Best Thing I Saw This Weekend

To put it mildly -- I had a pretty crappy weekend. It wasn't supposed to go that way, it just sorta went south on me in waves, and once it got rolling downhill it didn't seem to stop. It started Friday night out at the club when I felt a little more tired than normal, and decided to head home early -- which shifted quickly into the happy fun stages of some sort of stomach virus that's been making the rounds at my job and my kids school lately, which all but put me out of commission Saturday.

I don't really enjoy being sick, so I tried to power through it on more than one occasion -- taking my kid to little league practice, going to the guitar store to pick up extra strings for my pending band audition/jam session Sunday night -- but in the end I just had to give in and try to sleep it off.

My whole goal was to make sure I was well enough to rock socks at the audition/jam session -- only to find out in a phone call I should have honestly been a lot less surprised to receive that some personal beef between the stoner bass player and one of the singers had flared up, and now the whole thing was basically dead before it even got started.
No audition. No jam. No band.
Third time around with this guy. Third time it's gone to shit. I probably should have seen it coming (well, actually I sorta did -- but I got my hopes up anyways), but hearing it for real on the phone after all the other mess this weekend was an utter bummer.

That's not to say I didn't see anything good this weekend. Between the puking and the musical misfires I spent most of the last two days on my couch -- sleeping, surfing the web, and watching a boatload of movies, bad TV, and Olympic hockey -- which yielded some pretty cool results.
So let's talk about The Best Thing I Saw This Weekend:
Winner: The Olympic Men's Hockey Final
What a game. Honestly it was probably some of the most exciting hockey I've seen in the past few years. The intensity, the drama -- that last second heartstopper of a game-tying goal by Zach Parise for the Americans? I was on the phone with a buddy during the overtime and almost yelled his ear off when the puck unexpectedly bounced in front of the net just out of goalie Ryan Miller's reach. Luckily the call ended before Iginlia fed Crosby for the winner -- which happened so fast the cameraman didn't even have time to catch up to it until Crosby was already in the other corner celebrating.

And yeah, Team USA played their hearts out and were clearly devastated by the loss, but could there have been a better possible way to close the games for Canada itself, or for the NHL in turn? Twitter was alive with people talking about how they'd never been so excited for a hockey game, and how much they hadn't realized how great this game was. Whether or not that will translate into larger hockey crowds or television audiences is hard to say (read: unlikely) -- but what you really hope for is that one of the more visible sports networks (ESPN, FOX) takes those ratings numbers as a call to pull the league out of deep cable exile so that it can find it's way back into the radar of casual sports fans looking for something new to watch and fall in love with.

Either way though, an amazing game. A perfect illustration of nearly everything there is to love about hockey.
Runners up (in no particular order):
  • A Perfect Getaway -- The thing about genre movies these days is that we know that they're genre films. We know that horror movies will have shocks and gore. We know that action films will have explosions, that kids movies will have fart jokes, and rom-coms have happy endings. As such, we go into them with certain expectations -- which leads a vast majority of these movies to seem like failures because they either didn't deliver enough of what we were looking for (lame scares, too much talking), or they overplay their hand to the point where it just becomes the cinematic equivalent of porn (no story, but lots of torture/chase scenes/explosions/etc.)

    So when I tell you that A Perfect Getaway is a smart, Hitchcock-styled thriller -- it's probably already not going to be good enough for some of you out there. Because by putting things that way what I'm really saying is that there's a twist in the story -- so now anyone who checks it out on my recommendation will spend most of their time looking for that twist, or at the very least waiting for it to happen -- which is only natural, I suppose -- but which would also rob you of the best part of any twist story -- which is the setup.
    Or to put it another way -- it's never really the rabbit coming out of the magicians hat that is the cool part. It's the fact that he made you think he had nothing up his sleeve. That you felt sure that there was nowhere a rabbit could be hidden for him to pull it out of right up until the point where it appears in his hand.
    All that being said, A Perfect Getaway is far from a perfect movie. There are one or two over-telegraphed plot points that are a little hard to swallow when they eventually come to pass, and there's a surprising amount of winking at the audience going on in the dialogue (most of which you don't realize until everything's over) -- but if you allow yourself to fall into it a little, it's a lot of fun. Director David Twohy has had plenty of hits and misses in his career -- but he does an amazing job here of bringing out the beauty of his Hawaiian locales, which helps to ease you into a certain sense of security that he then proceeds to mess with.

    I was honestly surprised at how much I liked this movie. Not that it was a game changer or anything, but it's a really good popcorn flick -- especially for a date night or something like that. Check it out and let me know what you think.

  • Other Movie Roundup -- I saw a bunch of other films over the weekend, but to be honest I was fading in and out of a lot of them. Nothing like a sick weekend to catch up on all your unwatched Torrent files, eh? Anyways -- as a quick rundown, I didn't expect to want to watch all of The Last Castle -- but I kinda got sucked into it. Robert Redford isn't really putting in hard work in this one, but he's a compelling actor. I used to give the same kind of pass to Paul Newman movies. As such, it's hard to give a solid thumbs up to this film. I enjoyed it on the same sort of level that I like certain westerns or cop movies -- but to say that it was really, really great? Probably not. Another actor I've discussed liking in the past is Dennis Quaid, which is why I was interested in checking out Pandorum. Unfortunately that movie sucked rocks. I'm talking aggressively bad. I also (finally) watched the recent JJ Abrahms re-make of Star Trek, which I liked quite a bit. The plot got a little lame after [Spoiler Alert] Leonard Nimoy showed up (Seriously?, You had to take it there?), but the action sequences were fantastic. Plus, copious doses of Zoe Saldana -- which always makes me smile. I still have a few more movies in my queue to dig through -- but I'm always open to suggestions for other good stuff to watch, so feel free to let me know anything you've seen lately that's worth a peek in the comments.

