The Dukes are a bunch of no good cheaters

Bam! Great throw, good hold, awesome picture!

If you are friends with Moorman on Facebook you know that we recently took our annual trip up to Island Park, Idaho for some fun in the great outdoors, if you can call it that. There are a couple things which we do that are kind of traditions for us, they include the following:

1. Firehole River in Yellowstone: We go swim in a freaking river! It's natures water slide, what more could you want?!
2. Playhouse Play: So far we've attended two, both have been excellent, one included a groping incident. A must see (the play, not the groping) if you're in West Yellowstone during the summer.
3. Bubble Gum Blowing Competition: Don't judge, it's intense. Next year we're going to have medals for the winners, unfortunately you can only compete if you're a Duke.
4. Delicious Ice Cream: If you end up in West Yellowstone, and don't stop by Arrowleaf ice cream, you've shortchanged yourself and should be ashamed. Shame!
5. Candy Store: When you get done with the Ice cream, you should wander on down the street to the candy store. It's got great fudge, and delicious taffy. Once again, if you don't go, you short change yourself and you fail. Fail!
6. Rafting the snake: This is a new one as of this last trip. We're gonna probably keep it going. We take a raft down the Snake river. Pretty straight forward.
7. Listening to the song Diane, by Therapy: This is a...different...tradition, to say the least, if you've heard the song you understand why, if you listen to the song, we hope you laugh as much as we did when that the first verse was over.
8. Jumping on Ricky while he's trying to sleep: Since Ricky is the old man of the group, he usually goes to bed early, that being said, the rest of the Dukes see fit to jump on him once he's gone to bed, 3 out of 4 Dukes agree that this is a fun activity.
9. Stargazing on the dock by the river: We enjoy a good stargazing experience down by the river, you can't see anything but the stars, and it's amazing.
10. Cards: This is the whole point of this article, cards. Cards are played almost religiously while up at Island Park. Any and all games are welcome here. This last time we were up there the following games were played: Spoons, Settlers of Catan, Farmers Rummy, Pounce, and Killer Bunnies (oh how we played Killer Bunnies...over, and over again). We played a lot of these games multiple times, and that brings us to the title of the post...we as dukes, are terrible cheaters, and we are terribly good at cheating.

To illustrate how bad the cheating got, I will just start with the worst, and it's pretty bad. So we were about to start a game of Farmers Rummy, the parties present were the Dukes, Ricky's Grandma, St Brenda, McCall, and Matt. The game would have likely been a normal game where everybody played on the board, little to no cheating. However, Grandma decided to start the game off with two comments that would sink the game faster than that blasted iceberg did the Titanic, these comments were "There will be no cheating, and no laughing". Now if you know The Dukes, you know that we love both of those things, a lot.

So the game was afoot. The Dukes took up positions at the end of the table and immediately started trading cards under the table. First hand, Ricky laid down a fistful of kings, so many in fact, that the odds against him getting them are staggering . Second Hand we somehow ended up with a stack of cards, mostly wilds, which was passed around under the table. Eventually St Brenda got wise to the games and forced Ricky to switch spots, breaking him off from the group, and severely impairing his cheating ability. (Remember kids, if you're gonna cheat, cheat in groups). Eventually the game was coming to a close, Moorman had given up and gone to talk to his girlfriend, leaving Ricky to pass cards to McCall. Zac and Coombsy were scavenging a pile made up mostly of wilds like turkey vultures.The only completely useless cheater was Matt, he just failed, in ways that cannot be described. In the end the only people not cheating were Grandma, and St. Brenda. The game ended with Zac and Coombsy winning, amassing nearly a thousand points, leaving the rest of the group completely in the dust.

In the end the moral of this story is that if you play a game of cards with the Dukes, you're best chance is divide and conquer. If you can get them to turn on each other, you might stand a chance.

The Dukes See a Movie: Make that 13 Movies

It has been a while since my fingers last graced these keys in an effort to bring you, the readers, my opinion as to why a movie was worth seeing or why I attempted to gouge out my own eyes. I really don't even have an excuse. "Were these past few months rather busy?" No, no they were not. "Did you break all the fingers on one hand in a bar fight?" Once again no, all my fingers have been fully functional. "Did something happen to your eyesight? Computer? Memory? " No on all accounts. The only explanation I have is that we were living up to our title as the Intrepid Dukes of Laziness.

