Last lunch of the week - tomorrow at this hour we'll be barrelling down the last stretch of road to Philly, if not fully arrived and jumping up and down on the queen-size. South Street - prepare yourself.

So last weekend was pretty damn good. SPXpo '02 was lovely, if packed - I look forward to seeing where they put it next year when it moves up to Bal'more. Somewhere roomy, one hopes. Anyway, I got to meet Eddie Campbell (very nice guy, in spite of his skill in drawing disembowelled prostitutes) and got close enough to Frank Miller I coulda hit him with a spitwad, though I opted to not do the standing-in-line thing to meet him; without a copy of DARK KNIGHT RETURNS or similar in my possession, it woulda just felt lame. I dig manage to get Keith Knight's new collection (he was as nice and funny as I remember him being two years ago, and sporting one of his "I'd Rather Be Masturbating" t-shirts) as well as Alan Moore's spoken-word CD and a weird collection called THE OVERLORDS OF GLEE that was just exactly my kind of bizarre and surreal. Not as much free stuff found its way home with me as last time around, but I wasn't really making an effort.

Jim's Big Ego was, of course, kickass, even in a one-set show. A sellout crowd turned up at Iota, presumably for Roger Cline & the Peacemakers, but I suspect one or two at least walked away new-minted JBE fans. Didn't get as much chance this time around to schmooze with the band like the nerdy fanboy I am, and I missed the Napkin Poetry you get with a full show, but it was pretty cool.

We met up with Patrick and Bernice (stress on the first syllable, rhymes with "furnace") outside their hotel before heading to Iota, where we got to count them and Caren among the new converts to Egomania. First, though, we had a very nice dinner at the club's annexed restaurant - highly recommended, by the way, if you're ever in Arlington; it's like bar food, only really really good. And we spent almost all of Sunday hanging out with them, which was as much fun as I've had in quite some time. We took a couple of hours to hit the flea market in Georgetown (you wouldn't think such a thing as an upscale flea market was possible until going to this one - I'll keep it in mind if I ever need a lot of secondhand silver, though) and wound up having a big pasta dinner back at the apartment. Pat & Bernice are good people in every meaningful way, and good fun to be around too. Kind of hard to believe they've been married for fourteen years when neither of them looks like they would've been legal to marry that long ago. It gives one much hope.

Half a day to go till Long Weekend #2. Hooray!