A Kick-Ass Weekend

A few weeks ago, I made the decision to go to Birmingham for the weekend.  The primary reason for this was to go to spend time with my brother and my friends.  The secondary reason was to go see the UAB spring game at the West Soccer Field.  The expectations were that I would have a good time, but – and this isn’t counting today – I didn’t expect to have this much fun.  I would talk about Friday, but there’s not much to talk about; I got off work, packed up the car, and hit the road with my wife in tow.

On Saturday, I woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and ready to hit the ground running.  Whenever I go to Birmingham, I have to go to Snoozy’s Bookstore.  Snoozy’s is the premier place to go to pick up UAB gear, and I nabbed a couple of things before heading out to the field to watch the game.  I had my wife and brother with me, and they seemed to enjoy it, although they were plenty hot.  I believe it was a good 80 degrees when we got there, but it was great to watch some football again.  The players looked crisp, and the running game was impressive.  I was definitely impressed with the play of QB David Isabelle as a possible dual threat, but I was more impressed with Joe Bento.  Bento has an amazing arm, and when given the time, he can throw it between the numbers.  He’s also a tough runner when he has to be; I watched one play where he ran it in from about twenty yards.

Another amazing play was by redshirt Freshman Jonathan Perry.  I only saw one play, but that play was electrifying.  I’ll probably get the yardage wrong, but I believe he took a snap and ran for 34 yards.  I’ve seen video of him, and he looks to have the blazing speed of Joe Webb and the cannon arm of Darrell Hackney.  I didn’t get to see him throw the ball, but I’m sure once he gets comfortable in the system, he’s going to be an amazing player.  I was really impressed with the running game as well; the runners look to be tough and can hit the hole pretty hard.  I definitely enjoyed watching Pat Shed run with the ball, and he could be the best RB the Blazers have had since Corey White.  The defense looked a bit better as well, so we’ll see what happens when the season starts.

After that, we went to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  Let me just say that the Botanical Gardens are beautiful.  My wife got some excellent pictures, and my brother even got some good ones in there.  I’m looking forward to seeing them when she’s done editing them.  We had to cut it short, though; she started having coughing fits due to the rain of pollen we were inundated with.  Oddly enough, I was okay.  I guess the problem for me is the pollen in Mobile.  Funny how that works, huh?

Afterwards, we met up with my close friends and their dates, and we went to watch  Kick-Ass.  If you haven’t heard much of anything about this movie, I’ll clue you in.  This movie is based on a comic book written by Mark Millar, and it’s about a kid named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who does something that no one would ever think of doing: he dresses up and becomes a real-life superhero.  His first attempt goes predictably wrong, as he is stabbed and hit by a car.  Undaunted, he keeps on with it and meets up with two new costumed vigilante superheros named Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), as well as ambiguous hero Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).  They set out to take on New York crime boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) and help clean up the streets.

I don’t even know where to begin reviewing this movie.  The cast list is so grand, but the movie uses everyone well.  I can’t even critique them without unfairly leaving someone out.  So, I won’t do it.  Instead, I’ll say that they all brought a sort of maniacal energy to the movie.  Of course, I think I can’t help but admit that I loved Nicholas Cage in this, because he is just so low-key in this film.  His character has well intentions, but he just doesn’t know how to do it properly.

As I mentioned before, this is based off of a comic book, and they were almost completely faithful to it.  Without giving some parts away, I’ll just say that people die in different ways and he doesn’t get the hot girl at the end.  Other than that, it was an almost perfect adaptation.  Matthew Vaughn did a good job directing it, and the musical score – while not completely memorable – was fitting.  I give this movie four dragon heads out of five, and the fact that my wife enjoyed it was icing on the cake.

We then went out for beer & wings and just had a blast.  We cut the night short, but we had a good time nonetheless.  The most memorable thing about that was when my brother decided to get some lava flavored hot wings.  Suffice it to say, it didn’t end well for him.  I think he learned his lesson.

That brings us to today.  There isn’t much on the agenda today; in fact, all we’re doing is going to church and driving back down.  This weekend was totally necessary, because I felt like I was about to explode.  Hopefully, this will be enough to recharge my batteries so I won’t implode.

NOTE: The return trip was more eventful than I would’ve liked it to be.  How so?  There were two accidents that ate up about 45 minutes of time from my trip.  Fantastic.