The Word Of Jeff

Had Sunday off this week. I slept in until about 9, which felt very good after 6 days of the alarm clock going off at 5am.

After a shower I drove over to a nearby IHOP for breakfast. I went because it is the only breakfast restaurant near the hotel. No Perkins Restaurants in the entire state of Georgia with the exception of one in Savannah and that’s a bit too far to drive, even for their fantastic pancakes.

Strangely enough, while you would think that a place named International House of PANCAKES would have some good pancakes, you would think wrong. When I was here in Atlanta two years ago I went to this same IHOP for breakfast and was sorely disappointed in what they offered as pancakes. This visit was no different and they won’t get a third chance with me. The spinach and mushroom omelette was very tasty, though I was puzzled by the fact that it was almost room temperature rather than hot. The pancakes though, which were also cool enough that the butter wouldn’t melt, had me fighting a gag reflex when I took my first bite. I choked down one more bite and that was all I could take. When the waitress asked me if I’d like a box to take them with me I politely replied, “Not on your life!”

Then I went to catch the first day’s showing of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It was in a huge theater and there were only about 30 inside people when I entered, just as the previews were starting to roll. I even got to sit in the middle of the very last row; my absolute favorite spot to watch a movie from in a theater. When I build my Home Theater there will be one seat in the last row for yours truly.

I enjoyed the movie. As is usually the case with a comic book-inspired film, it didn’t have every single detail that a fanboy would want. I stopped reading the X-men titles many, many years ago when they started multiplying faster than rabbits and you had to be backed up by Fort Knox, financially, to be able to buy every title Marvel was flooding the shelves with on a weekly basis. A few years ago I did pick up the first 3 issues of Wolverine’s Origin, but lost interest in it and stopped. So while I had some basic knowledge of the character’s history and storylines, I wasn’t what you would call a defender of it’s “canon” so to speak. Not like I will be when “Star Trek” opens next Friday, lol.

So I thought they did a good job of condensing a 150 year history and tying together various pieces into a 2 hour movie. Lots of action, lots of cool special effects and they moved the story along so that the next one looks like it will deal with Logan’s time in Japan. By the way, probably the BIGGEST disappointment to me was that I had hoped they would at least have a Captain America cameo with Logan during the World War II flashes. There WAS a nice cameo at the end of someone else and I know, I KNOW it messed with what comic book readers and fans of Stan Lee remember about the origin of the X-men back in the ’60’s, but it was still a pretty cool moment.

On the way back to the hotel room I picked up a veggie pizza from Mellow Mushroom, eating one third for lunch and saving the other two thirds for dinner and breakfast on Monday morning. Then I spent the remainder of the day watching severe thunderstorms come rolling into the Atlanta area and relaxing and recharging, mostly reading and doing a little writing.

And as busy as this week has been at work, I’ll need to do the same this coming Sunday.