It was an amazing weekend this past weekend which I will get to shortly.  First off, I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Rebecca last Monday - which we finished just in time to catch the debut of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Brad Pitt, as usual, shows that he is much more than some Hollywood sex symbol as he truly is a great actor as he portrays a character who has a rare condition in which he is born old and wrinkled and grows up as an old man but grows younger with age - even to infancy before dying.  I don’t mean to give anything away, but there is so much more to the film than the main character’s unusual condition that it does serve as the backbone of the film.  Just go watch it, damn it!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button  \m/  \m/  \m/  \m/

Conan took over the legendary Tonight Show with a strong but slightly awkward debut but got into the groove very quickly.  I actually enjoyed the second night moreso than the first as Tom Hanks was a much better guest than Will Ferrell and I LOVED the meteor knocking Hanks straight back in his chair!  GREEN DAY was also more enjoyable than PEARL JAM was the first night though I’m not crazy about either band.  At the end of the show, GREEN DAY’s drummer, Tre Cool was sitting awkwardly next to Tom Hanks as if he was scared of him and bolted as soon as Conan said good night!  Maybe Tom was scared of GREEN DAY!

Friday night I chilled at home after work as my mom and Rebecca went to go see Stomp at the Peace Center.  I was resting and getting ready for a big day up at BLVD Music the next day.  I got up fairly early to work on the air from 10 til 2 pm and had Dex on live from 11 til 1 pm at the grand reopening of Del Taco in Boiling Springs which is bizarre because I was live at BLVD Music from 3 til 5 pm just down the road from there in Boiling Springs later that same day.

I got there just in time to see TEN GRAND LEG wrap up their set and make way for JOHNNY SUEDE AND THE RADIO JUNKIES featuring Mike Burket formerly of GHOST IN THE MACHINE on guitar.  Mike then pulled double duty as he remained onstage for THE OTHER BROTHERS getting Lehman from TEN GRAND LEG back up on the drum kit.  It was quite hot out there so I avoided the sun as much as I could since I didn’t apply any sunblock.

Before hitting the stage, I asked Burket about getting together to form a new project of original material since we both have a lot of the same influences ranging from thrash to progressive metal and then some.  He said he had been working on some new material for just such a project so we exchanged numbers and are currently working on mapping out our ideas and personnel.  I’ve been wanting to work with him since meeting him in the earlier stages of GHOST IN THE MACHINE but, when he left the band, he understandably wanted to take a break from playing in a band.  So, since my latest band TRAGEDY CHAPTER had just recently split, I figured I’d try again and it seems the time is right!  I’m crossing my fingers and hopefully I’ll have more good news soon!

After Bands on the BLVD was over, Trevor, P.A., Melissa, Rebecca and I went over to Fatz Cafe for some food and spirits!  I wasn’t extremely hungry so I ordered the Honey BBQ Chicken Nachos which was probably the most amazing appetizer I’ve ever had!  Yummy!  It was great to get to sit and chill with Trevor and P.A. since they’ve been so wonderful with helping out with the local show being the official sponsor of Upstate Unsigned!

Afterwards, Rebecca and I went to Blockbuster to exchange one of my online movies for some Swedish vampire flick called Let the Right One In.  The cover of the DVD boasted that it was “The best vampire film.  Ever.” which was a quote from I believe the Washington Examiner.  I have to say I TOTALLY disagree.  I would agree that it was maybe the most original vampire film yet, but I was not blown away with anything in the film save for one of the last scenes which almost makes the rest of the movie worth it.  Almost.  Here is the scene so you don’t have to endure the entire film, but be warned it is a bit graphic:

Maybe had there been more scenes like this in the film, I would have enjoyed the movie more.  That and maybe I should have turned off the horrible dubs and went with the English subtitles!  People that do voice-over work in films must be the worst actors you can find that can’t get a gig otherwise!  I mean it’s horrible!

Let the Right One In  \m/  \m/

I slept in on Sunday and Rebecca talked me into going to Discovery Island, a water park in Simpsonville.  It’s relatively small but, considering it’s only ten bucks to get in, it’s not bad.  So we got there, got a locker to put up our flip-flops, beach towels, keys, etc and applied some sunblock so we wouldn’t cook like out-of-season turkeys!  We started out in the lazy river floating on inner tubes and then hit the slides.

After a while, Becca decided to lay out and get some sun so I thought I’d brave the surf simulator thingy.  As I had figured, I had no clue as to what I was doing as I spun around in circles on the body board under the fire of the jet streams.  However, my clueless stunts apparently looked cool because some kid came up to me later and said I did an awesome job.  Then again he may have just been trying to be nice or was talking to someone behind me, I’m really not sure!  LOL!

After all that, I had worked up an appetite so I grabbed a Double Stacker at Burger King and went home while Rebecca headed to her parents’ house for dinner.  While resting I began to notice some sunburnt areas I had apparently missed when applying sunblock like the fronts of my biceps, my knees and the fronts of my ankles.  Needless to say, those spots have provided me with more than mild nuisances coming back to work today!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Concerts/live entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray/PPV reviews, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.