last night was spent at twiddle thumbs's parents' house for thanksgiving dinner. alpha tom was there along with our friend nopalita and a few of twiddle thumbs's relatives. it was actually a pretty fun evening. different from how i usually spend thanksgiving. twiddle thumbs's family plays games afterwards, and not just board games. they play a version of hot potato with a balloon. the balloon has a piece of paper inside. if you get stuck with the balloon, you must pop it and do what the paper says. it's not all humiliating. some of them have 'gift' on it and you get a gift. i think i've played this game before with them but i can't recall when. they must play it often at gatherings and celebrations.

while we were all in good spirits, we decided to see a movie. we went to go see "national treasure". if it wasn't for this spur of the moment deal, i probably would have never watched this movie. the previews for it just didn't appeal to me. the basis for the script seems very simple and interesting. most likely it was sparked by looking at american dollar bills and pondering the reasons why certain markings and symbols appear on the bills. what the filmmakers came up with is that the founders of the usa were guarding an enormous treasure. they left clues as to where the treasure is beings stored. some of these clues appear on dollar bills, some on historical places of interest and national documents.

the protagonist is played by nicholas cage, an actor i have no interest in which is probably a large reason why i wasn't interested in seeing the film. the protagonist is dead set on finding the national treasure. he wants to see it with his own eyes. only his family believes the treasure exists. it is a deep secret that was shared with his family generations ago. each generation has passed on the tale. the tale becomes a myth for cage's father, who feels he has wasted his life trying to find the treasure, and now his son his wasting his life as well. this is the conflict of course as all films must have a protagonist with a conflict.

all in all, i enjoyed the film a lot more than i thought i would. there were some parts that were cheesy because they were so formulaic, but at least the filmmakers were able to poke fun at them. such as 'the girl', as in there is always a gorgeous love interest and the protagonist always gets the girl. one of the villains questioned why he never gets the girl. suddenly cage kisses the girl and the villain says to himself, "why doesn't that ever happen to me?" the filmmakers earned a couple cool points with that line.