I’m Seriously Considering Shipping All of My Kids Off To “Sergeant Bollocks Crusher’s Military School For Discipline & Respect

I got a text from Heather Graham the other day that read “Your son is grounded for life.” A few things struck me as I contemplated this cryptic message. First, why does he always becomes solely the spawn of MY seed when he does anything unspeakably bad as if her actually giving birth to him was no longer relevant to the subject at hand?

Second: I wondered about the wisdom of grounding him for life. How much of this behavior could I really take and do I want to endure it for another 50 years or so until either I’m dead or I’m too senile to care anymore? Only after I had contemplated these two points was I even mildly curious as to what he actually did.

Sometimes, as a parent…frankly, I don’t really care anymore. The monotony of the routine has dulled my wrath a bit over the years into a steady diet of: first offense =grounded for an hour, second offense = grounded for another hour + loss of video game privileges, third offense = grounded for an hour + loss of video games, Netflix and bike riding for the day and so on and so on. After awhile, I tend to forget what was actually done in the first place. I just can’t keep up.

So, I decided to make a list of just a few of the offenses my children have committed in recent memory. Keep in mind, this is by no means an exhaustive list. Just the ones I could jot down off the top of my head:

1. One sibling smacking another sibling across the face with a lightsaber

2. All three hiding from their mother in the clothes rack of a department store and pretending to have disappeared.

3. One sibling hiding a precious article of personal property belonging to another sibling in an obscure location somewhere in the house, and then forgetting where they hid it.

4. Telling the Gym Coach at school that he “stinks really bad.”

5. Telling a new substitute teacher that “This school was perfect before you were hired.”

6. Stabbing another student in the arm with a pencil. (In my child’s defense, I think he was actually sword fighting with another kid while my son perfected his lunge and parry fencing skills. But the other kid still got stabbed and my son was sent to the Principal’s office)

7. Displaying disrespect to the same Gym Teacher when the class was told to go grab their balls to play a game…and my son obeyed to the letter of the law.

Looking over this list, I’m wondering why in the world anyone would want to buy a book about parenting from my wife and I. Sounds like we are doing a bang up job so far.

But, I soldier on, doing the best job I can with the information I have at the time. There are times as a parent that I’m called to judge a dispute between two or more parties represented in our home. I sit there in my chair and blink at them while a list of offenses are rattled off for me to evaluate. The funny thing is my kids think that I’m actually listening to them, wisely weighing each argument before rendering my ruling. The truth is, I’m feeling like God tricked humanity with this whole “Procreation” thing he designed for a man and a woman to mate. The idea seemed good to me at the time and the act of procreation was great and all, but I think I missed something in the fine print that covered all of this stuff.

Honestly, I’m out of ideas on how to punish my kids anymore, so I could use your help. If anyone has any ideas they would like to share, feel free to reply and toss out your thoughts. I will take the best one and wrap them on tiny 4″ X 2″ strips of paper and fold them into a fishbowl. When my kids do something wrong, they will have to reach into the “Bowl of Sorrows” and pull out their punishment.

I will Tweet a picture of their reaction. (Shameless plug: you will have to follow me on Twitter to catch this)

One of the best ideas I had in awhile came when my son decided to move out of the house. He spewed a litany of charges against his mother and me and declared his independence. He hates me, he hates his mother, and he hates his life, and he just wants to move out on his own and be really happy. Now parent, POP QUIZ: How Do You Respond?

Do you:

A) Ground him for an hour to his room, like we do for every offense?

B) Slap the little urchin until he swallows his own teeth

C) Send him to Grandma’s house for the weekend

D) Tell him “Ok, you can move out and I’ll help you pack.”

I contemplated C for a long time, but my parents wouldn’t return my text. I need to stop beginning texts with “What are y’all doing this weekend?” every time I want them to keep my kids. They have learned and always seem to have something going on. No, I decided on D.

Like I said, why anyone would want to buy my parenting book baffles me.

But perhaps I should explain myself a little bit. I had a very good reason why I chose to help my son find his own place at the age of 10.

You see, a few months ago I taught my son how to grow sugar crystals in a cup with a cotton string. We experimented by adding dye to the water to create all kinds of cool colors that made the crystals look like jewels such as red rubies, clear diamonds and blue sapphires. We even did a batch of green Kryptonite.

This was a huge hit at school and every kid in the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades wanted one. So, my son started a business and had a waiting list of paying customers. I think the going rate was about $5 per crystal and the kid could have the color of their choice. To a 10-year old, that was like a 6 figure income.

Anyway, he had a steady business going there for a few weeks until the school cracked down on his little sugar crystal ring and closed him down. Evidently, it violated some district code or something. I told Gavin that he couldn’t sell his crystals anymore. To my surprise, he handled the news rather well. I was actually quite proud of him.

I should have known that it was too easy.

A few weeks later, I received a call from the Principal. Gavin had been caught selling crystals again. Evidently, he had been smuggling them in his backpack and selling them for kids’ lunch money at recess.

“But Dad,” he argued with me when I confronted him about it. “I promised my friends I’d deliver their crystals to them before you told me to stop and it takes 3 weeks to grow them.”

“Gavin, it’s against school policy. You can’t do it.”

“Yeah, but now I can get $10 each instead of just $5.”

My son had become the kingpin of the 4th grade.

Not too long after that my son got mad at me for something. I think I did something really bad like made him clean his room. He decided that my home was just too much pressure with all of the rules and expectations. He decided that if he had his own place, he could go to bed when he wanted and could keep his room in whatever condition he felt like. I listened to him rant at me for a minute as he told me all the ways his life would just be better off if he could move out.

This is where I opted for D. I told him “Ok, I’m fine with that but you will have to pay your own rent.”

“I can do that,” he agreed. “I can still sell my crystals.”

“Well,” I reasoned, “You’ve been warned that you can’t do that anymore. If the school found out, they might take all of your money. I’d suggest doing something that won’t leave you broke when your rent is due.”

“I could mow lawns,” he decided.

“Ok, well let’s see what you need to do.” So I took out some paper. “I have a neighborhood company that advertises to mow our lawn for $20, so if you want my business you would have to be lower than that.”

“I’ll do it for $10,” he replied.

“Fine, so you will make $10 per lawn. Now, you are limited in where you can live because you can’t drive yet. So you have to choose one of these luxury apartments by the school so you can still ride your bike.” I helped him look online and the cheapest 1 Bedroom apartments were about $1,200 a month. “Don’t forget about utilities, food and entertainment. I give you all of that here for free, but on your own you’ll have to pick up those costs too. To be safe, I think you will need about $2,000 a month to live.”

I pushed the paper to him. “Now you tell me how many lawns you will have to mow each month to make $2,000.

It took him awhile struggling with basic math to come up with 200.

“Ok, so you will need 200 clients who will let you mow their lawns. That means you will have to knock on doors. In sales, if you have a close rate of 1:10 for cold calling, you are doing well. So figure you will have to knock on 2,000 doors to get 200 people to agree.”

