HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION
With the Labor Day Weekend bearing down on those of us in the U.S., I thought it a good time to take a look back at the summer that was.

Early on we lamented the dearth of gay or gay-interest movies to lure us 'mos into the cool, air-condition theaters. There were a few, of course, the biggies being I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and Hairspray. C&L took in $115 million domestically, which is decent but still at the lower end of Sandler's recent commercial efforts. But given the subject matter, I rather suspect the suits at Universal Pictures are pretty pleased.

Critically, the story was rather different. The flick scored at lousy 14% "fresh" over at Rotten Tomatoes (which compiles ratings from critics) and 58% "fresh" from users, also nothing to crow about (the site requires 60% to keep from being labeled "rotten").

Doing considerably better amongst critics and almost as well at the box office was Hairspray. The John Travolta flick scored $108 million domestically and the critics gave it 93% "fresh" and users 89%.

Robert De Niro's turn as a gay pirate in Stardust didn't find too much booty, raking in a measly $28 million so far. Hot Fuzz, a British buddy flick that avoided any gay-panic only made $23 million.

Summer telly turned out to be plenty gay friendly. Reality television gay us not one, but two gay houseguests on Big Brother — Joe Barber and Dustin Erikstrup. Meanwhile, Dan Williams (Parthenon) soared on Who Wants to be a Superhero? and Dale cooked up a storm on Top Chef which was judged by Ted Allen.

Elsewhere, Logo (AfterElton.com's parent company) launched their best series to date, Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in the world and ABC Family surprised gay viewers with the very gay-friendly Greek, starring Paul James as Calvin. But the best news of all was when Jake Silbermann joined As The World Turns as Noah's love interest and launched the kiss heard around the (day time) world.

On Broadway, out actor Cheyenne Jackson stepped into the roller skates at the last minute to star in Xanadu: The Musical, David Hyde Pierce declared he was always out no matter what the rest of the world thought, and Cyndi Lauper launched her annual True Colors Tour.

Neil Patrick Harris scored an Emmy nomination, Jake Gyllenhaal topped our Hot 100 List, and Out Magazine put Anderson Cooper and Jodie Foster on the cover of their "Glass Closet" issue. The gay community didn't react to kindly to the magazine's editors taking it upon themselves to out folks.

So how was your summer?