Ok, so I'm turning 30 in a few minutes, and have been doing some thinking about same. Light thinking mind you, because as cliche as it sounds, I really don't care about turning any older, whether its a birthday some would call a milestone or a regular one. Truth is, in my mind I'll always be a twelve year old. Ask anyone who's ever known me and they'll tell you I act like a twelve year old on a good day. lol.
So I decided to google my birthdate this year, not because turning thirty has any more personal significance than turning twenty-nine or twenty-eight did, but because I wasn't as lazy as I have been in previous years.
And here's what November 24th has to contribute to history:
In 1922, a member of the IRA was executed in Ireland for the crime of carrying a revolver. I shit you not.
In 1963, Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of a Dallas police station.
In 1947, actor Dwight Schultz (who played Lt. Barclay on Star Trek:TNG) was born.
In 1957, by a startling Star Trek coincidence, actress Denise Crosby (who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: TNG) was born.
In 1971, DB Cooper, notorious one-time plane hijacker pulls off what is likely the ballsiest escape of all time, diving out of said plane into a vicious thunderstorm with winds in excess of 160 km/h. No body was ever found, and neither was the $200,000 he leapt out the door with.
Also in the year 1974, 'The Godfather II' won best picture, 'The Six Million Dollar Man' was lighting up televisions everywhere, the song 'Kung-Fu Fighting' was a huge hit on the radio, and the Rubik's cube was introduced to the world.
Oh, and one particularly beautiful baby boy (who would grow into a bright, funny, charming, and entirely self-deprecating man) greeted the world for the first time.
So I've been discussing the recent re-election of 'Dubbya' into the big office down south with the few people that I can have an intelligent discourse with (mostly my sister and my wife) lately, and figured I'd should throw my two cents into cyberspace.
First things first, I am an unabashed liberal. I am in fact probably 'worse' than your average liberal. I would probably vote for a libertarian candidate if one ever showed up that wasn't a loon and had a hope in hell in winning, so that should tell you most of what you need to know about how I feel about politics in general and politicians in particular. So that being said, the fact that a war-mongering billionaire who very clearly cares little or not at all for the people he is elected to watch out for was recently voted back in for another term to the south, quite frankly scares the piss out of me, and I'm not even American!
During one of the aforementioned conversations about this jackass and the long term damage he is likely to leave the world as his legacy, I was asked to pin down a few predictions for the next four years. So here they are, in no particular order:
There will be a draft in the United States for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War. Not only will this happen in the next 4 years, this one will happen very soon.
A WOMD (to borrow a popular acronym), be it nuclear/biological, whatever will be used against Americans on American soil as part of a terrorist attack, as a direct result of Bush's meddling in global affairs.
Religious dogma will officially dictate US political decisions. This prediction spawns any number of horrifying scenarios, some of which are the rest of my predictions.
Abortion is almost certainly to be outlawed in the US.
Homosexuals are going to run screaming either to the safe islands of more enlightened nations (like Canada) or right back into the closet to avoid persecution.
The Lord's Prayer will be re-instituted in public schools on a national level. This archaic practice can still be seen even in some public schools in Canada (I know - wtf?!?), but only in schools that have received signed approval from parents/guardians of all students. With a zealot like Bush in the white house, this policy will be adopted regardless of religious preference. Freedom my ass.
This last one may not happen within the next four years, but it will happen because of them: The raging debate over the separation of church and state (that the US constitution's first amendment explicitly stated) will come to a head in the form of major bloodshed. I fully expect to see a photo of a bunch of self-righteousSo those are some of the things I see coming south of the border soon. Yes, I am oversimplifying, but how very Nostradamus of me eh?
Now if Babylon 5 isn't one of your favourite all time shows (which it is, at least for me), you might not know who the hell Richard Biggs is (which is too bad for you, because he was really good on that show).
I just finished watching 'Dawn of the Dead' and if you don't know or can't guess, its a zombie movie. And Richard Biggs isn't in it. Well not really. But we'll get to that.
Superwife and I watched the movie tonight; my one sentence review is that it was pretty good, but the ending where everybody died anyway totally sucked ass. Now, to Richard Biggs. Maybe I'll call him Franklin from now on. Much cooler.
Anywho, I very rarely watch any of the extras on DVDs, because honestly, they're really fucking boring. "Here's how we set up this scene.." and "It took us 28 hours to set up for this stunt. Let's walk you through it." These fucking things add up to be way longer than the movie, and are way less fun to watch, unless I guess if you're a film student or something.
So in spite of my better judgement, I waded through the extras on this to see if there was anything at all to explain why the fuck everybody started turning into zombies in the first place. I hate movies that don't even try to set up the main plot. So I'm skimming through them and I come across this fantastic vignette that has Franklin behind a news desk as the hours pass during the crisis. They cut away to a few scenes with doctors, a white house news conference, etc, but the thing I kept thinking about was that I thought that the last thing this guy had done before he died (May 22, 2004) was Babylon 5, but then here he is on this extra footage thing that no one will watch, commenting on a worldwide attack of the undead, the irony that he himself is dead now not being totally lost on me.
I guess it just hit me funny seeing something 'new' from someone who has no business making new stuff anymore. Too bad. Even in the vignette Franklin was really good.
And btw, the audio message at the end of the scene by none other that Bruce Boxleitner (Captain John J Sheridan for all you B5ers again!) was truly an inspired touch.
I don't even know if that title does my news justice. Maybe 'The Motherfucker of all news!' or 'You have never read news until you've read this!'. Hmm, that last one's pretty good. Of course, my news is only really monumental and awesome and earthshattering and worldchanging to me and mine, but you are on my site so what the hell did you expect? Important updates on your life?
So in case you can't figure out what the hell I'm talking about from the photo, here's the deal. After what turned out to only be a fairly short time of trying, Superwife and I are now expecting our first child. I say short now that the fun part is over, because the fun part IS over - sorry if a family member is making a pinched up 'EWWW' face right now. haha.
Anyway, the fun isn't completely over. Now we get to spend time getting ready for our new family member; fixing up the basement so we can move my office down there, and then setting up the nursery in my old office; laying in supplies (clothes, diapers, food, all manner of things that will look so incongruous in both my house and in my life until I get used to them); scouring the credits of every movie and tv show we watch in the chance we'll come across a name that we hadn't thought of that would be even better than the ones we have already picked out.
And yes, we've picked out names, but we're not necessarily naming the baby yet. We have names picked for either a girl or a boy, but we are going to have to wait to meet him/her to see what fits. And I do have a temporary name for the baby, but that one is for Superwife and the baby's ears only.
I wish that I could convey to anyone that hasn't yet seen the positive results of a pregnancy test they were waiting for just how strong a feeling the situation evokes. As I turned the thing over so Superwife and I could see the window that would help us plan the rest of our lives, I realized that as much as the universe shouldn't want for any progeny of mine to be unleashed on the world, at least one was on the way. Talk about being overwhelmed and unprepared. If it happens to you, even if you are hoping for the result we got, you can't be prepared for it. And if I felt like that at this early part of the game, just wait until the big day.
I am loving this part of my life. We have talked about doing this for as many years as we have been together, but we were never sure enough of our financial situation to go ahead with it. But I guess the reason we finally decided to try for a baby was that we could wait all our lives for the right time, I think. And I am so stoked that we are doing this.
So if I start exposing the baby-to-be to Star Trek now, think she/he'll come out a fan?
Labels: superwife