I let that number sink in, but I think I was already overwhelming him. I pushed on:

“Now, once you get 200 clients, it will take you about an hour to mow their lawn, but you still have to go to school, so you can only mow lawns from 4:00 in the afternoon until about 8:00 at night when it gets dark. That only gives you 4 hours each day. If you do this each day after school, you will have 20 houses done. If you work from 8:00 in the morning both Saturday and Sunday and don’t stop until 8:00 at night, you can get another 24 lawns mowed each weekend. That is 44 lawns in a week, multiplied by 4 gives you a total of 176 lawns you can mow in a month to pay your bills.”

My son just looked at me.

I pushed on. “Now, 176 lawns at $10 each will give you $1,760 each month, which still isn’t $2,000. I tell you what, I’ll give you $200 a month to cover the difference-until you are 18-since you are still my son.”

I let this sink into my son for a moment before I finished. “So, you have a choice. You can go to school each morning, and then work every day until dark, never seeing your friends, and work from sun rise until sunset all weekend without ever getting a break…or you can clean your room.”

“You choose.”

My Son Just Tied My Daughter To A Ceiling Fan

So, my wife and I are teaming up to co-author a book idea. Somehow, I got roped into writing a baby manual. Can you believe it? Me, parenting advice? Or, perhaps it’s a marriage guide for disillusioned couples struggling to keep their identity in the middle of a family. I don’t really know. I just write what my wife tells me to write. To sum up a possible tag line: Maintaining a sense of worth while raising children.

Or, to put it another way: “God, I was supposed to change the world, now all I’m changing is this dirty diaper.”

Which is currently our working title, so don’t steal it.

I always thought my first book would be some epic volume I of High Fantasy, not parenting and relationship advice from a male perspective but my wife wants me to add my own unique flare to her otherwise matronly and sensitive approach.

So here I sit, outlining 10 chapters or so. I have a rough sketch, so bare with me, but I’m thinking something like: Finding My Soul Mate With Big Knockers And Long Black/Blonde/Auburn/Red Hair, 2) You Know The Honeymoon Is Over When She Farts In Your Bed and  3) My Son Just Tied My Daughter To A Ceiling Fan.  

My wife just told me ‘no.’ Evidently those will not be the chapter headings of our book.

She said it will be something more like: 1) Finding “the one,” 2) Not so Happily Ever After” and 3) Raising Boys Vs Girls.

I am making light of this, but I am seriously excited as well. I think we will make a dynamic book that will not only be entertaining, but will have some very insightful things to say. As always, I will keep you apprised of our progress.

Check out her blog as well: Heater Graham

Shedbellyfatfast.net LOVED My Last Post!

Remember the other day when I wrote a small blog about the rumors of my demise being greatly exaggerated? As you recall, I found that out by reading through the searches that brought people to my blog. Let me find it for you…here it is: “Aaron Graham Cause Of Death”

Then, I launched my NaNoWriMoABaDMamMaJaMa Month off on my own and had a few posts about how well…err…not so well I’ve been doing with my 30 day writing challenge. I posted a few updates about my progress, but I think we’d all agree the past few weeks have not been a shining example of the kind of deep intellectual discussions you faithful readers have come to know and respect from my insightful and well researched posts. Heck, as you recall I totally blew my wife’s snort scale.

Nope. These past two weeks have not been my best work by a long shot. (Although, strangely enough I think I collected 4 more followers…go figure)

But fear not. Just when I might be a little depressed with my writing over the past few weeks, I logged in this morning and decided to read some comments that were pending moderation. Never mind the fact that all of these were found in my spam folder. My ego needed some stroking and since no one has commented on my blog for awhile, I thought it would be good for a “Pick-me-up”

I was not disappointed. Here is what my faithful spam readers felt about my last article when I delved into the scientific formula of my wife’s snot scale:

“That was some scholarly article…”

 “There is noticeably a bundle to know about this. I assume you made sure nice points in characteristics also.”

And my personal favorite:

“That is exactly what I needed. Tnx for the post. IMHO, other posts are not so interesting. Please don’t be offended, simply try to keep quality at this level.”

Yes, evidently my post about my wife’s snort scale was EXACTLY what Tom Craudfield from Printable Nike Coupons needed this week. (And apparently all my other posts just suck)

Oh, and for your information, the person who thought my Wife’s Snort Scale was “some scholarly article” was from shedbellyfatfast.net.

No kiddin! I would not make up things about people searching Google for my obituary, nor would I tease you about this. (Oh, I just misspelled obituary. So I used Google to help me spell it right and I learned something new. According to the “Urban Dictunary” an “Obitchuary” is a term used to describe a location where the residents will harm a prostitute per a pimp’s request. A ghetto pimp might use it as a noun, as in “Yo, bi#ch, do that again and I’ll send yo’ fat a$$ to the obitchuary!” I suppose this is like a prostitute’s “Time Out Chair.”  Wow…learn something new everyday when you misspell words and search Google for the correct meaning.

And yes…I did originally spell obituary “Hood Style”

But I digress.

As I was saying, those comments so made my day!

Speaking of making my day, I was approached by a friend of mine who asked me if I would be willing to review a book from a friend of hers. Since the ebook is fantasy (and since I know a thing or two about fantasy such as old men in grey beards make great wizards and the little forgotten race of Halflings usually win in the end) she thought I would be a great choice.

I was just flattered that my friend, who is a professional author, remembered my name.

In any event, I have agreed and I look forward to reading it and reviewing it for you here…sometime in the near future.

P.S. I can’t help but think of the final scene in Fan Boys when the Star Wars fans go through 1.5 hours of twists and turns to illegally steal a copy of Episode I so they can see it BEFORE it is released because they otherwise had no life to speak of. The last line of the movie is a panoramic shot of a crowded theatre of excited movie-goers dressed up in various costumes as the lights dim and the Lucusfilms fanfare begins. The crowd goes wild and one of the characters say: “What if the movie sucks?”

BLACKOUT

I donno…you connect the dots. I’m just sayin…

1,293 Words For NaNo While Failing My Wife’s ‘Snort Scale’

So, my NaNo challenge is on life support. Since November 1st, I have managed 1,293 words. See, this is why I didn’t officially sign up. I knew I would lag behind, but I’m really proud of the short story Iv’e been working on. I think it’s quirky and a little off beat:

Luchet had been Lar’s best friend since they were roommates at the wizard’s academy, but everyone just called him ‘Lunklump.’ He had failed an attempt to blend mechanical gadgets using a sophisticated alchemy spell and accidently bound himself to a chunk of iron. The Grand Wizard of the academy had to perform another spell to separate him from the ore attached to his posterior, but the name ‘Lunklump’ stuck.  

I thought it was funny, anyway.

On Thursday, I read the whole story to my wife and she didn’t even crack a smile. Usually, I can tell when she is really enjoying something I wrote because she spews coffee out of her nose with a sudden guffaw. Of course, I have to clean up the sofa behind her, but it’s well worth it because I know my work is something special.

