Pirates and Racism at Toys R Us

I may have mentioned previously, but we recently found a pair of sisters that are of babysitting age. This means that Jessica and I can get out of the house every once in a while to escape the kids. Last night was one of those occasions for us. I was going to have a poker game, but I cancelled it because no one could make it. So, I suggested a night on the town. It was a pretty good time. We started out with dinner as BD Mongolian BBQ. It's like a buffet (we took a night off of our diet) where you put together your meal (they have a large variety of fresh meats, veggies, and sauces) and they cook it in front of you. You can go back as many times as you want. It was pretty good stuff. We were then going to go see Pirates of the Carribbean 2, but had about 45 minutes to kill before we needed to be at the theater. So, we decided to go to Toys R Us to check out the latest in toys and games. I was looking for one of those BSG Colonial Vipers and and Xbox games while Jessica was looking at dolls. After I was through looking, I met Jessica at the girly toy area and she said that she was a little offended. I naturally asked why and she pointed to two dolls marked for clearance. They were the same size, had the same clothes, were made by the same company, and were vertually identical in every way. Only, one was a black doll and one was a white doll. The white doll was $19.95 and the black doll was $9.95. Is that crazy or what? Granted, there were, like seven or eight black baby dolls and ony one white one, but how can you sell the same toy for different prices just because the skin pigmentation is different? If I were a black man, I think I would have been really pissed off. I know we were in Dublin, which is a predominantly white community, but what kind of message does it send to little girls who see that a black baby doll is worth half as much as the white baby doll? It wasn't just this model either. There was a smaller doll on clearance and the white ones were $9.95 and the black ones were $2.95. I think that Toys R Us is really risking some serious PR issues with this. Get Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson in here and Toys R Us is in a world of racial troubles. I understand the concept of supply and demand, there were more black baby dolls than white ones, but you can sell the same toy, or any product, for different prices just because the colors are different. Can you? I'm still a bit floored by that. I wsh I had my camera with me for documentation.

We finally made it to the movie. It was pretty good. Some of the scenes were a bit over the top for my taste, but there were some good funny parts and good action sequences. The effects were good too. It was sorta like The Empire Strikes Back in that it leaves you hanging at the end. I won't go into details, but this is the first part of a two part movie story. You definately get a 'Han is frozen in carbonite and things don't look good for the rebellion' feeling at the end of this movie. You need to have seen the first movie to get all of the jokes and dramatic character appearances. Almost everyone is back from the first flick. If you were a fan of the first movie, you should go see this one too.