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3:38 PM, Tuesday, June 25th, 2019:   430 entries ago we first took the kids to the zoo and I was torn. Well, duh, here, read it:     As you can see, after my time in Africa, I found it nearly impossible to support zoos or any animal captivity other than helping injured animals get back to their habitats. I think we only went twice on our season pass and never re-upped. It should also be noted that however strong in convictions that may seem, it was legitimately because that zoo is straight the fuck up hill on the side of a mountain and it SUCKS WITH KIDS. I don't know how people do it more than once.   Anyway, while we were in San Diego, Jimmy and Kaylyn thought Sea World would be fun as they have season tickets. As I said in the 2015 entry, I don't want my personal issues to keep my kids from seeing a dolphin with their own eyes and someday I'll take them on safari and hopefully they'll agree with me that these places suck and we never have to go. While they're super-little I at least want to expose them to it. As well Sea World got SHELLACKED by the Black Water documentary and I was quite curious how they stayed in business after that. Clearly some things had to have changed. More about that after the video...     As you could see, very hard to do my usual voice-over since the kids love these videos and I'm just not ready to have THIS conversation with them.   But also as you can see? They had fun jumping around and riding rides... the "sea" aspect felt pretty secondary. That's certainly the first change I noticed: it's more ride centered. And the other beat-you-over-the-head aspect is that there's a constant focus on education. Gone is the Orca show where they jumped around and shit (though they ad no problem putting a bow-tie on a Sea Lion and making him jump through hoops - lol), no the Orca show is now literally the whales swimming while you look at pictures of them on a big screen.   Uhm.   Like either do it or don't do it. I already feel like an asshole for buying the tickets, now you're gonna make me feel bad because I expected to see some whales jump? Now I'm the dick and you're the good guys? How'd that happen?! I'm kidding, but it was strange. We were told to skip over the dolphin show, but we'll check it some other time as we can go again before the end of the year. I mean the overall takeaway is that is just seems like a really shitty rendition of an amusement park. The employees look miserable, there's no... hate to say it, but, magic? Wonder? Disney and Universal have that in droves. Sea World felt depressing to me, but that could also be me having issues with it all.   Life is pretty grey.   Adam