Mike is better than me at EVERYTHING!

“… that my awesome wife gave me for Christmas…”

[quote comment="140658"][quote comment="140645"]
why all the men in white suits just couldn’t sit down and work everything out.[/quote]

I hope he mentioned I was joking. What’s up with the second-hand smack-talk on the internet while I’m at Wednesday night Women’s Bible Study?

;)

Thanks.

By the way, I only made it to 30% geek. I am 32, I love wiffle ball, own an xbox 360, play bass trombone in orchestras and am only 30% geek? Thats not right. The computer has never seen me dance.

Oh my gosh. This reminds me of when I took one of the boys in to get x-rayed (x-raid?) for something and I gave the lady (read: warden) the wrong insurance card. Beth and I almost didn’t bounce back from that one. She was pretty mad, and as you might imagine, regained her intensity each of the dozen times we were sent insurance reminders of my foul up. And now my son is in counseling because it was actually an x-ray tech, it was a ob gyn. Call me Dad of the Year.

And now back to your regularly scheduled geekery.

Have you guys played the Lego Star Wars video games? They rule. Watching Nate control Greedo blasting his way through stormtroopers on Leia’s ship is funny. We’ve been through the first one, Episodes 1-3, and now we’re playing 4-6.

Lego Star Wars is going to make Zane into a decent piano player. He has to do his practicing to earn time to play the game with Daddy on Saturday. Back in my day it was a Hot Wheels car at the end of the week…

I think we’re approaching the date of Zane being ok seeing 4, 5, 6. Maybe not quite for the rest. 3 got pretty graphic at the end. The unfortunate thing for Zane, who’s 7 now, is that nothing like that could happen without little brother Nate (coming up on 4) along for the ride. Though, I think Nate will probably be cooler with the intensity than Zane at his age… so, we might be a year or two off yet. Sigh.

Needless to say, when the time comes I’ll be purchasing the entire series on HD-DVD and buying an HD-DVD player to plug into the widescreen in the studio.

The real question is, once The Hobbit is released, what order to watch the LOTR? Prequel, then Trilogy, or vice versa?

(1) The vitality of the narrative for episodes 4-6 becomes compromised if the characters have already been introduced. “Luke, I’m your father”, “No, there is another”, think of how many awesome reveals get destroyed if you already know that Anakin is Luke’s father, and that Luke has a sister. I think the only case you could make for enhanced narrative is the introduction of Obi-wan in episode IV. Knowing that he was this former bad-ass jedi might actually heighten the tension when Luke goes out to find him - does he still have it, is he still the lion of old, has the slaughter of the innocents at the Jedi temple finally crushed his spirit and rendered him a neutered old man? On the balance though, I think the story unfolds better without introducing knowledge from 1-3 into episodes 4-6.

(2) Special Effects. Let’s face it, 4-6 kind of blow. That shouldn’t matter, but kids are silly, and they won’t understand that beneath the dated explosions and jittery space flights is a much, much more compelling story. You have to give them the meat before the eye candy.

(3) Think back to when you first saw Episode 5, The Empire Strikes Back. 4 was great, you liked it, and then all of the sudden 5 comes out and you’re like, “Holy crap, that’s the King Leer of modern movie making; the resonant themes of my life are all writ large by the greatest actors and best filmmaker of our time!” At least, that’s what all of my friends said. That dark intensity made us all instant fans, and we were falling over ourselves to see 6, and were were hooked.

Now picture some poor kid who has to see Episode 1, you keep telling them how great these movies are, and what do they see next? Episode 2? How are you going to keep them from gouging their eyes out before they can see the rest of the series? Episode 2 is the worst movie ever made, ever, and I’m including the 1967 Montana State Troopers “When Hippies Attack” training film. Ever. I don’t care how strong the geek genes are in your kid, there’s no way he’s coming back from a blow like that.

(4) Everything our kids do should be just like everything we did, because we turned out awesome.

So, there’s my argument. I don’t know my kids’ birthdays, or blood-type, or where to find their medical insurance cards, but you better believe I know the order in which they will be inducted into the cult of Star Wars.

Unlike Sharolyn, who,

A: Hadn’t seen it until college.
B: Fell asleep.
C: According to lore, asked Rosy (the person who showed it to her) why all the men in white suits just couldn’t sit down and work everything out.[/quote]

I made a valiant effort to get Sharolyn to watch Star Wars on my birthday. I thought that if we went about 30 minutes a night, we could make it to the end fully conscious through the whole thing in about a week. My birthday is was March 31st and we have not made off Tatooine yet. Hmmm…maybe this year. She did watch with rapt attention in one sitting the movie The Queen, which had precisely 0 space ships in it. No laser guns or lightsabers either.

How old should a kid be to watch Star Wars? My daughter is 3. She is still a little afraid of the dark knight on Little Einsteins, so no Star Wars yet.

In what order should she be exposed to them?

I love pondering the deep questions of fatherhood.

I guess some things just shouldn’t be joked about.

I could be speaking out of turn here, but I would wager a guess that Aly mistyped. She’s pretty hardcore on the Star Wars Geek-O-Meter.

Unlike Sharolyn, who,

A: Hadn’t seen it until college.
B: Fell asleep.
C: According to lore, asked Rosy (the person who showed it to her) why all the men in white suits just couldn’t sit down and work everything out.

20%

(Stop laughing Brian)

Daniel, I think Aly be playing with ya, mon.

WOAH, woah woah…Greedo did NOT shoot first. Han shot first–Greedo didn’t shoot at all, they only added that in the 1997 Special Edition…let’s just be CLEAR about that, OK?.

don’t get me started…

78% here. Although I bet if I can remember some kind of academic competition that I won…

I think my Mac at home and using Windows at work saved me. Also my extensive knowledge of Star Wars, Firefly (sneaky trick question!) and my love of comics even now. A few things I wish I knew after taking this quiz:

1. Where are the correct answers? This marginal geek wishes to learn. I think putting down “I don’t really play video games” was definitely the wrong answer for this quiz.

2. Is 67% enough to get me in?

3. When they ask how many windows I’ve generally got open (many), can I count tabs? If not, I don’t think that’s fair at all.

Bleh. I hate subversive advertising.

The shame.

I did know about Greedo and Han, though. If it were a movie-geek quiz, I’d score like in the mid 90s. If it were a movie quiz about late 80s action flicks, I’d break it, they’d have to rewrite the code.

1. Chad convinced me to get an iMac so I actually understand some of the Mac lingo now.
2. I am emotionally 15 years old when it comes to video games…although I have developed a bad case of carpel tunnel syndrome since I moved up to the “medium” level on Guitar Hero III.
3. I still read comic books.

24% Geek

Does this add any more geekiness?

And proud of it. I think it was my knowledge of 4-barrel carburetors on 60’s Ford’s that lowered my overall geek score.

70% Geek

Gotta work on that…