What to do when hockey season is over and the weekends seem like such a vast open sea of possibilities to fill one's time with all of a sudden? Well, I say you take up a couple of invites to birthday parties and spend a day partying like a rock star. How's that for a deranged loner like me? Ha!!! Bet ya never saw that one coming. Well, I like to keep people on their toes.

I started the day off by waking up late ... that part sucks. I had to decide what time to take in a movie that was on my weekend watch list. And then I had to fight inertia by getting off my ass and moving around town to take care of all this crap.

So off I go to the theater. Capturing the Friedmans was the film today. Pretty nifty little documentary, one that draws some parallels to why those of us who blog do so as we watch this Long Island family who apparently recorded seemingly every aspect of their lives on videotape. I think at a base level, it comes down to a desire to be understood ... or possibly to seek out some understanding of the various tangent thoughts that run through our heads. But the film itself, I'll be brief about. It was a fascinating and yet disturbing look into a family's duality and how members bonded and bolted in times of distress as the dad was charged with child molestation. Rather than paint the movie in a "The Story Behind the Headlines" sort of way, the film is told as generically as possible, aiming for a larger moral lesson somewhere in the film footage, both old and new. My take on it is that it's a film that raises more questions than answers, which means it ain't a bad little documentary for my taste.

Afterwards, I'm off to JoeyFest. Hosted by friends of our famed Alamo waiter/resident cult hero, Joey. Odd little affair to walk into seeing that I only knew Joey and had met the host briefly on Wednesday at the showing of BioZombie. Still, a good time was had by all, and I swear Thunder is a magician with a grill. As luck would have it, I'm a fan of chicken, that's what was on the menu, and yet I'm told he fires up a mean rib and/or steak. Halloween party is in the offering there ... might have to keep that in mind. Only drawback of the entire party is that Joey couldn't finagle Alamo's finest: Liz, to attend. OK, so now, I'm being greedy. Sue me! I did have some quality convo with one of Joey's friends about various movies reviewed lately as well as ones on my upcoming viewing list. So that's good stuff.

Upon making my grand exit from JoeyFest, I traipse down Durham for a restaurant affair for the great Audra. I've gotten my fill of food, so I'm pretty stuffed. Had three beers at JoeyFest, so I was really hankering for a soda of any variety by this point ... so about all I do here is share a few laughs with Audra & Co., down a few Dr Peppers and glom onto a conversation with one of my better friends in attendance and her sister. I pick up the tab on those two since a) I do stupid things when in the presence of attractive females ... and b) Saturday was also kindofa 6-month mark for meeting the aforementioned friend, so I was due for a nice favor.

After getting stuck with a few other people's drinks and food, I head home dog tired from all my on-the-town galavanting. I awake tonight only in time to start catching up on a little blogging (like this post, for instance). It was a great day with all things added up ... checking in with friends new and old, taking in a little culture and intellectual stimulation. One might ask how I could possibly follow this up? Well, tomorrow I'm taking in Winged Migration at the River Oaks theater and then taking up long term residence at the Galleria Starbucks to catch up on some reading. Robert Kagan just got a zillion-word article in The New Republic that may save me from doing my book review of "The Future of Freedom" ... that or it may double the amount of work I have to do for it.