The Dark Knight (Kanigget), good.

This week has been a stressful one. I have a project at work - writing software to allow our applications to make use of verifone credit card terminals (like the ones at retail stores - swipe your card, sign, cash back, etc.). The project didn't seem complicated at first, but misunderstandings and interruptions have kept the project from being completed in timely fashion. I'm very close to being done now, though... and will have a demo to clients soon (more stress).

The one thing I looked to for relief during the stressful week was the opening of the new batman movie. I'd been hearing great things and regardless of the great reviews, had it been just as good as its predecessor, Batman Begins, I would've been thrilled.

Critics had been talking it up so much that I'd been worked into a bat-frenzy. I tried to get Katie to see the midnight showing on Thursday, but she provided frenzy-less clarity, pointing out that we both had work and that we also go to bed at 10. Touche, tiny one, touche.

With Thursday night out of the way, and Friday night out (since the mobs would be out), we settled on Saturday morning (first showing). We called up the brother (not a random, black man... but my brother), and asked if he and his Katie would like to eat some breakfast and go see the movie together. He agreed, and the date was set. We grabbed up some tickets through fandango.com (who has a buy one ticket get one free promo if you use a discover card).

So, we stuffed ourselves silly at IHOP (and narrowly avoided beating three teenagers who were talking about The Dark Knight while we were waiting to be seated), then made our way to the theater.

The movie was fantastic - as the critics promised. I didn't really believe all the hype about Heath Ledger before I saw the movie... I'd read things like "the best movie villain", "better than Hannibal Lecter". Those were hard to believe, but Ledger did an amazing job. He was completely believable as a psychotic villain... and comes close to being one of the best movie villains, ever.

Even without Ledger's performance, I think the movie would've still been a reviewed extremely well. The movie was just well planned and precisely executed. Each character had a specific role to play and played their part of the story well, with no lingering details about their motivation or questions as to why they were in the movie. Everything just fit together. Great action, acting, plot and possibly social commentary (maybe we read too much into the comic book movie... it's possible).

Anyway, we all really liked the movie... and the week ended on a good note due to the satisfaction of the movie living up to the hype that preceded it.