Why The Universe Loves Ralph Wiggum!

Thanks to Calvin's Canadian Cave Of Cool for this majestic Ralph-ism to round off today's Geek Day celebrations!

I Love Star Wars: Romance in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

This seemed a fitting post for today.

It Binds The Galaxy Together...

Like many younglings of my generation, Star Wars spoke to me in ways other movies never did.

People often talk about being "blown away" the first time they saw the Imperial Star Destroyer rumble into shot during the opening sequence of Star Wars.

It didn't have that effect on me - for me it was totally normal; in my 10-year-old mind's eye that's what spaceships had always looked like. This was space stuff as it always should have been!

My dad took me to see Star Wars when it first came out and it was one of those rare films that really bridged the age gap.

From seeing Star Wars on the big screen, with my dad, in 1977 a fanboy was born.

I started a scrap book (cover pictured above) of Star Wars newspaper and magazine articles, along with the "Who's Who"s from the black-and-white British Star Wars comics, and a strange diagram of the Death Star trench.

As well as hordes of bubblegum cards and a small selection of action figures (I mainly remember Han Solo and Darth Vader); my collecting mania had begun.

More importantly, I wrote voraciously.

Since primary school I'd filled spare exercise books with rambling Earth-centric science-fiction and action stories, but now they took on epic, space opera qualities, filled with alien planets and strange creatures, inspired by George Lucas and his masterpiece.

Somehow I knew, albeit subconsciously, that this was a film unlike any other. A phenomenon. And the world would never be the same again.

Three decades later and George Lucas' creation is still impacting my life.

Even though Rachel isn't a fan and it was actually a total co-incidence that we were married six years ago today, May 25, 2007 (the 30th anniversary of the opening of Star Wars), we still had The Imperial March as Rachel's bridal music and she had secretly arranged for 'Darth Vader' to act as ring bearer.

At the time, Paul (my best man) was working as Assistant Editor of New Consumer magazine  and so our wedding earned a mention in their promotional material for 'alternative' weddings (as a faux new report video).

The table names for the wedding breakfast were all planets from the Saga (the head table was Cosuscant) and our cake topper was this delightful tiny replica of myself as Han Solo and Rachel as Princess Leia. They still have pride-of-place in the dinning room cabinet display, along with a number of Star Wars-themed Mr Potato Heads (Darth Tater, Spudtrooper etc)!

In my world, Star Wars surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the Galaxy together; it is such a part of my life, of who I am, it connects me to my late father, it is woven into the fabric of my wedding and continues to be a major factor in fandom/collecting/gaming etc

Speed Dating - Heroes & Villains Style...

Ladies & Gentlemen, Don't Panic!

Today is a day of international geek celebration, it is Towel Day (honouring the memory and work of Douglas Adams), Geek Pride Day (the anniversary of the opening of Star Wars in 1977) and The Glorious 25th Of May (a special day for fans of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels).

Oh, and it also happens to be my wedding anniversary!

So make sure you do something particularly geeky today to mark these great events and please join me in a dignified rendition of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation's Complaints Department theme song - Share And Enjoy to welcome our latest recruit:

• Niels

Torn From The Headlines: Anti-Reanimation Cage...

I've seen graves with cages like this in British churchyards. However, it never dawned on me that people would concoct a very modern assumption that these were erected by Victorians afraid their loved-ones would rise as vampires or zombies (as the misleading caption from Facebook above suggests)!

They are, of course, to prevent the far more human crime of grave-robbing.

As explained on About.com's Urban Legends site, these are grills are to keep the living out, not to keep the living dead in.

But, despite the reverse-thinking misinformation, it still makes for an interesting story.

Avengers' Tasters...

Ahead of the American premier this weekend of the first two episodes of the new Marvel cartoon Avengers Assemble here's a pair of sneaky peaks from those episodes:

Earth's Mightiest Heroes is going to be a tough act to follow, but I'm willing to be open-minded until I can judge for myself, after seeing a couple of episodes here in the UK, whether Avengers Assemble is a worthy successor.

Still don't really understand why EMH had to be axed - unless the 'ultimate' goal is lobotomise the animated Avengers as Marvel/Disney have done with Spider-Man in the craptacular Ultimate Spider-Man?

Read All About It! Read All About It!

The local newspaper which employed me for so many years continues to demonstrate its good taste by running a page-feature on my amazing wife and her dolls house hobby today.

Naturally Rachel has all the details on her blog, Miniatures Make Me Happy, so pop on over and check out the article and more pictures of her miniature pub, The Rachel's Return, and other projects.

Needless to say, I'm very proud and extremely happy that she is able to share her passion with others - and hopefully it will drive even more visitors to her already very popular blog.

If, of course, you live in West Kent or East Sussex, you can find the article on page 30 of this week's Kent & Sussex Courier.

Latest Episode Of The Night Blogger...

The latest instalment of Al Bruno III's audio chiller The Night Blogger: The Graveyard Game...

Previous episodes can be found here.

CoC Blocking!

Bill Cavalier, The Dungeon Bastard, has strong opinions on DMs who want to run Call Of Cthulhu as a change from Dungeons & Dragons!