Metropolis surprises with its contemporary feel and stunning visuals, an arresting movie despite the lack of dialogue.

Metropolis waited on my list of “movies to see” for a decade, if not longer. Make sure you do not let it languish on your list for that long. Once you’ve seen it, every great science fiction movie you watch will seem connected and derivative.

Last week I turned old enough. A week later, the Queen and I fought again. I suppose several w(ist for that long. Once you’ve seen it, every great science fiction movie you watch will seem connected and derivative.

Last week I turned old enough. A week later, the Queen and I fought again. I suppose several weeks of smiles will lay enough bricks to build fond memories, but the discord bellows so loud, I scarcely imagine anything but the uproar.

Fittingly, Metropolis mentions the Tower of Babel and describes the conflict as ‘though they spoke the same language, they did not understand one another’.

Once the sides face off, more words will do more harm than the few that tender tender hearts. Love — and life — turn like huge clocks. Actions must be done when they must be done. Never before and never after. The difficulty is knowing when the hand should follow the head.

Again, Metropolis offers timeless advice: “The mediator between the head and the hand must be the heart.”

yesterday was packed to the brim.

spent the day hanging out with aiden. requires very active watching as he often come up and asks if you want to play something. he’s too polite to say no to so you spend a lot of time eating pretend food, playing pretend cars, being monsters, wrestling, and playing trains. not a bad saturday all around, but draining.

debbi and cleaned every room of the house except ours. the bathroom still needs to be mopped, but otherwise everything is really clean.

in the evening chloe came over so they could play. debbi and i tried to get them to help us bake an apple pie from scratch. they didn’t seem too interested, and when they did help us add the apples, they mostly just wanted to eat them instead.

after chloe went home, we went out to eat with debbi’s parents at saltgrass. aiden went with granny and paw paw to spend the night.

at home i relaxed for a bit before a surprise visit from katy, eric, od, and justinius. we sat around dipping into the port and whatever else was around. (i saw justin commit blasphemy with the absinthe.) we talked and caught up but katy denied me the memorial game of risk.

then i watched eyes wide shut, which i still don’t quite get. it’s a bit like reading a 19th century classic, enjoying it, but being certain there’s an entire really important point that you’re missing because of the cultural divide. i tired of the brain wheels turning, but that was ok.

soon, debbi, vanessa, and johnny returned for two more hours of drinking and singing and conversation. once they’d retired, debbi and curled up and drifted off together.

it was one of those rare days packed with several days worth of experience.

friday night saw me wait for debbi get ready not once, but twice. i totally took a nap. but when she was done, she looked swanky (she actually looked swanky both times), and we met ricky and laurette for grub. initial plans sent us to onion creek, but apparently they were having some kind of post-hurricane, refugee auction and had those fuckers packed in like cattle cars. we ended up down the street at dry creek, which was fine cause i think i like them better.

after dinner, we retired back to the stone age, played neanderthal charades, and personified the candle-lit shadows on the cave walls with the spirits of angry grape gods whose fermented blood we had to imbibe before we could enter the promised land. in keeping with the prehistoric theme, we listened to motley crue on cassette.

sushi at korea house saturday night. my roll was called a “mexican orgasm”, and as a hispanic, i can vouch: yes, it was that good. serious bonus points for hearing the korean waitress say the words “mexican orgasm” with her accent and a straight face.

fred took us to buy comics at the world’s most awesome comic store. not really, but it’s the bizarro world version of nan’s which means it had everything we’d been looking for but had been unable to find. plus a cute gamer-nerd chick behind the counter. prevailing sociological theories surrounding gamer culture suggest she probably gives good head.

met elizabeth and re-met phryday. (lonny is the only person who gets two names.) their house is pretty awesome. saw zombie zombin on the zomb lounge and watched miisteria go bowliing on the wii. also met brad and kim(?) as well as a guy who looked reminiscent of cat from red dwarf. (his name escapes me, but he likes nodding head.)

sunday went to a nice brad and ‘auli’i‘s wedding. lately, debbi and i have been doing all these pseudo date activities with just her and i. it’s been nice, except i hope she doŸesn’t think i’m getting serious since i took her to a wedding. the first song played was depeche mode’s “never let me down again” and they also played that gogol bordello song about “purple” from the ‘everything’s illuminated’ soundtrack. (ironically, all the food was vegetarian. not even sausage.)

before we left austin, we stopped by to see zomb and eena’s maison de awesome. then we ate the world’s most fantastic schwarma, visited kick butt coffee, and listened to 96.3 fm (the republic broadcasting network).

seriously, if you’re in austin, tune in to 96.3 fm. it’s all kooks, all the time. there was a guy insisting the mortgage crisis was engineered so the UN could control all the water in the U.S. another guy who said the alien stories, though true, were released to distract us from the impending financial collapse (engineered by the bankers cabal and scheduled for sometime in october). another guy talking about the 20,000 bodies the news was not showing in galveston. another guy discussing how venezuela wants to unite south america, arm every south american (every south american), and attack the united states in may. a guy talking about how the government is an administrative state and not a constitutional republic (and why this means you don’t have to pay taxes). another guy talking about how obama was muslim and sent campaign money to radical islamic terrorists in sudan. and a guy talking about cataclysm being a year away and wisonsin would be underwater. (a caller actually called in to explain that only part of wisconsin would be underwater because is house was on a bluff that overlooked milwaukee. wtf?!?)

as seriously pretty awesome as the shows were seriously pretty awesome, the advertisers were pretty choice, too. they included survivalist seeds (5000 food pounds worth of seeds for $200) and the nets most popular choice for ron paul stickers. i’m pretty sure it was a pirate radio station, because they never announced the station id, ever.

nice weekend after a long, long week.

after work on friday, we went to whole foods, which is never a good idea. we were good though and spent most of our money in the bakery. debbi demanded some challah, and i wanted naan, and we both wanted cedar’s hummous.

much later, ricky came over to hang out and chat. i actually went to bed since i hadn’t slept since wednesday. once numbers closed venessa and some peeps came over, hustled me out of bed, and then we played poker and chatted till late.

venessa brought over some plum saki and it was delish. twas a good time.

we spent saturday afternoon at a baby shower for one of debbi’s friends. after that, we tooled over to granny and paw-paw’s to drop off the buddha.

debbi felt crappy, so she laid down, and i finally tried the indo-pak “fast food” place over near debbi’s mom’s house. they had two briyani choices: goat or fish. one never trusts the fish this far from the shore, so i had the goat. tasted like beef with the texture of pork. twas good.

we were supposed to have mac n cheese with roy and the née, but we were stuck in sugarland while debbi lay in bed. :-(

saturday night we went to the system to see gary off. met a couple of cool people and caught up with the usual suspects. debbi felt bad again, so i ran her back home, but we live close enough to walter’s that i could head back over and hang out some more.

today is home improvement day. i hung a shelf and changed some lightbulbs. then i updated livejournal and checked myspace.

My sweetest princess,
I’m dreaming of your sweet hair,
my nose pressed against your neck,
dreaming your sweet scent.