I call it the “Snort Scale” and my overall score not only determines which of my posts eventually become linked on HER Facebook (a very important marketing tool because she has WAY more friends than I do) but it also gives me a since of accomplishment.

I think my record on the “Snort Scale” was about an 8.7 and I have the coffee stains to prove it.

But to not even register a smirk? That is like a pitiful 2.4.

“You don’t seem to like it,” I asked her when I finished.

“It’s not one of your best,” she said with brutal honestly.

And that just took the wind out of my sails for NaNo. On Friday I came up with an excuse why I couldn’t get up at 5:00 AM and had to be at work by 10:00 AM on Saturday after an all night poker binge and Sunday was my lazy football day. This morning…well, I don’t have a good excuse for this morning either.

So here I sit, 7 days into my goal to write 16 short stories in 30 days…and I have 1,293 words so far.

But I have good news for you, my faithful readers. I will not disappoint you. I announced that I would publish something by January 1 2012, and (strike a Scarlett O’Hara desperation pose) as God As my witness I shall!

And to sweeten the deal I will further reward your patience with me, I shall post TWO things today. (I have to get to work, otherwise I would do it now) I have a great blog coming up about an art exhibit that is worth about $1.1 million dollars being ruined by a rather dedicated cleaning lady and a congregation of churchgoers who were asked if they would please leave their guns at home before they come to worship.

Oh yeah, it is going to be a dozy!

Lars Alius Boncasius Fenwick Cavus II. (His friends call him La’bifcii for short)

Well, my NaNoWriMo is off to a rip roaring start. I wrote 457 words this morning. Yeah, someone dial 9-1-1…I’m burning it up!

My alarm went off at 5:00 and I slept in until 5:45. I stumbled downstairs and made some coffee and collected some of my notes. As soon as the coffee was finished I sat down with my outline and began to work.

At exactly 7:01, my daughter stumbled into the living room and turned on PBS Kids.

I can’t concentrate with shows about talking dogs who like Alphabet Soup on in the background.

But 457 words is better than 0 and the day is not done. As soon as they go to school, I’ll try some more. There is always my lunch break and then when I get home tonight. In any event, there is no way I’d be able to hit the recommended quantity most single college kids are shooting for this month, which is why I didn’t officially sign up for NaNoWriMo, but chose instead to honor the spirit of it with my own writing challenge for November.

I have a goal for the next 30 days that I finally settled on. I waffled back and forth for the past week with exactly what I wanted to accomplish. Did I want to finish the final draft of my novel? Did I want to write a YA Fantasy for Middle School readers? Did I want to write something totally new and focus on an alien erotica romance?

Instead, of all of those great ideas, I have decided to focus on a project that I hope all of you will end up enjoying and it will give me a small sense of accomplishment.

I have two anthologies of short stories I’ve been “working” on for quite awhile now. Well, to be honest with you, I’ve not touched them in years, but I do have 4 short stores I’m proud of and “anthology” sounds better. My goal for the next 30 days is to write 16 more.

I then plan to edit them over the month of December and polish them up until they are all nice and spiffy.

That means by January 1, 2012 I will self-publish all 20 stories in e-book formats such as Nook and Kindle! (Well, I may edit that number down in December, but you get the idea)

So, I guess this is like my pseudo press release announcing the publication date for a new title.  Wow…sounds kinda cool. I should have worn a suit and tie. It’s 7:40 and I’ve not even brushed my teeth yet. This was not quite what I envisioned my first press release would be like, but welcome to the digital age!

Many of my posts this month will be little teasers of the stories I’m working on. I spoke to my agent and we both agreed that the best way to market this project would be to wet your appetite with small snippets and random one-liners periodically sprinkled over my blog and twitter for the next 61 days. I took our idea down to the advertising division of my publisher and they will get to work on it. I just told those slackers down there that I had to have this ready to go January 1.

They better not miss this hard deadline or heads will roll!

Here is my first teaser. This story is about an aristocratic wizard who flunks out of anacademy and needs to perform some magic tricks in the tavern in order to eat.

“Lars Alius Boncasius Fenwick Cavus II stood on the small stage with an elaborately decorated walking stick held over his head trying to remember the words to a spell he had learned at the academy a few months before. His friends called him “Labficii”. Some of his old professors used to call him “Shaky Hands Labficii.” The last thing Lars learned was that acolytes who have a name like “Shaky Hands” never last very long at a wizard’s academy.”

I hope you are hooked because watch for it on an e-reader near you very soon!

“Aaron D Graham Cause Of Death” and NaNoWriMoABaDMamMaJaMa

Have you ever looked at the “Top Searches” on your dashboard?  Sometimes they are good for a few chuckles to find out what kind of things might bring all of you fine readers to my site. Such as “Phone In Bra”  Yep. Evidently some of you found me by searching for phones in bras. I can only assume you ment to find my post on Mother’s Day this year “Word Association This Mother’s Day: You Say Mother I Say Mammary.”  But seriously…did you really find me by looking for “Phone In Bra”? I don’t even want to know what kind of porn you might have under your bed.

Other searches were understandable, such as “Zombies Being Controlled”

Or “Famous Cheat Codes”

But the one that actually concerns me was this one: “Aaron D Graham Cause Of Death.”

Did some of you actually search for my demise…or are you secretly plotting it?  Either way, it was a bit disconcerting to see that some of you stumbled on my little peaceful slice of the internet looking for whether or not I was dead.

I assure everyone, I am very much alive.

Which brings me to a rather morbid thought…how would anyone know if I DID in fact have a rather violent collision with a MAC Truck? How would any of you know…come to think of it…I did have that four month sojourn where I didn’t post anything for awhile…

OMG…is that why some of you searched for my death?  Did you think I kicked it? Shuffled off my mortal coil? Went belly up in a shallow grave?  Expired? Gone the way of a dinosaur?  Offed?

Wacked?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am so sorry!  That is actually sad in a hilarious sort of way. Truly, if there was one of my now 38 subscribers who had been wondering why I had not written in 4 months and actually went on line to search google whether or not I had died, I sincerely apologize!  If it’s true…I’m a little humbled.

I assue all of you, if I ever find myself on a little boat crossing the river Styx, I will text my agent and have him post an addendum to this blog straightaway, informing everyone of my demise. (Wait a second…I don’t have an agent, so my wife will have to do. Unless of course my wife is with me when the aforementioned MAC truck slams into both of us, in which case our fate will be left up to my mother to post on our behalf…but then again, my mother typically forgets her facebook password and has about 8 different accounts because she keeps making up a new one every time she forgets her old password…

I guess that means ya’ll are just out of luck until I get an agent) 

But, between that day and this, I do plan to continue plugging away few times a week in small 500-700 word essays on my rather scribbled, colored way outside the lines, view on life. Even during July, August and September…I knew I would hop on again…eventually.

