Weekend Recap

ye gods i am tired.

this weekend took quite the toll. so much so that i considered holding off on posting a recap of events until tomorrow, but i figured that decision might incite a riot in the blogosphere rivaled only by the post palin resignation announcement buzz from friday...speaking of which, have you watched her rambling speech yet? jesus man, i love me some good career self-immolation, but sarah took things to new levels with this one.

i've probably watched/listened to her speech about 10 times and i'm still undecided as to what my favorite part is. i mean, given that this was a speech about how she is resigning there's this passage which definitely gets the irony prize:

"Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow". Nah, only dead fish 'go with the flow'."

and then there's the award for best mixed metaphor --

"Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naïve if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory."

but i think if forced to choose i'd go with her final lines, as they seem to encapsulate best everything we've come to know and love about her...

"In the words of General MacArthur said, "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."

brilliant.

anyway...back to the weekend.

things started out on friday with a viewing of "the hurt locker." an excellent film that i highly recommend about a bomb disposal unit in iraq.

the party continued saturday morning as joey chestnut successfully defended his I.F.O.C.E. nathan's hot dog eating championship belt by eating 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, 3 1/2 more than takeru kobayashi of japan, his arch-rival.

it was a glorious moment to kick off independence day and it brought tears to my eyes, as we are, as one commentator put it, "entering the golden age of competitive eating," and we are doing so with an american seated at the head of the table.

at this point the party shifted from watching other people eat and drink, to actively participating.

and as for what followed...well, i actually assign partial blame to joey chestnut for what followed, as it was his rousing and motivational performance that led me to begin consuming margaritas, eating bbq, and celebrating at a pace better left to the trained professional athletes of the competitive eating world.

suffice to say by about 6:30pm i was in bad, bad shape. like walking up to the edge of disaster, leaning over, and almost falling in, bad shape. basically, i was nascar drunk (maybe more).

but i managed to hang on (or in this case lie down for a few hours) and by around 11:30 or so I had recovered enough to eat some cake, and i think this would have made joey chestnut proud.

as for sunday, well most of the morning was spent recovering, but the evening was spent at the hollywood bowl for the death cab for cutie (w/ the la phil) concert. the new pornographers and tegan and sara opened.

all in all a very good show (although, i was a little upset that the new pornographers only played for 30 min. and death cab only played for about 75).

but nit picking aside, the finale of the show was death cab playing transatlanticism with the phil, culminating with a fireworks display. it was simply put, transcedent, and easily 9 of the best minutes of my concert going life...