A Santa Cruz Beach

...feeling very out of place walking between multi-colored beach umbrellas and being passed by teenage girls wearing black string bikinis and holding hands with long-haired boyfriends, me in high-tech hiking pants rolled to the mid-calves and a sweatshirt that boldly said, "Yellowstone."

"At least my kids are enjoying this outing," I thought. ...

Stolen Quote #6

While at the redwoods in California, I picked up this priceless Stolen Conversation. I was standing outside the bathrooms waiting for Elijah to come out. There was a couple standing there, the wife fussing with an infant in a stroller and the husband (Man with Big Belly, as I will refer to him in the Conversation) saying, "Honey, you don't have to strap her in. We're just crossing the parking lot!" The wife continued to fuss, and the husband continued to "pleasantly" gripe, "See. You also shouldn't strap her in because you don't know how to do it." Wife still said nothing. A little kid who turned out to be their son walked down the tiny hill toward the bathrooms and this ensued:

Man with Big Belly: Hey, come back here!
5-year-old Son: But I want a drink of water.
Man with Big Belly: Come get a drink of Mom's Jamba Juice.
5-year-old Son: I don't want Jamba Juice. I want water.
Man with Big Belly: Do what you're told.

5-year-old Son continues standing by the drinking fountain.
Man with Big Belly walks the 7 feet down the slope to help 5-year-old Son.

Man with Big Belly: You need to listen to me.
5-year-old Son: But I want a drink of water.
Man with Big Belly: You need to listen to me first.
5-year-old Son: But...
Man with Big Belly: No, you need to listen to me.
5-year-old Son: But your blood sugar is high.
Man with Big Belly: You need to listen to me even if my blood sugar is high.

Man with Big Belly helps 5-year-old Son get a drink from the drinking fountain.

Late at Night

My parents' house shuts down around 10 pm. I'm a night owl. But if I wanted to stay up and read a book or write a letter, I would have to go sit in the hallway and read by the bathroom light.

Instead of going to bed, tonight I am rebelling by sitting at the computer and writing this pointless blog post. Ha! Take that, early goers to bed!

For Your Convenience

A sign on a bathroom door in a gas station in Nevada said something like this:

"For your convenience, this bathroom has been designated smoke free."

As if it were only inconvenient to be exposed to cigarette smoke. "Man, this lung cancer is mighty inconvenient. I had a football game to go to!"

Why not say:
"For your HEALTH, this bathroom has been designated smoke free." Or is that too offensive to the cigarette smokers?

On the way out, I saw a sign on the gas station door that said:
"For your pleasure, this building is smoke free."

That was better than the idea of convenience. It is definitely more pleasurable to be in a smoke-free building.

Transformers

I don't do movie reviews, but I wanted to comment on the new Transformers movie.

I liked it. A lot. I liked the first one a lot, too. Mainly, it's Peter Cullen's voice.

Tangent about Peter Cullen:

No one knows who Peter Cullen is except for obsessed Optimus Primers like me. Peter Cullen does lots of voices: Eeyore, Gritty from Gummi Bears, Monterey Jack from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Zander from G.I. Joe, K.A.R.R. from Knight Rider, and of course Optimus Prime (and even Ironhide in at least one movie release). Check him out: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0191520/

Peter Cullen has the world's best voice. I could listen to it all day. In surround sound. ... It's a good thing I don't know him personally. Cause he'd get really tired of my phone calls: "Peter! Hey. It's Tamra again. Could you say "Autobots, Roll Out!"? Or how about, "They deserve to choose for themselves."? Please?!! Please, please, please!!" It'd be pathetic.

End of Tangent about Peter Cullen.

But, aside from the sexiness of Cullen's voice, there's something just REALLY COOL about transforming robots battling to the death. And Transformers 2 has something that the first Transformers didn't have: a sustainable plot line. Okay, it's not really plausible, cause it's, you know, a Transformers movie. But it's follow-able.

A few things to know, though, about this plot line:

1 - You will have to dismiss all the mythology from Transformers 1. Not hard to do, since it made little sense anyway.

2 - A lot of the plot is explained away and simplified by a really stupid government agent who says something like this: "There are 3 Top Secret things that the bad guys should never find out about, and I will list them all in the next minute and a half. ... Let's just hope they're not listening to this communication, or else we're in big trouble."

I can't recommend the movie without reservations, though. There's more cussing than in number 1. The humor is a little stupider, a little more crass. There's a temptress who is VERY aggressive and who is always wearing very skimpy clothing. It's not horrible, all told, but I wouldn't take my teenagers to see it, if I had teenagers.

Stolen Quote #5

Me (to friend who has been married for about 3 months): How's married life?

Him: (shrug) Still sucks.

...

Got me thinking. And I came up with this line, a ringing endorsement of marriage:

Marriage: Still sucks. Now it's just official.

Fine, Google. Have it your way.

I have to admit that I like the Google toolbar.

So go ahead, Google. Take over the world.