Marvel Movie Marathon...

So I've been busy as of late...too busy to report what I did on May 3rd.

Truth be told, I spent my day in Downtown Disney in Anaheim watching movies from 11:30am to well past 2:00am in the morning. It was, in the words of Barney Stinson: LEGENDARY.

I went into this thing thinking that there would be a relatively small crowd there. Figured two theater's almost full TOPS.

Couldn't have been more wrong.

I was assaulted with people that had been in line since the night before and AMC had FOUR theaters containing enough people to damn near full capacity. And boy oh boy, were these people enthusiastic.

I had a plan of attack where me and my friends would take our meager seats down in front and slowly, if not surely wear out the weaker, geekier folk throughout the day and gradually gain seats higher within the realm of AMC. Because if there's one thing I pride myself on it is my endurance. I can take PAIN, baby. I can hold my bladder longer than you, I can make it so to the point where I don't take a shit for DAYS, I have a CAST IRON stomach, I can sit and watch something FOREVER, I don't have to eat - EVER, and I can generally beat your ass if it comes to a conflict over seats and or noise level within a movie theater.

But holy jeezuz did I underestimate this geek crowd.

It was seriously like nothing I have ever seen.

Comic-Con takes place in my back yard, I thought I was prepared. I thought I was ready. I thought I had everything figured out.

Well, I was wrong and I was right.

The fact is that anyone with decent seats was doing exactly what I would've done, they were going out in organized parties, letting one or two individuals secure their seats while they were gone. I knew this would happen, my only miscalculation was that I didn't think they'd all have the stamina within FOUR THEATERS to keep their guard up continuously. I anticipated a break somewhere within the third or fourth movie that never came.

Add to this my horror to find out that between each movie there was at least a half hour gap and between Hulk and Thor there were hour long breaks which gave every geek in the world enough stamina to keep going.

When it became apparent with the first two movies that people weren't going ANYWHERE, I figured later on I'd do a sweep of the theater's and find something...LMAO...again, I underestimated the people I was dealing with.

My saving grace?

Because our seats were nothing special, my friends and I were allowed to enjoy our time with food and drink and our individual form of merry (much like the Avengers themselves) and always be able to come back to our not so-spectacular seats.

As the movies went on, I began to MARVEL (heh) at how much fun we were having AND at how easy this marathon was. I'm the KING of marathon's...you name it, I've done it (mayhap we'll do a challenge one day) and I went into this one thinking it might be somewhat tough.

WRONG.

Easiest marathon I've ever done. I think this was partly due to the fact that the Marvel movies are so different from each other and yet so much fun. But I also think there's something to be said about doing a marathon in a movie theater. There are ZERO distractions.

When you're in your own home, you can be distracted constantly, and it makes focusing on a movie hard - at least sometimes. But when you're in the beautiful, almost enchanting atmosphere of a large theatre all distractions tend to go by the way side.

As the movies went on, I kept doing intermittent sweeps of the theaters, hoping to find that ONE group that left in the middle of Thor because either they couldn't take it or they just thought it was safe to leave their seats by that point...TO NO AVAIL.

Our seats weren't horrible...to be honest I became more and more happy with them as the day wore on. Almost as if I'd taken ownership of these mini-Captain chairs and was now thus squarely-fitted on a throne that might not be perfect but was indeed GOOD ENOUGH.

Plus I was having fun, and enjoying the movies, the food (Downtown Disney being at my leisure) and the drinks.

However, there was one last tactic I had to play.

As much as I was OKAY with these seats for movies that I had seen before, I was absolutely NOT okay with watching the Avengers in these seats. I wanted better...we DESERVED better. So I told my friends by the ending of Iron Man 2 that if worse came to worst, I had a final, horrible plan.

You see the Marvel Movie Marathon was only open in FOUR theaters. But the Midnight Avengers showing would of course be played on all the remaining screens. Since we were on one wing, I knew a whole other wing would open around 11:00pm and there would be fresh seats waiting for the pro-active.

The trick was either getting past the ticket-stub attendant who would surely be guarding said wing, OR finding a broken link in the chain and perhaps getting into the theater's before they were even set-up for the Avengers fanatics - I mean fans.

 Well, lo-and-behold, I found another way.

Part instinct, part reaction, part confidence and part destiny provided the path unto the great BatSTUD. On a sort of reconnaissance excursion, I happened to find the elevator used mostly for handicap persons that was surprisingly on MY wing. Upon taking it to the upper level it led to the opposite side of the building to the opposite wing which was just then opening new theaters for the Avengers midnight showing.

Thus I was able to select FOUR very decent seats for myself and my friends.

The rest is history. I watched the Avengers, I was awed. And my friends and I had decent seats. It became the perfect day. Exactly what I set out for: quality friends, good food, good drinks, great movies, decent seats for the most important movie, and brilliantly devised tactics all rolled into one.

What is best in life?