California did something right.

That's pretty cool. I guess they don't do everything wrong but it's just a weird place.

I'll be there in a week to visit Audra, which is very exciting.

I'll just be missing Long Beach Pride though. I suspect this year will be even more spectacular since those who wish to do so can LEGALLY GET MARRIED!! Take that you homophobic fuckheads. It will surely add some festive feelings to the party.

Getting married is still a weird thing to do but not allowing people to make that disasterous decision on their own is against every god damn thing our country is supposed to be gung-ho about. Other states will soon follow and those that are against it can just sew their lips shut.

I love Kansas.

Because I love my Kansas friends.

I'd like to say I wish I could take them all with me, but I kind of would rather bring civilization to them. Once you get over the lack of shopping and culture (other than German), it's just fine here. We have the best thunder storms. If it were not for the devil's humidity, I would love Kansas summers. As it is, I only love Kansas springs. But most importantly I have a superior posse, which I usually do.

I have the McGyvers-Judy and Katie. And our nights at Joe's with Alice and Martha.
And Sheena Beena! (Which includes the fellas, Phil and Damian.)
History Club Posse- Eric, Skyla, Daniel, Goodlett (and little Goodlett, AKA Ana.)
My pets- Stasya and Jarrod.
The scholarly types, not so much "pals", but people that I am very fond of- Amy C., Dr. Bartlett, Kim P., Sharla and Sweetpea, Dr. Duffy, Dr. Geo, and even Todd and Singleton.

It makes you consider that maybe there was more reason to set The Wizard of Oz in Kansas than just for a tornado. As creepy as it may be, the midwest is unique. The warm and friendly nature of many its inhabitants are lovely things to be surrounded by. Sure, there's no shortage of jackasses and morons, but that's life. At least out here it's not generally all that hip to make a habit of being pretentious and snobby. Uptight, yes, but not rude.

We had a good night.

Hopefully I'll have time to write more about them soon.

Another Iron Man Note...

I forgot to mention this earlier...
One of the keys to Iron Man's success is this--leave the angst out of the story. Thank god. You know how in Spider-Man, the whole MJ thing is just annoying an whiney? Well in Iron Man the movie is about....ADULTS! It's amazing what a couple decades can do to un-lame a story.
Basically, there aren't any children in the movie. There are grown-ups. In this example, it leads to a more enjoyable story minus any dumbass love triangles or whining. It's sooo much better that way.
Just FYI.

Iron Man

Who would have thought that Robert Downey Jr. would make a superior super hero? He's brilliant and completely perfect for the part. All the actors fit quite well for their intended purposes. I hope and assume we'll see more of them later.

I must say that I prefer Iron Man to Spidey at this point. (Katie is the Marvel expert, but I do believe this is the best of the bunch as of late.)

This was a fun movie to watch. I wish there would have been more of it. But, for those that are smart enough to STAY FOR THE CREDITS, this won't be the last we see of good old Iron Man. It looks to be a very exciting beginning of things to come. Now we can hope that they don't screw up the sequels.

New study: 58 percent of black children can't swim

So that might be one of the weirdest headlines ever but I suppose it's true. It hadn't occurred to me to think about this.
However, the article has a valid point. That being, "Black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate." That's not good. Teach your kids to swim people. And a good percent of Hispanic children can't swim either. What happens if someone falls in a pool? Just hope there's some white folks to rescue them? That's not a good plan for any situation. We rarely save things, we generally make it worse. Anywho, it's just an odd statistic I guess. We're all just getting fatter, maybe the kids should be learning to swim for several reasons...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_on_re_us/swimming_blacks