Finally, finally, it's time! I've been waiting for this weekend to come for months! If there's only one movie you can go see this weekend, hell, this year; it's gotta be Mamma Mia! This movie's got it all, a sixty-year-old ugly woman dancing for the pleasure of her men, a twenty-year-old girl who can predict the weather with her hoo-has, tons and tons of random men on screen for no reason at all, and an ex-James Bond! And the demand for this flick is real high, I had to camp outside the theatre for six straight days – that's why I haven't updated, I've been camping for so long! It's going to break all the records, I can feel it. And I of course went to the IMAX screening of Mamma Mia!, only a loser would settle for the 35mm print, you'll miss out on Meryll Streep's luscious legs!

Okay, I just vomited. I'm of course joking about watching this movie – who the hell wants to actually go see this crap? I know who, idiots, that's who. The only record this movie is going to break is the record for most morons in a single theatre at one time – Juno holds the current record with 326 people (Ima, Carie, and I were part of that one, haha).

No, the movie that is going take over this weekend (in fact, it already has) is The Dark Knight! Duh. The second installment of the best superhero franchise of all time, that's a fact. It is unbelievable! Not the movie – I have yet to see it, but am shaking with excitement until I get to – I'm talking about the many records this thing is breaking. After just three days, the film has raked up about $155 million. I think it's pretty safe to say that this movie will go on to become the most successful movie ever made so far: more successful than any Spider-Man movie, any Pirates movie, any Harry Potter movie, and any Star Wars movie – it won't topple Titanic's record though, but that's because Titanic was in the theatres for more than thirty weeks, Rose already had Jack's baby by the time Titanic left theatres. But enough talk about the movie's legacy, let's get to some stats!

I hope most of you remember what went down last year, as it was definitely one of the best summers for movies... ever. We were given blockbuster after blockbuster after blockbuster. May was without a doubt the biggest month of the summer, the month in which three movies came out of the four weekends breaking record after record. When Spider-Man 3 came out on May 4th, the first weekend of May 2007, it was trying to surpass Pirates 2's opening weekend record, from the year prior, of a whopping $135 million from 4,133 theatres. It broke both, making an astounding $151 million from 4,252 theatres. Two weeks later, it was Shrek 3's turn in the third week of May. Shrek 3 had more of a limited audience than compared to Pirates and Spidey, which is completely understandable, but even it got its fair share of money as well, taking in a very respectable $121 million from 4,122 theatres. While it did not end up breaking either Pirates 2 or Spidey 3's records, it did break the record for most money ever made by an animated movie in its first weekend, surpassing Shrek 2's $108 million. But then came the last week of May, when Pirates 3 was scheduled to be released on the 25th. This movie had so much hype around it (not including my Captain Jack beard), it was unbelievable. Everyone expected Spidey 3 to break some records, but no one expected it to break Pirates 2's opening weekend record, let alone do it so easily. Everyone on the other hand thought Pirates 3 would be the film to accomplish that. But, unfortunately, it didn't. I was so heart-broken. It only made $115 million in its opening weekend ($140 million if you include the fourth day of the long Memorial Day weekend), though it did break the theatre record with 4,362, which until a few days ago was the most in the history. And if it means anything, I thought Pirates 3 was the best blockbuster of the summer, haha.

click here to read about the most successful blockbuster ever....

Who would have thought it would take me one full week to recover from a three week-long vacation? Note-to-self: for every day on vacation, reserve eight hours of recovery time, haha. But in my defense, we did do a lot during those three weeks: we spent at least one night in fourteen different cities, we drove through twenty-two different US states and drove in two different countries; we logged over 9,400 miles in total and bought almost 450 gallons of gas (and therefore used almost 450 gallons of gas, from over thirty different gas stations). We saw twelve sports stadiums, eight colleges, and two partridges in a single pear tree. Now, I'm not bragging, I'm just summing it up the way it went – and boy, if you think this is bragging, just wait for what's coming later in this post.

