More scattered thoughts

There isn't any one thing that's on my mind; rather, there are a lot of random things:

1. While I read about it in my local paper and wanted to write about it, Jon Stewart already beat me to this one particular thing. Apparently, the Republicans are changing their strategy when it comes to the whole gay marriage issue. They're trying to focus on how more marriage partners will potentially hurt small business owners (who provide health insurance) if gay marriage is allowed. I suppose that I can understand somebody having this idea, but I don't understand how nobody filtered out the notion before it got to the point where it was both said out loud and said publicly. As anybody with half a brain has pointed out, this seems to be more of an argument against marriage in general rather than just gay marriage.

This just goes to show that the anti-gay marriage crowd is getting desperate. More states are allowing it, and recent polls show that the tide of public opinion is turning (which should come as no surprise to nobody, as the new, young voters are more and more in favor of allowing gays to marry). They're basically grasping at straws here, just like they were with the whole Perez Hilton/Miss California thing. It must have been nice for conservatives to mock such an easy target as Hilton - it saves them the trouble of having to defend their indefensible position.

2. What's up with people who don't clean up after their dogs? There are a lot of big turds along the way where I walk my dog, Argos. There are some right in front of the house of this one guy with whom I talk on a semi-regular basis. He didn't ask, but I felt compelled to let him know that those turds didn't come from my dog. (Honestly, I don't clean up after Argos, but that's because I don't have to - he's kinda shy about pooping in front of people. If I didn't have to clean it up in his dog run every day, I wouldn't know that he even went! However, if he did go while on a walk, I'd clean it up, obviously.)

3. I went to a wedding last week, and I had to sit at a table where I didn't know a single person. (My wife was in the wedding party, so she was with all of them.) The thing is, I can do the small talk thing. I was shmoozing, making people laugh, and having a good time. After a couple hours of it though, I felt absolutely drained. I suppose I could have just sat there and said nothing, but for some reason when I'm around a lot of people - especially when I don't know them - I feel almost as though I have to put on a little show. A lot of people who only know me a little are surprised when I insist that I'm an introvert. The reason is that I actually have some pretty solid social skills. The problem is that using them takes up a lot of energy, so that's why I tend to avoid a lot of social interactions when I can.

4. I saw the new Terminator on Saturday. After reading the reviews, I expected it to be absolute crap. It's easily the worst of the series, but I would be lying if I said that I totally hated it. In fact, I kinda liked it. It's certainly not perfect, and I'm not necessarily recommending it either. Perhaps it's because my expectations were so low, but I kept expecting everything to suddenly turn to crap when I found myself enjoying it. That didn't happen though. What did happen is that when I had some time to think about it, I realized that it definitely had problems. Still, I liked it more than Wolverine.

5. They have a new trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie coming out. It shows some comic relief moments that the other did not. Once again, I must say that Michael Bay has robbed The Transformers of their dignity. Bastard.

6. GI JOE still looks like absolute crap, but I just know that I'll have students who will list it as their favorite movie of all time.