In fact, I have so recharged my batteries I’ve been tempted to take my own unique twist with this whole NaNo thing. No, I don’t think I will sign up for it, so I wont’ get one of those snazzy little blog banners to post up here in a few days. But, in honor of the NaNoWriMoObAmABaDMaMaJaMa, I am going to outline my own set of goals, which will be updated here.  Give me another day or two to iron out the wrinkles, but I have some specific objectives I WANT to accomplish by November 30th.

I just don’t think it will be 50,000,000,000 words on a new novel. 

If you have any ideas, feel free to share.  Or if you have any writing goals of your own, maybe we could hold each others feet to the fire…while we roast marshmellows and have SMORES.

UPDATE #1 I just ran across this rather inspirational quote for all of us unpublished and unagented writers out here. Check out Laney’s post from today and smile.

UPDATE # 2 I just ran across this rather delightful blog from my Twitter account. MJWright is definatly worth the read, especially if you are a lover of Tolkien as I am!

“I’ll make you eat those words one day, you fat sow!”

I am proud of myself this morning. It is just after 7:00 AM. My daughters are up watching Martha Speaks. My son is still sleeping. My wife is beginning to buzz around to get things ready for school…and I’ve been up for 2 hours writing. My coffee is lukewarm and I’m 850 words further along in my story that I was at 4:45 AM.

This is the discipline I’ve needed. I even had a moment at 5:15 when the coffee was brewing I hopped on line to check my blog. No one else had “liked” my previous post from the weekend, so I figured it was time to post something new and move on from the whole “King Herod and the Godfather” story line. I was even tempted to get into writing a new blog.

“I’ll just do it real quick while the coffee if brewing,” I told myself.

The temptation was there. I even had a blank document up and my fingers hovering over the home row keys ready to fly.

But I knew what would happen. I would get into writing some blog and it would eat up all of my precious time. No offense to my 33 subscribers, I do love you all, but this time was reserved for my book, not you. So, I just did some mindless analysis of my daily statistics until about 5:20 and went down to get that cup of coffee.

An hour and a half later, I was satisfied with myself and double checking the pages to make sure enough tension was woven in to keep the story moving. I love this line: “I’ll make you eat those words one day, you fat sow!” Amlyn said with bile…

I wrote that about 6:35 AM. There was just something cool about the imagery of “eating your words” and a pig as an insult to a woman.  Yikes!  Good thing for Amlyn he hops out of the carriage and runs off.

But I must give credit where credit is due. Not for the line. I wrote that on my own. I mean for this sudden desire to get up earlier and write with more discipline. Dennis Mahoney’s blog was the most recent inspiration for me. He wrote a great piece on Saturday about his daily schedule. From time to time I do this: commit myself to an early morning writing schedule to write as much as possible before the house wakes up and my ‘zone’ is shattered by PBS Kids Television, early morning bickering and my son who can’t understand why he can’t have a popsicle for breakfast.

According to him, it would help him wake up.

Alas, I need to go help them get ready. Hopefully you guys can help keep me accountable to make sure I’m writing when I’ve blocked out time to do so.

Why I Hate Star Wars, Episode I (Or, “Flashing My ‘Geek Card’ At The Door”)

On Saturday I went to my writer’s group and had a great discussion with Kristin Lamb about Star Wars.  One thing led to another and before I knew it, we were critiquing the prequels. As with most Star Wars Fans, our opinion was not very high. Still, its always good fun to sit around and rip George Lucas a new one.

She plans to write a blog on this in the next few days. As soon as it is up, I will link it here:

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/what-went-wrong-with-the-star-wars-prequels/

I mentioned to her that I wrote a critique a few years ago on this very subject. I thought it would be fun to rehash it on this blog.  Not only is it a fun post, but it gives you a glimpse into the kind of crazy rabbit trails we end up talking about at the Warrior Writers Group every Saturday morning at 10 AM.

Enjoy eavesdropping on the cliff notes of our conversation yesterday:

I love the original Star Wars trilogy.  I even hung a Boba Fett action figure from my rear view mirror when I was in college until it was stolen.  I replaced it with Darth Vader.  He was also stolen.  I bought a second Vader, which was stolen along with my car stereo and CD player.  After that, I gave up on hanging action figures from my rear view mirror, but I never gave up on Star Wars.  Like most fans, I fantasized about Episode I for almost two years before its release.  The 6 months before May of 1999 is kind of a blur for me, except for the growing sense of anticipation.  Unfortunately, my extreme disappointment in what I was exposed to in that dark theatre in early June (no, I was not there for the opening debut, but that is another long story.  I was out of the country and the theatres in Eastern Europe were only showing pirated copies of the Godfather at the time) led to despair, which led to my eventual cynicism of Lucasfilm LTD altogether.  I have found that my experience was shared by millions.  Perhaps we all need some level of therapy after what we have endured for the past six years.  The good news is that I think it is over.  The prequel is complete, and we can all get on with our lives. 

It is my hope that putting our frustrations into words will help us all heal from this trying time and we can finally lay this ghost to rest.  That is, until we find something else to gripe about, like why Peter Jackson won’t direct The Hobbit.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, and may the Force be with you.

Why I hate the Star Wars Prequels!

Or:  Why I think George Lucas Lost His Mind after 1995.

 25 Reasons Why I Hate Episode I 

Reason #1
Stupid, Annoying Accents                                                                                                        From the moment the Vicroy opened his mouth, I knew we were in for some major problems.  I understand why the agents of the Empire have British accents.  It made them sound unsympathetic and arrogant.  But why George Lucas feels this incessant need to give each creature their own unique and annoying accent is beyond me.  It just irked before the Viceroy had finished a single sentence. 

Reason #2
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
I have seen the original Star Wars Trilogy somewhere approaching 1,000 times. I don’t feel this to be an over-exaggeration but, more accurately, a pretty good estimate. Granted, it has become sort of an inside joke among Star Wars fans that this line needs to be repeated in every book, graphic novel, cartoon and role playing adventure.  It was to be expected that the line would creep into the movie as well.  I’m fine with that. However, it was Obi-Wan’s first line, for cryin’ out loud!  We don’t even know what is going on and already Obi Wan has a bad feeling.  It gave me a bad feeling about what was to come.  

Reason #3
Jar Jar Binks
What can I say that hasn’t already been said ad nauseam about this poor, pathetic life form?  Lucas failed miserably in everything that he was trying to accomplish with the Jar Jar Binks character.  The only thing Jar Jar did for the movie was sell a lot of lunch boxes and back packs.  He was so ridiculous that (gasping dramatically) HE LOOKED FAKE.  I know Lucas would loose the graying mop on top of his head to hear me say that, but it’s true.  Simply put, he was so “cartoony” that he didn’t belong in a live action movie, no matter how good the special effects on him were.  To make things worse, he kept reminding you that he wasn’t real by doing silly things like extending his tongue out to grotesque lengths and walking like an absolute idiot.  His very first appearance in the movie is the point when you realize you’re going to be seeing a film alot less like Episodes IV-VI and a lot more like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

“Plplplplpleeasssee, Obi Wan!”

