Alex and the Would-Be Wonder Stomach

Last weekend I was at a big party for a couple of friends who are getting married in a few weeks. It was a huge deal with somewhere between 100 and 12,000 people in attendance (maybe closer to the 100 side, but still big) all gathered together to celebrate our friends and their upcoming marriage. At some point in the evening, however, the focus of part of the group (myself included) shifted from the happy couple and landed squarely on the shoulders of one of the guests.

As our hosts were cleaning up the food, I and some of the people at my table decided it would be in our best interest if we ate another dinner roll or two. Our gracious host left the tray of rolls with us but after we’d all had our fill there were still 8 rolls remaining. Enter Alex Walton and the Would-Be Wonder Stomach.

Alex moseyed over to our table (because, you know, we’re awesome and everyone wants to hang out with us) and before long started eying the rolls. He said something to the effect of, “Those rolls look good. Too bad I’ve already eaten 3.” Still he slowly reached for one more and began nibbling at it.

Over the years I have been a part of an amazing number of stupid adventures, dares, and competitions. Sometimes these revolve around food, sometimes physical exertion, but no matter what, the key is always idiocy. I have a friend who has attempted the “Gallon Milk Challenge” at least twice. Once I convinced a friend to, while on a first date, always refer to any food item as “num nums” in exchange for my paying for his date. I paid; he did not get a second date. In college a group of us decided it would be a great idea to take one of those mechanical wraps that are supposed to work your abs and strap to our thigh, and then try to walk with it. The goal was to see who could put the wrap the farthest up his leg and turn the power up the highest and still be able to walk. My roommate Shade cranked that sucker to 10 and made it approximately 8 feet while whimpering like a baby before falling and yelling to, “Get it off! Get it off!” (Every single one of these feats was done, mind you, without the influence of alcohol.)

More often than not I am not one of the participants but rather the jerk who talks other people into doing them and then sits back and laughs. I’ve learned to gauge what approach will most likely work in these situations. If I feel like its money I’ll throw out a number that I would contribute to get the bit done and see if people will chip in. It’s amazing how quickly you can raise 20 or 50 bucks in order to see someone eat a plate full of deviled eggs. Occasionally the proper approach is to question the subject’s manhood. Sometimes it is just as simple as to annoy them so much that they’ll take on a stupid challenge just to get you to stop saying, “Come on.” This is my role and I’m okay with it.

When Alex reached for the roll my Stupid Sense (the equivalent of Spider Sense) went off. What would it take to get him to eat all of these rolls, I asked myself. As he was nearing the end of roll number four, I simply threw it out there that it would be a pretty amazing feat if he were to finish the remainder of the rolls, bringing his total for the night to 11 (plus a full dinner and cheese cake). I expected to have to work hard to get this challenge accepted. In a trial, for instance, the lawyer always starts with his opening statement and then moves on from there to present evidence, character witnesses, etc. It’s much the same with a challenge. To my surprise, Alex bought in almost immediately and reached for roll number five.

Now Alex is no behemoth. He stands somewhere around 5’9 and probably weighs a buck thirty five soaking wet. And these rolls were the worst kind, small and compact, the kind that expand tremendously in your stomach. But Alex could sense the impending glory of this night and without speaking he had accepted the challenge.

Over the course of the next hour, Alex binged on the compact, spongy rolls. He moved quickly at first but his progress began to slow around roll number seven. A crowd gathered’ as they, too, could sense the great things that were to come. I continued to talk Alex through his challenge, usually with encouragement but admittedly with occasional insinuations about what we would think of him if he were to bail out. The most valued of these comments seemed to be, “If you only eat nine rolls tonight, for the rest of all of our lives this will always be remembered as the night of Angela and Joe’s engagement party. If you eat ten rolls, however, this will be forever remembered as the night that Alex ate double digit rolls.” This seemed to push him through to roll number ten.

