More Bacon than the Pan Can Handle

Yes, although I was writing out each day of my vacation, and how awesome they were, I quickly tired of the play-by-play, so I bailed on it.  Deal.

The rest of the vacation was a great time.  Although the weather was uncooperative, we found plenty to do to occupy our time, and made the best of what we could.  There were a few breaks in the rain to catch some sun, and I managed to get a bit of color even without the beach days I was hoping for.  I also got to rock some killer sushi, so that worked out as well.

While riding out the increment weather, I decided to take a trip to Seminole, and check out the new Terminator joint.  For those of you completely in the dark, it's the one that came out last weekend, and although it hefted a fair margin of the box office, it still got crushed by Night at the Museum 2.  I'm telling you guys, never underestimate the draw of American history at the box office.  People LOVE stuff like this, and kids absolutely lap it up.  I'm in the same boat, these movies are all gold in my book, but I wanted to wait on NatM2 until I can see it in IMAX.

Brief aside - Syracuse is home to the MOST (Museum of Science and Technology), which is in turn home to the Bristol Omnitheater.  This is one of the first IMAX movie theaters in the region, which is great for the museum.  Unfortunately, as its an older projector, it lacks the equipment needed to show feature-length films, so it's uncommon for the theater to show the big blockbuster movies.  At the same time, it's unlikely they would be willing to pay for the reels to do so anyway, especially for movies like Spiderman or what have you, since they have no real educational value.  It is a museum, after all.  Still, they are proud to be showing NatM2 in IMAX, which is a great step in the right direction.  I think should they open the gates to more of these kid-friendly movies, there could be real interest in it here, as the nearest feature IMAX theater is hours away.  In a time when the museum needs the attention the most (no pun intended), they could really benefit from the draw these films could provide.

Anyway, on Terminator: Salvation, I've this to say - it was a movie.  And really, that's the best I can do for it.  While I did enjoy the film, it wasn't as revolutionary as T2, but it wasn't the trash heap that T3 was, either.  I'm glad they've breathed new life into the franchise, and Christian Bale is easily the best John Connor we've seen, but there wasn't a lot to cling on to in the movie.

First of all, I went into Terminator with relatively high expectations for the cast, but pretty low expectations of the director and effects.  I'll make no apologies about the fact that I have literally no respect for the directorial prowess of McG - and it only has a bit to do with the ridiculous moniker he's labelled himself with.  Seriously, man.  You're a professional.  At least pretend you have some credibility.  You're resume certainly isn't doing that for you, Mr. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.  At least Demi Moore looked hot in it.  So, I went in expecting a weakly driven plot and some mediocre special effects, but looked to Bale et al to make up for it with badassery.  What I got was a contrived story, with extremely cliched plot points, filled with really well done effects and direction, and mediocre performances.

Wait, what?  Yes, I said it, McG actually has a worthwhile credit to his account after T:S.  The movie looked great, with the exception of a few small CGI flaws here and there, but they were easily overlooked as the rest of the film was excellently shot, rendered, and toned.  The actors' performances overall were fine, although there were plenty of "Batman Voice" moments for Bale, and there was a real slippage of accents for Sam Worthington (who played the actual lead role of Marcus Wright).  It was quite obvious that while Bale has a mastery of dialect - I've seen him do a variety of accurate accents in other films - that Worthington hasn't quite gotten his American down yet.  The Australian slips back through.

These quibbles aside, the real sticking point of the movie for me was the absolute deluge of cliches in the movie.  It was near impossible for me to overlook the obvious foreshadowing points along the way (Your heart is sooo stroooong), and the characters' motivation - aside from survival - was completely absurd.  Moon Bloodgood's character in particular left me wondering "why would she even care?" about a hundred times.  By the end of the movie, I was simply no longer capable of believing that the characters gave a shit about each other at all, with the exception of John Connor trying to save Kyle Reese, in order to assure his own survival in the past-future(?).  I'll leave the time travel paradoxes out of the issue, since it's always been a problem with the franchise, and if you really want to complain about that, you probably shouldn't be watching the movies.

And yet, even with all these issues, I did enjoy Terminator, in the sense that I was entertained for 130 minutes.  After leaving the theater, I realized that I would have a difficult time really describing my opinion on the movie, since there wasn't much to it.  It's another of those franchise films that feels like a plot mover - it's a means to facilitate the next sequel.  Frankly, I've had enough of those movies at this point, and I'd like to get to some real story.  There's no money in real endings, though, so I don't know why I would expect to see one.

All in all, it was a fine movie.  As summer approaches, I wonder how many more "I liked it because I shut my head off" movies I'll be able to take.  Hopefully just enough to get me through September, and into Oscar season.

