Dad, you take too long

My 6 year old son asked me why it took me so long to write my stories.

You see, he had just finished writing his story. It took him about an hour. It's called Star Jammer and it's three chapters long. I thought I'd share it here.

In school they seem to teach kids to spell by the way the word sounds. So while he can read the proper words quite well, when he spells it often has no resemblance to the way the word is actually spelt. I suppose it's a bit like me being able to understand my parents when they speak Polish, but I can't really speak it myself.

Here are his chapters (see if you can make out the words):

Star Jammer: Chapter 1

Once upon a time there was a battle between Blue and Red. They fought to the end of the world. They sacrificed themselves.

So you want to be a Lady?

Okay, that title could mean A LOT of things. Including, one of my first and still favourite cartoons:

But today I want to tell you about how you can become an official Lady or Lord without the need to marry into such title, or be nice to the Queen, or provide amazing long-term service to England or whatever ...

Most accurate depiction of future human civilization

In science fiction movies we often see cool depictions of the near future. In many cases, such as Blade Runner (pictured here below), the timeline's are unbelievably optimistic. In 1982 (when the film was made) did they really think we'd be so advanced by 2019?

Whether it be 2019, 2050, or some greater time period - we often see amazing space-age devices and an ultra-cool, chic Earth (at least for the rich guys - there's always an underclass). Minority Report, Gattaca or i-Robot immediately come to mind - three movies I like a lot.

Of course, there are some great post-apocalyptic type movies: Water World (just kidding), 12 Monkeys, Mad Max, etc.

  

However, I think I might have found a movie that is a better depiction of our future as humans on Earth than any other. So accurate, in fact, that it scares the pants off me. But before I tell you what it is, I want to tell you how I found out about it.

HUMANITY 500 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE

One morning I was having coffee with the guys at work and told them about my long-held theory about how people are getting dumber, and not smarter. I was reminded of it because there was a news bulletin about a family in the United States (I'd search it out but I'm currently sitting in an airport lounge and don't want to use the free wifi due to a virus I caught in Malaysia - but that's another story …). Anyway, this couple had just had their 19th child.

Now before I go on, I would like to state that in no way am I suggesting that this couple are Hillbilly's or anything else disparaging like that (maybe they are, maybe they aren't - you can search for it and make your own conclusions I suppose). I'm just saying, if you were to ask the average person on the street, I'm sure there is a fairly negative perception associated with a man named Jim Bob who has 19 children.

So ... I was telling my workmates my, admittedly, offensive, and not well-researched 'Trailer Trash Theory". You know, heaps of kids, even more television, not much education ...

... And how humanity was getting dumber.

Hmmm … don't you hate it when your idea has already been thought of - and made into a movie. And that movie explained my theory better than I ever could have.

The movie … no, really it should be called a documentary, is called ...

Worst movie trilogies

Watching Transformers 3 last night - all I could think of was - "when is this movie going to be over."

The (not so) funny thing was - I had the exact same experience with the first two movies. Even less funny is, let's say that each movie was about two and half hours long, well that's seven and a half hours of my life I won't get back. That's like going to work, except I don't get paid.

Thank you, Michael Bay. Thank you for taking one of my favourite 80's cartoons and making it into the horrible mess that it is ... THREE TIMES.

Stupid me for getting suckered in three times! In my defence, apparently after the panning the second one got, people were actually saying the third instalment was quite good. Well, maybe the reviewers were given frontal lobotomies - because I didn't see an improvement.