Roll number ten was a battle. Alex began to sweat. Jason and I got him numerous bottles of water and encouraged him to just drown it down. Someone handed him a tray to throw up in if necessary. Most of the girls scooted as far away from him as possible. Angela seemed less than enthused that this was taking place at her party. (Sorry Angela, opportunities like this just cannot be scheduled.) At one point Alex gave me a look that was part, “Help me” and part, “I hate you so, so very much right now.” Finally, with about a half of a roll left, he got up and began walking around the pool in an effort to clear space to shove the bread into. He made somewhere around 47 laps, looking miserable the entire time, before finally dejectedly throwing in the towel. As it turned out that last half of a roll was far bigger than it looked. It was a valiant effort but much like

The crowd quickly dispersed with sighs of disappointment and a sense of pity for what our poor friend had been through (and what he would go through the next day). The events of the evening left me thinking about all the ridiculous feats I had participated in and/or watched my friends take part in over the years and made me ponder how these things come to pass. Perhaps it’s boredom, perhaps a desire to impress girls, perhaps just a need to show how strong we (or our stomachs) are. But for some reason or another, even at 25 or 35 years old, we find a motivation to take on these absurd challenges, to look stupidity right in the eye and say, “Yup, that sounds like something I want to do.” It’s still amazing to me what we, and by we I refer mostly to guys of course, will do for the sake of challenge, for adventure, for respect, and for sheer idiocy.

Perhaps we’re all a little less mature or refined as we’d like to think we are, but on some level (or maybe all levels) I’m okay with that. We live in this world where almost everything revolves around work, money, and responsibilities and maybe it’s a good thing that on a random Sunday night, we can act like idiots and get one of our friends to eat enough rolls to feed a small third world country. (At least they didn’t go to waste, right?) Maybe we need a little stupid adventure in our lives to keep us all sane. But aside from all that, Sunday, May 24th, 2009, will (for me) always be remembered as the night Alex Walton ALMOST ate double digit rolls and nearly died at a party.

Anyone up for the Gallon Challenge?
Brian

Review for "Star Trek"

There are certain lines from the endless collection of great films from the last 80 years that, when uttered, invoke strong feelings and memories of, “the first time I saw…” While certain films define generations, these films, and these lines, transcend generations, becoming fixtures of history instead of just the current pop culture. They are the blockbusters, the masterpieces, and the cult classics that tend to embed themselves in our minds. Darth Vader’s often misquoted, “I am your father” brings forth a whole litany of tremendous film achievements and fond memories of a galaxy far, far away. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” reminds many of us of the sheer terror of the ocean and how much damage a 20 foot great white shark can do. The words, “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’” serve not only as a pretty solid motto for life in general but also as memento of the, well, redemption that Red and Andy found while imprisoned at “Shawshank.” In the same way, it is impossible to hear the words, “Space, the final frontier…” without thinking of the crew of the USS Enterprise and their exploits.

Recently the Star Trek franchise has been in dire straits. No one seemed to care about the last two films and the overexpansion of the TV show (are you listening “C.S.I.” creators?) ran any ingenuity the show had into the ground. The final edition of Star Trek (“Enterprise”) went off the air in 2005 with hardly a whisper. The once vibrant powerhouse has been relegated to a fond memory to be relived only through DVDs and syndication.

Enter J.J. Abrams. With the success of the TV show, “Lost,” which he created and writes for, Abrams has fast become one of the biggest names in Hollywood. His work with “Mission Impossible III” was quietly heralded and gave that franchise a bit of legitimacy it had lost. His eye for talent is notorious and he generally manages to get the absolute most out of unknown actors in a way that M. Night Shyamalan dreams about. Abrams initially wasn’t interested in this project but was inevitably talked into and the franchise as a whole is much better for it.

“Star Trek” is the telling of how the original crew of the Enterprise (Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, et al) came together. This is a new angle as the original series never tackled this material, instead just giving basic background information throughout. Because of this, Abrams and his team were allowed to completely make it their own, whereas previous editions of the show and the movies were given a more rigid path to take. Abrams was essentially given the keys to the car and told to take it wherever it pleased him to go. And go he did!

From the opening sequence, “Star Trek” moves a mile a minute, pausing between explosions for genius writing and character building. This film falls directly in line with the new brand of action movie (see: “Iron Man”) that substitutes one liners and terrible dialogue with actual plot points, however far fetched, and phenomenal discourse. The crew of the USS Enterprise is bright and witty and they plan to display it at every opportunity. Mix in a surprise appearance by one of the original cast, a Beastie Boys soundtrack cut, and a “blink and you’ll miss it” glimpse of a tribble and what you have is, without question, the best Star Trek film to date.

