Canoeing/Swimming on a Sunday

So yesterday, Liz and I agreed to go canoeing with the Harts(and Andrea). We got there and everything was cool, very cheap to rent kayaks and canoes at Paris Mountain. The canoeing area wasn't the biggest but we were scooting around having a nice time enjoying the nice day.

We were half way across the lake making another circle when we see Amanda Hart put her feet in the water off the side of their canoe. I say to Liz "It would be hilarious if the turns over that canoe." and no sooner are the words out of my mouth when the canoe flips on over dumping her and Rich into the lake. They come to the surface sputtering and we gather their belongings into our canoe and try to help them turn their canoe back over. It ends up far too full of water so we keep trying until the "lifeguards" paddle out with another canoe and trade theirs for the overturned one(which even they couldn't empty out without a paddleboat). Amanda can't get into the new canoe and swims over to a log in the middle of the lake. We paddle over and are able to get her into our canoe.

So we paddle back to the docks, everyone seems to be satisfied with the level of excitement for one day and I'm really hot so I was definitely thinking about using the swimming area that they have roped off in the lake. We pull into the dock and I ask Amanda who is sitting in the front of the canoe to grab the tie off chain when we get in. The only problem is, we pull up to the wrong side of the dock and our tie off is on the dock on the other side of the canoe. Before we could push off over to the other side, Amanda reaches out for the chain and......dumps us in the water. So within ten minutes she has capsized two canoes. Four soggy people climb out of the lake and luckily have a change of clothes to replace their sopping wet clothing, I just wonder what the people are going to say when they get the swampy money that was in my pocket.

Angry Badger Reviews

So its been a while writing a post but I've been pretty busy. Lots of wedding preparations. But I have been playing quite a few movies and games. Here are a review of some of the most recent(with my special DP rating system):

Brutal Legend

A hilariously funny game about a rock and roll roadie(voiced by Jack Black) who gets tranported to a mystical world where the rock is the power. Armed with a battle axe and a lightning spitting electric guitar, he battles through the world to free the people from demonic oppression. The game is an interesting slight twist on the typical hack and slash adventure game, and a fun one at that. The voice acting, although very repetitive, is often hilarious and the various different game missions keep the action pretty fresh. Teamed with a rockin' soundtrack, its definitely a great gaming experience.
That said there are some things that I would like to see fixed in a sequel.
1) The mission marker: Your destination is marked with a column of light, which is good, but its often very difficult to find this light. Bridges, mountains, statues and all manner of insanity are often very tall and often right in the way. A lighted path, like in the Fable series, would make the game much easier to find objectives.
2) Driving controls: Much of the game, your guitar playing allows you to summon a hot rod to drive around in. For as often as you drive this monster, the controls are far less precise as the walking mechanics. This leads to crashing often, comically often. Also the "homing" missile is far from accurate, especially in the escort missions where it seems to fly off up into the air instead of going after enemies.
3) Controlling Your Units: I can't really put my finger on it exactly but the unit control really causes me to pull out my hair often. There's seemingly a way to hit two buttons and select just a certain kind of soldier, but it often doesn't work correctly. Also in the stage battles, you have to keep placing spawn flags with a guitar solo to get the guys to move up from the back of the field. I would much prefer that they just all obey my commands no matter where they are on the battlefield. Also it would be convenient if the units actually obeyed all the commands, instead of just doing so whenever they want.

Overall the shortcomings of the game dont make it much less enjoyable. I'm not sure if I will finish the game, one of the missions involves me driving around in a circle and trapping an animal in that circle, with the noted poor driving controls, its pretty darn terrible.

I give Brutal Legend 3 1/2 Angry Badgers out of 5
The Ghost Writer

In this movie, Ewan McGregor gets hired to write the memoir for the ex-prime minister(Pierce Brosnan). While the cast and concept definitely seem to have the possibility to be entertaining, it really fails to deliver. The Ghost Writer is sorta like showing the audience your poker hand in the first five minutes and then spending two hours to describe why spades are black. It doesn't add to the hand in the slightest and just makes all your friends wonder why you were ever invited to poker night. Also the plot has so many holes that its hard to stick with even the basic plot line of the movie. Why wouldn't they just send the old finished manuscript to the editor to fix? Why doesn't Ewan McGregor just finish up rewrites in a week and get out of there before everything gets funky?
Also Pierce Brosnan's wife is one ugly depressing chick, he could do much better.

I'm gonna give The Ghost Writer a whopping two angry badgers out of 5.

Stop Acting Like a Sixteen Year Old

So last weekend Liz and I decided to go geocaching on Saturday. We get the first one we go after with little problem and head to the next. Its next to a fruit stand and looks to be another piece of cake, the only problem is theres a little three foot drop off. So while Liz starts walking around, I figure I'll hop down and look around since the geocache is showing as being right there. Then when Liz comes down the hill I can look at her with the shit-eating grin and say "found it". At least thats how it should have happened.