Reason #4
J.U.B.A.                                                                                                                                   (What is a J.U.B.A. I hear you asking.  Good question.  It’s a Jedi-Underwater-Breathing-Apparatus.  Evidently all of the Jedi carry one on their utility belts…you know… just in case they crash on a planet and have to scuba dive to an underwater city.  Remember to see Reason #24 when I post it.) Jar Jar informs the Jedi that his city is underwater. Never fear, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan just happen to have handy dandy  little JUBA thing-a-ma-jig in their pockets. Now that’s funny because in about 20 minutes they will damage their hyperdrive and seem to be fresh out of the parts they need to fix the ship but anytime there’s any obstacle in a single character’s way they always seem to have a grappling hook, a set of binoculars or a mysterious underwater breathing device no bigger than a Kazoo conveniently attached to their person.

Reason #5
The Planet’s Core – The Quickest Route                                                                         Boss Nass (see reason #1 for stupid accents, by the way) tells the Jedi and Jar Jar that the quickest way to reach the Naboo is through the planet’s core. Okay, I am by no means a Geologist. I can’t tell the difference between Igneous and Sedimentary rock. I was once asked in a Physical Science class what type rock the teacher was holding up, and I said, “A hard one.”  However, one thing I do know is that you can’t just traipse through a planet’s core… for any reason. Even if it is the quickest route I think that the risks (i.e. certain death) are too great for even a fully trained Jedi to undertake such an asinine voyage.

Reason #6
A Fish Tries to Eat Them
I don’t care what planet they are from.  Fish don’t eat metal.

Reason #7
R2-D2’s Ceremony.  Lame, lame, lame!
There is no way around it.  The fact that all of these characters just happen to board a ship with R2-D2 is lame. The fact that R2 saves the day by fixing the shield is lamer than lame.

There is a scene where R2-D2 saves the day. After everyone one is safe, Queen Amidala asks one of her lackeys to read the number off the droid. The man says “R2.. D2, your highness.”  (In the theatres, there was a big cheer from the audience at this point that I found rather annoying.  But then again, this was the same crowd that cheered about twenty minutes before during the 20^th Century Fox Fanfare, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.) Then Queen Amidala says, and I quote: “Padme, clean this droid up. It deserves our gratitude.”

I have never been so embarrassed in all my life.

There are many flaws with the scene. First of all, if this had been any other droid they wouldn’t have had a lame-ass little award ceremony for it. Secondly, the Queen’s decoy is having Padme (actually the real Queen Amidala in disguise) scrub down the droid. Where did these ushy-gushy feelings for droids suddenly come from?

The movie could have benefited so much from leaving this scene on a cutting room floor somewhere and my most embarrassing moment could then revert back to the time in high school when the football team took off my pants and gave be a spanking in the school cafeteria.

Reason #8
Anakin built C-3P0
I will not accept that fact that Anakin built C-3P0. I won’t do it. You can torture me in a scene reminiscent of the finale in Braveheart and I will cry out “Freedom!” rather than admit to this space bologna! Anakin simply didn’t build C-3P0, end of story. Anakin says that he’s good at building things. I’ll believe that. My friend’s nine-year old son used to build stuff and wire up all the home electronics. That I’ll believe. Anakin built a Pod Racer. I will even believe that.  However, I will not even entertain the notion that he put C-3P0 together.  What, did he use an “Assemble Your Own Robot” kit the he bought from the Inner-Galactic Home Depot?  I doubt they give those to slave boys anyway.  Would you let your slave build a droid and just trust in his good nature that it won’t actually turn out to be an assassin droid?  Never in a million years will I accept the fact that Anakin Skywalker dinked around in a junkyard enough lazy afternoons until he put his own droid together and then downloaded him with over 6,000,000 forms of communication.  He didn’t do it, I tell you.  He couldn’t have done it.  And if that weren’t enough, this whole set up would make a mathematician’s head spin at the sheer odds that Anakin Skywalker just happens to find all the right junk parts to put a robot together that runs perfectly for over 20 years, only for his son to acquire the same damn machine in Episode IV.  It was far more believable, and shall I dare say entertaining, when all we were expected to believe was that poor R2-D2 was just a handy device that Leia used in Episode IV to smuggle the plans of the Death Star off of her ship.  That’s it.  C-3PO was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Besides, can you imagine the circuit distress it would cause that sissy droid if he ever found out who his programmer was?  “No, C3PO, I AM YOUR CREATOR!”  Good thing his memory was wiped in Episode III.

Reason #9
“I’m not sure this floor is entirely stable.”
This is just another stupid line in a pathetically long line of cheap jokes Lucas makes to try to win over the die hard Star Wars fans.

It didn’t work.

It’s a pointless, cheap and unacceptable way to gain approval from your fans. I have a better idea for how to gain approval from your fans: STOP PRODUCING MOVIES THAT SUCK! Instead of keeping movies under lock and key, why didn’t he allow a small percentage of trusted fans to see the movies before they were released? A simple test screening could have fixed a lot of big problems with Episode I. It probably couldn’t have convinced Lucas that the millions of dollars spent generating the Jar Jar scenes would have to go, but it at least could have fixed some of the other reasons this movie was such a disappointment.

Reason #10
Shmi Skywalker, The Blessed Virgin
Shmi Skywalker tells Qui-Gon that she “can’t explain what happened” about Anakin’s birth. She claims that Anakin just appeared in her belly and that there was no father. I’ve always wondered how Joseph believed it from Mary, never mind Qui-Gon Jinn who is supposedly a wise old Jedi. Comparing Anakin Skywalker to Jesus in this way is extra stupid. Damn you, Lucas! Damn you to hell for this blasphemy! 

Reason #11
Jedi Schizophrenia                                                                                                              This is the point where something starts smelling seriously rotten with the film. Evidently, now the Force can be quantified by something found in blood. Unfortunately for Lucas, no Star Wars fan accepts this silly new rule that he invented. This is something I wouldn’t have even expected from one of those crappy novels. We didn’t need a scientific explanation for the Force.  In fact, we rather like the mystery of it.  Talking “Midi-Chlorians” sound more like a case for documented insanity and schizophrenia when you think about Jedi listening to these squeaky little voices that tell them what to do all the time.  I guess it’s a great defense for a lawyer when a Dark Jedi goes on trial for murdering a whole civilization.  “The talking midi-chlorian’s made me do it.”

Reason #12
“You’ll never get me onto a starship!”
C-3P0 says this during the movie. You see, it’s funny because we know that he will spend a great deal of time on a starship during the later trilogy. Oh Lucas you scamp! The joke of making weak references about things that we know are going to happen just never gets old with you, does it? Bravo Lucas! Bravo!

