Thursday, July 13, 2006

Munchkin Marathon

On Monday 'morning', Steve & I headed for Birmingham to join Reg to celebrate his joining us in being 22. We got there about teatime, and after tea decided to play 'Super Munchkin'.

This is an excellent card game, which I discovered a couple of weeks ago when Tim C brought it over to play. To cut a long story slightly shorter, I went to bed about midnight and Reg & Steve apparently stopped playing at about 4am (having lost count of how many games they'd played).

The following morning, we got up, had brunch & decided to play again, to pass the time until Michael arrived 'about lunchtime', before going into town. He got there about 3pm, and didn't want to go straight out again, so we played another round (yes, really!). By this time, we'd all got the hang of it, and had figured out all sorts of ways of stopping people winning, so that particular round lasted until nearly 6pm, (with a short intermission for Reg to open his cards & presents), by which time it was dinner. Over dinner, we had conversation which seemed to be an antidote to Munchkin, about the situations in Israel/Palestine and Darfur/Sudan.

After dinner, we then played 'Scattergories' (Town, River, Country, Whatsit) briefly before heading off to the cinema "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest...

Well, I think that was the one of the very silliest films I have ever seen. Superb fun, but it involved a selection of highly improbable rolling objects and some really quite ridiculous combinating of various nautical stories (Davy Jones, the Kraken, the Flying Dutchman...).



Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it. The 'dual/trial' is hilarious, as is much of the film. However, the thing that (very nearly) spoiled it was that the CGI doesn't match up to the standard of the first. The underwater scenes in the original genuinely took my breath away the first time I saw them. Now, the CGI in the new one is still good - Davy Jones' crew are excellent and actually quite believable (within the scope of the film!).



But... the Kraken just looks like it's been stuck on. Plus, I just don't buy what Elizabeth does at the end (will not 'spoil' it).
All in all, those 2 things are a real shame, because as I said the film is otherwise very, very good and a good giggle. :o) And the final moments (before & after the credits) are just surreal!


After the film, we went home & played *another* game of Super Munchkin, before going to bed. Finally, we got up, had breakfast, played Scattergories (Michael somehow managed to play the whole round with the wrong letter...) & drove home by almost the right route. :o)

I'm sure that's more information than you probably ever wanted, but I'm bored and watching TV, so there! :oP

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm less than convinced that it was worth staying to the end of the credits....

Jonny:) said...

what another thing with extra in and around the credits! i missed the x-men 3 ones as well. Honestly i was waiting to leave asap after that.
Yeah the crew was cool thu.
Also Kira knightly suddenly gets a tan within a scene, milk to brown rather strange.

Another one which i forgot to ask at the wedding, have you started on the new books by Robin Hobb? and what do you make of them?

Sally said...

Hmm, didn't spot those.

No, I've not got to them yet. Currently working on 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', which is very very interesting. :o)
I'll let you know if I do get to read them though.

Martin said...

I'd've enjoyed it a lot more if it'd been an hour shorter.

big dave said...

Not seen POTC I or II or played SM so cant really comment so I shall stop now.