The Weekend

A summary of the weekend's events for all y'all interested...

-Saw "Batman Begins," felt it was easily the best Batman movie ever made, with the possible exception of "Mask of the Phantasm." See it. Now.

-Spent Friday bumming around, preparing for the trip, FINALLY getting up fo Heather's place to meet her shortly-departing in-laws, as she had requested (nice people, but then I dealt with them in a bite-sized dose - they left for home only an hour after I arrived), and then to Greg's place to watch some wrestling (ECW, natch...the PPV kicked 18 different kinda of @$$, BTW), then back home for some extremely late-night grocery shopping (as my folks were out of town and my bro and I were left to grab grub on our own, and since I was leaving in the morning, the only time we could was quite literally at 1 a.m.).

-Saturday it was down to Mansfield to see Abby compete in Miss Ohio. Two hour drive, no biggie, and then another hour or so spent driving around looking for a nice, cheap hotel room (TravelLodge for 50 is as good as I could do). Then it was dress up and head to the Renaissance theatre for the show, which as Abby promised was, indeed, better produced than the regional Miss Maumee Valley pageant I saw Abby compete in last August. But still tons of filler, relatively pointless musical interludes (including a "Phantom" refrain featuring a giant prop mask flying in that was so poorly done it looked like it was made outta mashed potatoes), and because the whole thing was telecast, no intermission to stand up and stretch your legs (or in my case, find relief from the very small chair squeezing my very wide butt cheeks together) made for a less-than-comfortable evening. And, of course, it was very disheartening to see one of my dearest friends not win the crown.

To Abs, I will only say this - I am not gonna reiterate the same "I woulda voted for you" speech you've heard a million times before. I will only say this, and believe me when I say I am being completely honest here: For all the people who I saw perform on that stage that evening, contestants and "professional" entertainers included, what I know of you and your ability, drive, dedication, intelligence and raw talent outshines the lot of them. I believe in my heart that you are in a class completely above what I saw that night. And no decision from a buncha stuffy middle-aged coots in tuxes who don't even know how not to look like a deer caught in the headlights when smiling and waving at the camera will ever change that.

-After a night in my comfy TravelLodge bed and even more comfy A/C, I drive back home today to celebrate the Father's Day with the father, including a trip to Chili's and the purchase of a SNL DVD and the original Batman movie (Adam West and Burt Ward, I mean). I mean, how ELSE do you spend Father's Day? I also grabbed the Johnny Carson DVD set (all my copies of those classic collections were VHS, needed an upgrade) and spent the afternoon reliving memories of one of my childhood heroes. And thus concluded a truly up-and-down, yin-and-yang, bizarre weekend.

Back to the grindstone at work tomorrow...