Reason #13
“Bantha Poodoo!”
A Bantha is a lumbering beast from Star Wars seen on Tatooine. Poodoo is…well, if you have a young boy who is in 1st grade, ask him what “Poodoo” sounds like and you’ll get an idea. Sebulba says “Bantha Poodoo” because it wouldn’t be right if two minutes elapsed in this film without some reference to the first three movies. The only problem is that the line just didn’t fit here.  It felt like the line was being forced (no pun intended) because Lucas knew that every Star Wars fan worth his weight in Spice would recognize this line.  Just another cheap trick in a bag full of cheap tricks.  Surely Sebulba could have thought of something a little more clever than this to say.  Wait, no he couldn’t… George Lucas was writing his lines.  Never mind

Reason #14
Jawas
Jawas appear sporadically throughout the Tatooine segments. They never say anything except the classic Jawa line: “Oonteenee!”

“Hey Jawa, you want my junked space cruiser?” 

“Oonteenee!”                                                                                                                                      

“Hey Jawa, your mom just died!”

“Oonteenee!”                                                                                                                                      

“Hey Jawa, you have a nice butt.”

“Oonteenee!”

I hate Jawas almost as much as I hate Ewoks

Reason #15
“Yipee!”
At two separate points in the movie Anakin actually exclaims, “Yipee!” One “yipee” comes when he learns that he is going to join Qui-Gon and must leave his mother, home and everything he has ever known, forever.  Ok, two things:  Thing #1.  No ten-year old could deal with this so easily and thing #2, no one, ten years old or otherwise, has ever actually said “Yipee!” 

On the other hand, maybe what Lucas was trying to imply was that Anakin actually did use “Yipee” a lot and was tormented relentlessly by the Tatooine bullies with wedgies and swirllies in the toilet because of it.  This could explain his rather excessive temper tantrums later in life.  Hummm…I may be on to something here. 

Reason #16
“Anakin, meet Obi Wan Kenobi.”                                                                                   Ok, for the record, this is the point in the movie where I think I gave up.  Lucas displayed such a flagrant disrespect for his own rules, and parameters, I wanted to vomit.  This introduction is critical because of Obi Wan’s comment to Luke in Episode IV when he says, “When I first met your father, he was already an accomplished pilot, but I was amazed at how strongly the Force flowed in him.”  I will grant Lucas the right to interpret these lines however he sees fit, but he spent so much brain power on Obi-Wan’s assessment on Anikin’s ability with the Force and that that whole stupid “midi-chlorian” gag (See reason #12) that he totally missed the obvious implication of Obi-Wan’s statement: Anakin was an accomplished pilot.  What the hell had he accomplished?  He’s a BOY, and a slave, to boot!  Don’t give me this crap about Obi Wan referring to him being an accomplished Pod Racing Pilot, because until that glorified go-kart race, the kid had never even won before.  It’s like Lucas was so obsessed to see a little boy Anakin and yet had written himself into a box with that line from Episode IV that he decided to just ignore it and pretend Obi-Wan never said it.  “Move along, folks, nothing to see here.  Just move along and enjoy my movie.”  I won’t be surprised if another special edition box set comes out in 20 years and that line has mysteriously vanished from the exchange all together. 

Reason #17
E. freakin’ T.
When the vote of no confidence is cast we see the various outrage and support that Queen Amidala receives. We see Wookies cheering (which are undoubtedly either three of Chewbacca’s relatives or probably, knowing Lucas, three clones of Chewbacca himself). When they pan across the Senate you see a hovercraft filled with E.T.s. Make no mistake about it, they’re the same race as freakin’ E.T. It’s not a race that kinda looks like E.T., they’re E.T.’s exact race. I’m sure that this is just a little thing that George Lucas thought would be a cute joke yet it’s another absurdity that made me feel a wrenching in my soul as my entire childhood space fantasy died a painful death.

Reason #18
“Yousa thinken yousa people gonna die?”
A scene that may have possibly been important or meaningful is ruined by this annoying line by Jar Jar Binks. If my mom was sick and someone said: “Yousa thinken yousa mom is gonna die?” I’d punch them square on the nose.  But then again, anytime Jar Jar opened his mouth I wanted to punch him in the nose.

Reason #19
Senator Palpatine
If I hadn’t seen Episodes IV through VI then I think the whole Palpatine thing would be pretty cool. I think Ian McDiarmid does a brilliant job of acting like a really nice, if kinda weaselly, politician. It becomes clear that he’s working some of the situation to his own advantage but that is what a politician does. It’s not clear what he’s scheming, if anything at all. There’s only one small problem with all of this: I have seen Episodes IV through VI and according to my most recent calculations there are about six billion other people who have as well. What’s worse is that we have all known for over twenty years who Senator Palpatine turns into! What’s with all the mystery? We know that he is Darth Sidious. Just say it and stop trying to be all clever. It’s like reading the last chapter in an Agatha Christie novel once a day for twenty years and then finally reading the beginning. This is why Agatha Christie didn’t design her books to be read in this manner. Unfortunately, George Lucas lacks that judgment.

Reason #20
General Binks
Because of Jar Jar’s minimal involvement with the alliance between the Gungans and the Naboo he is made a general. What is it with George Lucas and this idea that anyone who does one minor thing is suddenly fit to lead troops into battle? This is the equivalent of some guy saving a kid trapped in an abandoned well and then meeting the President and the President saying: “Thank you, citizen. I’m now making you a general… in the United States Army! Now lead our brave men and women to victory!” I’m not even sure that Luke, Han Solo and Lando were all qualified to be generals, but I could accept it because they were in a rag-tag rebellion. Jar Jar is even worse because he showed that he is inept and clumsy prior to being made a general. Apparently showing Queen Amidala where the Gungans were hiding suddenly made him a military genius.

Reason #21
Binoculars
Right before the big battle on Naboo between the Gungans and the Trade Federation there is a Trade Federation droid surveying the battlefield with binoculars. Is this a joke? It’s hard to tell in this movie what is done for humor and what is just unintentionally stupid. If this is done as a joke then it is not funny. If this is done because some “Lucas Minion” didn’t consider the absurdity of a droid with robotic-frekin-eyes surveying a battlefield with binoculars before hand, then shame on them!

Reason #22
“Cease Fire!”
After the droid army fire a few volleys at the Gungans’ shield dinosaurs, which bounce off harmlessly, a droid calls a “cease fire!” Now, we know at this point that the droids are being controlled by a mother ship in orbit. Why do the droids need to communicate via sound waves to each other? Droids that made no auditory communication would be much more realistic foe. Maybe if they said something more than “You’re under arrest!” and “Roger, Roger” every five seconds there would actually be a moment in the movie when you could take them seriously as an enemy.   It should have been like Terminator, or the Borg.  They should move as one, think as one, and kill with computer precision and efficiency. 

