Tuesday 8 November 2016

LIFE WITH TEEN

Teen: I can't believe how controlling you are! You give me no freedom! Why do you treat me like a baby? (looking in fridge) Oh my god! Where is the jam? Who finished the jam!?

Parent: It's in the fridge.

Teen: Where?! I can't find it!

Parent reaching into fridge and grabbing jam: Right. There.



*Disclaimer: This conversation is an amalgam of roughly 347 conversations over past two years.

Wednesday 30 March 2016

SEND WOMEN INTO SPACE: WOMEN ARE FROM MARS


My SciFi comedy webseries, Women Are From Mars, has all of its episodes now up and ready to be streamed. In roughly 2 minute bites it is a delicious low-fat snack. Perfect to watch on long road trips with a bunch of people who drive you a little crazy.

Do me a solid and check it out if you haven't yet. It's a lot of fun.

Women Are From Mars: An all women group of international astronauts embark on a one-way mission to colonize Mars – not realizing their billionaire male patron is along for the ride, cryogenically frozen in a locked room on the ship.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC86zkj7eO8sqZhxeMBl8y_A/featured

Monday 21 March 2016

(The Game of) LIFE



March Break has ended and so I finally have the place to myself (well, except for my sister's dog we're looking after while she goes off for a week of skiing in Whistler with her husband - sigh).

Yes, SIGH.

It's been a very long time since I've been able to go on a week-long holiday with just my wife for something as luxurious and satisfying as a ski holiday - because I don't have the time or money to do that. Why? 3 Reasons. All of them children. They are very expensive propositions, children. In both time and money. They have activities which cost money and eat up a lot of my time to get them to. They need stuff which they either outgrow, break or lose. They get sick or injured and need braces or orthotics.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, "I'm blessed etc."

I'm not sure I buy all that "Your life would be so empty without them" stuff you hear.  I think if I never had kids, I would have been OK. Not the person I am now, for sure, and I would have missed out on lots of wonderful things, but still, you know, I think I probably could have had a fine life without them. And I'd have experienced different wonderful things. Parents aren't supposed to admit this but surely I can't be the only one.

I love my kids and I'd be utterly destroyed if something were to ever happen to them, to the point that I don't know how I'd function. But it's more of a 'what if' scenario that plays out in my mind on a regular basis.

What if I made completely different choices throughout life - not just one or two - but completely? No kids. No house. No wife. Totally different career path. Maybe that life could have been amazing. But while I still have choices to make for the time I have allotted to me, and am making different choices than I would have made in the past, some things are closed off and can never happen. And I am OK with that (pretty much... OK maybe not... but I accept that... grudgingly).

So, back to March Break and our staycation (which is a synonym for 'no vacation'). It was low-key and good for us all to reconnect and do family things, like play board games, watch videos, go to a Marlies game etc. It was during this time when my kids invited me to play the Game of Life with them. I think I played this game once before on a New Year's Eve when I was about 12. And to be honest, it never really interested me. Seemed like it was pretty boring actually. However, this time I was interested in playing - a lot. And I was determined to make completely different choices than I did in real life. Among them - no kids.

Since I didn't announce my plan, my wife and boys were a bit taken aback at the vehemence with which I told them I would not be having kids and I proceeded to become a fireman out of highschool, later upgrading to a veterinarian. I refused to buy a house and attempted to pursue a selfish and hedonistic life. The game is unlike real life in many ways (there are no really bad things that happen in the game and overall it is a little too sunny for me, of course it is a kids' game, still...) but in one respect it is the same - despite my best efforts, I got married and had a kid. Sigh.

My youngest (the 8 year old), however, was having a great run. He was making over 100K a year out of highschool, he was a SPY, he owned two vacation homes and a bunch of other cool stuff but he was getting increasingly upset - because he didn't have any babies. He literally had tears in his eyes. He was offering to buy kids off of my wife and other son (each of whom had over 4 kids). Eventually, he got one kid but was extremely dissatisfied with that result. Only one?! Even last night at dinner he was commenting on how lucky my other son was who had 7 kids.

So, I'm not sure what the takeaway from this story is except that maybe my kids believing having a family of their own is a mark of success and value, maybe my choice wasn't so bad? If they think that much of family maybe I'm doing OK, after all? It touched me anyway and cheered me up about my choices in real life.

I still wouldn't have minded one of the vacation homes though.

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Interplanetary Women's Day: Women Are From Mars: First Two Episodes Up and Streaming on YouTube

Women Are From Mars - YouTube Channel


I took it Interplanetary yesterday as I celebrated International Women's Day (#IWD2016 #InternationalWomensDay) by launching a number of women into space towards Mars.

Our first two episodes are now streaming on our YouTube channel and I encourage you to check them out to follow our all female astronaut crew on their one way trip to Mars.

WAFM YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC86zkj7eO8sqZhxeMBl8y_A

WAFM Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5RUjze_QE

Tuesday 1 March 2016

WOMEN ARE FROM MARS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5RUjze_QE&feature=youtu.be

Howdy.

A little self-promotion.

Please check out the trailer for a new SciFi Comedy webseries I wrote called, Women Are From Mars.

We are seeking funding and the more people who watch, like and share our show the greater the likelihood we will get funding.

We will be posting more content throughout the month but please take a minute out of your day and have a laugh at my expense.

Thanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5RUjze_QE&feature=youtu.be

Wednesday 27 January 2016

My Son, The Sith Lord

It started innocently enough - with the whole family watching  the entire Star Wars movie catalogue over the weeks leading up to the release of Episode 7.

The next step? Also innocuous - my 8 year old's decision to go as Darth Vader for Halloween, using an amazing mask he got last year, which came pre-loaded with recorded James Earl Jones' quotes from the original films, all available at the touch of a button. He memorized all of them, mimicking with amazing accuracy JEJ's delivery (if not his rumbling bass).

While watching the movies with him I noticed that, whenever someone presented the protagonist with problems, his response was to suggest they should be killed. And then his cheering at said destruction.

But, I convinced myself that he was just being a normal blood-thirsty 8 year old. Still, deep down I wondered....

Watching movies or sports teams with him he always cheers for the overdog. He is all about the win, dominance and then gloating over a win. Hearing his synopsis of stories or movies they are interestingly skewed to the point of view of the dominant figure in the story - not necessarily the protagonist. It reminds me of that great scene in the movie Barcelona when one of the characters, suffering from a head injury, describes the end of The Graduate. He found Dustin Hoffman's character a whining lcreep who ruins the life of the groom, "a great guy, the make-out king of his fraternity", when Hoffman crashes the wedding and runs off with the girl. Classic.

What else? He is governed by powerful emotions, which as we know, is the path to the dark side.

His regular greeting to me is to physically attack me like Cato in the Pink Panther movies does to Inspector Clouseau. I mean, it's done in love but, still...

The clearest evidence though was when I got in his way in the hallway the other day and he declared ominously, "Don't make me destroy you."

You might think that when you realize that your son is a Sith Lord that there would be a group or something you can join, right? Maybe a seminar? At least a hotline, maybe? You'd be surprised to learn that, no, you're pretty much on your own.

I was worried for a while about how this would play out but, I've come to peace with it. I think I accepted him for who he was when he turned to me the other day and, with perfect intonation and phrasing, said, "Join me. Together you and I can rule the galaxy as father and son."

When your son says that to you, it would take a heart of stone to not be moved. I, of course, said yes.

So, your kid is a doctor? Sports star? Computer scientist? Whatever. My son is a Sith Lord and he will kick your kid's ass.