of clowns and machine guns.

Let’s play the “things are insanely busy” broken record again, shall we?  I have some big plans in the works, so I’ve been in a flurry of activity over that.  More on that in another post.

That weekend guide I was working on for RVANews is now online!  So for those of you who were asking for my list of stuff to do, there’s a lot of it.

• Saturday: Cleaning, cooking, helping Dan at the side job, and reading.  Then, The Dark Knight and drinks at Ipanema.
• Sunday: Loaves & Fishes, grocery store and cooking again for Monday nigh, taking care of the nursery at church, having dinner with the parents.
• Monday: Morning run, work, Synergeo community dinner, much writing and editing and internet-searching, and starting to watch the John Adams miniseries (so far, so great).
• Tuesday: Weeding the garden, work, yoga, work, Byrd House Market with Mom, more cooking and cleaning, more writing and editing and internet-searching.

The Dark Knight deserves its own paragraph, although what I can really say about that without giving all my loyal readers spoilers?  I won’t spoil it for you.  But I will say that I think most movies these days rely upon the ability to somehow shock the viewer, whether it be because something is SO gross or SO abrupt or SO unconventional or whatever.  And I’m always like “Yeah yeah yeah, we get it.  We’re shocked.  Now can we watch something good instead?”  But this movie was truly terrifying, in a way that made it more of a horror film than just an action film.  Little miss “nothing’s shocking” was literally shaking with fear, people.  And I was also grinding my teeth, which I don’t do on a normal basis.  Very weird.  Heath Ledger took on a character that’s much-loved by all Batman fans, and therefore held to a very high standard for impersonations.  He took that challenge and succeeded in getting closer to the pure, unhinged dissonance that plagues the criminally insane and has them operating on a completely different plane than the rest of us.  This is something that we pay detectives good money to deal with so we don’t have to, and suddenly we were faced with it at the local theater.  Having studied various killers of the past with theatrical bents, I have to say that this representation of the Joker very appropriately takes the cake.  As Dan said, “He makes Jack Nicholson look like Barney Fife.”  I already can’t stand Jack Nicholson or any of the creepy-old-dude characters he plays, but I think most people who do like him will agree as well.  I almost don’t want to see it again because it was such a draining experience for me.  Almost.

I feel like all of our spare time recently has been sucked up into various obligations, so I’m really looking forward to having a couples skate this weekend.  Is “spare time” really “spare time,” when it belongs to one of your many scheduled tasks or appearances that need to be accomplished?  At the end of your week you’re like “I did everything and yet rode no rollercoasters and saw no ghosts.”  I hope this weekend changes that grim statement.  Come on ghosts, I’m still holding out for you.

In closing, a few links:

• Yay, they’re making a movie out of one of my favorite books as a kid.
• Finally, teh internets is mine!  Make your own feed out of any page that still doesn’t have one.
• Ross rules us with an iron fist.
• Walking directions are now on Google Maps.  Just after Dan’s parents left town, of course.  But still: this is a good thing.