Responding to Reader Comments:

1) Yes, I (and hopefully Stephanie) will be heading to Camden (where I grew up) for a day/weekend sometime within the next 6 weeks.

2) My friend Shane wrote a brief comment and then let me know he was headed to Mexico. Considering how blasted cold it is in Michigan, I have a few choice words to give him when he returns. *smirk*

3) In my recent discussion of movies, I did not give Metropolis its due (thanks to Erik for reminding me about this topic) so let me say a few words here...

Metropolis is in limited release, mainly playing in art theaters but will be available on DVD in April. Note, this is the anime version of the story not the silent film from the 1920s of the same name. On a random note, Metropolis (80-year old version) was the first DVD I thought about buying. Maybe I should do that now...still pictures in a magazine were an "inspiration" for the anime version so it might be interesting to compare the two. Someone has probably already done that though.

*pause for 5 minutes of searching*

--Roger Ebert discusses a few similarities in his review of the Metropolis anime...

--For further discussion, see the text from NPR's Morning Edition.
--there are also some interesting pictures and descriptions of the original Metropolis on the "Metropolis Walkthrough" site.

I can't say it as well as Ebert or other reviewers, since my journalism skills have slipped a bit, but Metropolis is gripping. The visuals pull you into the scenes and I often found myself behind on reading the subtitles while enjoying the visual imagery. The stereotype of anime is often that it is violent or graphic (in a negative way). That may be true in some cases, but I found Metropolis to be the exception. Certainly there were violent scenes, but none of it was gratuitous. Plot, characters, and stunning city-scapes drive the film.