So I have a car for two weeks, one of those “Hey, if you give us a ride to and from the airport, you can have the car while we’re on vacation” horse trades with my folks. It’s my old car, actually, the Matrix I bought six months before I moved to DC, a move which therefore necessitated selling it.

To my Dad, actually, who was in the market for a car, and liked mine. He said it was because of the storage capacity, but I think it’s because he wanted a manual transmission.

It’s weird getting back a car that used to be yours. I look at the wear on it, and I think, “Dad, what have you been doing with my car?” But it’s been his for nearly three years, six times longer than it was mine.

And I do miss it, sometimes. It’s been a nice treat, heading out of my apartment in the morning and going to the alley behind my building to the car instead of walking a couple of blocks to the Metro station. Instead of catching a bus to work, I find parking in the neighborhood near my office complex and walk five minutes.

And I have been driving it as much as possible. Because, hey, it’s a car! And Reno Road NW is pretty damn empty at 6am so driving is still fun! (Except this morning where I apparently left my brain on “auto-think” and drove right past the turn for 34th Street to Wisconsin).

My reading is falling behind. Reading on the Metro is totally acceptable. So, for that matter, is napping. Neither is cool while driving.

Driving has its perks: for one thing, I’ve sharpened my parallel parking skills. For another thing, I bought 320lbs of cat litter last week. This should be enough to keep me stocked – and the cats happy – until sometime in early 2012 (although I am considering buying another 160lbs this coming weekend).

On the other hand, there’s nothing that makes me more grateful for my pedestrian life style (both literally and figuratively, if you must know) than fighting traffic back into DC in the afternoons and hunting for parking. Fortunately, I’ve got a visitor’s parking permit to keep me free of tickets and citations, and also fortunately, my budget is free of car insurance and city registration.

This is a movie with sword fighters and medieval violence (but not of the “on your ass” variety).

This is a movie with four guys all wanting to bone the apparently vapid titular princess.

This is a movie with full frontal nudity of Mélanie Thierry, and full-rear nudity of Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet.

This is a movie where the guy playing the King’s younger brother wears, like, a lot of eyeshadow.

This is a movie with possibly the most awkward sex scene since Mel Gibson put a puppet on his hand and had sex with Jodie Foster in a movie called, of all things, The Beaver, which is possibly just the most awkward film title in the history of film titles and makes you wonder why Ms. Foster, whose film it is, didn’t just say “Screw it!” and arrange for a tiger puppet as a substitution.

It’s also subtitled in French. So. There’s that.

Today’s like the Rebels celebrating on Endor. Tomorrow’s the day they realize killing the Emperor and blowing up the Death Star didn’t magically end the Empire and restore the Old Republic.

– that Osama Bin Laden was DEAD?!

I was sitting on my couch pantless drinking Natty Boh. Fuck you, Osama.