  • This Picture -- Chances are this isn't the first or last place you're going to see this pic --
    But it's just such a pure moment of awesome that I really have no problem re-posting it here.

    Click for a larger view
Honestly, the worst part about sick weekends is that feeling of time lost. Sure I got some extra sleep, and I'm not nearly as sick as I was feeling before -- but I had all sorts of things lined up for the past few days that I simply couldn't get done, that I now have to find some way to squeeze in to this week. Not impossible by any stretch, and yet another hoop to jump through, you know? Kinda hate when that happens -- especially when the big wins you were hoping to achieve (read: my audition) never even had a chance to take place. But hey, there's always tomorrow, right?
So, what were some of the cooler things you saw this weekend?

[Listening to:  Vetiver - "More of This" ]

Comments

Beth said…
sorry you were sick all weekend...glad you are now feeling better...

and sorry about the audition thingy...but sounds like it's probably for the best...hope you finally realize that the stoner bass player is just not someone you need to deal with on that level...EVER

best thing I saw this weekend...

dude...

went to my 11 year old niece's skating party...

older white man gettin' it in at the skating rink...I was so ready for him to bust into a triple toe loop or something. I just kept thinking this old man is on regular (rented even) skates with wheels but he's acting like he's ice skating...HI-larious!

at the same party the little random 4 year old that I somehow became protector of the universe for...the rink had this party puppy thing come out and dance with the kids and adults...party puppy scared the ish out of Kayla (4 year old) she made a beeline to me (someone she does not know) and sat on my lap...when I tried to tell her that the puppy was gone...this little heffa gave me the hand like bitch I'm not trying to hear that...iHollered!

and finally getting my front windshield replaced...it had a massive but rather cool looking 3-way crack (that kept growing) in it courtesy of Momma Nae's bitch ass! That last snowstorm was doing too much.
JerseySjov said…
nothing like a nice stomach virus. i was on the couch for 3 days with mine.

i finally watched The Graduate this weekend. my also-sick roommate and i stumbled upon it for free on demand.

baby lions like the little guy in that picture are cute, but baby cheetahs are cuter because they have little mohawks.
polkatronixx said…
First off, I'm really sorry to hear about the band thing. And even though you basically predicted that, it still almost kind of pissed me off to read it.

As far as good things I saw this weekend:

1. Roman Pavlyuchenko scoring his 5th goal in three games in the Tottenham Hotspur - Everton match. This goal (along with a beautiful Luka Modric goal) put Spurs back in 4th place in the league. But it's really nice to see a guy who couldn't get a start to save his life, was crying to the media about how the manager is ruining his life and almost left the team in the transfer window actually do something when finally given the chance. I know a lot of people don't care about soccer, but I prefer it to hockey.

2. I don't like Rugby (either type) very much, but it was cool to see Ireland beat England in the Six Nations tournament.

3. The Line 6 Pod X3. I'm cheating a bit b/c my wife got this for me (bday present) in mid-February. But I really got to play with it a bit this weekend. I wanted it so I could practice playing bass with my headphones on (we live in a tiny flat), but it's so much better than I thought it would be. I can play guitar through it, too. And the best part? It practically makes me sound like I know how to play guitar. Now THAT'S technology!

-Adam
Anonymous said…
what was it you said last week about sidney crosby?
Hex said…
Bef -- As you might expect, there's not all that much ice skating available here in N. Florida, but there is a rink, and they've been advertising HARD since the olympics started. I want to get the boy out there -- it's fun!

Jersey -- Love the Graduate. Fantastic movie. What did you think of it?

Polkatron -- Werdna has a similar Line 6 device and raves about it on the regular. I've checked out their stuff, and it sounds pretty good (I'm considering one of their amps), but I wonder how it translates as a live rig. It's great for straight to computer and headphone stuff (like you're talking about) but can I crank it up on a stage?

WIGSF -- I believe it was something like, oh I don't know..

I just don't think that Sid's as good as all the hype. Maybe it's just because he's so pompous and plays a little soft in the corners, but I'd much rather watch Ovechkin.

I also went on in some other post to label him as a Peyton-Manning type chokejob artist in big games.

And then wouldn't you know it, he goes and buries the biggest OT goal in Canadian Olympic history. I still would rather watch Ovechkin given the choice, but clearly Sid came through in the clutch and now I've got some crow to eat.

I mean, I could be a jerk and point out that Iginlia was the one who went into the corner and dug it out and put it right on the tape for Crosby, but Sid still had to make that shot, and that's exactly what he did.

So yeah, shows how much I know.
polkatronixx said…
Although they claim you can use it as part of your live rig (and they make a live version with footswitches and stuff), it seems like you'd have to do a lot of messing with it to get your settings just right. I can't seem to figure it out yet, but I'm slowly getting there (I think).
JerseySjov said…
i liked it :) i don't know how i went so long without seeing it.