BJ and Tyler

I LOVE BJ and Tyler. LOVE THEM!

Here's why: They are so friendly. They are so nice and goofy and happy-go-lucky.

But what I really love is that they have learned to say something (at the very least, "thank you,") in the language of all of the countries they visited. AND THEY USE IT!!!

Often times, people will know how to use the language but not actually do it (so often you hear them say thank you in English with attempting the other language... in the case of The Race, it could very well be the stress of racing, being in a hurry... but often it is being nervous about saing it wrong, or just not knowing it or whatever...

BJ and Tyler are SO GRACIOUS!!! They ALWAYS talk to the locals and always say something in that language. I LOVE that about them... They are so fun and happy and unselfconscious and friendly.

They are my All Time favorite Racers

Glad I'm an HB Barbie

Irvine Barbie
This princess Barbie is only sold at The Irvine Spectrum. She comes
With an assortment of Louis Vuitton handbags, a Lexus SUV, a toy dog named Honey, and a cookie-cutter house. Available with or without tummy tuck and face lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with "augmented" version.

Orange Barbie
This modern-day homemaker Barbie is available with Ford Windstar
Minivan and white silouette stickers of family members on the rear
window. Known as a "soccer mom" she gets lost easily and has no full time occupation or secondary education. Has PTA membership and comes with Tupperware accessories. Cell phone sold separately.

Garden Grove Barbie
In addition to perfect English, this Barbie also speaks fluent
Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Mandarin and Tagalog. Comes with her own
street-racing import car, complete with Japanese animation decals. Large collection of video games sold separately. Careers or homes for this Barbie are not available, because she will stay with her parents until they die. If you purchase a Ken doll, he must move into her family's home and wait for their inheritance.

Buena Park Barbie
This recently paroled former "Porn Actress" Barbie comes with a 9mm
handgun, a Ray Lewis knife, a Chevy with dark tinted windows, and a
meth lab kit. This model is only available after dark and can only be
paid for in cash.

Tustin Ranch Barbie
This yuppie Blond Barbie comes with your choice of a convertible
Mercedes AMG55 or a Cadillac Escalade. Included are her own Starbucks cup, credit card, and Curves membership. Comes also with Giorgio Armani fragrance, Gucci bag and Kate Spade sunglasses. Additional options for this set are Shallow Ken and Private School Skipper. (You won't be able to afford any of them).

Yorba Linda Barbie
This brunette Barbie is the sister to Tustin Ranch Barbie and comes
with or without highlig hts. She comes with a BMW convertible or Hummer H2, Kenneth Cole Sunglasses, a Country Club Membership, and a Pier 1 credit line. Options for Yorba Linda Barbie are the Shiseido makeup kit; the Bvlgari jewelry set, or the Prada shoe collection. Yorba Linda Barbie has optional yuppie Ken doll complete with Corvette, hair gel and Rolex watch.

Newport Beach Barbie
This collagen injected, rhinoplastic Barbie wears an Yves Saint Laurent leopard print bikini outfit and drinks cosmopolitans while entertaining friends at the beach house. Percocet prescription and monthly alimony checks are included. This Barbie is only sold in Fashion Island.

Laguna Beach Barbie
This doll comes complete with craft set. She has long straight brown
hair, archless feet, no makeup, and Birkenstocks with white socks. She prefers that you call her "Willow." She does not want or need a Ken doll, but if you purchase two Laguna Beach Barbie's, you get a rainbow flag sticker free.

Long Beach Barbie
This Barbie now comes with a stroller and infant doll. Optional
accessories include a GED and a bus pass. Gangsta Ken and his '79 Caddy were available, but are now very difficult to find since the addition of an infant.

Huntington Beach Barbie
This very tan Barbie comes with string bikini, wet suit, 3 friendship
bracelets and surfboard. An MP3 player, Blockbuster video membership, pair of Vans and a beach cruiser are also included. Optional is her Lifeguard Yellow Ford Ranger with board rack (free KROQ sticker included!) Spicolli Ken can be purchased separately and comes with Hawaiian shirt and board shorts.

Rancho Santa Margarita Barbie
She 's perfect in every way. Her home is perfect. Her family is perfect. Comes with a part time job to earn her own spending money and a bible for church on Sundays. Also has a pre-assigned carpool day. We don't know who Ken is because he's always away hunting or biking or something...

