Receding Packs

After a few days of some long sought warmer temperatures the snow pack is finally in full retreat.  While the lawns are still fully covered, the snow is receding from the edges and even the Christmas light posts have re-emerged after spending the last couple months completely hidden.  The downside of this is Buddy’s area, where the snow hid a truly impressive series of “deposits”; so that was fun.  (my rubbish guy is going to be hating life on Friday)

Light Posts and Lawn Edges Re-Appear

After policing up those odiferous layers I took in the season finale of True Detective.  I started watching this and gave up when it was too confusing but my daughter encouraged me back and I’m glad she did.  Matthew McConaughey is on a serious winning streak and this is truly his show although he shares equal screen and credit time with Woody Harrelson.  They play two Louisiana detectives tracking down an evil serial killer (as opposed to – yeah kind of redundant). 

The show spans almost two decades of their lives and the first part is told through a series of flashbacks which led to my initial confusion.  Starting from the beginning it made a lot more sense and was immensely entertaining.  I’ve heard some complaints about the ending but I thought it was perfect as the detectives reflect about light versus dark after their final confrontation.  This show had great texture and McConaughey is fast becoming a national treasure although he smokes so much that it almost becomes a distraction.  If you haven’t seen this show and you like a good murder mystery, check it out.

I was stoked yesterday because I finally had a date for date night and the movie 300: Rise of an Empire was playing, so win:win.    I knew it would be a stretch to convince my wife to see this hyper-violent film but I went back to my signature move of couching it as a “love story amid the wreck and ruin of ancient war”.  I mustered my not inconsiderable persuasive talents to convince her to see the movie.  So we headed out to see the movie, Son of God. (maybe a little less considerable than I estimated).

We were about halfway to the theater when her fairly pronounced sighs and gasps indicated she was trying to communicate something to me (no moss growing on this stone).  I thought she was simply reacting to our traditional pre-movie ritual which has me at the bottom of the stairs begging her to hurry up since we are already late.  Her time in Panama seems to have reestablished her cultural aversion to timeliness.  However it turned out she really wasn’t feeling well and asked that we return home so she could take something for a headache.  She said the movie would make the headache worse because she knew she'd end up crying (another reason to go with my movie - there is not crying in Sparta!)

I got her parked in front of the television and I noted that she had a ready novella scheduled for viewing so I became a little suspicious.  She encouraged me to go see “my movie” but I told her I wasn’t going to abandon her on date night.  Since the novella was starting, she insisted and I abandoned (Buddy was completely confused by this point).

300: Rise of an Empire is everything you think it is – heads are flying off, bodices ripped open, and sexual encounters in the middle of battle – so highly “realistic”.  It picks up the story directly after the battle of Thermopylae as Xerxes descends on Greece and focuses on the Athenians this time instead of the Spartans.  It was cool to see Strikeback’s SGT Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) playing Themistocles – he looks to have a bright future as he was completely at home on the big screen.

They Aren't Kidding About the Tidal Wave of Heroes' Blood

The filmmakers went in a different direction this time trying to woo female viewers (guys were a sure bet).  In the first movie it was lingering shots of male abdominal six packs that were almost homo-erotic.  They abandoned that for some kick ass female characters that were stabbing and decapitating along with their male counterparts.  Eva Green plays the villain and is carving out a real niche as a spookily evil temptress “type” (I was going to but didn’t use the b-word – daughter’s influence again).  This movie was all about making the blood spurts as dramatic as possible (3D, don’t you know) and frantically maintaining a bare fingernail hold on the real history of the events.  It was a lot of harmless fun (except if you were in the Persian navy at Salamis) if not taken too seriously; exactly what I expected and I loved it.

My wife was craving on some cup cakes over the last couple days so I detoured on my way home to pick up a set which immediately returned me to her good graces.  It is upon these small acts a successful and “entertaining” marriage is built.