Darth Maul, whose character development begins and ends with his evil Southwestern facepaint
GateHouse — Went to see the new, 3Dmafied version of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” this weekend, and I didn’t hate it. I should’ve hated it. I didn’t hate it. What the hell is going on right now.
Like most “Star Wars” nerds and nerdesses, I have a love/hate relationship with “The Phantom Menace,” and by “love/hate” I mean “Just the hate, with a side of grilled This Sucks and a mug of What Is This Horse Poop?” I saw “Menace” in 1999 with a cadre of fellow nerdlingers (and, inexplicably, our fiances) and we spent the next two weeks struggling to think of nice things to say about it, fighting to justify the emotional investment we’d made, an investment that had been returned to us in the form of jokes involving flatulent space horses and the nuanced drama of intergalactic trade route taxation disputes.
More holidays should have Kung Fu Panda-themed cards.
GateHouse — If there is any place on Earth more bruisingly depressing than the Valentine’s Day card rack at Target on Feb. 12, I’ve yet to hear about it. OK, that’s not entirely true, I can think of plenty more depressing places, such as the offices of whoever has to do promotion for the “Chipmunks” movies and wherever Newt Gingrich goes to apply his pre-stump speech neck-grease, but at least the people shopping at Target have their own non-billionaire-provided money, now that I think about it, so I think Gingrich wins for most depressing? Winning! Aw, that’ll be a weird feeling for him.
What am I doing here on Feb. 12, you may ask, judgingly? Well, usually I’m like weeks ahead of the Valentine’s situation, because I’m really super-thoughtful at all times, except this year, when I’m scraping together a Valentine plan with two kids, which is making the card selection process a lot more enjoyable and family-oriented and part of a bonding ha oh I’m just kidding it’s a miserable nightmare please tell me someone stashed burlap sacks full of painkillers in the “Get Well Soon” section or something.
But it’s not a nightmare because of the kids, who are being great, except the one who keeps drooling on my face. No, it’s a nightmare because of the desperate surfeit of miserable greeting card manufacturers.
NickMom— Step 1. Slide left strap over left shoulder. Slide right strap over right shoulder. (Note: Step 1 may require dislocation of shoulder. This is normal.)
Step 2. On front of carrier, put the deal into that clicky thing.
NickMom— The baby is coming! The baby is coming! And your world is a blur of excitement and joy and harmony! But HOLD UP — what about the other child that already lives in your house? OH YEAH. THAT GUY.
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I mean, if you have to watch all those delivery videos then everyone should watch all those delivery videos, right?
It's shocking how much time was not needed to locate this image
GateHouse— You know what Facebook could use is an increased level of unprovoked information about people’s kids, and before any of you jumpy gophers who leave a Facebook tab up “at work” to pounce on posts/comments like rabid animals get all “snarky” and “sarcastic” and “busy with quotation fingers” I know I put kid pictures on Facebook all the time too; I am not saying that I never do it or you should never do it, particularly if hypothetically your child was all sweet pushing his baby brother around in a stroller or that baby has a particularly lively reaction to your eerily accurate Swedish Chef impression. I am just saying that oh my God seriously if I see another child I don’t know sitting on a toilet I am definitely canceling the Internet service of the elderly neighbor/nonprofit I’m stealing wifi from, which is either “rutner house” or “Beaufort County Orphanage” or “linksys” or “linksys” or “linksys” or “linksys.”
(Incidentally this is where my 8-year-old would roll his eyes and go, “Don’t listen to him, Dad’s being sar-castic,” not that I would put that on Facebook or anything EVEN THOUGH IT’S UNBEARABLY CUTE AND YOU SHOULD ALL KNOW ABOUT IT.)
And yet here we are, thanks to the Consumer Electronics Show, an annual gathering of people to whom I would normally ascribe a dumb, nerdworthy nickname like “coding goobers” or “zittlywankers” or “Parrotheads” except I’m sure that any one of them is capable of building a nanorobot 14 molecules high that could kill me in my sleep using an endoplasmic reticulum. If you haven’t read up on this thing take a look online; seriously, it’s like a “Star Wars” convention for nerds.
Well, make that nerds and their parents: Because of CES we will soon have access to a device that will weigh your Precious Little Angel and auto-fire the results to Twitter and Facebook, saving you the trouble of weighing your child on some vintage hand-cranked lead-painted off-the-grid scale from Service Merchandise in 1983 and using a whole separate app to bore everyone to tears manually.
This photo is not at all interesting to the average impressionable 7-year-old or anything.
GateHouse — The 7-year-old and I have been watching a lot of “MythBusters” lately. which is, needless to say, a fantastic idea when parenting a second-grade super-absorbent spongeperson who enjoys explosions and fire and large trucks crashing into other trucks to create explosions.
I justify this regular explosion exposure by sitting next to him and occasionally shouting “Science!” like the guy in that Thomas Dolby song. I mean, “MythBusters” isn’t an attention-deficit cartoon designed to overinflate action-figure profit margins or move units of cereal, right? Moreover, thanks to the wonder twins of DVR and Apple TV we get to skip the Commercials For Things, although I would probably feel a little better if Discovery could make with the less advertising of “Weed Wars” and that show about people’s first week in jail). Otherwise, it’s QUALITY TELEVISION. And if quality television so happens to involve endearing humans rocketing themselves down awesomely lengthy makeshift waterslides and crashing backhoes into things, well SCIENCE!
It would be easier to make fun of kids' boxing if this picture WAS NOT SO ADORABLE
GateHouse — Well, the chances are pretty good that if you’re the type of person who is moved to reflection by the headline “Pediatricians put the kibosh on boxing for kids,” you are already PRETTY WELL IMMERSED in the world of boxing for kids.
This is the sort of headline that only a country where half of the Major Presidential Candidates are still wobbly on this confusing “science” situation would require, the sort of news that’s news only if your daily planner includes the words “Nancy Grace” in pink bubble lettering, yet here we are: Last week the American Academy of Pediatrics and its Canadian counterpart, Rush, issued a joint report that came out against the sport of boxing for children and adolescents. Reasons included: a high risk of injury, potential for possible concussions and Listening To The Instincts Burned Deep Within The DNA Of Every Human Alive Over Millions Of Years Of Evolution.
It's weird to think this guy would be bad at running a state, somehow
GateHouse — First of all, let me say that I fully support anything that outlaws dodgeball in any form. Yeah, you heard me, The Years 1987-1989, and you too, Delayed Onset Of Puberty.
Second of all, let me say that my son fully supports anything that outlaws freeze tag. The boy has been voicing his irrationally bilious, near-Gingrichian objection to freeze tag for months, on the admittedly understandable basis that freeze tag, unlike regular tag, does not offer a Base, the primal first-grade safety net that grants utter invincibility to anyone who is, say, touching the monkey bars. From the bits of his argument I can glean in between his instructions for me to buy him things, the regular tag-vs.-freeze tag debate has been POLARIZING first-grade recess for months.
Happily for everyone, I have a solution: We are probably moving to New York State, where freeze tag and dodgeball were nearly outlawed by The Large And Overbearing Government, probably because children never played it in Kenya.
Writer/editor at Nickelodeon's Nickmom.com, syndicated humor columnist for GateHouse, music journalist and speedily graying dad based on the coast of Carolina. Bio/Clips.
second! and not in his usual creepy old-man-at-the-park way RT @jefito The new @GalacticFunk LP makes me want to jump up and down and yell. 9 hours ago
