It's been a weird week to be an American, hasn't it?

Our Olympians are tearing it up over in London and acting like typical obnoxious Americans. People are lining up outside of fast food restaurants to show their mutual love of fried food and intolerance. And the stars of Twilight are just messing with our hearts!

It's gotta be the heat, man. It's just messing with our minds. Making us act crazy.

Well, we're just delirious as y'all are, so we're posting the things we're the most excited about for the coming weekend, along with what we'll be watching of the Olympics when we can't peel ourselves up off of our couches to go outside.

Friday night, our best suggestion is to head over to Hyde Park Theatre and watch their latest production, Tigers Be Still. Hyde Park is perhaps the best theatre in town to see what's happening in modern playwrighting, and Kim Rosenstock's fantstical play about a tiger that escapes the zoo and comes to live in a chaotic, depressed family's house is no exception. Everyone is raving about it, and it's about time you went to go support some fun, live theatre, isn't it?

Otherwise, it's the opening night of Track and Field and the finals of men's Trampoline on the Olympics. Huh.

Saturday, you better get out of the house and fill your gullet with frozen happiness at the 6th Annual Austin Ice Cream Festival at Fiesta Gardens. (Lactose intolerants and vegans are excluded from that directive, of course.) Starting at 10 a.m., you're welcome to come try some of the best frozen treats from around the city. Contests, games and live music supplement what is already the sweetest deal in town.

Then at night, we recommend the Miro Quartet over at the Long Center. The four-piece orchestrated sensations are joined this special evening by Peruvian guitarist Jorge Caballero. Honestly, if you've never heard either of these groups, you're in for a treat. But then putting them together, like the Austin Classical Guitar Society has done, it's honestly the closest you'll get to aural heaven on this earth this month. They're that good.

Plus, you'll only be missing more Olympic swimming relays, beach volleyball and track and field. You can always DVR that.

Then on Sunday, we suggest bypassing your typical brunch plans to attend the Scrumptious Chef Pop Up event at 3 Little Pigs and East End Wine. Chef and soul food scholar Adrian Miller has assembled a soul food menu that includes chicken, wilted grens, black eyed peas, corn bread and banana pudding. Local chefs have made the menu locally sourced and dietery friendly, so this is an experience you won't find anywhere else in town. Lunch starts at noon.

And starting at 4 p.m., the party moves over to the ND for a special viewing party put by the Austin Planetarium in honor of the Mars rover, Curiosity, landing on the Red Planet. Live music, astronaut ice cream and an indoor, inflatable planetarium will fill the hours before the televised screening of the actual Martian landing by the lil' rover that could. The whole ordeal will be screened up on the giant blank wall of the ND, so you'll be able to sit back and appreciate just how tiny and insignificant you are in this giant, impossible universe.

Or you could stay at home and watch the women's gymnastics individual events and springboard diving, if you're in to that sort of thing.

What I'm saying is: The Olympics are cool and all, but there's so much else going on right outside your door. Get out, put your sunscreen on, and stay hydrated. It's a brave new world. You deserve to get out there and experience it.