So, I picked my sister Stephanie up at Oakland airport on Saturday afternoon, and much fun ensued.

I have been campaigning to get Stephanie to move to the Bay Area for years. Berkeley is full of things she loves: theater, coffeehouses, Asian restaurants, bookstores. And it's possible to not own a car here, and not be considered a freak, which is not true of Stephanie's current stomping grounds of La Jolla, CA (suburb of San Diego).

(It's been obvious for many years that not having a car and living in Southern California causes Stephanie no end of hassles. My parents' preferred solution is to have Stephanie get a car. My preferred solution is to have Stephanie leave Southern California.)

Stephanie was probably here for a grand total of an hour and a half when she turned to me and said, "Okay, okay! I want to move here!"

On Sunday, we did a grand tour of the city's attractions. We wandered around the UC campus. We went to Cody's books, where Stephanie vanished into the Psychology section (I mentioned that she's about to become a freshly graduated Master of Counselling, right?) and I bought a book on Framemaker, and Akutagawa's Rashomon and Other Stories. Both tax-deductible. I just love being a freelance writer.

We took a quick trip to Good Vibrations. (Stephanie had to see it with her own eyes - there's nothing remotely like it in San Diego.) We had coffee, and shopped for shoes, and then we collected Daniel and had dinner at Venus, which is my new favorite restaurant for a splurge. (Everything there is good, but the real reason I know the chef has serious mojo is that she can cook scallops. And, oh, can she cook scallops. I love scallops, but I'm always afraid to order them in restaurants, because they are a terrible disappointment when done badly. And many otherwise excellent restaurants do them badly. So, ordering the scallops was an act of faith, but one that paid off.)

After dinner, we went to see X-Men 2. I may get together some coherent thoughts for a kind of review later, but the short version is: We all really liked it, overall, but none of us understand why Dr. Grey did what she did near the end, because we all came up with way better ways to save the plane.

We saw a trailer for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. My feelings were mixed. I didn't see anything that made me cringe, which was good. On the other hand, it was curiously unimpressive - the comic had more visual panache. There was no thrill in seeing the story come to life, bigger and more vivid, on the silver screen - it was somehow larger and more colorful on the page.

The trailer begins with a shot of Sean Connery's character, and a voiceover saying something like, "The greatest adventurer in the world..." I started to giggle, because I fully expected them to follow that with, "...Allan Quatermain!" and then pause so that the audience could yell back, "Who?!" But no, they weren't that humorous.

I was a little peeved that Hyde, I think, is the only one who gets mentioned by name in the trailer. I mean, I know, many audience members wouldn't recognize these names. But it's still irritating.

Ah well.

So, Stephanie had her job interview yesterday, and flew back to San Diego this morning. Keep your fingers crossed for her, everyone!