Hoglovin' Weekend!

I'm sitting here starting my 5 day weekend off with a nice cold bottle of Octoberfest and later I shall enjoy a nice bold cigar. I plan to live the entire weekend in full fledged hedonism! It's been quite a while since I had more than 3 days off at a time and I had to use Labor Day weekend as a special excuse to expand the weekend by two days to engross myself in some very well deserved relaxation and fun!

Now, don't get the wrong idea. It's not going to be me running around my apartment naked with one of those dual beer holder hats on my head (like every other weekend). This weekend is special. Here in my hometown of Milwaukee, we're celebrating the 105th anniversary of the Harley-Davidson Company. Thousands of Harley riders/owners are converging on this fair city to celebrate in a state of black leather, beer guzzling glee. And who be it for me to not assist them in their pursuit of sheer happiness? Very close to the Zangz's Vault of Geekdom Headquarters is where a few good street parties will be taking place. Again, I feel I must assist in this endeavor! Hopefully, I may be meeting some old friends down and around these happening's. So that's what I got going on this weekend.


That gaming weekend I spoke about in the last blog didn't pan out quite as expected. We wanted to play Arkham Horror, but apparently the host didn't get the game ready before hand. So, we attempted to set it up quickly so we could get playing but our attempts were futile as setting up this game will suck at least 7 to 8 hours of your life away even before you start playing. We decided to ditch Arkham Horror and play and old card favorite Nuclear War which was a blast. An oldie but a goody.


Recently I rented a '360 game called Overlord which is a switch on most fantasy RPG's. Instead of playing a hero, you play the evil villain. You have the help evil minions you spawn and it combines action and a slight bit of real time strategy. I think I would have really gotten into this game if it weren't for the fact that it didn't have instructions with it and manipulating the correct minions for particular tasks was a complete mystery without the guide. So I played as far as I could go and enjoyed what I did accomplish, but it lacked without direction.


Ok, here are some movie reviews...

White Noise 2 - Let's see... Nathan Fillion and Katee Sackhoff (awesome smile!) in a supernatural thriller? I'm frackin' there! Though it's not the greatest horror flick in the world, it certainly fairs far better than its predecessor. Just to see Nathan and Katee goof off on the set in the behind the scenes footage was cool enough for a fanboy to rent it. Mal vs. Starbuck!

Next - This Nicolas Cage action/Sci-Fi/thriller that revolves around precognitional powers (word I made up!) and a terrorist plot isn't half bad. Though it's not half good either. Then ending goes all goofy and leaves you wondering what the hell just happened? Did the bad guys win or does our hero have another chance. If so, why the hell didn't they show it? It's another one to check out in a rental situation. It will keep you interested enough, but it's not an owner by a long shot.

The Host - Frack Dragon Wars! This is a pretty cool Korean big monster movie that Dragon Wars could have pulled from. It's not the most happy of endings, but it isn't as childish as Dragon Wars was. There's no pretty boy or stunted dialog. Rent this one over Dragon wars any day.

Batman: Gotham Knight - Hot on the theatrical release of The Dark Knight comes this little animated, straight to video gem! It features 6 separate Batman stories, each with a different animation style and created by different writers. I have to say that I was very impressed with each one in its own way. If you're a big Batman fan, you must buy this DVD!

Family Guy: Blue Harvest - The popular animated TV series lovingly lampoons the greatest movie of all time... Star wars, Episode IV: A New Hope. It's one of the most funny homages to George Lucas' galactic wonder. If you're a Star Wars fan or a admirer of great pulp culture humor, you'll definitely want to check this one out. "Don't get to penisy, kid"

Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight - The thought that kept ripping through my head as I watched this Dungeons & Dragons story was, "Geez, couldn't they have created much better animation for this feature?" It's not horrible animation, mind you. But it's not that far off from what you would have seen on 1980's Saturday morning carton shows. They feebly try to compensate with using computer graphics to animate the villains of the film, large, humanoid lizards. but, the effect becomes more detracting as the lizards look good, but everything else is a poor man's Hannah Barbarra. 'C'mon! Doesn't D&D influenced media deserve far better? I'm sure Senator McCain has this puppy in his rental club's queue.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - Being a video game geek, I just had to check out this documentary about two rivals fighting for the world record of arcade style Donkey Kong. Mostly I'm a counsel gamer due to arcade games always kicking my ass. But I still had to glimps this movie. Though I really enjoyed this movie it should have been retitled, "Billy Mitchell is a Big Jerk Wad of a Donkey Kong Player" since the film spends most of the time portraying the one player as a egocentric nard and the other player, Steve Wiebe as the poor innocent underdog. That's the way I felt when I first viewed it, but I'm guessing the documentary's makers got a sniff of a potential angle to their story and went with a bit of a biased opinion. Sure I liked it, but I'm starting to get a little suspect of documentary makers. Worth a peak, but keep your head.


Ahhh......as I sit here in the Vault of Geekdom Headquarters I can hear the rumble of a few Harley's flying down my avenue. Unlike a lot of my friends, I find it a very welcoming noise.... ok, maybe not at 3 am on a work day morning it's not so great, but I am enjoying the rumble right now.

I'm bringing this one to an end. Stay Vertical!

Zangz.