This week, I'm hoping to catch Night at the Museum, and when it hits this weekend, Pixar's new one, Up.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Sea Oats Obamacation - Day 2

Much less to say about Sunday, because, well, we didn't really do a lot. After waking up around 9, I walked over to the other condo for coffee and the morning buzz, which was mostly about Steph's birthday. She's had a birthday every year we've been here, so it kind of goes hand in hand with the beginning of the week. When she and Weston went to explore a thrift store, Jack and Sandie walked to the Circle K across the street, and picked up decorations and such. They returned with a bag of water balloons and an inflatable whale. I don't get it either. We all hurt ourselves blowing them all up, and waited to get things started on Steph's return. When she got back, we sang Happy B'Day, and laughed about the decor.

We were visited by a group of local friends thereafter - Chris Olds, whom Jack went to high school with, and his wife, newborn son, and another friend of theirs, Andrea. We all spent a while lounging poolside, where I picked up a solid start on sunburn. I managed to put sunblock on the back of my neck and shoulders, but there's a line on my chest where the sunblock ended, and the sunburn starts. I've gotta keep an eye on it this week so it doesn't get any worse. The intention is to turn it into a tan, which is usually easy on my arms and legs and face, but my chest and back don't get enough sun to make that as easy a prospect. Sometimes I wish I had my Dad's complexion, because every summer he turns to leather.

Once we got sick of the pool, Brett and I came upstairs for some drinks and watched game 1 of the NHL Western Conference Finals, and saw the Redwings beat the Blackhawks 5-2. Both of us are Wings fans, so it was a happy afternoon. Once the game was over, we started considering dinner, which was BBQ again. After dinner, we all came back up for cake and Ice cream, which I chose to abstain from, and we all watched the new Dane Cook special. I'm not a big Dane Cook fan, but I think I only heard like 2 jokes I'm pretty sure he stole from other comedians, so it's a halfway decent special I guess.

After cake, Brett, Laura and I went for a night swim, and then came upstairs and crashed. A mellow day, certainly, but overall the exact day we're looking for here. Plenty of relaxation, plenty of sun, and no stress to be seen. Vacation.

Sea Oats Obamacation - Day 1

Waking up at 4am is not fun. Even if you know you're planning to get on a plane to head to Tampa, Florida, you still hate the alarm clock with every ounce of your effort - which, on the tired side of 4am, isn't much. Still, you roll your ass out of bed and get your stuff ready so you can be sure you don't miss your flight. Unfortunately for Jen, she was my ride to the airport. She's even less excited at the prospect, since she won't be joining me. She's got all the bad parts, and none of the anticipation. Still, she's a great girlfriend, so she sucked it up and helped me out.

Flight 1 was uneventful. Slept the whole way to NYC. It was too early for me to even consider anything else. I did wake up for the landing, though, and it was awesome, since the entire airport was covered in a thick fog. I didn't see the ground until we hit it. It's landings like that that make you appreciate how good your pilots must be at their jobs, and how much technology there must be helping them out.

Once I got to New York, I really didn't have enough time to do or see anything, so I headed to see if any bars were serving yet. As it was only 7:30, they were not. Lame. So I boarded flight 2 to Tampa, and watched Travel Channel the whole way down. Jet Blue, baby. If I can manage it, I try to fly them everywhere. They really do have more leg room, and the TVs make the flights go so much smoother. Consider me a loyal customer.

Once arriving in Tampa and meeting everyone, we piled nine of us - Brett Gobe, Jack Collier and his wife Steph, her sister Sandie, Sarah Labombard, Chris Page, Laura Kroening, Weston Ruthven, and myself - into a seven passenger van and took off. First stop, as always, was this interesting Chinese food place called the Palace of the Orient (we just learned the name, although some of us have been going there for five years). They have passable food, but its a solid choice after a few hours in the air. We eat some MSG and drink some TsingTao beer, and head on to Sea Oats.

The place we stay is a condo complex literally on the beach in Reddington Shores, FL. We have two condos, which have between two and three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. They have balconies which are overlooking the Gulf, with an absolutely stunning view. There's a beachfront pool, and lots of space for BBQ. It's an excellent place for a vacation, but it's a little too tourist-y for my tastes, living there -wise.

Most days, we try to eat from groceries we purchase, because it's much cheaper than dinner out for a week. Brett and I were on shopping patrol for the first day, and we headed to Winn Dixie, where we picked up all the staples - lots of BBQ food, and a shit-ton of alcohol. There's a liquor store right next to the Winn Dixie, and I was responsible for buying the $100+ of liquor for day 1. We brought it all back to the Oats, and took in some sun before putting dinner together. By this time, we're all a little on the tipsy side, and exhausted from a long day. We came upstairs to play some Beirut (beer pong with quarters instead of balls, basically), and relaxed before finally making dinner around seven thirty. After dinner, I was pretty much drunk and spent, so I volunteered to be the puss and crash first. I passed out around 9, and was dead to the world until this morning, when I woke at 9am. The best part about going to bed at 9 is that when you sleep for 12 hours, you still wake up at a reasonable time.

Stay tuned for more highlights from the trip!