At least, so far it has. I appear to have picked up a cold in Las Vegas--I blame Kyle, who was getting it on Sunday--and it has turned my sinuses and my throat into battlegrounds.
So, for me, it's work and sleep and not much else for a few days.
My friend, Dave, held his annual birthday pig-picking today, and it was a fun affair indeed. Many, many people attended, many brought food to share, and Dave provided the cooked pig. Kyle and I broke it down and sent tray after tray of meat upstairs to the hungry crowd, folks mingled and chatted, and everyone seemed to have a very good time.
I've been going to this party for something like 32 years, give or take. People have come and gone from the party crowd, but many regulars have stayed throughout the years. Some people I met there as kids now attend with their children. The party serves as a reminder and celebration of not just age but also of the value of being part of a community, however odd that community may be and however infrequently it may gather.
So, Dave, happy birthday, and for both of us--for all of us who attend--I hope you keep holding the pig-picking for years and years and years to come.
Kyle and I headed today to the only cinema in the area to catch War for the Planet of the Apes, the latest (and pretty good) installment in this franchise. The theater is a hot mess, but it's the only one in easy driving distance, so we visit it at least a couple of times each beach vacation.
On the way, we stopped for lunch at a drive-through hot dog stand, where we each enjoyed a bottle of water and two of these creations.
During normal work weeks, I sleep very little. I simply can't afford the time in bed. Here on vacation, I am sleeping about eight hours each night and napping every few days, yet I am sleepy almost all of the time. Some of this fatigue is due to more exercise; though I'm not doing much, I am walking a couple of miles in the heat each day, and I'm usually in the pool twice a day. Some of it, though, seems to be just part of the process of trying to shed the stress of my normal life. I shouldn't be surprised at how much stress I need to get rid of, but I keep being caught off-guard by how pervasive it is. Clearly, I need to learn to manage my stress better.
Beach life is sleepy life.
Dinner tonight found our group splintering, with some going out, some foraging on their own, and some eating my meaty mess entree.
Neither less than four hours of sleep nor a snowstorm at O'Hare kept Kyle and me from making it home, so I'm happy to be back--and exhausted.
I'm going to do the minimum I must and then crash. Sleep sounds so very good right now.
I had intended to write about the day, but when I realized I'd have only four hours in bed before I had to get up to head to the airport, I abandoned the blog and crashed.
Perhaps I will catch up Sunday, or perhaps I will fall asleep again. Such are the mysteries of my life lately.
For a long time, I wouldn't even consider going to this show. As much as I've loved all the Cirque performances I've attended, and despite the fact that I liked a great deal of Jackson's music, I was so disturbed by the child molestation charges against Jackson that I avoided everything to do with him. Finally, I decided on this trip to give it a try.
I am very glad I did. The show is a magical piece, a loud, booming, tech-heavy tribute to Jackson's music that manages to end on an uplifting message.
In the usual Cirque style, it mixes music and various acrobatic performances. It's by far the most tech-intensive of the shows, and at times it risks losing its hold on you when you realize that you're just watching a very big music video--but then the live action resumes, and all is well.
The show's title refers to the ending message, something we need more than ever in Trump's America: that regardless of color or any other differences, we are all one.
To my surprise, I strongly recommend the show and look forward to seeing it again.
By the way, for those wanting more about our Vegas trip, between walking a great deal each day and keeping up with work, I'm having to write short entries so I can get enough sleep. I'll try to provide more trip information in later entries.
I assure you my intentions were good.
I've been in the splash zone at both O and La Reve and never really gotten wet, so I figured being up front at another Vegas play would be fine. Consequently, when we decided to check out Evil Dead: The Musical--what's not to like about a musical version of a cult classic?--and the best tickets were for the "splatter zone," I chose them for us.
I should have paid more attention to the lines about "gallons of blood," but I assumed that referred to the show, not the audience.
Not long before showtime, a host led us to the front row, which was covered in plastic, and handed us white, logoed t-shirts, which he then insisted we wear. Only we two and another guy were in the front.
