Dates, and World Wars.

Earlier this week, my mother-in-law flew in from Connecticut.  My wife and took advantage of her kindness to head out for an extended date yesterday, catching a movie, dinner, AND a band. 

For a  movie, we went and saw World War Z, and even though I would rather have seen Man of Steel, or Much Ado About Nothing, I have to admit WWZ was a very entertaining movie, especially if you let go of the book.  In that manner, it's very much like Starship Trooper...entertaining as hell, just totally lacking in much other than a title to connect it to the book.

If you are looking for character development, there isn't much there.  We are treated to a few moments of Brad making pancakes for his family before things start moving fast, and they moving pretty fast most of the way through the movie.  For a zombie movie, there is surprisingly little gore.  The zombies move too fast for that, doing more tackling and jumping on people that tearing them limb from limb.  I quite like the term Commander Zero made up, calling them zoombies.  I also found it helps to think of them contagious Raptors instead of undead. 

The big lesson to be taken away?  Cities Suck.

After that it was dinner at a place we've never tried before, the Fox and Bear Public House.    I don't know exactly what they are aiming for...with a name like that, I expected something dark, with soot covered wood paneling...but it's quite the opposite.  Since we ate popcorn at the movie, we skipped any big meals, with my wife having a portabella salad, and me having a Reuben.  The food was good, and because we stuck to salads and sandwich's, even with two beers, and a hummus appetizer, and a small desert, the total came to less than $50...so, that was nice. 

Finally, we went to bar we have never stopped at before to see a band we've never seen before, both of which I had heard fairly good things about.  The bar was a place called Dax's, and the band was called Stompin' Ground.  Both of them lived up to the positives I had heard.  Don't get me wrong...Dax's is nothing special...just a neighborhood bar, but...I really don't have a neighborhood bar.  22 beers on draft isn't bad either. 

As for Stompin' Ground, they were fairly impressive.  What I liked was they had a lot of really current country in addition to some classics.  If I have any complaint about them, it would be a lack of slow songs.  I'm not a dancer, but I'm willing to hold my wife close and do some swaying back and forth during a slow song...but they really didn't play any.  Their first set, they did 'Troubadour' by George Straight...and that was about it.  My own opinion is that unless you are a hard rock/metal act, you should have at least one 'slow dance' song per set.

Instead, I just sat and looked cool most of the night, while my wife did a little dancing. 

Yeah...she gets carded a lot.