MichaelRunyon.com – All Things Geek

This weekend (Saturday, to be exact), it was my birthday. Leah and I had decided a week or so before that we’d like to go camping this last weekend, since we hadn’t gone this year, and more things on the agenda were looming large. So, on Wednesday we started looking for a place to stay in Northern Indiana/Southwest Michigan. With about 10 state parks and many more private ones, you’d think that we’d be able to easily find someplace to stay. Wrong.

I called 9 different state parks to try and reserve a spot, even just for primitive camping. Apparently, there were so many people camping that weekend that I had to revert back to the private campgrounds that I had initially looked at. We ended up being able to find a place at Shamrock Park in Berrien Springs, MI. Being that it was only about 30 minutes away from home, we were able to arrive there in plenty of time to setup before dark, even though Leah did not get off work until very late that night.

However, once night started to set in and the fire was started (the old-fashioned way, I will remind you. No newspaper or cardboard here. Took me a while, without any proper kindling), the streetlight directly above our campsite flickered on. A bad omen of things to come. We sat around reading and such and when bedtime came around, ruminated hopefully that the light might possibly extinguish at midnight, when it was no longer neccessary (it’s a campground for RV’s, seriously). But we would have no such luck. You would think that you could sleep through a simple overhead light, but something about the jointness of the humidity and the directionality of the light caused an unbearable combination that left us to the early morning hours without sleep. And then, when the sun came to grant a reprieve, we were greeted with rain.

And hard rain it was, too. So much so that small drips began to leak into the tent, despite our proper setup of the rain fly. The poor tent can only take so much pounding, and it rained off and on from about 2am until 10am, when we finally got up and tried to make the best of the day.

I was able to look up the weather on my phone, being close enough to get a data connection. The radar showed that much more rain was coming. After we had some breakfast, we debated about what to do about the remainder of our stay, as we had already paid for 2 nights. We decided to make the best that we could of the day, then go home for the 2nd night and do something there. We had found an old and dusty gift card to a restaurant, and thought about using that.

In an attempt to salvage what outdoors experience we had, we decided to try and go hiking at the local and recommended Love Creek Trails. The trails were nicely cut and maintained, but were unfortunately totally and madly overrun with deer flies. They swarmed your head, 10-20 at a time, despite the clouds of bug spray that we applied. We were warned that hats were nearly neccessary, and as we jogged sweatily out of the woods towards the car, we decided that enough was enough.

I bought a newspaper and a green tea at the rickety shack that passed for a liquor/grocery next to the campground. I was determined to make the best of the wood that I had purchased at our arrival. After some finger crossing and inventive placement (and lots of blowing), the fire was started and lunch was on the way. Despite the impending rain, we were able to eat, pack up our stuff and get on the road before getting wet.

Thankfully, the rest of the weekend was wonderful. We rerturned home to find my birthday present from Leah sitting on the porch (Guitar Hero III for Wii) and promptly started a Co-Op career and played 10 songs before unloading the car. Then, we ventured to Mom & Dad’s to pick the picnic table that we would be borrowing for some time while their house was in a state of flux. I helped Dad move some items, and then we opened the gifts that they had purchased for me. After this, we went to Papa Vinos with our gift card and then watched Hellboy II: The Golden Army at my insistence. I think that Leah might have enjoyed herself…she didn’t fall asleep and we had eaten beforehand, typically a good sign.

The next day, we had a cookout, and since we had such an unexpected turnout the year before, we purchased a huge amount of meat (8 pounds of beef, 3 pounds of turkey, 25 hot dogs, 8 brats). And though the grill was totally out of control (gas on lowest it would go, and still burned all of the food. Sigh), a good time seemed to be had by all, despite the retreating shade.

To all who wished me well on my birthday, thank you for your kind thoughts and your generous gifts. I appreciated  your company and wish well on all of you as well.

Leah and I went to see eHancock tonight, on our designated date night. This movie premiered on a Wednesday night, being that Friday is a holiday, as it often the practice of movie studios to do before the holiday weekend. We ate at the local Mexican supermarket/restaurant beforehand. I must say, I am having difficulties forming what to opine about without totally ruining it for someone who hasn’t seen the movie themselves. But I will do the best that I can.

Hancock falls into the mold of the tried and true “hated superhero” movies that seem to dominate the comic book superhero movie market. The difference of Hancock is both the absurdity of the premise and the source of the story (in this case a novel written in the 90’s).

Another beef is that I am growing well tired of the roles that Will Smith is choosing to play lately. This is the 3rd consecutive movie that Will Smith has played in which he plays the solitary hero (either through ideology or natural consequence). I’m beginning to think that the success of the movies is driving Hollywood, in all it’s formulaic predictability, to pitch movie after movie to Smith, who is thus far declining to turn them down.

The movie starts out with some attitude and some pretty unbelievable abilities from the namesake of the movie. The audience is asked to abruptly and violently suspend their disbelief and keep it that way for the remainder of the film. But some swagger goes a long way in establishing the story of the character. But then, unbelievably, the story immediately diverts to the absurb/insane once we are well on track for a pretty decent storyline. It’s so different, it’s also as if someone higher up the food chain insisted that further steps be taken to keep stepping up the story.

Overall, I can’t say that I wasn’t entertained, especially at the beginning, when we are wondering what the story is all about. But the severe plot letdown and sheer unbelievability of it all, combined with the dramatics thrown in the end with absolutely no character development, lead to an unfavorable view of all components involved. Having never read the novel, I can’t say whether a travesty was made of its storyline, but one would certainly hope that the original storyline was either better explained or better played out.