Broad Ripple is a strange place — quite like Joyce's Nighttown, I think. Of course, I've never read Ulysees and, as you know, I've barely seen any of the world, so take everything I say with a big grain of sea salt.

Case in point: Earlier tonight, I was thirsty and I wanted to go get a Coke. So I set out on foot for the local McDonald's, which seemed like a good choice for some reason or another. On my way there I thought I would maybe get a cheeseburger too. Of course, once I arrived, it seemed more convenient just to say that I wanted a number two meal, even though I had to repeat myself.

Like most fast food cashiers in Broad Ripple, this one was on drugs and he seemed very offended when his pretty Spanish co-worker tried to put the French fries on my tray before my cheeseburgers had been assembled.

"No, NO!" he cried out. "They have to stay HOT!"

I looked the girl in eyes and shrugged my shoulders as if to say I don't care if you leave them on the tray or not but she went ahead and put them back under the warming light for an additional 30 seconds anyway. As I sat down, I thought about how I am always asking my mother to serve me her cooking at a lower temperature.

The meal passed without further incident. At one point, a woman stood right in front of me and said "Hello!" very loudly. I looked up from my copy of the Broad Ripple Gazette, but she was attempting to talk to a child across the room. And it did turn out that I didn't want that second hamburger after all, and I threw it away — I didn't really feel like walking down Broad Ripple avenue clutching a single McDonald's cheeseburger, but I would regret that decision almost immediately.

After dodging a Durango intent on plowing me over in the liquor store parking lot, I was approached by a beggar named Theresa. She looked relatively clean and she was wearing a golden wrist watch, but I don't want to be the kind of person who judges people by their appearance, even beggars.

"Can you help me get some food," Theresa asked me. I thought of the McDonald's cheeseburger.

"I would like to help you out," I explained as I usually do in these situations, "but I don't have any cash."

Typically, that is the end of it, but Theresa was either very hungry or very cunning.

"Do you have a credit card?" she asked. "You could buy me some food at the restaurant."

"Okay," I acquiesced.

After all, why not help a poor soul out? Could be good karma, I thought. Theresa explained that she wanted a gyro, so we walked over to the Parthenon. She was babbling incoherently — perhaps a sign of mental illness, but I caught the part where she asked me how long I had lived in the area and if I was married of all things. She asked what I was doing out; I lied and said I was just walking around aimlessly. For some reason, I was careful not to even tell her the direction in which I lived. Three times she asked me if I was going to be walking this way anyway. I told her I am hard of hearing, which I think is probably true. I did hear her ask if I would also buy her a beer, which I said I would.

We got to the gyro joint and we walked inside. I looked around for something for me to buy for myself, not wanting to seem like the kind of idiot who just takes beggars off the street and buys them food, but I didn't see anything I wanted. Theresa asked the counter guy for a beer. He explained that they didn't have any beer and that she'd have to order it in the bar downstairs. I hopped that would be the end of it and we could part ways, but after I signed the slip for the gyro she told the counter guy she had to go get a beer.

Theresa and I walked down stairs to the Casba. I looked around; it was all college-looking kids in polo shirts. I didn't see anyone else aiding a vagrant. We walked over the back bar. I asked Theresa what she liked to drink. At first, she told me it was Budweiser, but then she asked me if they had Michelob. I told her I didn't know so Theresa asked the bartender. He said they had it on draft, but Theresa just kept saying "Michelob." Then she made the universal sign for bottle by holding one index finger about nine inches above the other one. In response, the barkeep produced a bottle of Michelob Ultra, clearly labeled. Theresa looked it over and asked the bartender if it was Michelob before finally saying, "Bud."

"Make that two," I said.

We sat at the bar with our drinks for a moment, but I could tell Theresa was anxious about leaving her food unattended. I figured this was a common trait among the indigent. She rapidly excused herself; I thought that would be the last of it, and I was puzzled that she didn't thank me vociferously, although I wasn't looking for glory. No, I was feeling like brooding, but the only available corner kept getting lit up by an intermittent spotlight and I didn't particularly feel like being on display for the aforementioned college kids, so I left my beer sitting on a ledge, half empty.

At the top of the stairs, I found Theresa sitting out on the restaurant's outdoor patio, eating her gyro and drinking her beer. I sat down across from her.

"How is it?" I asked.

"It's alright," she said.

"Just alright?"

"Well, it's pretty good."

I told her I was heading off to find something to do (also a lie) but I bid her goodbye and told her, "God bless." In my experience, people begging for your money on the street love to invoke this kind of language.

