All-American Date

Houston, the place where Mexicans, whites, blacks, Jews, Arab Americans, Asians, pollution, humidity, traffic, heat indexes that soar above the tolerance level, bad drivers, oil, gas, road-work-that-makes-the-city-look-like-a-war-zone, gays, straight, boths, Christians, atheists, killers, Saints, Ed Youngs, and Joel Olsteens, pretties, uglies, steal-and-concrete-forests, the best Galleria in the world, Hurricanes, THE place for Tex-Mex, oil-tycoons, Enron scandals,... all meet to form a little place where the locals like to call, H-town. This is where my wife and I have lived for the past 4 years and this is where we had our All-American date last night.

It is something that was really invented in America you know. I know, I know, I like to get creative and surprise my Lady with something out of the ordinary as much as I can, which is not often enough, but there is something about this Date format that is just so darn fun. You get dressed up, but not too dressed up. You put on the clothes that you are most fond of, for me that would be my AC/DC t-shirt, some jeans and a torn-up blazer with some vintage cowboy boots, for Amber a comfie fun frilly skirt, a cool Beatles t-shirt and a nifty little hat.

Get in the car and your feelin' hungry. You think, "oh man, I cant wait to get my hands on those warm rolls, dip them in Olive Oil and garlic, and slurp down a nice glass of Sweet tea" My mind then is flooded with images and sounds from the trailer and reviews of the movie that we are going to watch after. A shot of sheer glee flows through my body. I feel like a kid again. "So this is how Madeline felt" I think to myself.

We were at my sister's house and had decided to take her little 3 year old blue eyed strawberry-blonde haired little daughter outside to play. She is just at that age where 25% of what she say is understandable to other people other than her mother so when she says something clear and concise it is kind of astounding. She was carrying her apple juice and telling us something that we couldn't really understand. She was excited; she's goin' outside. Then she looked down took a drink of her apple juice from her sippy cup looked at the sippy cup and said, clear as day, "oh my apple juice is sooooo yummy." All that mattered to her at that second was the apple juice. The sheer elation of being alive without even being aware of the emotions. Just living in the moment. Apple Juice. "MY apple juice is soooo yummy."

"My sweet tea, my Carabas dinner and Movie is SOOOOOO yummy." is how I was feeling.


Our first stop, Carabas. Now not just any old Carabas, I believe it was the original Carabas. This place is still owned by the original owners and their food is 4 notches up from the chain-Carabas and it is ALWAYS packed with the most interesting people in Houston. Nary a hick cometh within 5 miles of this Carabas. That sounded really snobbish, but you get a little tired of the looks from people if you don't have a 1954 buzz hair cut and don't spit tobacco out yer front teeth.

The next stop, our favorite theatre to watch the newest installment of the Couch-hoppin Cruse franchise, MI3.

A LITTLE MOVIE REVIEW OF MI3

I must say that this MI3 FAR surpasses the first two Mission Impossibles. Although the first Mission Impossible was fun and campy, the Second Mission Impossible, directed by Wu, SUCKED. How much slow-motion can we cram into a picture and pleeeeaasse what's with all the friggin doves??? Anyway, this picture was as exciting although not nearly as original as either Bourne Identity movies and was obviously influenced by them in their action sequences.

If you are looking for a good edge-of-your-seat action movie with lots of guns, cool camera angles, plenty of PG smootching and lots of killin' then this is your movie. No "titsploitation" in this movie. (see comments on Just God Business post for explanaion of titsploitation) My only beef with this movie is that is still so derivative of other great action movies. Tom seems to see a good action movie and then tell his hand-picked director that he wants the same kind of feel for his next installment of Mission Impossible.

The only original move in the Mission Impossible franchise is the plummet-to-the-ground-stop-inches-before-you-splat move. The rest is pretty much ripped from other action movies. In MI2, I could not tolerate the plagiarism carnage, i.e. endless Matrix mimicry. In this movie, I did not mind so much. Maybe it is because they did not give us enough time to think about it. I don't know, maybe I was waiting to see Tom flip out or show some sign of his recent exposed insanity. For whatever reason, the movie worked for me. I recommend it. Not Kill Bill or Lord of The Rings recommend it, but you'll have fun. All-American-yummy-apple-juicy fun.