Hunger Games

Yesterday, I bought tickets to a private screening of Hunger Games my work will be hosting later this month. It will be the first time I've seen a movie in a theater since a similar work screening for the first Harry Potter Deathly Hallows movie in late 2010. That's right, I avoided the theater completely in 2011. It wasn't something I did intentionally; mostly, I was just too busy watching TV.

After buying the tickets, I was disappointed to discover that the movie is not a dramatization of the exciting world of competitive eating, as I had assumed from the title. Oh well, I'm sure it will still be one of the best movies I've seen in years.

Fortunately for me, there are plenty of food-based events around this time of year. For example:

--Last Tuesday was Pancake Day at IHOP, the one day each year where they give away free pancakes. They were quite good.

--On Leap Day a number of eateries had free food promotions, including Subway's offer of a free cookie with any purchase. The abundance of free food is likely what Jack was referring to when he said "you know how [Mormons] are about Leap Day" on last week's 30 Rock.

--Just around the corner is March 14th, or Pi(e) Day! My circumference will likely increase after all the pizza and dessert pastries I'll consume that day.

--And March Madness starts the very next day! I usually take the first two days of the tournament off of work and watch hours and hours of basketball, constantly grazing on snacks, taking a break only to get something more substantial like pizza or a Chik-fil-A nugget platter.

--Hopefully I'll save some room after all that for some corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day, not to mention all the non-Irish foods dyed green for the occasion.

--Rounding out the month (and my belly), March 28th is "Something on a Stick Day." Seriously. One of my life's mottos is "All food tastes better when eaten on a toothpick." And a stick is nothing more than a giant toothpick. You'd better believe I'll be celebrating this one.

So, yeah, I like food a lot, and I like a lot of food. So I always feel a little weird when I read in the scriptures that "eat, drink, and be merry" is a sinful philosophy. This week's Sunday School lesson covers this topic, among others. (It also includes another verse that makes me uneasy: "priestcrafts are that men...set themselves up...that they may get gain and praise of the world" (2 Ne. 26:29). That's basically what this blog is, a way for me to get gain and praise of the world. Well, mostly praise. I don't ask my readers for money. Though maybe...) So study up, and we can help each other learn more about these principles.

Something else for y'all to chew on: later in the same scripture block, the Millenium is described as a time when wolves and lambs will lie down together, when lions will eat straw, when young children will play safely near the den of a cockatrice (which is basically a basilisk, a creature I remember well since, again, I haven't seen a movie in theaters since HP 7.1, aka Nagini's Suppertime). If you think about it...if even the lion can't eat meat in those days, what chance do we humans have? Though I certainly don't know for sure, it seems likely that man will be stuck with a vegetarian diet at that point. In the meantime, though, I'm going to eat, drink, and be Mary. In other words, I'm going to "have a little lamb."