the program as time went on and I spent a few weeks adding to it, saving my work to a floppy disk. Eventually, I was done. I knew I was done because I showed my private lesson teacher it and he suggested an ending. I took his advice and lo and behold I was done. During one session, he and I played through the melody of my piece. It was excellent.

The piece is a baroque-esque piece. It is not that way by design, but somehow, I slopped together enough notes to make a 2 and a half minute plus song that sounded decent. Doing that really helped me feel happy about things again.

I've retouched the piece only slightly since I finished it in 2001, only to add dynamic changes really, to make it more palatable to the ear from newer versions of Finale. To this day, however, I still don't have a name for it; it's just Clarinet Trio.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: I Never Learned the Damn Fight Song

I think one of my crowning achievements throughout UH was that I never did once learn the school's fight song. It wasn't the hardest thing, but it was not the easiest either.

My second year of band they instituted a squad system that had every member under a squad, each squad under a the section leader (equipped with XO), under a particular drum major. The band director issued an order that everyone was to play off the fight song. My squad would play it as a section, which was easy to fake my way through. The section leader or the assistant would break us into smaller groups and play off individually. I'd pass off any errors as reed troubles or horn malfunction. I'd say I'd fix it and try again later. I never did.

One day, the drum major in charge of the clarinets pulled us aside, gathered us into a circle and pointed to us one by one to do a final play off. She never picked me. She then sent us back to our sections to continue practice as per usual.

I ended up learning the trumpet part throughout my tour at UH. During games, I'd sing the song rather than play anyway.

Good times.

I Don't Shave My Hands

2001, May or thereabouts.

Junior year was a time of great upheaval and change. In Algebra II, a rehash of Algebra at my old school, I met a more diverse group of people than what I was used to in a math class. I was no longer with the best and the brightest, because my Pennsylvania and Texas differed on what to call certain mathematical concepts.

I met a girl there that I thought I loved. The meeting is its own memory, but one that's far lighter is that once we did get to talking, we'd have this thing of taking turns asking random questions via AIM. (I would pour over these in the Library for further obsession.)

One day, at a particular timestamp I used to think was important, she asked, "Do you shave your hands?" I was surprised and wondered what prompted the question. When I was 16, I had a lot of arm hair that for some reason just stopped after my wrist. She thought it was because I shaved them and that she did too, because she used to play piano.

My hands remained free of hair until around 18. At 24, I still have a section on each hand that's uncovered. And no, I don't shave my hands.

The Power Outage Ending

I like Matrix Reloaded. It wasn't a great movie, but I liked it. (Just ask Laurence Fishburne how "awesome" he thought it was, though.)

I ended up seeing Matrix Reloaded a total of 3 times in theater. This is the memory of the first time.

The movie opened May 15, 2003. We saw it at midnight, opening day, a thing we used to do back in those days. I'm less sure who exactly "we" were at this point. It was at least myself, Sentell, J., Lehman. Brandon was probably there, but I'm not sure. Robby probably wasn't, though.

We liked the flashes and the pretty action sequences and the music and the whole Neo being unstoppable and Agent Elrond kicking ass and all that jazz. We were less jazzed about the pointless twins, the keymaker, the Merovingian, and the ending.

A word about the ending ... around 2:15 AM, or thereabouts, the Southeastern power grid of Texas failed. Hospitals and businesses were on emergency power only. What did this mean to the AMC 30 Gulf Pointe? Lighting to get people out and no movie projection or air conditioning.

The Power(s?) That Is (Be?) chose this power failure to happen when Neo jumps into the Source. All we saw was white screen followed by the emergency lights coming on. I laughed. I applauded. Who would have the audacity to have an ending like that? It was brilliant. I told my friends that it was like those old movies: a gimmick and it worked so well. We sat in our chairs chatting about the movie excitedly. The majority of my friends (I think all) thought that this was a malfunction of some kind. They were right and an employee came in and told us to come out with our ticket stubs to get a free pass to come back another day to watch the movie. We had to go all the way back to the customer service desk, aided by power of flashlight and limited lighting. By the time my group neared the front of the line for passes, we heard the power had come back and the movie was restarting.

We rushed back to our seats and watched as the Architect explained everything and Trinity took forever to die for the first time.

In our post-movie mandatory Denny's discussion, the "Power Outtage Ending" was vastly superior to the actual ending.

I saw Reloaded twice more, in theater. It was possible that the ending was so bad because the flow of the experience was interrupted. This was not the case.