Categories
Adventure

Kevin’s Bachelor Party

I just got back from the car wash, I had to clean off some shaving cream and vomit from exterior of my car. The Shepherd almost made it home before throwing up, so very close. Good job Shepherd, you almost made it.

While the vomit was much thicker and abundant along my passenger door when I awoke that I had been expected to find, it did come off easily with the high pressure of the car wash. The shaving cream along the side was just from some completely coincidental child pranks. Stupid rich kids apparently have nothing better to do in Linwood.

The bachelor party itself was great time, nothing too crazy like in the movies. I think everyone is a bit too old for such shenanigans at this point, well almost all of us I suppose. Just a good time hanging out with some old friends who which is something that doesn’t happen as often as I’m sure we’d all like.

To start things off we met up pretty early at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in PA for some pre Phillies game tailgating. I must tip my hat to the planners, as this was a great location and the weather was nearly perfect for the occasion. There were many ducks, pigeons and even a stray cat wandering about the park as well. And poorly overthrown footballs nearly attacking us at times.

The food was amazing. Hats of and a full standing ovation to Conner and Ryan for their grillmanship. I couldn’t help but completely overeat. Sausage from brooklyn, beef tenderloin with some special sauce who’s contents couldn’t be shared, scallops, shrimp and clams, philly pretzels in varieties I never heard of and enough beverages to satisfy all those on hand. My belly is truly larger today as I type this.

We then walked to the game. Kevin’s extremely generous uncle treated us all to a luxury box, with food! As if I hadn’t eaten enough already on this day, free food awaited me in the luxury box over the first based side. Italian pork sandwiches, chicken tenders, hot dogs, cheesesteaks, italian chips, water ice, cookies, candy, more unlimited beverages, this was truly a glutenous day that future tales would forever speak of!

The game itself wasn’t too bad either. The box was a really great spot to watch a game, even though the A’s did beat the Phils. I was indifferent but we did have some bummed guys in the box due to the outcome. Leaving the game which was done in a brisk 2 hours and 33 minutes, we then realized that our ride home wouldn’t be here in another 2 1/2 hours or so.

Skip, the blazingly fast limo driver was apparently held up and we weren’t expecting the game to end so soon. We hung out in the parking lot for a bit before venturing over to the nearby Holiday Inn where some of the guys had gotten a room to stay. Due to a crazy man freaking out in the lobby, the guys room was upgraded to a suite so we went up there and just waited for Skip’s arrival.

Skip arrived, we said our goodbyes and the ride home was mostly silent as everyone around me was asleep for a good deal of the ride. A great time with some good guys.

Categories
Books

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon TattooAfter hearing many good things and always seeing this featured in Borders on lunch break, I figured I’d give it a read. While a lot more graphic and violent than I was expecting, I can see why it’s been so popular. It was a really exciting book.

It started a little slow for me, but about half way in, when the pieces beginning falling into place it was really hard to put it down. I just had to know what happened next in the mystery that was unraveling.

I kinda want to visit and hang out in Sweden since that’s where the story takes place. The author did a really great job of bringing it to life through words. Though I did have a hard time reading the Swedish names and cities at times, but eventually I caught on to their spelling (no idea if I’ve got their pronunciation right).

There’s two more books in this series and I think I’ll have to give them a shot sometime this summer as well. It was sad to hear that the author passed away shortly after the books were released.

Categories
Books

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes

The Seven Spiritual Laws of SuperheroesI went for something a bit different for my last read, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes by Deepak Chopra with Gotham Chopra. It turned out to be very interesting. It pretty much takes eastern ways and shows the correlations with western superheroes.

While not one for spirituality, it did share some very interesting perspectives on thought. The comparisons to comic book characters was really cool, even though the author didn’t really have a strong understanding of comics. Thor is not a Greek for instance.

The book covers 7 Laws, and in a really bizarre turn of events I kinda fit right in to almost all of them. Guess I’m a bit more in balance and closer to transcendence than I’d given myself credit.

Either way if you like superheroes or spirituality I’d recommend this one. I read through in in under two days.

Categories
Books

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi Omen

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi OmenJust finished reading the second book in the Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi series. It was pretty good, lots more of the same from the first book.

Luke and Ben and still searching for answers and meet up with a different alien race. Their whole take on no light or dark side in the force, but more of a rainbow was cool. They didn’t believe you had to be one or the other.

I really liked how the whole Sith living isolated on a planet for 5000 years sets up some potential good stuff. I really liked how they assumed that every other planet was ruled by Sith only to find out that they are actually near extinct at this point.

Some big stuff seems to be getting setup for the later books in this series. Oh and Omen is the name of an ancient Sith ship.

Categories
Video Games

Okamiden

OkamidenI finally finished up Okamiden on my trusty old DS. It was just as must fun if not more than the previous installment, Okami which I played on the Wii a little while back.

It picks up right where the original left off, and using the touch screen and stylus for the brush techniques was great. I like to draw.

It was one of the better DS games I’ve played and quite possibly one of the last one’s I’ll probably play with all the new systems coming out now.

The graphics and artwork was just as good as the original, capturing the whole old school Japanese fable feel. Very cool, and still very impressive this time around. The younger versions of all the various animals was very well done.

The story, especially the ending did have a serious of twists that I wasn’t expecting. So that’s always refreshing. Chibi is my new hero. All in all an excellent game and good distraction from all my business the past several weeks.

Categories
Movies

X-Men: First Class

X-Men First ClassAs a huge X-Men fan growing up, I had to make sure that I saw X-Men: First Class. I did enjoy the first two X-Men films (the third and Wolverine were complete poop), and was hoping that they could get that franchise back on track.

Having read up on the lineup and basic story online I knew that the movei wouldn’t be following the comics too closely. Since I had known this going in, it didn’t trouble me too much. Yes, I’m that comic book geek know knows when they change things up in movies (why do they have to always do that?)

If you can get past the inaccuracies it was a really good movie. I’m really glad to see another good comic book movie. The story, and characters were great. Taking place during the Cuban missile crisis was a great idea. They were able to work in the good and evil sides forming as well as the hatred that humans would have towards mutants regardless of which side they choose.

Young Magneto and Xavier were really well done. It was great to see their different paths and ideology as well as how they would get to each. My favorite part was Azazel wearing a captains hat while hijacking the Soviet ship. I’m not sure if that was done for humor, but I don’t know why he would need to dress up as a captain aboard a ship of dead people. Excellent movie, go see it.