Casting wise, the decisions made here are near perfect. Each actor brings a piece of himself to the character he or she plays while channeling the original cast member and paying homage to those cult heroes. Chris Pine takes on the vaunted role of Captain James Tiberius Kirk with brilliant success. He’s a bit less dramatic than William Shatner ever was but come on, even the biggest Shatner fan has to admit that the film is better for that. Zachary Quinto, John Cho, and Anton Yelchin play Spock, Sulu, and Checkov, respectively, give admirable performances. Simon Pegg is provides more direct jokes than James Doohan ever did as Montgomery Scott but he manages to steal the scene almost every time he makes an appearance. (Expect the Scotty character to take a much larger role in future Star Trek films.) Karl Urban in particular gives a spot on interpretation on Bones McCoy but for the most part, the film doesn’t allow itself to become a mere replica of its predecessors. And therein lies the true genius of the movie. Whatever hardcore Trekkies want to say, there is no mistaking that this film stays in keeping with the original series and films. The ships are bigger, the action more intense, and the jokes less hammy (and therefore funnier), but the backbone of the show is there.

This is only the beginning for the new branch of the “Star Trek” franchise and in a sheer stroke of genius, certain plot points have given Abrams an immense freedom to do what he wants and go wherever he feels the Enterprise should go. Regardless of the future, “Star Trek” is joyous and straight-up FUN. Even in the moments that drop below spectacular action and fall into typical sci-fi potholes, the audience cannot help but be entertained and they are more than rewarded for their patience as the film continues to develop. There is an adventurous beckoning inherent to the Star Trek brand and this film brings that spirit in a fresh new form. The cast, the direction, the style, cry out, asking you to take part in “the voyages of the Starship Enterprise” as they “boldly go where no one has gone before.” This film is so good that I almost hate it because it is EXACTLY what all Star Wars fans wish Episodes 1 through 3 had been. Whether a hardened Star Trek fan or not, I would dare just about anyone to see “Star Trek” and not be completely entertained.

Grade: A

The Site

Sometimes I like to think I’ve come pretty far in my professional life. I’ve managed to meander between a few crappy jobs in order to end up where I’m at and I feel pretty blessed to be here. At 26 I’m in what is pretty much my dream job (with the exception of playing professional basketball). And heck, this time last year I was teaching gymnastics to 3 year olds in the morning and babysitting 6th graders in the afternoon. Ugh.

Still there are days where I feel perhaps I’m not quite as far along as I might have thought.

Today my services, along with the rest of those of the rest of the Children’s Ministry team, were called upon to help clean out a storage unit. Now by “clean out” I mean “throw away everything you can find” and by “storage unit” I mean “place where everything that has ever been discarded in the history of Richland Hills Church of Christ has been sent to die.” You know when you move and you have some trouble deciding what to keep and what to throw away and you wonder why you have some of this stuff in the first place? That’s what this was like, only it was 100 BILLION times worse and it was someone else’s stuff.

By the time I got to The Site the rest of my team had already pulled out a massive amount of junk that could not have ever served a legitimate purpose and was loading trucks. When we realized we couldn’t use The Site’s dumpster we then got to unload the stuff that had just been loaded in order to load it more properly so that it could withstand a trip on the highway. Calls were made to determine where exactly we might be able to take all of this wonderful garbage that had seemed so important to keep. Meanwhile some of us tried to determine how best to proceed. My idea of leaving, stopping payment on The Site, and when the storage people threatened to throw away our stuff if we didn’t pay, laughing and telling them “go for it” was considered but ultimately turned down.

More calls were made. We discussed the possibility of there NOT being at least one snake hidden somewhere in the pile of rubble and decided that it was between zero and one percent. (I would lean more toward the zero.) Finally, after repacking the trucks yet again, a solution was found. We could take our wonderful collection of Styrofoam structures, broken tables, and enough PVC pipe to stock a Home Depot to a dump that straddled the North Richland Hills/Arlington border. (If the word “dump” brought to mind the commercials for discount furniture store The Dump, as in “the dump-to-the-dump-dump-dump,” you are not alone my friend.)