As the show was about to begin, from way off to my left came a spray, presumably from a super-soaker of some sort, of red liquid with the consistency of Kool-Aid. I was instantly wet.
From then on, the show consisted of moments of entertainment mixed with stretches of failed attempts on our part to avoid the jets of fake blood coming at us from the left and, in one case, from the stage.
We left the theater chilled to the bone, sticky, and soaked. We took off the t-shirts but still had to walk through the cold night and then across much of the casino floor of our hotel to get to our room.
We have a pink towel from trying to wash the still-pink clothing we were wearing.
We both think the show was reasonably entertaining, but neither of us can be sure, because we spent so much of it trying in vain to avoid getting wetter, stickier, and colder.
Good intentions are no match for a determined splatter zone team.
So what kind of Vegas party animals are Kyle and I?
Well, on our first night in Sin City, we walked more than a mile each way to go from our hotel to dinner and back, ate two small plates each at a decent Italian place (Lago), enjoyed small cups of gelato at our favorite gelateria in the Bellagio, and watched the last episode of The Ultimate Fighter in our room.
Oh, yeah: we talked, I worked, and we read.
What wild and crazy guys we are!
Last night, Kyle led a small group of us to watch local mixed martial arts matches at the Raleigh Convention Center, courtesy of area promotion Next Level Fight Club. I've been to multiple live MMA events before, but all of them were from the UFC, which is the leading promotion and easily the largest and richest and best of them all. I wasn't sure what to expect from a local show.
I'm happy to report that all of us had a lot of fun.
The setup was bigger than I had feared, and though in this shot it's mostly empty,
I had planned to skip this movie, but Kyle said it was good, and I came to a good stopping place in work in time to catch a show at a nearby cinema, so off I went.
I'm glad I did. In the beginning, you think you know everything about the movie, and then it swerves--but maybe just a little. You can't be positive. It then returns to the form you expected--and gets dark fast. Then it swerves again. I like it when I'm not sure what's going to happen at every step of the way in a film, so I very much appreciated the construction of this one.
I'm intentionally avoiding spoilers, because I think it's best if you bring as few preconceptions to this movie as possible.
Check it out. I believe you'll enjoy it more than you expect to.
I went to bed late and felt horrible as I crawled into the sheets. I felt worse when I got up for good less than five hours later. I've lost most of my voice to drainage, and tomorrow night is our big annual work celebration, at which I must speak, so I have a very short time to heal fully.
Consequently, I'm crashing.
Over the coming days, I hope to catch up on my Vegas report.
I have so much good stuff to write about today, but I'm exhausted, and I have to get up very early, so I'm crashing.
Sorry about that.
More later.
I slept late today after a very late bedtime, and I enjoyed every bit of that sleep.
After some work, we headed out for a light lunch and a lot of walking, some of it through the shops in Caesar's. Walking was a good thing, a bit of exercise in a trip with plenty of calories.
Dinner took our group of now four folks to China Poblano, a Jose Andres Mexican/Chinese fusion place. The meal was good, though not exceptional. That said, I sure would be happy to have one of these restaurants back home, where it would be a stand-out.
This evening, we went to see Rock of Ages, a play that was on Broadway, toured, became a movie, and now is an installation at the Venetian. The play was very different from the movie, which I had very much (to my surprise) enjoyed, but I also had a grand time at it. Like the musical, The Commitments, which I saw in London, the music and the sheer energy of the cast made this show a ton of fun.
Tomorrow, UFC fights!
Kyle and I, and soon others, are here in Las Vegas for our annual trip for his birthday and some UFC fights. I tweeted a few of the key moments from my flight, so check there for what I enjoyed experienced.
We both landed in the late afternoon, so after dropping our stuff in the hotel room, we headed to dinner at Jaleo. The food there was as delicious as always.
Next on our plan was the Cirque show, Mystere, which we've seen before but still quite enjoy. It was, as always, wonderful.
We walked back to our hotel and along the way stopped in the Bellagio for some gelato, another Vegas tradition.
I'm exhausted, so that's it for today.