Instead I hit the ground and my right knee totally gives out and I slam to the ground with various terrible popping and cracking noises. My phone and my keys go skittering across the ground. And I'm sadly laying on the ground in a dust pile. Liz comes around the corner and at first thinks that I'm looking for the cache on the ground. Then she realizes that I'm not doing well and helps me up. It feels terrible and its all I can do to get back to the car. Sadly without finding the geocache.

Flash to three days later, the earliest I can get in to see my new orthopedist, my knee, calf and thigh are super swelled. My calf is flexed without any apparent internal off switch. My knee is super painful and I can put barely any weight on my leg. I get x-rayed by a super rough tech, then my new doctor pushes and prods my right leg. Worried about blood clots, he wants my leg ultrasounded. However apparently the tech at the Greer Hospital was out or on vacation or something because it meant that I had to drive over to another hospital to get it done. Then when I went to schedule my MRI, they couldn't schedule me in Greer for at least a week. But they could fit me in at yet another hospital tomorrow.

So I finally hobble out to my car and get over to the next hospital. After waiting for what felt like forever as most of the staff headed for the doors, I finally had a guy lead me back to the ultrasound room. I had thought before that an EKG was the weirdest medical procedure to go through, but the male ultrasound takes the crown by far. I also had the urge at all times to yell "It's a boy!"

But no blood clots, so thats good. I doubt the MRI tomorrow will come back nearly as clean. But at least I get to sleep in a little bit.

Left 4 Dead 3: Family Time

I just had the best most vivid dream ever last night. Myself, Liz and my parents were the 4 some in a Left 4 Dead esque romp through a post apocalyptic town. It started out with me and Liz hanging out in a hipster style bar with a bunch of people that I assumed were our friends, however I did not know any of them. Everything is normal and very realistic and we're having a good time. Somehow it skips ahead to us going to sleep at my parents place. However it wasn't my parents actual place, it was more of a small town New England town. Morning arrives and disaster strikes. Things are exploding, flooding, falling apart, it was crazy.

So it was Liz and my parents and myself running around trying to survive, but things weren't normal. In one scene that I remember, we were going through a crumbling, flooding stone library. At one point we were walking across the second floor and the floor starts to break and the wall at the end of the hall falls down causing a big rush of water that starts washing Liz and mom down the hall. And at the last minute I reached out and pulled them into a nook in the wall, as the cascade of rubble goes rolling by. I hope this translates to a half decent mental picture, because it was hellishly cinematic.

We get out of the crumbly library and the flooding has gone away and we somehow are in someone's house, sorta recovering after the traumatic library experience. Then stupidly I think to myself, doesn't Left 4 Dead have zombies? I open up the front door and theres zombies everywhere. In one of the funnier parts of the dream, I look down and theres a box full of machetes sitting beside the door. Just as I pick one up, the wall explodes and Liz and mom are pulled outside by a giant monster. Dad and I bust out the front door swinging away at zombies. I turn to dad and ask "Where should we go?" and he turns to me calmly and says "Follow the checkpoint over there." This is the first time that I notice that theres a blue glowing diamond on one of the buildings across the zombie filled plaza. So I'm hacking through the horde like its my job and get to this building that ends up being the hipster bar from the beginning of the dream. So I was hacking trough the zombie hipsters and the window in the back flashes and I woke up.

Very crazy dream. Don't know how great it actually translated.

Selective Bouts of Laziness

I haven't written in forever. I often tell people who ask that it is because it is much harder to write a blog in the good times. But the truth is, looking back, it was always good times. So what else could keep me away? One thing could be the fact that as someone writes more and more of these things, it gets hard to write what you have on your mind. Theres tons of things that I would love to write out, some of which would be pretty darn hilarious. But when you care about the people around you, you don't know how they are going to take their business written on the internet, even if it is written in a joking way. Heck even looking back at the last blog's comments(which I didn't read until today), I somehow offended one of my best friends writing a funny list about things that bug me in weddings. But even that isn't the main reason for me staying away from the blog for so long.

The real reason is selective bouts of laziness.

I am normally a hard worker. I have a very creative job that allows me to flex my artistic side and I love it. But after you are designing designing designing all day long, my brain is fried. Even if I have a great story, I sit down to my computer and then end up in facebook instead. However this doesn't just apply to writing, there are other activities that I avoid just because I'm tired of thinking. I love Moe's (even though my fiancée hates it, something about it all tasting the same, however like Nickelback, if you like that one flavor, this doesnt bother you), yet I avoid going a lot of the time because they ask too many damn questions. Perhaps I have this disillusioned view caused by movies and television, where a person visits a neighborhood restaurant a couple times and they know what you want when you walk in the door. I don't even make it hard for them either, I always order the same thing, the same way, and the people working there I have seen multiple times. Plus, I'M ORDERING SOMETHING ON THE MENU, it lists what's on the burrito on the menu, why can't it just be made that way. But no, instead I need to answer fifty questions to get a burrito. At subway I have developed a way to order my sub in about ten words, but theres no way around going item to item in a never ending Tex Mex quest.

