How I spent my last Saturday off

Every few weeks I get a weekend off and drive across the bridge to Hal’s. Hal lives with a ‘slave’, a real-life woman who obeys him. Mostly. But this post won’t be about their absurd relationship. I’m a firm believer in the main point of Geroge Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, which is. when one party assumes the role of tyrant, it’s their own freedom they destroy.

Sorry to get you interested in what I won’t be talking about for the rest of this post, but here’s a little bit more: Hal’s slave is far younger than he, with great snowy skin, but she’s fat in a not-hot way, despite the large rack. Also, though Hal knows her moods, I find her unsmiling obedient presence dour; I’d like to show her the door when I’m over there.

Hal has one of those ginormous big flat fucking televisions and all we do 90% of the time is play Xbox360. I find myself totally absorbed in the games, especially on the huge screen.

For the third time in as many weekends we tried to get the cheat of “Unlimited health” for Metropolis in the terrible Superman Returns game, but it never works. I really wanted to love the game, but it just sucks. I bought it for $9.99 at a Gamestop where the girl clerk said she should pay us $5 just to take it away.

After Superman, we played the demo download of the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine game. This was the highlight of the day. While the game has some flaws (everyone has their nitpicks) Wolverine the character is damned-near indestructable, just like in the film. But the game is so much gorier than the movie and Wolvy so brutal, I actually felt bad for some of the African mercenaries, literally diced into salsa like tomatoes in a blender. Nerdgasms will ensue.

Hal and I played the new UFC game demo. It was realistic and fun, and I say this not as a UFC fan. I like fighting and fights, strategy and sportsmanship, but UFC is a sport, not combat, and after awhile the ground stuff begins to look gay, even when one guy is ground and pound-ing the shit out of the other’s face. I found myself getting angrier and angrier at losing quickly. Just like in the real UFC, being hit at the correct angle drops your guy like a bag of dirt. I was cursing up a storm even when I won.

I played Ninja Gaiden II on the sissy setting. Excellent graphics but very tedious.

After a long, LONG day and night, eating the shit out of everything in sight (pizza, cheese sticks, ribs) and with my eyes feeling like scoops of napalm jelly, Hal and I fired up Rainbow Six Vegas 2, an excellent game with a dizzying shitload of options. Hal and I played split screen matches where we hunted 35 terrorists in various settings. We both ended up infuriated with each other for our incompetence and lack of communication, and were shouting and cursing and getting more and more pissed off. It was both hilarious and very depressing to be killed so many times, I wondered if these games make anyone think twice about going to war. Thanks to practicing meditation, between rounds I did have moments of absolute calm where I would laugh at the intensity of my rage. When I felt anger, frustration and hatred it was VERY real, yet a few times I could close it all off like a spigot. Negative emotions literally eat your strength away, but don’t tell it to Hal, who admires the Sith.

That was how I spent my last Saturday off. It will be three weeks before I get another one. We need some new games.

I’M WOLVERINE!

Got to the theater to see Wolverine! The Motion Picture 10 minutes late and was shocked to find the movie half over. What, no COMMERCIALS (the nerve of those advertisers) followed by three coming attractions for diarrhea-inducing romantic dramedies?

Walking up to the window to buy the ticket and on through to the lobby with the smell of fake butter coating everything I couldn’t stop thinking of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at Comic-Con shouting, “I’m Wolverine! I’m Wolverine! I’m Wolverine!”

I couldn’t feel any more like a failure if I was wearing black socks with sandals and wielding a metal detector.

I entered the theater when Wolverine was in the tank (last seen in X2) about to be injected with cockamamium or whatever the hell. Suspense, for me, was nil. Of course during The Procedure the Bladed One’s heart stops. The military milf reading Wolverine’s vitals says with alarm, “Blood pressure, 280 over 160!” which is my normal blood psi., especially eating movie popcorn floating in butter.

Once Wolverine escaped (of course) the movie got a little more interesting. Were it not for Hugh Jackman’s considerable acting, this movie would’ve been like sticking your hand between the plates of a hot George Foreman grill. Did I say hand? I meant dick.

There was some kickass fighting (not enough) but being an old(er) fuck, I was thrown out of suspended disbelief by small inconsistencies rather than gaping plot holes. Example: the movie’s supposed to take place in the mid-70s and the sinister secret government agents were driving Humvees instead of Jeeps. Humvees didn’t go into service until the late 80s.

“Yeah, but they musta had the prototypes, being top secret and all!”

Shut up, nerd.

Also, if there was a raucous battle in an alley on Bourbon Street that shattered fire escapes and blew up hundreds of stacked boxes, wouldn’t there be at least a few dozen extras running to find the source of the rumpus?

And this Gambit fellow that’s all the rage, would you seriously sit down to play cards with a guy who could make the whole fucking deck float perfectly as if he had the mutant power of CGI?

I paid 4 bucks to see Wolvy and that was about right. I was more excited watching 16-year-old White girls with their bubble buttocks in shorty-shorts in the butter lobby. But then, I’m a failure. I have a right.