Kyle turned me on to this upcoming Shane Black film, which looks like just my cup of comic action tea.
May could be a very good film month indeed.
Earlier tonight, a bunch of us watched the UFC's fights from Japan. Most of the card varied from ho-hum to downright bad, though a few fights were quite good. Then the co-main event started, a battle between the favorite, Gegard Mousasi, and a challenger, Uriah Hall, who took the fight on fairly short notice. Hall had risen to prominence on The Ultimate Fighter TV show, in the course of which he knocked out an opponent with a spinning heel kick.
Early in the first round of the fight, Mousasi took down Hall. The rest of that round consisted mostly of Mousasi trying to submit Hall, and Hall trying to defend.
At the break between rounds, Kyle said something along the lines of, "Maybe in round two Hall will spinning-heel kick Mousasi and knock him out."
The second round started. Go here to see what happened.
Yup, tonight Kyle proved to be a prophet, and we enjoyed a very entertaining upset.
As has become tradition, I've photographed all 21 of the movies we watched on DVD/Blu-ray while at the beach. (We normally catch more films, but we also watched three UFC events while there.)
Wow, was I tired today. I awoke after two hours and forty-five minutes of sleep and felt like a zombie. That is not enough sleep for me.
Most of the day went to the drive from Raleigh to the con, a drive that ended up taking us through rush hour traffic--the only kind D.C. seems to have.
Dinner was a delicious meal at Woodberry Kitchen; by good fortune, Kyle was able to come. As I've said many times, if you're in this area, you should absolutely eat at Woodberry. Everything we tried was very good, with the tomato soup with "adorable grilled cheese" and the sharp cheddar mac and cheese side dishes being particular favorites.
Tomorrow, the con starts in earnest. For those planning to attend, look me up and say hi. I'll be emceeing the opening ceremonies on Friday, and then on Saturday and Sunday I'll be participating in six panel discussions.
Now, though, I will crash!
In a comment to my post yesterday on Fifty Shades of Grey, Kyle asked the important question that is the title of this entry. In my response to him, I copped out and declared the two a tie.
That's clearly not good enough. If I'm going to besmirch not just one but two movies based on books that millions and millions of people love, I ought to be willing to face the tough questions. The only fair way to do this is to compare key points of the movies.
Length: Twilight clocks in at 2:02, while Fifty Shades piles on an extra three minutes and hits 2:05. With movies this bad, every extra minute is a lash from an incompetent dominant, so Fifty Shades is the worse on this front.
Plot: Sure, both are stupid beginnings to inane trilogies, but because the question is about only these first movies--and those are all I've seen--we have to restrict the comparison to just what happens in these two. In Fifty Shades, we have a boring love story that makes no sense at any turn, but few film love stories do. In Twilight, we have sparkly vampires and werewolves who imprint on their love-mates and, well, you get the point: Twilight carries far and away the worse plot.
Acting: Assume here that we must use this term for the performances in the films; don't grouse at me that no one acted at all. I'm going to stick to the two leads in each case. In Fifty Shades, we have Jamie Dornan doing his best impression of a sad gray sofa in a Bronx heroin den, but at least you can tell it's a sofa. In Twilight, Robert Pattinson manages to be nearly invisible, even while sparkling, in a performance so bad I believe my memory actually contains blanks spots where he should be. Similarly, Kristen Stewart's only acting achievement in Twilight was to piss off all sensible viewers, while I have to grant that Dakota Johnson had two whole acting moves and was frequently recognizable as human. For worse acting, Twilight wins going away.
Creepy factor: Mid-twenties billionaire Grey falls for boring woman something like five years younger (no, I'm not willing to research the exact difference), and definitely out of college. Yeah, he's supposed to be a dominant, but his few kink acts are so tame that you'd find more sexual heat in Julia Child dressing a chicken. In Twilight, Pattinson is over a hundred years old and becomes infatuated with a high-schooler. Twilight once again wins by a mile.
I could go on, but I believe the answer to Kyle's question is abundantly clear: Twilight is far and away the worse of the two movies.
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