Three trucks were dispatched to this landfill and I managed to squeeze myself into the group chosen to go. Frankly I didn’t want to be at The Site when the body was inevitably discovered. We made our way to the dump which is a world unto itself, nestled away between cow pastures and topless dance clubs. We pulled into a lifeless dead zone and paid our seven dollars per truck to begin our drop off. Who know you had to pay to bring trash to the trash people. Weird, I know. A sign on the side of the check in station read, “If you come into the dump by 4:30 you will be allowed to enter as long as you finish by 5:00 pm.” What happens if you need to stay until 5:01 is anyone’s guess. Perhaps you’re locked in for the night, perhaps you’re required to put in some time washing dishes at the topless bar, I’m not really sure.

We were (rudely) directed to a couple of dumpsters and told, in no uncertain terms, that metal was not to unloaded in these dumpsters. My first thought was, why not? My second thought was what happens when I throw metal away at home? It all ends up here doesn’t it? How exactly do they sort this stuff? My third thought was, why are you asking questions? Just dump this stuff and get the heck out of here before you get locked in the dump for the night. I took whatever metal we had in the bed of the trucks over to the designated “Metal” pile. This area clearly resembled the trash compactor on the Death Star minus the blaster proof walls and since Chewbacca wasn’t there to protect me, I quickly threw my stuff in and retreated before the snake pulled me under. (Look it’s been a long time since I made a Star Wars reference, just deal with it.)

We all jumped back in our trucks and headed out with only a slight detour taking us squarely into the middle of the landfill. A truly wonderful suburban sight, I must tell you. It was on our way back to The Site (and the all too certain camera crews we would all face after the discovery of the Sasquatch locked away inside) that the craziness of this day hit me. It was a pretty solid bet a few years back that my career would someday involve working at a dump but I had thought that those days were probably behind me. After all the crazy jobs I’ve had over the last few years, who would have thought that it would be this one, the ministry job of all things, that would have me spending my day at the dump? Perhaps I’m not quite so far along as I thought I was.

Review for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"

At the beginning of each year I go through a few websites and try to get a feel for the movies that will be made available to me over the next twelve months. When I began this process for the 2009 movies, I have to confess my nerd radar went a little bit crazy. Sure, 2008 provided a couple of Fanboy fantasies (“Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” in particular) but overall, the Nerd Film Quota was way down last year. 2009 is sure to make up for this, however. With the upcoming releases of nerd fodder such as “Star Trek,” “Transformers 2,” “Terminator: Salvation,” and a ton of others, I have deemed the next few months the Summer of the Nerd. And what a summer it will be!

The SOTN got off to its official start this week with the premiere of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” The prequel to the X-Men trilogy of the early 2000s, “Wolverine” is designed to give us the back story of future X-Man Wolverine (duh), who has long been one of the more popular X-Men. The film begins with little-boy-Wolverine also known as Jimmy and later known as Logan (you pick which one you like best) tragically activating his mutant powers while simultaneously discovering he has a brother, Victor Creed, who also has mutant powers. The two begin a 120 year trek through time fighting in every war this country has ever seen because after all, being impervious to bullets makes one a pretty valuable soldier. All of this comes to an end when the powers go to Victor’s head and he exhibits the evil inside. After a fairly comical execution attempt, the brothers are put into the charge of William Stryker, a military man who is putting together a special task force, so to speak, of mutant mercenaries.

Soon after Logan and his team are kicking butt and taking names all over the world on shady missions that usually translate into more death than Logan cares for. He walks away from the job and his team, hoping to leave them behind for good. Years later he is living a normal life (or as normal as anyone with claws inside his skin can expect to find), complete with cabin in the mountains, manly job, and beautiful woman. Unfortunately for him, Victor is on the loose killing off the members of his old team and Stryker comes in town to recruit him. Before long, Logan finds his beloved dead and calls on Stryker to turn him into a weapon strong enough to take down his brother. Because of Logan’s ability to heal himself, Stryker is able to graft adamantium (a made up metal) onto his bones, essentially giving him a steel skeleton. Thus we learn how Logan became Wolverine.

