In Memory of the Clock Tower

I love the movie Back to the Future. Love it. It easily ranks in my top 5 favorite movies, definitely in the top 3. In fact, I may go as far as saying (even though I try not to actually rank things, but rather use the "top 5," etc. method) it is my favorite movie. With good reason, aside from being a child of the 80s. Nearly every line, every scene is gold. It's brilliant and it's hilarious. I love, love, love it.

About two weeks ago there was a fire at Universal Studios. This fire destroyed and damaged sets on their back lot, including (but not limited to) the courthouse set from Back to the Future, including the actual clock tower. I was sad to hear the news about one of the iconic sets from my favorite movie.

But it gave me an idea. What better way to to mourn the passing of the set and celebrate the movie than by actually watching the movie? But, I didn't want to just watch it by myself. I wanted people to come over and watch it with me, and maybe eat food and just have a good time. The plan is now formulated in my head and ready to begin execution.

I set the day for Friday the 13th. (About 10 days away from when I actually had the idea.) I started on the invite that I sent out to everyone via Facebook. By the time I'd finished it, I was so excited about it, I couldn't help but send it a week and a half before the actual party. The invite read as follows:

In Memory of the Clock Tower
Come mourn the passing of a Hollywood icon...
Host: Elizabeth!
Type: Other - Ceremony
Date: Friday, June 13, 2008 Time: 7:00pm - 11:55pm
Location: Elizabeth and Michelle's humble abode

Description
Great Scott! A recent fire in southern California
has destroyed the famous Back to the Future clock
tower, and I am mourning the loss. Please help
ease the pain and join me in watching my favorite
movie of all time. (That's Back to the Future,
part 1*, to avoid any confusion.) Let's find out
what the odds are of being struck by lighting while
driving a Delorean at 88 mph on Friday the 13th.
It's your density to be there. If you don't come,
Darth Vader will come down from the planet Vulcan
and melt your brain....I'm just sayin'.

We'll also be eating food -- pizza and milk
(...chocolate!), a flux cakepacitor, and whatever
else you want to bring. Though it's too late to
"save the clock tower!" donations will gladly be
accepted that night to help me pay for the food**.

P.S. You may have gotten this invite, even if you
don't live in Austin because I like you and want
to encourage similar parties wherever you may be.

P.P.S. Everyone is welcomed, even if I don't have
you on Facebook.

* Just part 1 for tonight. If anyone is up for
watching parts 2 and 3, I'm up for it, even if we
can't that night. :)
** Please let me know if you're coming so I know
how much pizza to get. And really, please make
a donation if you eat pizza. Remember, I'm a
grad student. :)

So I sent it out. People started RSVP'ing, and I think I confused some people who thought it might have been this weekend, not next weekend. I straightened that out best I could.

Originally the party was going to be at Michelle's and my apartment. This was a fine idea until people started RSVP'ing and pretty soon it was apparent that we were going to max out pretty soon. (Our apartment isn't that big.) Revision was necessary. We tossed around the idea of moving the party, but then got the great idea of watching the movie outside.

Turns out our apartment complex has a really great outdoor amphitheater. I didn't even know it existed until we were talking about where to possibly move the party. Michelle and I walked over there immediately (at like 10:30pm) and decided it would be absolutely perfect. The next day I stopped by the office to see what using the amphitheater entailed. They said you could just show up and use it, no reservation necessary. They then asked what I wanted to do, and I told them, and they said, "Hmm, well, you better talk with the manager, just to make sure." I was more worried she'd have problems with the legality of watching a movie like this than anything. Anyway, the manager wasn't in at the moment, but would be in later, so I called later. She was with someone and therefore not available. I left a very detailed message so they could pass along the info and she could call me back. She never called me back. I called one more time that day, still nothing. The next day I called at least 4 or 5 more times, and finally my call was returned, though not by the manager, but by another girl in the office, on instructions from the manager, because she was worried I would think she was avoiding me. (Why would I think that? Hmm...) Anyway, long story short, we got the permission to do it, but with several catches: (1) It's $75 to rent along with a $150 refundable deposit; (2) a maximum of 20-25 people can attend; (3) we must be cleaned up and out by 10:00. There are lots of reasons why each one of those constraints was unrealistic. We decided to look into having it somewhere else.

Our friend Shaleen lives in a house, so I gave her a call to see if we could have it in her backyard. After about a day she managed to get a hold of her roommate/owner of the house with the okay. So we were back on! Yay! And tried to get word out best we could about the location change. (Technology is an amazing thing -- Facebook messages, status messages on Facebook and Google Talk, text messages...yes, amazing indeed!)

The night before the party I was chatting online with someone who pointed out that my party was still starting at 7:00, and the sun didn't set until 8:30. He was thorough enough to point out that I would have to entertain people for an hour and a half before we could realistically start the movie. I probably should have changed the time once we changed the location, but I didn't. I knew we were going to eat (I bought 13 pizzas!), and people are good about entertaining themselves, but I knew I needed something else.

I had a few ideas formulating in my head of what I could do, but Friday morning the idea came to fruition. I wanted to do some kind of trivia game, and knew what I was going to do....make a Power Point slide show trivia game that could play while people were eating and we were waiting for it to get more dark. I wish I would have thought of this about a week before because then I could have made it really awesome, but it turned out really well. (For the 2-3 hour effort I put into it.) I hope to post it soon if you're interested in seeing it, and maybe playing. Don't just look at the slides, play the show (even if you don't wait for the transitions), it's more fun that way. The game was a smashing hit! It was a blast, and people loved it.

Finally it was dark enough around 8:30 to start the movie. We tried to herd everyone outside to get set up so we could start. Watching the movie outside with everyone was so, so so much fun. Everyone had a great time. There were probably 40-45 people there at that point. Kind of crazy and fun that so many people showed up to my party! But I was really happy about it! :) The screen only blew over once (but only 10 minutes in, and we secured it with twine, so that didn't happen again).

After the movie was over, we ate the flux cakepacitor. Here is my finished product:


The bottom leg is strawberry, the top right is white, the top left is chocolate. Mmm! We served it with ice cream.

I wish I had more pictures from the party, but I was so busy running around and making sure everything was set up and functioning that I didn't have time. Next time I'll assign someone the job of taking my camera and getting pictures for me.

So the party was a complete success and it was so much fun! Yay!