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Amanda slept this morning until close to 11:00 and Adam and Renee slept a little later than that.  We were going to see WALL-E at 1:30 and Jackson was pretty excited about that.  We went around waking the sleepy heads after a while, played around a bit then piled into the van to go.  It was me, Amanda, Jackson, Andra, Josh, Adam, Renee, Erin, Mom, Elizabeth, Felicia, Harper and Dank.  Good thing we rented that van!  Dad, Uncles Bernie and Steve, Aunt Terry and their cousin Brent (who came down from somewhere in northern Kentucky) all went golfing.

Mom and Erin thought the movie was creepy because of the part where WALL-E was carrying EVE around and taking care of her after she’d locked up.  Josh said he thought it was a good, entertaining movie that didn’t make you have to think too much.  Everyone else just generally said they liked it.  I thought Erin and Josh were both wrong.  In the creepiness department, he was a robot looking for companionship and he thought he’d found it.  As for the not making you think too much, I completely disagree.  the whole movie was a commentary on consumerism run amuck.  People had become blobs who hardly ever walked and for whom physical contact was a shock.  They spent their time slurping food while riding around on hover chairs and talking on telephone screens.

The only thing I can complain about with WALL-E is that at time EVE was given too much emotion in her voice, and that’s just nitpicking.  I thought the end credits were some of the best ever.  It shows mankind’s re-progression and tells it a timeline of historical art styles, starting with cave drawings and going into 8-bit animation.  Brilliant!

After the movie we went back to Baba and Pap’s and, what else but sat on the porch.  Later on Shelby and Alex, two more of Bernie’s brood, showed up along with Sam.  We’d heard they’d broken up a little bit ago, so I don’t know if they’re just on again, off again or just hanging out or what.  Nobody really brought it up.  They brought their little dog, Tucker.  At that point Bruce, Dobja and Tucker all decided it might be fun to try to hump each other.  It was mostly Bruce and Tucker, and I was thinking it might be some sort of dominance thing.

Josh, Harper, Shelby, Sam and I played HORSE and Harper actually won.  Sam was the first out and I was the second.  I forgot to mention it, but yesterday or the day before I hit the porch shot in two tries, which is the record for this trip so far.  Erin got it in three, I think Dad got it in four and Josh in five.  Adam just couldn’t get it to go in and Amanda, poor thing, couldn’t get it near the goal.

We ate leftover spaghetti dinner along with some broccoli and asparagus, which was apparently quite good, plus salad and bread.  Roger, Bernie’s final and oldest, showed up afterwards when just about everyone was sitting out on the porch in the dark.  He’d driven down from Louisville, where he goes to school.  He’s turning 21 later this month and I told him he needed to come to Wilmington sometime this summer, which he may or may not actually do.  He said he’s got no plans for the rest of the summer, so we’ll see.

Sitting around with Josh and Jackson after dinner, Josh did a tournament of favorite uncles.  I was a one seed and Adam was a five seed, the rest of Jackson’s uncles being dispersed throughout.  Adam pulled an upset over Uncle Bubby, Josh’s brother Jimmy, and it came down to a Cinderella story- the five seed versus the one seed.  I won, although Jackson had declared Adam his favorite earlier in the day when Adam was messing with him.  I went on to win favorite person again, so Josh said, "Fine, then I won’t buy you that WALL-E video game or play Spider-Man with you anymore!"  Jackson responded with "Fine!  I’ll just play with myself then!"

Baba and Pap had put the kibosh on setting off any airborne fireworks, but we did light off a number of them that stayed on the ground on the blacktop in the backyard before it started raining.  After that we taught Alex how to play Settlers of Catan.  It was me, Amanda, Alex, Andra, Josh and Erin.  It was a really close game- Amanda had nine points before Josh stole the Longest Road and won a few turns later.  Erin also had nine points and would have won the turn that Josh won, except she goes right after him.  My strategy that game was to get the wheat port and load up on wheat, and I did pretty good with it although I was never really a threat, I think.

Zach Dotsey
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