On occasion, I'll leave my comfort zone of home, hearth, and keyboard for a little culture. Last Friday was just such an evening, as I ventured into town for dinner and to see Angelina Jolie's much-anticipated, or at least mass media-saturated movie, A Mighty Heart.

Trying to avoid the crushing Women's Open dinner crowd, my friend and I opted for burritos. We picked a rather rowdy bunch -- the servers not the burritos -- as the staff insisted on hollering greetings to every person entering said establishment. After gorging on a traditional fare of rice, beans, and cerveza, we headed over to the theater.

While Jolie may be the film's name of marquee consequence, indeed, the real star is the city of Karachi, Pakistan. From the opening sequence showing this vibrant, writhing sea of people and vehicles, each city scene was overwhelming in its chaos. At times, it reminded me of the streets of my former domicile, Washington, D.C. on a Fourth of July holiday. Dupont Circle in particular was always a steaming cauldron of taxis, pedestrians, road rage, and poor municipal planning.

Of course, Karachi notwithstanding, this is a serious film dealing with tragic circumstances involving the lives of two outstanding journalists.

Daniel Pearl worked for the Wall Street Journal: his wife, Mariane for French radio. I, on the other hand, serve here in the mostly peaceful - read, it's not election season - Sandhills.

My kids seem proud, however, of my modest literary achievements. Last week, they were delighted to discover that they could flatten Silly Putty over my column photograph and reproduce my sunny visage. Once my head had been suitably stretched to absurd proportions, they would giddily squash me and start anew.

For some reason, I don't think I'll include this on my resume: though it does lend some credence to the newspaper cliché of being an ink-stained wretch.

Now to be frank, though I consume plenty of print material, my sphere of influence does not usually include Wall Street's elite reporters' take on world-view topics. Worse, the preferred national news source in my home is The Daily Show, which tells you a lot about my satirical bias and distrust of the government machine - a side effect from living too close to the epicenter. I think it's probably like sitting in the sunshine: seems innocent enough at first but before you know it you're scorched.

I think I'll send Jolie a letter suggesting that her next foreign adoption should be from that most alien place, the District of Columbia. Maybe she'll write back and advise me how I can convince my kids that the hours Mommy spends sitting in front of the computer, wearing her pajamas, is actually work. I'll return the favor and send her offspring some Silly Putty.

Laura Douglass writes for the Seven Lakes Times, where this column originally appeared.