My weekend kind of started on Thursday night when my dad and I went to see Batman Beyond… no, Returns… no, Forever… no, wait, Batman Befuddled. Oh, wait, I remember, Batman Begins (Or, as I like to call it, “Batman Begins Again and Does a Good Job of Apologizing For the Last Few Movies”).

To give credit where credit is due, Tim Burton’s Batman and, to a much smaller degree, Batman Returns were good movies. I can’t say the same for the sequels, “Batman Sucks,” and “Batman Blows,” or, you know, whatever their names were.

Batman Begins was excellent. Christian Bale is a fantastic actor and I think he makes a kick-ass Batman/Bruce Wayne. Christopher Nolan is a good director in my book and, apparently, he is a fan of the realism that makes Batman such a good character. Cillian Murphy was really good as the Scarecrow (I’m inclined to seek out other films he’s been in, besides this and 28 Days Later). Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman comprise a great all-star cast. Katie Holmes is hot.

Anyway, Friday was pretty mellow, which is always good after a long day at work.

Saturday was game day as my mom, dad, and I attended our first Fisher Cats game.

For those of you who don’t have your fingers on the pulse of the animal community, a fisher cat is small yet surly member of the weasel family. It looks like a cross between two different animals, like a ferret and a badger were out drinking one night, and things got a little carried away; next thing you know the badger’s all like, “I’m having your baby,” and the ferret’s all like, “It couldn’t be my baby, I’m… um… sterile,” (ferrets will say anything), and the badger’s all like, “Fine, I’ll raise him on my own and teach him the ways of the wild. You just walk away and go make your stupid little movie!” because, you know, the ferret was working on Beastmaster at the time. And thus was born the Fisher Cat. (Technically the “Fisher,” no one really knows where that “Cat” crap came from).

But, despite the complicated name, the Fisher Cats seemed to do pretty well against the Trenton New Jersey… well, I guess they were just “Trenton.” Not the “Trenton Wildcats,” or the “New Jersey Wolverines,” they were just… “Trenton” (like in El Dorado, James Caan was just “Mississippi,”).

The new stadium was nice, and small enough so that very few seats could be considered “Cheap Seats.” Of course, we got great seats behind home base, and we paid only $9 per ticket, so technically speaking, they’re all cheap seats.

For all the niceties of the newly constructed field, the only major drawback was the food. Not only was the food service sloooooow, but the quality of the food was lackluster. I know what you’re thinking, “Hello, Ballpark.” But, even the hot dogs failed to please me. And the chili cheese fries might have been good, had I found more than ten fries forcefully drowned at the bottom of my bowl of chili. It was horrible, like those ten fries had double-crossed the mob and they’d all been sent to sleep with the beans.

Not a bad experience overall though. I’ll give it an 8. I’d give it a 9, but there were virtually no hot chicks in my age range there.

A quick call from “S,” led me to the Hog’s Trough Saloon later that evening. Formerly a biker bar known as “Stepping Out,” (Which I assume referred to “Stepping Outside For A Beating.”), The Hog’s Trough is now actually a decent, all audience, rock club. Although, I still hesitated when ordering my drink, hoping I could order something light without getting my ass kicked.

“S” was there because a friend of a friend played bass in one of the featured bands. The music was good, but suffered from a small-ass venue / big-ass speaker problem. Otherwise, it was pretty good rock. The band with which friend’s friend played was particularly good. What caught me off guard was the name. The band’s name was “37 Seconds Left,” which, the first few times the singer said it, made me think, “Wow, that was a short set.” After the third time I realized he was saying “We are '37 Seconds Left'.” Oh.

Sunday was a mish-mash of various weather patterns that made me hesitant to stain my neighbor’s deck, as I had promised. I made the vow to do it over two months ago, but those of you who live near me know that it’s been raining like a bastard for two months. We’ve had our random sunny days, but when you need one clear weekend day for staining, followed by 48 hours without rain for drying, well, you’re pretty much fucked. And thus, I was fucked. Again. This will be remembered as the year that April winds and May and June showers brought forth flowers sometime in early August (I’ve no hope for July). We should be in full bloom by Halloween.

And so on Sunday I relaxed, I gave dad his father’s day gift (An nVidia 6600 OC AGP computer video card with 256MB of DDRAM, Ooga Ooga! …that may not make any sense to you, but trust me, he loves it), and I sat around reading articles on men’s health and attracting the right woman. (Which reminds me, “GQ” is completely full of shit).