Going into this holiday weekend, I had kind of planned on catching up on a bunch of work, but instead I did all of this fun stuff! 😉
Wonder Woman
This was probably the movie I’ve been most looking forward to this year, and on account of not being able to go to the movies anymore (thanks, kids!), it took waiting until it came out on digital to finally be able to check it out. And for the most part, I really liked it!
Admittedly there were a couple of parts that were pretty predictable, though the big surprise still managed to catch me off guard. Gal Gadot was definitely awesome throughout her role, and it was interesting to actually see a new backstory for a DC character that we haven’t really heard about – basically other than Batman or Superman – up until now. It also kicked the pants off of Batman v. Superman, although that really isn’t much of an accomplishment. Overall I thought it was a good start, and I kind of hope that Justice League has more of Wonder Woman’s influence now than Sups or Bats… 😛
Zelda, Revisited
Lately I’ve been watching Zelda Randomizer videos on YouTube again and it’s kind of left me yearning to play a bit myself. Unfortunately, as much as I love my RetroPie setup, it lives in our living room and I don’t normally spend a lot of time there by myself … or if I do, I’m watching TV while I’m trying to work. So knowing that Wonder Woman was in the works for Saturday night, I threw a copy of Nestopia on my laptop and spent the bulk of our movie time also exploring Hyrule.
I’m always surprised how much I still manage to remember from that game, and though I certainly couldn’t clear the entire thing in less than 30 minutes, I did make it through the majority of the dungeons in about 3-4 hours!
The Art of the Brick by Nathan Sawaya
Probably the highlight of my weekend … because it’s been here all summer and this is the last weekend … was getting to see this Lego art exhibit by legendary Lego artist Nathan Sawaya. I’ve followed his work for years now and was super amped about this show coming to Tampa, however kids and busy summer in general stood in the way of making it down to see this until now.
I’m very glad that we did, however! The show really isn’t particularly kid-themed, despite using Legos as a medium, but all three were surprisingly well behaved and Christopher in particular did a really good job of holding hands whenever he was out of his stroller so that he didn’t touch any of the models. I took a ton of pictures that I’ll post here a little bit later, but it was a whole lot of fun and very much worth the hour-plus wait outside in order to get in. 😉
Lego Ninjago Fun
After the art exhibit, we ended up heading over to Disney Springs because we’d wanted to go the previous weekend for my birthday and it ended up raining the entire time. But the weather this weekend was gorgeous – it had cooled down rather nicely after sunset, so we were able to spend a nice couple of hours just casually grabbing dinner and wandering around. As the sub-heading above suggests, we eventually made it to the Lego Store where I picked up another handful of the new Lego Ninjago Movie Collectible Minifigs – that’s a mouthful! – and even though I technically just started this series a few weeks ago, I’m kind of happy to say that I’m almost done already!
Now it’s just a matter of re-configuring my wall display to add in some more baseplates – something that I’ll definitely write more about once I finally get everything that I need to get started! 😀
Best. Slushie. Ever.
And lastly, I didn’t get a chance to snap a proper picture of this myself because it was dark, but I was able to try one of Amorette’s Patisserie’s new wine slushies because this has quickly become Sara’s go-to place to grab dessert, and I’ve got to say that it was probably one of the best slushies that I’ve ever had. Mostly because of the wine – which was definitely present – but it also had a great flavor (I had the strawberry one) and it was admittedly kind of nice to have an alcoholic drink that I could get away with wandering through Disney Springs sipping inconspicuously! 😉
P.S. Writing Brainstorming
For what it’s worth, I did get a small amount of work done during this weekend’s fun – namely in figuring out the topic for a new editorial that I want to write for next week. It hits on a subject that’s really been bothering me a lot lately – generational differences – and in a way I’m looking forward to writing it to get some of the thoughts off my chest. Hoping to have it out tomorrow, but I’ve still got a long way to go from notes to column, so we’ll see…