Calfgrit4’s bowling birthday party was a hit with all the kids. His guests were five girls between the ages of 4 and 7. At his current age, with his experience regularly playing with girls, this arrangement wasn’t anything to note from his point of view. He was more interested in the bowling balls than the friends, anyway.

After each bowl, he’d run back to the ball return and look down into the conveyor tube. He didn’t care how many pins he knocked down, or if he had another bowl or not, he just wanted to see the ball come back up. His ball was the only dark one — the others were pink.

In 10 or 12 more years, it will be his fantasy to have a birthday party with nothing but girls (his age or older). I bet then he’d be more attentive to his guests. That might actually be a cool “gift” to get him — instead of a car — for his 16th birthday.

“Hey, son, guess who’s coming to help you celebrate your big day. Monica, Sandra, Brandi, Catherine, and Janet.”

I can just picture the look of excitement and terror.

* * *

Other guests to yesterday’s party were all the grandparents, of course. Brogrit surprised me by coming with Momgrit — and he brought Michelle. Michelle is a regular commenter on this site, but I had never met her before this. Heck, I never knew of her before her comments here. Howdy y’all. Thanks for coming.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I so loved the Transformers movie that I bought it on DVD as soon as it was available. I don’t do that often. I own less than two dozen movies, and half of them are on VHS.

So I pulled it out the other day and watched the movie again. I saw it three times in the theater, and once at home (right after I originally bought the DVD). I loved it all those times, and this fifth time, too. But this time, I saw the plot holes big enough to drive Optimus Prime through.

I still absolutely and thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but this feeling confuses me. Normally when I see seriously stupid plot items, I’m jolted out of the in-movie world. And once a movie has jarred my willing suspension of disbelief out of alignment, it’s hard to get back into it.

For instance, when Megatron awakens, the humans decide to take the All Spark out of the heavily protected Hoover Dam and out into the open in a city filled with civilians. This is DUMB. Absolutely stupid. It’s a huge plot problem. But why did I not care the first four times I watched the movie?

Is it that the coolness of giant, transforming robots fighting just overwhelmed my little geek brain to the point where I just missed plot problems? Quite probably. Does this mean I can be “bought off” of plot problems by cool action? But I’ve noticed plot problems in other movies with cool action.

Maybe it’s just that my price tag for plot bribery is giant, transforming robots?

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

There’s a lot of “Get out the vote” type ads on TV and radio and the Web. The concept is a great public service thing: remind people to go out and do their one major civic duty as citizens of this country. But on actually giving the concept some thought, I disagree with the commercials.

Much of the news over the past year has been concerning the nearing election day. As we’ve gotten closer to the day, the news has focused even more on the election and the candidates. The airwaves are full of candidate commercials. Everyone should know the election is near and what the choices are.

If you need to have celebrities telling/reminding you to vote, I’d rather you just not vote. I don’t trust that you have a clue what’s going on or which candidate stands for what enough to make an intelligent decision for the president of the country, the governor of the state, the mayor of the city, or the dog catcher for the pound.

If you need to have someone come to your home and goad you into registering and voting, you don’t deserve to vote. If when someone asks you if you’re going to vote, you don’t say, “Yes,” or “I want to,” then I don’t want anyone helping you out.

If you’re just “Meh, I’m thinking about maybe voting,” then you just don’t worry about it. Let people who actually give a damn and maybe have given it some actual thought do the voting. And if some random stranger knocking on your door or calling on your phone can talk you into voting when you weren’t going to bother, you’re a sucker who will vote for whoever they suggest.

I’m not saying you should have already made your decision on who to vote for. I can appreciate that that’s not a decision to make lightly. But you should have already made the decision to vote.

I’d much rather know that a candidate won or lost the election because people who actually care and pay attention voted, rather than think that the tally came up as it did because a big chunk of lazy, apathetic, idiots were prodded into the voting booth.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com