Ghost Warrior

My wife read my last two posts and was a little put off that they both seemed to be about other women. Now it was never my intention to make either post seem like they were about other women. In my defense I couldn't tell you what either woman even looked like. Both experiences were a long time ago. After this was brought to my attention I asked her if she would feel better if I blogged about her instead. She wasn't up for that at all. Since I didn't get her blessing to write about her I thought I would write about something that the both of us were involved in.

We got married in 1999. We decided on Ireland as our honeymoon destination. We flew into Dublin. We were young, and didn't really know what we were doing, so naturally we didn't have any reservations anywhere. It really wasn't that big of a deal. The first night we were there we stayed downtown Dublin in some tiny hotel. Dublin was OK, but we wanted to visit the ocean, and rural Ireland. We hopped on a bus the next day, and headed to County Wicklow. We got off of the bus with our luggage and walked to the first bed and breakfast we saw.

I know this was fourteen years ago, but I can’t imagine things have changed too much. There were a couple things that we take for granted here in the States. The first is beef. 1999 was shortly after the whole ‘mad cow’ ordeal, so unless it said beef on the menu, it was lamb. It didn't make a difference if it said hamburger, or steak. The second thing that was the way they waited on you in the pubs, and restaurants. In the restaurants they would seat you. When you were ready to order you had to wave them down. After you had your food you were never talked to again until you waved them down again. The same held true for the pubs. You could be belly up to the bar with money in your hand. They wouldn't come and take your order till you got their attention. I know a lot of you are thinking it was because we were foreigners. They did it to everyone.

Every time we were in a pub we would get involved in conversations with some of the locals. Remember this was in 1999, and Bill Clinton was president. Everyone that we talked to loved America. One of the questions that we got asked over, and over, was ‘why would you leave the States?’ Mostly we would get into these political conversations with older folks. It was the third night that we were there we met a brother and sister from Scotland that were visiting their cousins. We hung out with these two all night. We made plans to meet back up the next night when their cousins finally got into town.

The next night came around, and we went to the pub and met up with our new found friends. It turned out that their cousins were in the Ireland army, and were home with a group of their friends. Now I am from Wisconsin. One of the things that we pride ourselves on here is that we can drink. It turns out that it doesn't matter that you are from Wisconsin, when you are in Ireland you are a lightweight. These army boys kept buying rounds, and for a while we tried to keep up. After a couple of hours my wife, and I, had a couple of rounds piled up on the table waiting for us. You also have to remember that this was Ireland. These guys are drinking Guinness. I know that Guinness isn't that strong, but it is thick. Each pint is like a meal.

After several hours of drinking with some of Ireland’s finest, and our friends from Scotland, we needed to head back to the bed and breakfast. Mainly due to the fact that neither one of us could barely stand. We somehow made it back to our room. Honestly neither one of us even remember leaving the bar, let alone getting back to the room. What we do remember is what took place a couple of hours after we made it to bed.

Turns out when you drink four gallons of Guinness you are likely going to ralph some of it back up. After a couple hours, of what I can only imagine was blissful, sleep I woke up with a churning in my belly. I climbed out of bed to expel my innards. My beautiful bride had beaten me to the commode. For a couple of hours we took turns barfing. Nothing says true love like sharing a puke filled toilet.

More heaving stories to follow I am sure, but let’s get onto the movie.

Ghost Warrior is going to be one of the rare instances of this blog that I cover a movie that does not fall into the horror genre at all. However, it was the second film to be produced by Empire International, so I felt it was necessary. The movie follows an ancient samurai warrior that is frozen for over 400 years, and then is brought back to life after being defrosted. He then must face the modern world, well as modern as it was in the early ‘80s. I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that Ghost Warrior has never been released on DVD. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though. Watching this fine film on VHS is really how it should be experienced. In it’s pure, gritty, and raw form. High definition would just wreck it.