All those stats are thrilling, I know, but there is one stat that didn't really excite me, and that is how many photographs I took. I took only about 2,600 total photos during those three weeks. Now 2,600 photos may sound like a lot on their own, but if you span that out over twenty-two days, you'll quickly realize (assuming you passed remedial math in the first grade) that it only equals a little more than 100 photos a day. I've taken more photos in a single minute before (well that's a lie, but I easily could have if I really wanted to)! My record for photos is about 4,000 over eleven days, which makes a little over 350 a day. 350 photos a day for me is an average day to be honest, so even that stat is pathetic; and if that stat is pathetic, then 2,600 photos over twenty-two days is downright insignificant.

And while I hate sitting here and putting down my photographic numbers, I have to add that the percentage of usable photos are pretty low as well. I can't give you a figure yet because I haven't yet sorted through most of them (I know, what the hell else have I been doing this past week? I'll get to that... after the twist), but I know that a lot of them will attract dust in my hard drive – my average is usually 50%, I won't be surprised if this trip ends up hitting 90% unusable photos. I'm not sure what the reason is to this stat: was it because I was using a new lens during 98% of the trip, was it because we weren't on foot for the majority of our tours through the cities and I was the one driving us around, or was it because when we did walk I was mostly pushing my Dad in his wheelchair? Honestly, I blame it on none of these (and definitely not the last one, my Dad's wheelchair reached places I don't think it ever would have thought about reaching during its life before we bought it), I feel it was because we were very new to all those cities, and I was forced to organize our stays in such a way that we were only given sneak-peeks of each city before we had to rush off to the next one. Note-to-self: do not book to stay in fourteen different hotels over a twenty-two-day period. But while a lot of the pictures will go unused, that doesn't mean I didn't take some damn good shots. You've already seen most of the good shots, so you be judge: they damn good or what? And none of those great shots can ever, and I mean ever, equate to what we experienced over those twenty-two days. This country is really something else, so many different worlds in one place, you really must journey out and explore it on your own. And now that the fatigue has finally worn off, I'm thinking about another trip, but this time through Eurasia. All the way from London to Istanbul! Who's coming with me?! Would you believe me if I told you it would only take us 6,000 miles to complete?

click here to get to the real point of this post....

It's Day 21, the last day of our "vacation". I wouldn't call it much of a vacation though, vacations should be spent lounging around doing nothing, not driving thousands of miles around the country for no real reason at all - what was I thinking! I haven't written here in a while, for valid reasons, so let me explain. But before I jump to that, check out the timestamp, we're in the MST time zone here in the Grand Canyon. I know what you're thinking, "But Asim, it's summer, everyone in the US should be in Daylight time!", not [all the parts of] Arizona my friend. No, for whatever reason (too tired to research), most of Arizona is always Standard time, which means these people don't fiddle with their clocks twice a year. So because it's summer, and they didn't jump ahead an hour in the Spring, I'm technically in the Pacific time zone, neat, eh? I knew you'd think so!

Anyway, the last time I updated was last weekend in Chicago - well actually, I was in St. Louis, but it was for Chicago. Since then, Adam has gone crazy because I said I didn't like Chicago, and we've (not Adam) traveled all the way to the Grand Canyon stopping for nights in Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, Dallas, and Roswell. Quite a list. Now why haven't I updated any photos since? Lack of Internet, that's why (and also because I fell asleep twice, haha). Every place has had Internet, but not all of them have worked properly. New Orleans' Internet was real slow (real slow!), Dallas' Internet was fine, except I fell asleep that night we stayed there. The next night in Roswell, I fell asleep faster than I did in Dallas, and last night (our first night in the Grand Canyon), this storm over here blew out the hotel's Internet (but the TV still worked... so who knows). The weather has since become sunny and now the Internet is working. So what will I do tonight? Make up for the lost time, of course! I won't be able to show you all the photos I had originally picked out (we'd be here all night!), but I picked at least two photos from each stop (plus one from Memphis - and no, it's not of Kwame) to show. So sit back, relax, and scroll away!

click here to continue reading about this week's stops....