Shane Life

It’s a fitting close to this weekend.

Saturday turned out to be awesome. I woke up at 5 with the rain and lightning and was convinced we wouldn’t be able to golf. However, with some prayers, the weather cleared and by 10:00, the only thing we had to worry about at Royal Meadows was the wind.

Golfing was a lot of fun and then we joined some others for an 18-person poker tournament. But in order to give myself a challenge, I grilled 40+ cheeseburgers so Jake’s Man Day attendants would have something to nosh on.

The rest of Man Day was a blast. I finally had to call it a night at 12:30 shortly after I got everyone to the Brooksider. I hope everyone had fun.

Yesterday was a little more relaxed. We went to church, made lunch and I took a nice long nap. Last night, we spent some time at a friends’ house in their recently redone backyard, which made me insanely jealous to redo our backyard. We lazed around, watched the pilot of Iron Chef America from a few years ago, then turned in early.

It is, after all, Red Meat Day.

We’re going over to my parents’ house today. My dad returned from Dubai on Friday in time to ask me what I wanted to have for lunch today. He went and picked up my requested steak - a ribeye from McGonigals. So I’ll finally get to have what I missed for Jake’s birthday.

There’s a point in every young boy’s life that he realizes that he’s no longer a boy. He’s not really a man yet, but you begin to realize there’s more to life than running around the neighborhood with your friends.

In 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark came out and that was my time. Dr. Jones defined cool to me. He was a guy I wanted to be like. He was smart. He was adventurous. He was heroic. He was afraid of snakes. He had a whip.

Freaking sweet.

I’m so excited for the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, despite its excessively long name. And if the early reviews from people are any indication…it’s gonna be awesome.

Roger Ebert’s quote on the movie says it best:

I can say that if you liked the other Indiana Jones movies, you will like this one, and that if you did not, there is no talking to you. 

This pretty much echoes my feelings. The original Indiana Jones trilogy is up there with the original Star Wars trilogy in the pantheon of films. And to be honest, if you don’t like Indiana Jones, I probably wouldn’t be friends with you. It’s a movie to be enjoyed, to be loved. It’s something to make you love movies.

We are probably going to see it sometime on Sunday. This is going to be a huge weekend. Jake’s Bachelor Party Golf Poker Extravaganza. Indiana Jones. My first cheeseburger in months. It’s going to be incredible.

Three days left until my self-imposed meat boycott is over.

For those who are new to the game, in January, I challenged my blog readers to raise $500 to buy a dairy cow from Heifer International. The catch was that if the money was all raised by the end of the month that I would swear off all red meat until Memorial Day.

It’s the home stretch. I should have made my boycott until Memorial Day weekend so I could eat it tomorrow, but it’ll be like my last big challenge. And it will be a big challenge because we have a huge weekend planned.

More on that in a bit…

I suppose this movie should be called X-Men III: The (Almost) Last Stand. (There are rumors that this will NOT be the last X-Men movie…apparently Kelsey Grammer and Vinnie Jones have signed up for 4 and 5.)
I wanted this movie to be better than it was. From what I understand, a lot of people liked this movie (enough for it to have the 4th largest weekend opening ever), but for me, it just seemed like it was trying a little too hard.

I must confess that I have never read an X-Men comic, let alone ANY comic book in my life (I stick to comic strips…they are easier to digest and have funny talking critters). But I love comic book movies. I don’t want to put the work in to read all the back story of Superman or Spidey or anyone else for that matter, because if I were…I would probably have to read it all…I’m a little obsessive that way.

So it comes as no surprise that the stuff that was for comic book nerds in that movie went over my head. Not only that…the movie just seemed to lack focus. It was more worried about cramming as many cool new mutants into it as possible and forgetting about those little things called DIALOGUE and PLOT.

Granted, there was some plot to push the story along, but I really felt that it fell short where XMen and Xmen 2 succeeded in focusing more on 1 or 2 or 3 of the characters. Instead, The Last Stand really jumped all around. It TRIED to be about the whole Jean Grey/Phoenix thing, but it got too sidetracked and I never really felt like it fully told the story.

It also really lacked good action sequences, particularly those between mutants. In the mutant battle royale near the end of the movie, the camera jumps around so much that the fights seem really unsatisfying. Not that it lacked violence…it just lacked the Saber/Wolverine fight of X-Men 1 or the Jean-holding-back-the-dam in X-Men 2.

It was entertaining at times, but it really left a lot to be desired.

I was shocked to hear how much it made over Memorial Day weekend. Maybe not shocked, but impressed, considering how underwhelmed I was by the whole thing. Just goes to show you that I don’t know much.