Santa Ana Barbie
This Spanish-speaking-only Barbie comes with a 1984 Toyota with
expired temporary plates and three baby Barbies in the back seat, but
no car seats. The optional Ken doll comes with a meat-packer's uniform and is missing three fingers on his left hand. Green cards are not available for Santa Ana Barbie or Ken.

OUT OF TOWN BARBIES:
Fontana Barbie
This pale model comes dressed in low rise Levi's, a NASCAR shirt, and a Tweety Bird tattoo on her shoulder. She has a six-pack of Coors Light and a Hank Williams, Jr. CD set. She can spit over 5 feet and
kick mullet-haired Ken's ass when she is drunk. A mobile home is also
available.

Norco Barbie
This tobacco chewing, brassy-haired Barbie comes with her own horse and dog! Her ensemble includes pair of Wrangler jeans (2 sizes too small), straw hat, fake rhinestone belt and belt buckle bought from the local paw n shop. Purchase her pickup truck separately and get a confederate flag bumper sticker absolutely free!
Hemet Barbie
This aging Barbie is best kept indoors. She comes complete with wire
grocery stroller, Omni Trans bus pass, food stamps, coupon book and
sewing machine. Optional mobile home comes with choice of colored rock and various cactus varieties.

West Hollywood
Barbie/Ken
This versatile doll can be easily converted from Barbie to Ken by
Simply adding or subtracting the multiple "snap-on" parts.

Happy Birthdays

Not long ago, Brooke Shields bravely shares with the world her battle with postpartum depression.

Tom Cruise gets on the Today show and tells the world that there is no such thing as chemical imbalances that need to be treated with drugs.

Brooke lives a happy, peaceful life with her family, and recieves kudos and support from many in the community who have faced similar battles.

Tom jumps on people's couches, and delivers unintelligible interviews which typically involve the interviewer asking a question, and Tom Cruise responding by staring down the interviewer with a glazed look, complete with a half-smile, before answering with incoherent statements that badly dodge what the interviewer was looking for.

(And this behavior is proof that drugs are not needed for chemical imbalances?)

Today, April 18, Brooke Shields gave birth to her second daughter, Grier.

Also today, April 18, Katie Holmes (Tom Cruise's fiancee) gives birth to their daughter, Suri.

Let's hope Katie doesn't suffer from any depression.

Let's hope Tom comes out of the closet.

Let's hope Suri isn't totally screwed up by the time she's 10.

In Michigan

I'm in Michigan this week spending time with my mom and Bobby. We are having a blast. Lots of talking, lots of singing karaoke. Oh and I keep playing on their treadmill. I want a treadmill! We went shopping yesterday and I bought a really cute skirt that I am going to wear on my Mexico cruise this summer!

Poor Ginger is blind now. Her eyes are kinda freaky looking becasue they are all cloudy white and covered with cateracts. However (and I guess this sounds strange about a dog, and really, what other choice does she have?) but I just feel such a sense of pride and admiration in this dog. She could just sit in one place every day, but she doesn't... she still roams about the house and out in the back yard... she moves slowly and cautiously, but to navigate the world blind like she does, its amazing to see. I know many people who aren't as brave as this little dog is.

We are going to Skyline Chili tonight. I am SO excited. I am getting a four way (for those of you who don't know the lingo, a four way is spaghetti topped with chili, cheese and onions,) and a coney. YUMMERS! I can't wait!

I'm going to hop in the shower and we're going to go to the mall now. Bye!

Good Morning

I saw a rainbow this morning on may way to work. The bottom half in front of me led me all the way here. And then when I got out I was greeted by the whole arc.

Beautiful.

Crash

Wow. I just saw the movie Crash. What an amazing, thought provoking movie. It was, in many ways, painful to watch.

Perspective.

Moving.

SO many amazing, powerful scenes. So many seemingly minor, yet incredibly thought provoking.

The odd thing about this world is that you can never really get inside someone else's head.

I could go in and describe scene detail by detail and analyze it (like I am doing on the phone with my mom right now..) but I can't because I don't know if you've seen it.

See this movie.

I like facts. I like dealing in facts. I like dealing with what is. The rational. The logical.

But the problem is we live in a world of people. And not all people are rational or logical or factual. People are emotional. People are opinionated. People often rely more on their beliefs then anything else. And no facts can change that.

If someone believes that one race is superior to another, their beliefs are going to create an alternate reality, despite the fact that no race is superior.