So by way of apology I am going to quickly review all 13 movies that we have missed.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Full of ridiculous lapses in science but the sweet action scenes made it okay for me in the end.
Rating 3 stars

Super 8
Kids +Aliens+Spielberg=Good movie
Rating 4 stars

Bad Teacher (Zac Only)
I made a terrible choice in seeing this movie. It was like they tried to cross Office Space and Bad Santa but they failed miserably.
Rating 1.5 stars

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
All I can say is ta-da...ta-da... ta-da forever. ( 3 people at most will understand this.)
Rating 5 stars

Captain America: The First Avenger
If only I could be so ripped and fight Nazis.
Rating 4 stars

Cowboys and Aliens
Indiana Jones(the old crotchety version)+James Bond+Olivia Wilde(Ricky is obsessed)=good stuff
Rating 4 stars

Horrible Bosses
The cast in this movie was excellent. The bosses did such a great job at being the worst.
Rating 4 stars

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Andy Serkis(Gollum) makes one heck of an ape.
Rating 4 stars

Winnie the Pooh (Zac only)
What can I say I love my nieces.
Rating 3.5 stars

30 Minutes or Less
Some parts were really funny and others were super awkward.
Rating 2.5

Conan the Barbarian ( Zac and Ricky only. It was kind of a man date.)
Jason Momoa is one hardcore man and who doesn't love having a theater all to themselves.
Rating 3 stars

Contagion
STOP TOUCHING YOUR FACE AND BUILD A DANG BUNKER!!
Rating 3.5 stars

Attack the Block
Basically imagine Shaun of the Dead with wolfy-bear aliens and a bunch of hoodlum teenagers.
Rating 3.5 stars

We gonna be twittering!

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen!

I'm here writing today because I'm bored. So very very bored. I've got absolutely nothing to do while my class watches a movie that I've already seen and I'm not interested in watching it again. This is how things go I guess. The main reason that I'm writing for the first time in a long while is simple, we've decided that we are going to start a Twitter account! That's right ladies and gentlemen we're branching out into social media, which is great idea considering that the last time we updated our blog was July, so we'll see how this goes. You should totally follow us because it's gonna rock! I think you need to do know our id name or something (I've never done the twitter before) anyways, its @intrepiddukes. I think that's what you need. Anyways, jump on the bandwagon, it's what we do!

Love always

Ricky

The Dukes See a Movie: The Green Lantern

Once again we found ourselves on a random Tuesday with nothing to do. What was our failsafe? A random movie. This time the only option we could see was Green Lantern. None of us were that excited for this movie. It hadn't been getting great reviews and we questioned the CGI suit. Why couldn't he just have a normal suit? It shouldn't be that hard to actually make one, but I digress. The thing I was looking forward to was seeing how the supporting cast did in their roles. I love Geoffrey Rush (Captain Barbosa in Pirates), Michael Clarke Duncan (Giant Black Guy in the Green Mile) and Mark Strong (Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes).

As the movie starts you see some foolish aliens on an uncharted planet. While there they manage to release an unspeakable evil and gets their souls sucked out for good measure. The scene then shifts and we see Ryan Reynolds in his quintessential role, a very muscley slacker playboy that never takes life too seriously but that has a good heart. He is a test pilot and he likes to go beyond what many consider to be the limits.

As he is doing his pilot thing the great evil of Parallax is out and about in the universe sucking up souls. It runs into this purple Green Lantern alien who happened to be the one that locked the evil up in the first place. In their scuffle the purple guy is mortally wounded so he challenges his ring to find someone to take his spot as a Green Lantern. It so happens that the ring chooses Hal Jordan (Reynolds) as the new Green Lantern. Quick aside here I have heard a lot of complaints saying that the Green Lantern is black. Not true people, the original Lantern Alan Scott was white. The series was revived not that long after with Hal Jordan, another white dude. Later John Stewart was given a crack at being a lantern backup to Hal and this time he was black.  I guess I can understand the mix up a little since the Green Lantern seen in the Justice League is John. I just wanted it put out there that DC Comics is not racist for having a white Green Lantern. They could be for other things but not for their Lantern views.

Ok back to the story. Hal has the ring and he starts to train. He doesn't think he is worthy because he feels fear so he decides to abandon his training. Sinestro decides he is going to take some Lanterns and attack Parallax. It doesn't work at all. He comes back thoroughly defeated and claims they need to make a yellow fear ring to fight Parallax with his own power. While this is happening Hal reconsiders his quitting with the help of his hot lady friend Carol (Blake Lively).

Hal learns he can master his fear which is what the Green Lanterns apparently needed all along. All in all the movie was decent but it jumped from scene to scene often times without the proper set up. Also I love Ryan Reynolds but I cannot take him seriously for the life of me. When he is quoting his Green Lantern oath I couldn't help but chuckle even though it is supposed to be a serious moment.

*SPOILER*

During the credits there is a brief scene where Sinestro is seen putting on the Yellow Fear ring. We jokingly mentioned that he would be called the Yellow Candelabra because of the funky design on the ring. In that spirit we all picked colors and light sources. Danny loves green so he was just a normal green lantern. I became the Purple Maglite, Ricky became the Black Zippo and Coombsy was forced into the role of the Blue Dart. Since I am such a thorough person I decided to check and see if I could find pictures of different colored rings. As it turns out DC universe was way ahead of us and rings of the whole color spectrum already exist with their different powers and emotional sources. Man did that make me feel sheepish. Turns out by choosing purple I am an effing Star Sapphire and I am powered by love. Coombsy is powered by hope and Ricky fittingly is an important dead person brought to life by Nekron and the Black Hand to fight the other Lanterns and fulfill the Blackest Night Prophecy.

