Incursio

Today, while visiting the " Mall of America " in Bloomington, Minnesota (Minneapolis / St. Paul metro) a late teens / early twenties woman walked by. She was dressed slightly punk. Something that you might find just about anywhere in Portland. She had some black clothing on, some funky shoes with heels, a little bit of spiky jewelry, darkish eye make-up and had half her hair dyed green. Nothing really extreme. No visible piercing, no hard core tattoos, nothing that even really looked odd. A girl, maybe around 6 or 7 years old, asked her mom: "Mom, why is she dressed like that?" and her mom replied "Oh, she must be in costume for the Harry Potter thing they have tonight." Now, as a thirty something - I would look pretty silly if I suddenly went punk or goth. But by all reasoning, had I grown up in Portland - that is probably how I would have been. Most of the places I like best in Portland - *I* look out of place as the boring-ish guy in a T-s

Pssst. Hey You. Yeah, you. My reader. It is time to raise the Oregon gas tax . Now go tell your friend(s)...

This morning we came downstairs and in our "breezeway" there was a large Steller's Jay . The Jay came in through our *dog door* and was trapped in the small room. There is only one window and it was covered, so he was just standing there on the railing. We opened the door to the room, and there he was hopping back and forth on the railing, looking at us with that "don't mess with me" eye. It startled the crap out of us. This is the bird that regularly terrorizes our cat out in the back yard. I have a strange feeling that he chased our cat through our dog door. We had to go around back and open the back door from the outside, and he promptly flew out. Lucky our breezeway door had been shut, he might have killed us in our sleep. Or at least made a mess in the house. He is clearly a very smart bird, as he pooped on my wife's Denver Broncos hat that was there... And our cat is still frazzled.

Apparently the absolute BEST time to OMSI or Benihana - is July 4. Both will be completely empty. People who review movies should have to take into consideration the intent of the Movie. For example, Transformers is not *supposed* to have a strong plot. It is *supposed* to have robots transforming and kicking each-others asses. Sure, the plot should not SUCK . The plot should not BLOW . And the plot should not make you want to HURL . But in an ACTION movie the plot is not supposed to be amazing, groundbreaking, or awe inspiring. But the ACTION should be, and the plot is there to hold it all together. Oh, and not *everything* needs to be completely believably plausible in a SCIENCE FICTION movie. Changing your career is scary. What the hell is a "drive by appraisal"? Do they come by in a 1964 Impala and shower your house with machine gun fire, and if it is still standing your house is worth more? Hell, I can drive by a house and say "I'd buy that for a

Michael Bay gets to keep his skin, because I just returned from the first showing of "Transformers" at the local theater (Pioneer Place, Portland), and it was everything I had expected. Judging from the raucous cheers that erupted at various points throughout the movie, and the roaring applause from the filled theater at the close of the show, I would say that I was not the only one who felt that "Transformers" delivered. I will be taking my entire family to see this one on the 4th. And as a person who is both highly critical of movies, and had extremely high expectations for the live-action movie made-from-his-childhood-dreams - I enjoyed it very very much. I will give no spoilers. But Optimus, aside from a new paint scheme, completely *is* Optimus. My only qualm was the fact that the movie could be classified as a very elaborate commercial for General Motors. However, given that the entire original show was a thinly veiled advertisement for the toys