Was pretty relaxed day in Utah for the cinematic hillbillies. Woke up at 8:30 when the hotel phoned to inform us that the water would be shut down in a half hour for reasons that escape me. Hosing down Harvey Weinstein maybe. So we bathed our bodies and evacuated our bowels in the time allotted and moseyed on out for a morning of shopping. The Estrogen Defensive would be proud of our dollar per hour purchasing prowess but probably disappointed in the store selection: BestBuy and a tattoo parlour (not in that order).

Fear not, my body remains a temple of purity. The tattoos were for Ian and he is now sporting the words Sundance '07 along is right arm and the name of his daughter written in Japanese under his left ear. I just carry a picture of Syd in my wallet. I'm such an unloving father.

BestBuy was more my speed and I went on a mini-spree purchasing a couple of DS games, a CD, and some speakers for the missus' iPod. I also encountered my first cultural clash when I approached a BestBuy employee and asked where the washroom was:
He: The what?
Me: The washroom.
He: You mean the restroom?
Me: ....yes, I suppose so. Is that what it's called down here?
He: Yeah. It's in the corner.
Me: Yes, but why the confusion? Aren't all these terms interchangeable?
He: Yeah, I guess. Just never heard it called a washroom before.
Me: But I'm not really going there to rest, am I.
He: Yes, but while I hope you will wash, calling it a washroom is also misleading because that won't be the primary purpose of your visit.
Me: Now you're arguing semantics. Besides, your argument is a spurious one as my point was that "restroom" is not accurate nomenclature for the facility.
He: That as it may be, you can hardly claim the high ground in your position through your use of the term "washroom".
Me: Fine, where's the pissroom?

Salt Lake City itself is a bit surprising. It's smaller than I expected and I haven't noticed too many pitfalls of a big city, particularly traffic. We did get asked for change from someone but he was nice enough to admit it was for booze so we rewarded his honesty. And while they aren't plentiful, there are still plenty of hints to support the state's reputation as the home of the Mormons. Little things like billboards telling you to believe in yourself or the fact that the Doobie Brothers' "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me" gets an inordinate amount of playtime on the radio.

The movie of the day was Away From Her (see review), which we saw partially out of patriotism since it was directed by Canuck Sarah Polley and stars Canadian icon, Gordon Pinsent (who has been getting rave reviews for his performance by people who believe he is a newcomer rather than a 50-year veteran). Met a very nice group of people from Ogden who were pretty impressed that we came all this way just to watch movies. At one point, one lady asked, "Are you in the film industry? No, of course you aren't. You're not wearing a black turtleneck."