Dark Knight and The Cleve

It's as good as you've heard, possibly better. I'm not one to hype things beyond any reasonable expectation, I hate when I hear over and over how amazing something is and then show up only to be dissapointed and it drives me nuts when people say something is cool just because it makes them sound cool. So with that on the table, the movie is seriously that good. 

I'm in Cleveland, OH for the second stop of AST Dew Tour. My co-host Kenan Harkin and our co-worker Chad Perry and I went to the midnight show last night. Years ago when the first Batman movie with Christian Bale came out, the same group went to see that film in Denver. Keeping with tradition, we decided to see Dark Knight together except this time Kenan insisted we arrive early... as in 90 minutes early. Obsessive? A little. (At least we had awesome seats.)

Heath Ledger, who left behind one of his finest performances in the most unfortunate and sad way, steals the show. It's so hard to play a villan that in some twisted way manages to have the audience sitting in the palm of his hand but he does. As complex as the Joker is, he makes you laugh, keeps you on your toes and charms you. The show started at 12:01 and finished shortly before 3 am. Sure enough, it's been the discussion of the TV compound throughout the day.

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Tonight we had the BMX Dirt Finals which will air in less then an hour from now on USA Network. The course was a bit of a challenge for the guys due to the short jumps and curved first two hits. Luke Parslow threw a double backflip and Ryan Guettler threw a 1080 both on the third set. What?! Cameron White FINALLY got a win tonight with an incredible showing. I say finally because he has been so close several times and yet this is only his second win on the Tour.

Congrats to Steven McCann who is the first guy in the history of the Dew Tour to make it into all three BMX Finals. He placed 4th tonight in Dirt and will compete in BMX Vert tomorrow night and BMX Park on Sunday.

My heart goes out to James Foster. He crashed in BMX Park Prelims (he advanced to Finals) and gashed his eyebrow right above his right eye. Then while taking a practice run during Dirt Finals, he crashed again and this time slammed on the left side of his face. He was unable to finish the contest.

Ryan Guettler- back in the game! Kid looks focused, hungry and ready to live up to the high expectations that were placed on him back in '06 after he dominated in '05. He took second place.

Finally, congrats to daddies-to-be Ryan Nyquist and Alistair Whitton. Nyquist and his wife are expecting a little boy and the Whittons will find out in the Fall!

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Tomorrow if you're by a computer you can catch the live stream competition of SKB Park and RYAN SHECKLER go for his second win this year on NBCSPORTS.COM at 1. Then at 4 pm ET on NBC it is SKB Vert. In Baltimore, Bucky Lasek edged out PLG but the key factor was there was no Shaun White in the mix. White will be competing tomorrow.