Disclaimer: Ewok Princess is a princess among all princesses and because she was nice enough to buy me pancakes and is someone I’ll call my unofficial Spill Mom, she is, like a man past his alcoholic limit, invulnerable to criticism.

Anyway…

Washington, D.C. No, we are not Austin or London or Amsterdam. Doesn’t make what amounted to a great get-together any less memorable than other Spill get-togethers. But I digress. Courtesy of our very own Ewok Princess, on the weekend of March 27th, she, her friend Heather, Chicago Jonathan, Bushido Black, Ken-K, Kevin Painter and his wife, and myself convened on the city as we regaled on our experiences with Spill, how we found the website, our origins with all things geeky, nerdy, comic-bookie, book, movie related, and so on. Oh, and for those of us who have not had the opportunity to go to Austin or any of the other Spill gatherings in other cities, well, we heard about that too…and quietly seethed in anger, but that’s another story.

The voyage began at the International Spy Museum, where we actually ended up splitting off into groups to learn about the ins and outs of the spy business, learn where Bond, Sam Fisher, Solid Snake, and I guess Batman get those gadgets. But what you don’t see a lot of with the aforementioned is what happens when a mission is compromised, when your cover’s blown, when you’ve been spotted three too many times and have to abort- and abandon the mission, too.

After the museum, we stopped for lunch at Rosa Mexicano for a better chance to talk and eat at the same time, but that didn’t last too long. Turns out that the movies we planned on seeing were going to begin not long after we hopefully received our food. So courtesy of Ewok, half of the group received the express lunch special and left to see their movie: How to Train Your Dragon. The rest of us went with Hot Tub Time Machine and we both enjoyed what we saw, but the day was not over.

There’s a huge gap here that I can’t describe because I had to return to campus to give back some film equipment, which I actually couldn’t return anyway. The next stop on Ewok’s list was the Cadillac Ranch in National Harbor, MD, where we were joined by more of Ewok Princess’s friends.

However, what I can tell you is how much fun we had watching each other try to hold onto a mechanical bull for dear life...and fail, as expected.

We shared the dance with other people there and believe me when I say we questioned why certain people were dancing. One person in particular, a skinny looking thing in a very short skirt that rode up her thighs when she went down, which was often, should not have been dancing. Honestly, I asked some of the others if they saw this 50-ish looking woman dancing. Sadly, there aren't any pictures of her, but trust me when I say this woman could have been my mother- if she was a few years older and Black, but that's besides the point. She wanted to look like Farah Fawcett in her prime, but she danced like she saw a couple of dance moves on MTV and figured she was ready to try out for America's Best Dance Crew (that's what it's called, right?). Now I couldn't keep track of exactly how much alcohol was consumed since a picture says a thousand words and leaves to interpretation, but when you've got several adults that are able to keep up on the dance floor with folks maybe half their age, and maybe even better dancers, you know someone had to come close to their limit.

Oh, you be the judge. We tried to close the restaurant, but to no avail. That's for a different Bat-time. We had an amazing time overall and coming sometime in August 2010, we'll have an even greater time. Will it come as close to what some of us can't attend in two weeks? Probably not, but we'll see. I don't have any sort of signature for signing off, so I'll steal fro the Weekenders and say-

Later days.