As I walked away, I noted that the usual street-corner megaphone evangelist had been replaced by a guy with a guitar singing about Jesus. At first I thought it might be my friend Nathan, but it was some other guy. As I walked on, his song filled the air. I thought about how much I secretly admire people like him, people who believe in something that strongly, and I walked home behind a bunch of people laughing and prancing in club clothes.

I think this first-person account of a close encounter of the celebrity kind from The Defamer really underscores why I need to become famous:

Ran into Woody Harrelson Friday in the garage at Amoeba , Of course I never leave home without a J. I offered to Puff him down he politely replied "he was off to do some press " I said not to panic that it was organic and said take for after dinner.

Some guys have all the luck.

Over the last few days, I have had great fun playing around with something that has forever chaged the way I will surf the internet -- StumbleUpon, which is billed as a way to channel surf the world wide web. In other words, it loads a random site and there's a ratings component to minimize the amount of crap that you see. I have bookmarked a ton of new sites, and only a few have been previously known to me. Behold these gems, I highly reccomend them all:

Batman and I go way back.

The first birthday cake that I can ever remember was Batman-shaped. My first action figure -- at least the first one that meant a damn -- was Batman. Ditto pajamas. And I'm pretty sure somewhere there's a photo of me dressed as Batman for one of my first Halloweens.

When I got to be a little older and imagination was my favorite playmate, I used to stay up late to watch the '66 TV series on Nick at Nite. Even then, I knew it was hokey -- but, hey, when it came to Batman, I'd take what I could get.

In 1989, I stayed up real late and watched the first Tim Burton movie as the second feature at a drive-in. My family was asleep all around me, but I was wide-eyed and enthralled. I don't think I ever readjusted to the daytime.

A year or so later, I came home from elementary school to find that my mother had purchased me a copy of a Batman comic book. I'd gotten a C on a test that day and this gesture made me feel even more like a disappointment. I cried and kept that issue in a ziplock bag for years. A short time later, my mother was unusually distraught at the drug store and bought me a Batman comic book that featured a mangled body dressed in a Robin costume. My excitement at this image ('What do you think happens, Mom?') didn't seem to faze her and later I found out she had just run over a kitten while backing out of the driveway.

In high school, when I was regressing as a means of protecting my sense of self, I used to while away my hours trying to figure out which of my friends were analogous to each member of the Justice League of America; I always penciled myself in as Batman. I filled longbox after longbox with his exploits -- especially the arcane, psychological ones. At this point, I began to understand why Batman Returns was an even better film than the first one. It was also during this time period when one of the most sincere compliments I could come up with was "You remind me of Batman."

Once at a video store, I overheard a mother trying to convince her young son that he wanted to rent Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin. My heart filled with pride when I heard the kid say, "Mom that one is stupid." So stupid, in fact, it was the last we thought that we would ever see of Batman on celluloid. But years later, there were rumblings of hope -- hope that a real director would finally make the one true Batman movie. Details started to emerge, and excitement mounted.

Later, early word broke that, in fact, it lived up to the hype. And then I saw it and, yes, I came here to blog about it.

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Batman Begins is an incredible movie because at its core is a mesmerizing story of a man who transforms himself into something that he is not by willpower alone. To this end, director Christopher Nolan and actor Christian Bale form a true (I can't believe I'm saying this) dynamic duo. Bale externalizes his character's inner world like a master and Nolan weaves a visual tapestry from his and David Goyer's script that is as dark and as scary as a journey into the psyche should be. As a geek, of course, I have some nits to pick (that time is wasted on the superfluous Rachel Dobson character while Jim Gordon's is underdeveloped, for example) but they are all made minor by the fact that this film works. Is it the one true Batman movie? No, but I don't believe that's possible; Batman has been seen through many looking glasses, each as true as the last and a testament to the power of the character. But Batman Begins enriches that history and is a great beginning indeed.

If the wisest of all men knows that he knows nothing, then I fear I am a fool, and an arrogant one at that. I've only lived 24 years on this Earth and yet I believe that the things that I've seen, that the knowledge I've gained, and that the understanding that I have is somehow true -- that the world is as I see it. But my values are just my way of preserving my self, of nursing old wounds and trying to avoid future pain. In the end, I'm not just a fool, but a coward.

I kind of get a declining feeling that they just don't get it when it comes to robots. Well, at least mad scientists aren't balking at government officials and claiming that cloning is the future.

Meanwhile, the copyright noose is getting tighter, but at least some places are getting it right.