OK, I'm back. Been busy the last few days.

It was a Polkaless Happy Hour at the Happy Dog on Friday. Not much of a crowd at all.

Yesterday, it was a packed and significantly older crowd at Polkafest at the Debonne Vineyards. Definitely will go back there.

This morning, Gale and I headed over to Our Lady of Crocker Park for the early Sunday morning showing of "The Dark Knight". Several heathens in attendance. It's interesting when you're convinced Hollywood has run out of ideas, the return to the comic books has resulted in the most interesting stories out there. These days, they must have the best characters. I mean "Iron Man", "Hulk" and "Batman" have been really enjoyable this year.

"Batman" really took a leap to the darker side with "The Dark Knight". It was terrific. I thought it was a pity party with all the pre-release chatter about Heath Ledger. Forget about it. He's as good as you've heard, probably more so. In a year where there aren't a hell of a lot of Oscar candidates, he's on the short list. They wrote him an outstanding role.

And I like Christian Bale in everything he does. Saw him in a trailer for the next "Terminator" this morning, as well. Save that for next year. He is so far from TV Batman, it's ridiculous. I think he fits his role like one of Batman's gloves. Good work from Gary Oldman who becomes Commissioner Gordon and Aaron Eckhardt also does a great job as Harvey Dent. Mix in Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and there you have it. Like I said, you start getting these wonderfully developed characters and combine that with the acting ability to pull it off, and you have yourself a wonderful franchise. And it looks like $155 million in Weekend One. That is not shabby at all.

Meal of Links

Is Africa becoming a Chinese colony? It seems there are 750,000 Chinese currently living there.










It's Laker Girl tryouts. I think the person on the right is trying out for something else. A SoCal job for sure, but not necessarily for the Lakers.

I'll watch virtually any sport. Not sure about Chess-Boxing though. "Queen's Bishop Hook to Right Side of Face" doesn't have a good ring to it.

Are folks really changing vacation plans this summer? I just realized it's halfway through the summer and I haven't taken any extended time off all year. Oh sure, a day here and a day there, but really not much. Going to have to re-evaluate this. And soon.

Are we done with the financial crises for a while. I could not believe my 401K actually made money for the last quarter. I consider that lucky.

After some polkas last night, I relaxed even further and cranked up The Who. A band I have heard deliver excellent covers of theirs in the past, Pearl Jam (have you heard of them?), does a great job with their music. I'll eventually get to the VH-1"Rock Honors" show, but here's some Pearl Jam.

"The Real Me"/The Who



Exercise Yard

If you can't get near a TV during coverage of golf's majors, I highly recommend (again) Jason Sobel's blog on the dotcom version of the Four Letter.

Padraig Harrington defended his British Open title. And the tournament had a lot of storylines, even without Tiger.

Visitor

None, it was still steamy today.