If someone believes that being gay is wrong, then it is their beliefs that are creating the reality.

If someone believes that people on the street have a choice, then their beliefs create the reality, despite what may be true for each individual.

If someone believes that a person with a tatoo is morally indecent or trashy, then every person they meet with a tatoo has entered into the reality of that person.

People's opinions, people's beliefs, create their reality. But that reality extends beyond their lives. It reached out and touches others.

People hurt each other, disrespect each other, call each other names, honk at each other, spread anger and hate... because they believe the person they are doing it to... what? doesn't have feelings? deserves it? Was a born a certain color? Lives a certain lifestyle?

If someone is pissed off and decides to pull a gun on someone, no amount of fact or logic or reason is going to change that situation.

But what I really liked about the movie is it wasn't all about death. Death isn't the only bad thing that can happen when people's opinions invade into other's lives.

This is the world that our opinions and beliefs are creating.

Are we happy with it?

When I was in high school, my friend wrote me a letter once. She has a child. She is white, and the baby's father is black. My friend was worried about being a good mom. She didin't know how to raise her daughter... in the black culture or the white. I thought that was the most ridiculous thig I had ever heard. I wrote back that she should raise her daughter to be herself. Why does she have to be raised black or white? My friend wrote back, "You live in such a bubble out there in California. The real world isn't like that."

That line resonates in my head to this day. What does it mean? I grew up rarely seeing racism. Or did I? Maybe I BELIEVED that racism didn't exist, so I never saw it. Maybe my beliefs made me just as blind?

When I see a movie like Crash, I want to think that it can't really be true. People don't really treat each other like this. Do they? It doesn't make sense.

But then I start thinking about beliefs that I have heard... "She has a tatoo, wow she must be pretty messed up" "Isn't being Gay totally sick?" "Asian drivers" "illegals working at the drive through."

Sigh. I'm not living in a bubble. It exists all around me. And whether its a choice (tatoo, piercings,) you were born with it (your race), or the jury's still out (being homosexual), not a single one of these things, in and of itself, is a reason for hate, meaness, disrespect. Its only people's beliefs that make it such.

I know people with tatoos who wouldn't hurt a fly, who are caring and respectful. I know Asians who are good drivers. I know Mexicans who have come legally to America and worked hard to learn English so that they could work at drive throughs. And I know gay people who are more family oriented and moral then many straight people I know. I've seen them. I've had their children in my classrooms.

Why the tendancy to have opinions that assume the worst out of people?

What good does that do? To make a more peaceful, humane, better society, wouldn't it be better to assume the best of people?

Think of it this way. If you go into a situation where you think negatively, how hard does the other person have to work to make you change your mind and view it positively? On the other hand, if you assume a positive view and need to change your mind, well, it is a lot easier to change your view to the negative then to the positive.

Another point the movie brought up is those within a certain stereotype who choose to perpetuate it. In this movie, blacks who continue to steal and rob was a major example.

Some great examples:
1) Anthony: That waitress sized us up in two seconds. We're black and black people don't tip. So she wasn't gonna waste her time. Now somebody like that? Nothing you can do to change their mind.

Peter: So, uh... how much did you leave?

Anthony: You expect me to pay for that kind of service?

2)
Anthony: Look around! You couldn't find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gangbangers? Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared, it's us: the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people, patrolled by the triggerhappy LAPD. So, why aren't we scared?

Peter: Because we have guns?

Anthony: You could be right.

And the response, later in the movie?
Cameron: [to Anthony] Look at me. You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself.

SO true. When people behave badly, they perpetuate stereotypes. WHen someone does something wrong, it reflects on their type. Someone commits a crime? Well, its becasue their black, or Mexican, or an Asian gang banger, or a spoile rich white kid, or poor white trash, or a punker with tatoos and piercings...

So what else needs to change? Not just people's beliefs, but people's actions. Represent. Remember, for every action you take, you are representing. Yourself, your family, your culture, your community, your "type."

And what about those who truly do represent in a positive way, but are still assumed to be "less then..." Keep fighting the good fight, people. Its a vicious cycle. Don't fall into it.

Where am I going with this? Sigh. I don't know either. Maybe that's why Crash "ended" the way it did. Kind of like this blog. It didn't really end.

Officer Hanson: Something else funny?
Peter: [laughing] People, man... people.