Reason #23
If all else fails…use an accident!
Anakin saves the day by accident…Great George…that was clever.  This poor resolution to the movie’s climax is the most obvious example of bad writing that I’ve seen since I had to sit through my 10^th grade Fiction Writing course in high school and hear plagiarized versions of old Twilight Zone re-runs.  I shouldn’t have been surprised though.  Lucas just loves to resolve conflict through accidents.  (See Return of the Jedi when Han Solo “accidentally” knocks poor Boba Fett off Jabba’s sail barge.) Qui-Gon tells Anakin to wait in the cockpit of one of the Naboo ships that was supposed to go into battle. Wasn’t there a pilot that could have been flying that thing? Apparently there were only about five pilots on the whole damn planet of Naboo at the time of the great space battle because they left their sixth fighter in the hangar. Through a “hilarious” chain of events Anakin ends up in the battle saying things like: “Oops!” and “What does this button do?” and “This is tense!” and “Whoa!” and of course, my favorite “Let’s try spinning, that’s a good trick!” and “Weeeeeeeeeee!”  Great writing, George. Just marvelous.  It only gets better when Lucas resolves the entire firkin’ battle scene with, what else…another accident.  Anikin just happens to crash into the main Trade Federation mother ship, where he “accidentally” releases two proton torpedoes directly into the power core of the ship and then “accidentally” flies out of the hanger bay.  Good thing for our heroes down below who were about to get blow away by the Droid Army, because all the Droids on Naboo suddenly loose power.  Oh, for silly luck!

Reason #24
More Utilities
By the equipment that the average person carries around in this movie I’m surprised that they’re not all walking around with hiking backpacks. At one point Queen Amidala is cornered by troops and the only way out is to get a floor up. But how does one do that when there are not any stairs around? Not to worry! Queen Amidala and some of her entourage seem to have these guns that shoot grappling hooks and then also have motors that retract the grappling hook with enough force to lift a human body. Phew!  That was close.  For a moment there I thought they were all going to be Bantha Poodoo.

Reason #25
Obi-Wan’s Victory over Darth Maul
Granted, this lightsaber duel was the only highlight of the movie, and obviously Lucas has started to pay more attention to these fight scenes with each passing movie  However, as brilliant, and exciting as the clash was for 15 minutes, it was ruined with the ending.  After Qui-Gon’s death we are faced with the biggest disappointment in the final Jedi fight sequence. Obi-Wan, his lightsaber lost down one of many bottomless drain holes, is hanging precariously by a pipe. It seems like Darth Maul has him right where he wants him when all of a sudden, Obi-Wan just flips up out of the pit, uses the force to grab Qui-Gon’s fallen lightsaber and slices Darth Maul in half. That’s it. An otherwise action-packed fight sequence that ended with the stupidest, suspense-free finale one could ever hope for. Since Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan could barely survive against Darth Maul when fighting together I would have appreciated this climax a bit more if Obi-Wan would have had to assert some amount of effort.

Look What Can Happen With A Hacker, A Slurpee and a Degree From MIT.

I finally got my Sony Playstation 3.

You have to understand, this is a big deal for me. When I got my first Xbox about 10 years ago, I had to beg my wife for months before she agreed. There was always something she deemed more important for the “family.” When I got an Xbox 360 about 5 years ago, I had logged in over a year of groveling before she relented to “waste” so much money on a toy.

“You are a grown man,” she said to me. “I don’t understand you wanting to play these games.”

So, when my wife announced 3 months ago that she wanted to try a new video game system for the family, ironically we picked one up last weekend. And I didn’t have to do the dishes once! The only reason it took so long was because she wanted a Wii, and I wanted a PS3. I had to spend several weeks convincing her that Sony was competing with Nintendo and she could have almost the same kind of games, only the Sony platform had more of the stuff I am into. (I like to play the more brutal shoot-em-up games and watch flesh eating Zombies explode after I pump their carcass with a rocket launcher. Nintendo is still releasing versions of Super Mario Bros.)

I finally sold her when I said, “Yeah, but Sony will also double as Blue Ray.”

“Really? You don’t need to buy anything extra for that?”

“Nope. It’s built into the consul. So, if we were going to get a Blue Ray player in the near future anyway, we would save a few hundred dollars if we got a Sony 3.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Not only that,” I said, going in for the kill on the argument. “But it also has a wireless reader and can pick up on streaming videos from the internet.”

“So?” she asked.

“So, how about streamlining Netflix right to the TV through the Sony 3. If we got a Wii, all we could do is play Bowling.”

Case Closed, and the PS3 is mine! 

We got the Move bundle, which is Sony’s version of Motion Controlled Technology and has a number of family friendly games including “Family Game Night” which is 3-D versions of Life, Mousetrap, Yahtzee, Clue and Twister.

My 6 year old son loves Mouse Trap and my 5 year old daughter is more partial to Life so she can get married and have lots of babies. My wife and I played Yahtzee and Clue until about 11:00 last night after the kids went to bed. (Mr. Green did it in the Conservatory with a revolver, btw)

5 years ago, if you had told me that we would have a family night playing video games, I would have thought you were crazy. When the Wii came out, I thought it was the last dying gasp from a once proud Nintendo industry. I was wrong. The Wii changed everything and has inadvertently launched a digital revolution that might soon change how we interact with each other as well.

Since Bill Gates is not a man to be outdone, when it became apparent that Motion Controlled Technology was the wave of the future, Microsoft released the Kinect which takes the Nunchuck controllers of the Wii and will soon make them look silly. The Kinect is basically a web cam hooked up to a video game consol and takes real time pictures of the immediate surroundings in order to “Move” your player. When you jump, your character jumps. When you dance, your character dances.

When you hit they guy playing next to you, nothing happens in the game, but you will probably get hit back for being an ass hole.

Since the release of the Kinect, Hackers have been hard at work developing new ways to innovate Microsoft’s vision for gaming. Please keep in mind, when I say ‘Hacker,’ the term does not describe the illegal theft of your identity or the infestation of your hard drive by nasty Cookie Monster viruses. Real Hackers simply are looking for ways to understand the digital world around them. Real Hackers are usually enrolled at MIT (or some other geek school) and are looking for a way to make an A on their upcoming report. (They call the cyber anarchists who like to destroy your Hard Drive while they suck on a Slurpee ‘Crackers’) I once knew a Hacker who drove around in his car looking for random signals he could “Hack” into and surf the internet. He held this bulky antenna out of window and when he would get a ‘ping’ he would instantly pull over and bring up the internet.

 “So,” I hear you saying. “Why is that such a big deal?”

Because he was doing this 8 years ago. He was trying to network with other Hackers to adapt computers to connect to the internet without a cable connection. While I was still a little worried about the possibility of a late Y2K bug wiping out all of our computers, he was experimenting with Wi-Fi.

Now, Wi-Fi is at your local McDonalds.

These days, the Xbox Kinect is a Hacker’s wet dream. When they are finished playing Call of Duty, they can start fiddling around with software and develop new ways to adapt camera for other things than just playing a Virtual Dance Off Competition.

For instance, think of the Kinect as basically a webcam that catalogs the immediate room, converting it into a 3-D display. Well, a team of Hackers adapted this technology to create their own 3-D movie. Think Toy Story, only rather than spending millions of dollars to digitally create these characters through expensive programs, soon High School kids will be making 3-D movies of their own for only for only $399.