I hope you all feel like you learned something and have a little more nerd in you because I surely do.

Rating 3 stars

PS A certain lady when she heard the rating I was going to give exclaimed "But I loved the movie, Ryan Reynolds is so hot!" I will let you all know here and now that we don't rate our movies based on the amount of Ryan Reynolds's skin we see. We don't even let the attractive ladies affect our ratings (see Sucker Punch)

Stuff Coombsy Says and Does: Vegas Edition

As all of you are well aware of by now Coombsy is a goldmine for fantastic comments and wonderful acts of randomness. Whether it be the trips he takes or the races he may or may not hate Coombsy has always kept me entertained. This held true for the trip we took to Vegas in December '09. On this trip we were down a Duke (We were without Ricky. Darn you ADP and your blackout periods.) but we did our best to keep morale high and the misdemeanors low.

 

As we tramped and vagabonded our way across the strip we decided to stop off at the old Coca Cola World for a look around and a tray of refreshing beverages from around the world. It is here where our first Coombsyism makes its appearance. We had hammered our way through five continents and 14 countries when we reached our final drink. It was an Italian drink called Beverly. It was clear in appearance and from its smell it had some heady pine notes. (Quick aside, if I were a drinking man I know I would be one of those pretentious wine drinkers that thinks a trip to Napa Valley for the wine festival is the greatest vacation ever.) 

 

We didn't know what we were in for. Look at our adorable innocence.

 

 

We were looking forward to giving Beverly a go. We were in for quite a shock. As the liquid first touched my lips I knew something was wrong. My taste buds seemed to be rejecting my offering and my eyes were starting to water in rage. It was horrible. I felt like I was drinking a cup full of slightly sour dental floss. We all had the same reaction of revulsion and horror and what had occurred. We took back our tray of drinks and started to leave the store feeling subdued. As we went down the escalator Coombsy put into words what we all thought. "Stupid Beverly, just like a woman to let you down."  We all paused and as one looked and Coombsy and just started to laugh. Who can argue with a man like Coombsy? I surely couldn't at that moment. It was all I could do to keep standing and trying to breathe.

  

 

The second comment came not much later in that same day. For the first days of our trip we had been staying with Danny's sister and brother-in-law at their house. We were very grateful to them and their hospitality but on our last night we wanted to stay and one of the casinos because it is a must when you go to Vegas. Our room was booked with two queen beds. We had four people (myself, Coombsy, Danny and McKell) and so we were going to have to sleep two to a bed.  We were walking down the strip talking out our plan of action. We joked that sleeping with Coombsy would be the short end of the stick and he came back with this wonder "Well someone is going to have to man up and sleep with me." It was so great. Here we were on the strip in the middle of a busy day and Coombsy loudly busts out with his man up phrase. We had no fewer than 4 people turn and give us a weird look which is a pretty hard thing to accomplish in Vegas.

This was our "classy" hotel choice. I can't resist a place that might house a dragon.

 

As it turns out Danny ended up with Coombsy but I got the real short end of the stick. I spent my night huddled on the edge of the bed fending off wild blows from McKell's elbows cursing the decision to which we had come. We are all grateful though that I  can manage to drive well even on a few hours of restless slumber since I had a seven hour drive ahead of me in the morning and we didn't want to drive.

 

As the Vegas trip drew to a close we had come to appreciate Coombsy's stance on women and his desire to not be alone in a Vegas hotel bed. Never again will I be able to hear the name Beverly and not smile. 

the Dukes See a Movie: X Men First Class

As we first started hearing about this movie we were a little worried. In our opinion the X Men series hadn't been nearly as good as it should have been. X3 for example was pretty awful and caused a lot of rage to build up in our hearts. We are very forgiving when it comes to movies and are also eternal optimists. We waited to hear more about the movie before we gave up entirely on the franchise. The first step was the cast release. I think James McAvoy is a great actor (think Last King of Scotland rather than Wanted) and I was excited to see Kevin Bacon as a villain. Next came the previews and I was hooked, I knew I was going to see this movie. You won Hollywood, you always do. Ricky was still a little tentative in the weeks approaching the release but he put that aside and joined us for the movie.

