The Bull Pen #21

Well, I was one of the many who helped Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (PotC) beat many box office records over the weekend. It certainly was the most enjoyable summer movie I have seen this year, even though it was by far the longest. The thing that impressed me the most about the movie was the action sequences. There were some extended bits of action that really kept you involved despite how long they were progressing. I give high kudos to whoever came up with those innovative scenes. There were new references to the rides in this one and solid enough references to the last movie. Some folks may be disappointed in the cliffhanger style ending as it leaves a lot of things unresolved and the things it does resolve are a tad trite but there is a third movie to be made and luckily we will not have to wait long to see it. As others have said, if you sit through Dead Man’s Chest, there is little doubt that you will want to see the third and final movie. The characters in this movie (with the exception of the human antagonist from the East India Trading Company, who was kind of woefully used in this picture) are done well enough to warrant watching them again and you want to see how they will top the action in this one.

On a totally unrelated note, I have to wonder how many of my fair readers have been to a Hard Rock Café? Okay, it is one thing to have been to one but do you also enjoy collecting pins or souvenir crap? If so, we may have something to talk about because I am the kind of person who makes sure to hit the HRC if I am ever in a town that has one. It all goes back to my school’s European bike trip in 1992. I stopped at the one in London and picked up a t-shirt for a friend but did not eat. However, when we got to Berlin, it became prime eating territory since I was getting kind of homesick for American style food. It was also nice because it had just opened and was not very popular yet. When I returned from the trip, I had managed to secure 3 pins from the café, each with the German flag colors in the pin. These pins are now worth over $20 each and are the prize of my collection. Since then, I have managed to eat at the following locations: Cleveland, Indianapolis, Orlando, Louisville, Nashville, and Atlanta. I was foolish enough to not even go to the Gatlinburg café on one vacation but thankfully my mom picked me up a pin from there when my dad and she went later in the year. A few of the pins I like in my collection include: a guitar pin from Orlando that features a roller coaster on it (duh), a pin from Louisville that was taken from their city t-shirt (the design is way too complicated to describe but I can hook you up with a link to a picture), and my most recent pin, a musical note pin from Atlanta that uses a peach along with its stem and a leaf to form the note. I could go on longer about my HRC experiences as quite a few have been memorable but I will leave it up to the readers to find out if they want to hear more or even share their own thoughts.

Custom Game of the Week: A simple little game I like to call Cheap PORN. Take a Low Ball setup and make it 2 balls with 30 seconds to win status. Make the only weapons Sentinel Beams with grenades on the map and grenades to start. Throw in a couple of friends with teams of 2, teams of 3, or however you want to do it. Play game on Ivory Tower, Midship, Beaver Creek, or perhaps other map you want to try it on. Have fun. If you are not grabbing your balls in this game, you had better be shooting your golden stream or tossing a number 2 because the action is fast and crazy, even with 3 teams of 2.