There is also a team of Hackers who adapted this Motion Controlled technology and applied it to a consumer searching for information on a product. They have developed a way for a customer to just “Point” to a product they are interested in and instantly a data feed can pop up a detailed report of prices, calorie count, or even compare it to other merchandise they may want to compare it to side by side.  All with a wave of your hand.

The possibilities are truly amazing and this isn’t something that may or may not be developed 50 years from now. If you have a degree from MIT and a car to drive to your nearest Target to pick up the Kinect bundle, you can do things like:

Write a program that instantly translate Sign Language for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired into written text

Create a pair of glasses that will “See” a room (or a street corner) and translate those images into signals the blind can feel.

Robotics that follow your movements as you “Move” in front of the camera.

Military applications including pilots who rarely have to fly into a combat zone again

Doctors can perform life saving operations no matter where they are in the world by controlling a pair of “robotic” arms through this same motion controlled technology.

Ok, so some of these last few may need a few more years of development, but the truth is, the technology is here. All that is left is the adaptation and development. 

And of course a few dozen live test subjects who don’t mind undergoing brain surgery by a doctor who is actually on a beach in the South Pacific sipping on Coconut Rum while he is working.

Don’t believe me?  Check this out:

http://www.kinecthacks.com/top-10-best-kinect-hacks/

Like A Good Neighbor, ‘Nemesis’ Is There.

(Did you hear the jingle? Cool.  Who says my blog doesn’t come with bells and whistles?)

I love finding little known scientific theories that take me at least 2 cups of coffee (or 3 cups of hot chocolate) to fully wrap my mind around.  I do this for a number of reasons. First of all, I find science fascinating. I think I was an astrophysicist in my past life. Or maybe I was an astrologer postulating wild theories about the Earth revolving around the Sun until I was burned at the stake as a heretic.

Regardless, I can’t get enough.  

Secondly, I enjoy this exercise because it leads me to a fountain of creativity just waiting to be siphoned off into a really good book. It is even better when you can weave something true with something fantastical. Sprinkle on a bit of current events and that is an idea that hooks me. Hopefully, it will hook an agent and an editor someday in the near future as well, but we shall see.

Try this on for size. (If it doesn’t fit, stuff some newspaper in the toe of the shoe. It may grow on you)  Our civilization is fascinated with the idea of mass extinction. Killer asteroids crashing into the planet, incinerating all sentient life in a wickedly cool fireball. Polar Ice caps melting and flooding all the land except for a single mythical island somewhere in the Himalayas. Wait, scratch that idea. That has already been done, and Kevin Costner ruined the movie.

It’s like we can’t wait for the end of the world. Armageddon is around the corner and my grandma is convinced President Obama is the antichrist. (Don’t take her too seriously. When I was growing up she was sure that George Bush Sr. was the Antichrist. I couldn’t watch the Smurfs either. That was the False Prophet. Personally, I believe if you add up all of the episodes of Barney and Friends and multiply it by the number of measures in “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy fam-i-ly” it will equal 666)

We have developed quite a Guilt Complex over the whole idea of the end of the world, too. There are millions of people who are far more convinced that A) The world is about to end, and B) Human Beings are  largely to blame for it than believe that Jesus Christ coined the phrase, “Our Father who art in Heaven…”

They may be right on all three accounts, for all I know.

But I do know this, in the last 540 million years, there have been 5 cataclysmic mass extinctions that obliterated most of the life on this planet in a very short amount of time with another 15 or so not-quite-as-exciting-extinctions tossed in to keep us all on our toes. I guess you could call these lesser extinctions more like regional genocides, wiping out isolated pockets of creepy crawly things.

The point is 99% of all the species we have evidence that once crawled, swam, or slithered on our planet no longer exist. When you get right down to it, Earth doesn’t have a good reputation for really long term settlement. (This might be why E.T. leaves our planet alone. Maybe there are more hospitable places to settle in the galaxy and we just happen to live in the arm pit of the Milky Way)

Now, depending on how “bad” extinction has to be before it is considered a “Mass Extinction” I have either good news, or bad news. But more on that in a minute.

Pop quiz: Name the closest star to our Sun?  Did you guess Alpha Centauri?  Good guess. Now, smarty pants, without Googling it, how close is Alpha Centauri to the Sun? Answer: Almost 4.5 light years. 

But here is something that is really cool. We might have a nemesis even closer than that!  Yep, this bad boy might be a little dwarf star, but like Gimli, he pops a wallop of a punch. There is a project being conducted as we speak that is searching for a little gnome who may be hiding in a neighboring cloud, only about a light year away. That’s not all that far for a little guy. But, there are some scientists who believe that he may actually be a binary star to our sun, orbiting around us once every 26 million years or so. We may not have a cool dual sunset like Luke Skywalker got to see on Tatooine everynight, but we may have a little brother! 

I always dreamed I’d find a long lost brother. It’s a really cool day dream too. My parents would call me over for dinner and explain that there was something they never told me. I have a brother, and he’s coming over to meet the family!  How cool would that be?  We’d play video games and poker, and toilet paper the neighbor’s house all in one night just to make up for lost time.

Of course, the day dream would quickly turn into a nightmare if my new little brother came over and admitted that there was something we all should know. He was a serial killer and was wanted in 13 states. My mom would probably still pull out the hide-a-bed for him. She loves everybody and feels bad for the grass when she has to mow the lawn.

Now, here’s the interesting thing: if we do find this sneaky little guy hiding in the Oort Cloud in our backyard, he might have some explaining to do. It seems every time our hypothetical little brother swings into our celestial town, millions of animals die. Over the past 250 million years there have been 12 mass extinctions, all averaging about 26 million years apart. Now, scroll back up and tell me how many years that little dwarf star takes to orbit the sun.

Freaky, huh?

It is such a coincidence that scientists, who are known for their wit an humor, affectionately named the little tyke “Nemesis.” (Of course, many of the astrophysics are also nerds and couldn’t help but give him the nickname “Death Star”)

I said I had good news and bad news. The good news is that the same nerds…umm, I mean scientists who support the idea of Nemesis assure us that if he exists; his last visit was 5 million years ago. Then again, other paleontologists claim the last major extinction was the Eocene-Oligocene Event…and that was in the ball park of about 30 million years ago.  If they are right, little brother could be here any day now. Or, he could have already come and hurled a few dozen more comets our way and they are just taking their sweet-ass time getting to us. 

In closing I can’t help but notice a trend. Out of the 20 or so minor-mass extinctions our planet has endured, how many have humans caused?

0

Well, not yet anyway. If Al Gore is right, we might be chalking one up for the Home Team in a few years. Still…I think the planet has endured far worse than the exhaust from a soccer mom driving her gas guzzling SUV to and from Target. Humans might be the cause of our own demise for more reasons than one, but I think our planet will chug along quite nicely without us.  Earth has more important things to worry about. 

Like nasty Uncle Nemesis who keeps coming around to visit every 26 million years.