The movie begins by showing us a little more about the early years of Charles Xavier (Professor X), Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) and Raven (Mystique). We knew from the earlier movies that Erik had been in a concentration camp and while trying to escape the guards his power over metal started to reveal itself. After the gate incident Erik is taken before a Nazi leader (Kevin Bacon) and he is forced to try and use his powers. He seems unable to so his mother is brought in. I don't want to ruin the movie so I won't go into too much detail about what happens. Erik is taken in by this man and is trained but he holds a grudge against him for what was done. Charles had life much easier. We see him growing up in a large estate with pretty much anything he could want. One night he hears a noise and he goes to investigate. What he finds is a young Raven looking for food. He takes her in and they become like brother and sister.

We jump ahead a few years to 1962. Charles has just graduated from Oxford and is loving life. Erik on the other hand is chasing after the man he loathes. Raven is still with Charles but she isn't too happy about having to hide who she truly is. This may be as good a time as any to bring up eye candy. I think it had plenty for the ladies. I base my judgment on the comments coming from Lindsey and Stacy (mainly Lindsey) about how a scene would have been better had it been shirtless. Don't worry men you shouldn't feel left out at all. It has a very balanced level of eye candiness for both genders. Now back to the story... Eventually Charles and Erik are brought together and they become friends. Each one wants to bring together mutants so that they can be taught. As the plot moves along we see that while they start from the same point each has a much different goal and point of view on the relationship mutants and humans should have. Charles wants to try to work with the humans to better the world while Erik wants to show the humans that the mutants are superior in every way.

I don't want to ruin the story so all I will say is that the mutants are involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis and we see how Magneto and Professor X end up going their separate ways.

 As I left this movie I was very happy for several reasons.

1. The acting was impeccable.
2. The story was fantastic.
3. It had one of the greatest cameos ever courtesy of Hugh Jackman.
4. It gave the Dukes hope for the future of the franchise.
5. I always like going to movies with friends so why wouldn't I be happy?

We the Dukes would like to recommend this movie to anyone looking for a well done action type movie.


4.5 stars

The Dukes See a Movie: Fast Five

Another Wednesday was upon us with nothing to do so we turned to our staple, the movie theater.  It seems that our motto is when in doubt watch something. This time we ended up seeing Fast Five. (See Pirates review to see our stance on overhyped movies and strung out franchises.) Usually this wouldn't have made our list of movies to see, but it managed to get decent rating from critics and the public so we decided to give it a try.

As the movie starts out you find out that all the main characters are on the run. As to why we don't know. That is mainly our fault since none of us had seen past the second movie. Personally I only ever saw the first one. Needless to say we were a little confused but we pushed past it in hopes of action. Paul Walker and his lady agree to do a job boosting some cars but it turns out that there was more behind it than just the cars. 100 million dollars more in fact. One of the cars belonged to a drug lord that was running the city of Rio de Janeiro. Inside the car was a chip that included information about all of the routes and locations of his fortune. Vin Diesel shows up and says they need a crew so they start gathering up people that had been in all of the Fast and the Furious movies.

Here is where Ricky and I hit a little snag. The Brazilian drug lord talks about how he would like to take the Portuguese approach to expansion which involves gifts and being nice as opposed to the Spanish model of violence. Ricky argues that the Spanish method works better because there are more people that speak Spanish. Here is my argument. Spain has a population of 46 million. Portugal has a population of 10.6 million. There are 431.6 million Spanish speakers in the world (according to Wikipedia) and there are 245.8 million Portuguese speakers in the world. Using a simple ratio there are 9.4 Spanish speakers in the world for every person in Spain but on the other hand there are 23.2 Portuguese speakers for every person in Portugal. Therefore the Portuguese method was more effective based on the ratio of each country's population compared to the total amount of people that speak each language. In other words Ricky and Spain can choke on those numbers.

Back to the movie. If you have seen any of the movies I am guessing they all have similar ideas. The main characters are bad but in a lovable rogue type of way. They do illegal things but they have semi-pure motives. In this particular one they are attempting to steal the drug lord's money while evading the Under Armour sporting Rock. They make a plan and are about to put it in motion when the Rock shows up talking about how they are ninnies for putting a tracker on his car because he is the man. This set up what we had been waiting for, a fight between the Rock and Vin Diesel.

Bald people are so angry. ( I am looking at you Spencer)

The fighting is intense but it ends with all the car jackers in custody. As they are heading out of town there is an ambush and the Rock loses his entire squad. Because of this loss he decides to help the criminals so that he can get revenge on the man who killed his men, the drug lord.

All in all I found this to be an enjoyable movie as long as you suspend your belief that the laws of physics apply in this  movie. It even had some decent Portuguese speaking which is nice for those of us that miss it from time to time. (Jordana Brewster spent part of her childhood in Brazil so that helps.) Sadly it doesn't have as much car racing and fighting as I was hoping, but it had a lot of eye candy for the men as well as for the ladies. That last part has pushed the Dukes to contemplate moving to Brazil because I can in all honesty say that it is a fairly accurate representation of that wonderful country.

Rating 3 stars