The title of this post is not a Joker laugh, but rather referring to the irrational glee a group of thirty-somethings present around me... okay, damn it, Michael is 27... anyway, the irrational glee we are all feeling right now at the prospect of our midnight tickets to see The Dark Knight tonight.

I have some friends who are in one way or another involved in the industry enough to have already seen the film for one reason or another, and all I've seen and heard has been seriously ridiculous in its praise.

"At this point," I said earlier today to a friend who's seen the film TWICE already, (and children turn off your monitors) "I have had my expectations raised to the point that I expect to walk into the cinema, be given a bag of a free, non-addictive cocaine/ecstacy mixture, a hand job, and the everlasting love and devotion of a Breakfast at Tiffany's era Audrey Hepburn. That is how high my expectations are."

"Okay then," he said into the phone, matter of factly. "You should be fine."