Speed Racer is exactly what I want when I go to the movies. Like when I watch 2001, and Tron, and Planet of the Apes, and Blade Runner, I go to movies to see things I can't see by just stepping out onto the streets of San Francisco.

Which, you know, being San Francisco, eliminates a few movies that might be included were I to live in Charlotte, North Carolina.

But I don't understand the critics who think this movie was awful and had no plot and sported wooden acting, and, you know, cars just can't do that. That's your criticism? I don't seem to remember anyone saying that bullets can't bounce off eyes like in Superman Returns or robots can't philosophize like in Blade Runner or nobody writes checks for sixty-nine cents for a pint of half-and-half like in The Big Lebowski. That's just part of the world the movie's making for you.

So if the guy from Lost bounces his car up and over a rival motorist for the express purpose of punching him in the face while upside down and flipping over again to gain the lead in an illegal car race, your first thought is "real physics just doesn't work like that"?

Please don't sit next to me at dinner, because we're not going to have a lot in common.

About the only issue I had with Speed Racer was that Matthew Fox pauses in his ninja fight to preserve his identity, Lone Ranger style, and yet is hanging out in a tux at the end of the flick with Inspector Detector and, you know, the rest of the crowd seeing his face. So, OK, he probably has a secret James-Bondian identity, so nobody puts the suave guy together with the leather-clad Racer X, but, still. The only time you should worry about your face in a high-stakes penthouse midnight ninja-fight is when you're protecting it from the flying shurikens, that's what I'm saying.

But that's sort of neither here nor there. Speed Racer is the kind of entertainment I'm looking for when I go to the movies in the first place. Show me some stuff I've never seen.

The rest of you, though...



...you're just peeing on the rug that really ties the room together.

Mimi's Mother's Day note.

Another Thursday, another "I Gots Me Some Enthusiasm" over at RescuedByNerds.com. This week, I ruminate about bungee-cording the kid to the back of my scooter and what that has to do with whatever Stevie Nicks is singing about in "Edge of Seventeen."

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Turns out you could have met Omaha Perez at Meltdown yesterday, if you were in LA.

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Speaking of Omaha: "Seriealbumet bjuder på rasande rolig läsning, särskilt om man än lite insatt i Sherlock Holmes och doktor Watsons äventyr och språkbruket i dem - och framförallt doktor Watsons okritiska beundran för den Store Detektiven. Fast om man är Holmes-purist, eller pryd, så blir det en jobbig upplevelse."

Man! You can say that again.

Walker Young, here, taking a break from bubbles in the park to give Daddy's pals Red and Denton a Red-Sox-fan-in-West-Coast-exile shout-out in celebration of four years of Surviving Grady. Can you believe it? Four years of Robot Yaz and metal onions. Congratulations, guys. Keep 'em coming.

My pal Karl Strandfeldt is featured in the San Francisco Examiner today in their "Meet Your Mixologist" section. "The last time we had dinner at McCormick & Kuleto’s, darn it if we weren’t star-struck when the San Francisco Twins trotted past our table. Yes, San Francisco royalty prances through this palatial eatery on a regular basis, but none of them are as regal as Karl Strandfeldt, the establishment’s revered bartender. One of the most knowledgeable guys we’ve ever met, Strandfeldt got his start at Henry Africa’s, one of The City’s first and most famous 'fern bars.' Besides learning the ins and outs of making a fine cocktail, Strandfeldt steadily built an artillery of entertaining anecdotes, which he might share if you’re lucky."

Nice one, Karl! You're still the only guy whose wedding I was ever at who poured and toasted me with a smooth bit of Irish whisky.

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...and Rescued By Nerds has a drunken Iron Man review by good ol' Ash, who illustrates his verbiage with a pic snapped at my birthday, last year:



Man, that Tony Stark really does hit the sauce, doesn't he?

I suppose it isn't that much of a secret that Rescued By Nerds has let me spout off on things that grab my attention in a column called I Gots Me Some Enthusiasm. First one's up today, and new ones every Thursday at 3 pm or so.

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...and a special shout-out to mi amigo Rob Lavender, who became a Dad last night at 11:22, right between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Smooches to Cathy and a big hail-fellow-well-met to Baby Boy Lavender. Welcome to the world, Little Dude.