Recently however my laziness has spread to items that I wouldn't expect it to, video games. We have been super busy at work lately, so by the time 4:30 rolls around I am totally burnt out. But then I pop in Borderlands to play the latest expansion. While it is without a doubt an awesome addition to a solid game, I catch myself going "I really wish these bandits would cool it and just let me walk on over to grab this item and get back to Captain So and So." I head shot enemies, not because its awesome(which it still is, especially with a flaming sniper rifle) but because it takes a lot less time to kill them that way. So I guess in an usual way, laziness has made me a better gamer.

But laziness aside, I also got engaged since the last time that I wrote and I find myself wanting to live life with her instead of writing down the play by play. But as she is perhaps a reason I don't write too often anymore, shes also the reason I decided today to come back to it. While getting my computer fixed, she found a link to the blog and apparently read it all. When she told me that she had, my mind instantly started freaking out because I can barely remember what all was written in here. Did I write something that would make her think poorly of me? Will she find it boring? Instead she asked one question:

"If I was in your blog, what would my nickname be?"

So hopefully I will start writing again and perhaps we will see.

PS she also thought the story where Katie punched me in the face was hilarious, shes a keeper.

Wedding Thoughts

Long long time no blogs, but after finishing up my third wedding of the summer, one in which I was a member of the wedding party, it gave me thoughts about the whole wedding celebration. Thoughts I would like to share with anyone who still checks this blog:

1. Short Wedding, Long Reception: No one in the church wants the priest to try to make jokes at the young couple's expense while going on for twenty minutes in a sermon about compromise. Your groomsmen are wearing three piece suits in the 90 degree church. Get to the point. I dos and out the door.
Reception on the other hand can go on for days. Feed your people a meal, they came a long way and spent far too much for you to run them through some appetizers. If you're planning on getting out of there in a half hour or less, just don't bother. Also OPEN BAR.

2. AC in the church: Like I said above, if you're making your groomsmen wear three piece suits, that church needs to be cold. Unless you want to have your friends be remembered as the guy who passed out at your wedding. Sweating balls during a twenty minute sermon sucks.

3. Kids in the wedding: Flower girls and ring bearers are adorable but really should be stopped. Yes it is cute that they're wearing mini versions of big people clothes. But most of the time they are just running around complaining during the ceremony being a distraction. Also during the reception, when they call for single guys and girls for the tossings, they don't mean your five year old.

4. Did I mention OPEN BAR?: Doesn't have to be a full bar, but lets get real. This is an adult ceremony, and there's probably some single people here. Sober people don't do the electric slide.

5. Bubbles are dumb: Seems to be a new trend sparked by the rumor that pigeons explode from eating wedding rice. Lies. Pelt those suckers with some Uncle Ben's. Old school beats cute anyday.

Also we came up with an correlation between the shiny-ness of rented shoes and their discomfort..... be warned.

It's a Wednesday but if no one told me I would still be thinking it was Tuesday

True Story.

For half the day I really thought it was Tuesday. Probably due to the fact that I was out of the office all day yesturday and the general awfulness of the installation job that I was roped into "helping" with makes me want to forget that day. The type of day that makes someone go home and drink in the shower. It's sort of scary though seeing as I have one of those day calendar things with movie trivia questions on it (today's answer was Natalie Portman, can't have a bad day on a Natalie Portman day) and so I most likely looked at the calender several times this morning. But no, I figured out it was Wednesday when the office went out to lunch to bid a fond fairwell to Tim and get free Mexican food. They had new lunch special menu's printed out and instead of having the same lunch specials everyday, they change. So I was all set to order some nice Tuesday special when my boss goes "Let's see what they have for Wednesday's" and I had a mini "duh" moment that I quashed with some chips and salsa. Along with the development's running up to my car in the rain this morning to give me breakfast, it was a pretty nice free food day. We were going to have free cake too but that got pushed to tomorrow, even though I rushed back from flawlessly setting up an LED sign to get a piece. The only thing that would top off my free food day better would be if someone showed up at my door with free dinner. Or head. That would be pretty good too.

I decided this afternoon that Jeb really needs to start video blogging and tape a new song each week that he makes up and performs to the internet populous. I may have to run this by him this weekend and maybe even bring my camera to facilitate the epic internet stardom that would be sure to follow.

As I mentioned before, my dad visited last weekend. And between discussions about baseball we had one about movie remakes or rebooting of franchises, which we both agreed was really lazy on a filmmaking standpoint. Sure the new Batman movies and Bond movies were good, but at least with James Bond movies, why not call it a sequal. Theres like 25 of them, and coming up with the plotline to a new Bond movie is about as easy as spelling words with alphabet soup. We did agree however that there are some movies that have always been considered classics but would be ten times better today with a remake. Some of these included Alfred Hitchcock movies (especially the Birds, which looking back is a hokey movie, but if it was redone, it would be scary as all hell) and Jaws. But overall I really think the whole Hollywood "reboot the franchise" thing is dumb as hell. I heard the other week that they were thinking about rebooting The Fantastic Four. Sure the movies were really stupid (I still haven't seen the second one, because the previews made me want to hit Stan Lee with a newspaper), but they came out like two years ago. And redoing them as dark as Batman wont make them somehow cooler, just make my eyes burn when I exit the theater. Come up with something new please.

Ok I'm spent, gotta think of a way to get free dinner.