Inevitably Logan learns that Stryker has double crossed him and goes into a berserker rage that even Animal from The Muppets would be proud of and runs naked through the country side before being taken in by Ma and Pa Kent. (Wait, that last part is another story. But really, there’s very little difference here.) Quickly thereafter he begins his pursuit of Stryker, Victor, and anyone else who might have been involved in his tragedy. This brings him into contact with future X-Men Scott Summers, who will become Cyclops, and Remy Lebeau, also known as Gambit. He launches his final attack against this crew which turns into his saving of a host of caged mutants, a battle with super-mutant Deadpool, and his getting shot in the head with an adamantium bullet, which explains why he has no memory when the X-Men discover him later down the line.

If that last paragraph sounds a bit thrown together and unbalanced it’s because the end of the film is quite similar. The first hour and a half of “Wolverine” is a straight up adrenaline roller coaster. It’s highly enjoyable and entertaining and for many fans of the comics or the cartoon from the early 90s, it is extremely exciting to see some of these characters brought to life. As a kid I was always interested in what Wolverine’s back story was above all the rest of the vaunted X-Men and I felt like this movie did a pretty good job of answering those questions. But the final 10 minutes or so are incredibly rushed and flimsily tied together. The movie gives answers but some of them seem very shallow and poorly thought out. Even some of the special effects, a highlight of the movie for the majority of the time, seem sloppy in the finale. It’s as if director Gavin Hood, with three months left in the schedule, had vacation plans and decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and wrap this sucker up before he left. Perhaps he was so eager to start working on the inevitable sequel that he just couldn’t figure out a way to finish this one up. It’s like a Saturday Night Live sketch.

This fact doesn’t make “Wolverine” a bad film. It’s a ton of fun and the action is tremendous. More importantly, the cast is spot on. Hugh Jackman, though somewhat useless in just about every other role he’s played, takes to the Wolverine part well as he did in the original “X-Men” trilogy. Danny Huston plays William Stryker with a suave demeanor that suits the character. I’m a huge fan of Liev Schreiber and his commanding performance as Creed (later known as Sabretooth) almost makes one forget the dreadful showing that wrestler Taylor Mane gave as the same character in the first “X-Men” movie. (Shudder.) Schreiber is one of the more underrated actors of his generation and he brings an instant credibility to just about anything he does, including “Scream 3.” (Shudder.) The script which deteriorates so rapidly toward the end is otherwise very well put together and brings a great deal of humor to the table, something that should never be missing in a good superhero film.

SPOILER ALERT – I’m about to disclose information concerning the end of this film. I usually refrain from doing this but in this situation I cannot fully cover this film without going to this. If you have not sent this movie and wish to keep the suspense, STOP READING NOW.

Where the film really screws up is in the treatment of one of its biggest and brightest characters. I call this the “Darth Maul Treatment.” When “The Phantom Menace” came out in 1999, a good chunk of the marketing campaign revolved around new super-villain Darth Maul. When that awful film finally hit theaters, Maul got almost no screen time and in the end was killed off, never to be seen again. This is played out with horrible precision in “Wolverine.” As excited as the Fanboys were about the whole “Wolverine” movie, a lot of that excitement was directed towards Deadpool, one of the most smooth and sarcastic bad guys in history. Deadpool is one of those rare villains that garner almost as much attention as the hero he opposes. He is to Wolverine what Boba Fett is to Han Solo. The decision to cast funny-and-ripped Ryan Reynolds in this role was brilliant and brought even more fanfare.

Here’s the problem: Reynolds gets about 10 lines in the whole film (probably the best lines in the whole thing) and then is unceremoniously disposed of in a way that will be almost impossible to explain away should he ever make another appearance. So in essence, Hollywood finally put a great villain on the screen and placed the perfect actor in position to play the part…and then quickly killed him off and threw him to the curb, along with the hopes for repeat appearances of the fans. In a world that is often completely and utterly dictated by leaving every possibility open for sequels and cliffhangers, why in the world would you so freely dispatch a crowd favorite that could have realistically warranted his own film? A truly terrible decision.

I have a feeling there are going to be some angry Fanboys out there and clearly I believe the whole film would have been bettered by some attention to the close. But hurried ending aside, “Wolverine” did the job of filling in some back story and opening us up to another superhero franchise. It is extremely enjoyable and fast paced albeit easy on the brain. But with the number of “Action Movies with a Moral” on the rise, perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing to have one that simply asks you to sit there and be entertained.

Grade: B-