I was tiny when that movie came out. Way too little to go to the movie theater. My parents, a young couple with their first baby, learned that the hard way when they decided to take me with them because paying a babysitter would suck up the budget to go see a movie.

I was fine until the scene when Elliot goes out to the shed with the pizza box. Then the ball rolls out of the shed. Then BWAAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA and E.T. is screaming and his tongue is waggling and I’m going apeshit.

That night my parents learned what it was like to be those people who brought a toddler to the movies and ruin it for the rest of us. They never did it again.

Of course soon enough the movie was on TV. And Betamax. Curse you, Jimmy’s Video Rental, for carrying that most foul of films. It was re-released in 1985, just in time to re-traumatize me and solidify the shuffling asthmatic beastie as THE monster that came for me in the night. I was exposed to this evilness repeatedly as a kid thanks to callous and uncaring friends and relatives who helped make it . The glowing heart. The unnerving wide-eyed stare. The shameless product placement for Reese’s Pieces. The pasty, pale body lying in the woods. My brief glimmer of hope as it looks like the bastard might die and it will all be over with and I can return to dealing with the more normal scary monsters under my bed. My horror as he groans and comes back to life like a alien zombie Muppet ready to eat my brains.

When you watch this, pretend it isn’t satire and you will all understand for the first time what the recurring nightmares of my childhood were like.

The fangs. The red eyes. The slithering. This is the E.T. of my childhood.

Since Spielberg has been sucking the residual cash out of all of his franchises one by one like a good little Hollywood vampire, I knew it was just a matter of time before he returned to this monstrosity. It will be re-re-re-released with George Lucas-style midlife crisis-motivated digital enhancements. Oh, and 3-D. It’s coming to get me in 3-D in 2012. The apocalypse is also arriving in 2012. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. I just hope it comes before this nightmare hits theaters and somebody makes me go with them to see it.

whoami
>Edda

locate space*
>$result=’/home/existence/space_time_continuum

OMFG! The world didn’t end.

plump|pillow

./snore

The answer? Who cares?? If the world ends, you won’t know because you won’t exist. In honor of our collective impending doom less than 10 hours from now, I present for your reading pleasure the top 10 Epic Apocalyptic Fails.

1. Ragnarök. It’s too bad this one didn’t end the world, because it’s by far the coolest method of extinction imaginable. Now all it’s good for is entertaining big fat MMO nerds and their yet nerdier counterparts, LARPers. FAIL.

2. Y1K. Oh yes! A millenium before Y2K we had Y1K! In fact, this nice arbitrary number was so convincing that popular legend holds that King Otto III had Charlemagne’s body exhumed on Pentecost in the year 1000. Spurred on by the horrific sight of Halley’s comet in 989, old Otto believed that his grandpappy (who was buried sitting on a throne in full regalia) would spring back to life, slay the Antichrist, and forestall the apocalypse. It didn’t happen, so Otto took some of his jewelry. Unlike MMO characters, medieval emperors don’t respawn in the graveyard. FAIL.

3. Nostradamus. Allegedly the clock was ticking and in 1999 our number was up according to this 16th century Frog. But while lots of his predictions either didn’t come true or just don’t make sense at all, he’s really proven his long-term worth by selling the hell out of The Weekly World news. ALCHEMY FAIL.

4. Martin Luther. Didn’t you know? The Protestant Reformation was a sign of the presence of the coming apocalypse. Cardinal Caesar Baronius pleaded with the Holy Roman Emperor: “Magnificent Emperor Charles, Christian nobles, devoted to Christ, how long are you going to suffer the devil’s voice of the papal Antichrist?” Oops. Too bad. The world didn’t end, although thanks to Protestantism we now have Christian Rock, which is much worse. SCHISM FAIL.

5. Nukes. This was a big one during the cold war, but it proved one thing about human stupidity: while humans are dumb enough to make nukes, they’re not dumb enough to fire them. Well, maybe. RED BUTTON FAIL.

6. Asteroids. Sure, the impact of a big sucker straight outta the Kuiper Belt would leave us pretty much hosed, but the odds of the #1 most likely asteroid hitting the Earth in 2019 are only 200,000 to 1. You are more likely to bowl 300 in a game (11,500 to 1), speak the Cherokee language (15000 to 1), or slip to your death in the shower (2,232 to 1) than get killed by a giant asteroid. However, you are way less likely to drown in a bathtub (685,000 to 1) so you may want to get practicing with this handy training tool. EPIC DEATH FAIL.

7. Y2K. I was so convinced that this one would be rubbish that I stayed home from a party just so I could surf online to see if my computer would burst into flames, sprout horns and fangs, and ram its ovipositor down my throat. Instead, I bought a lovely hat on eBay. Yup. Right at midnight. INTARWEBZ HOLOCAUST FAIL.

8. The Book of Revelation. If you take a literal interpretation of the Bible, the Earth is now 6,008 years old and the opening of the Seventh Seal is somewhat tardy. By now we should have had The Four Horsemen, the Battle of Armageddon, and some loud brass music. Instead, my lovely hat showed up in the mail. 1337 HAT FTW!

9. Global Warming. I’d like to clarify something; Global Warming could not cause the world to end. It can wipe out biological life, including humans, which is the only reason humans give a crap about it. Get over yourselves, you homo sapiens centrists. SEMANTICS FAIL.

10. 2012. Apparently the Aztec Calendar says the world is going to end in 2012. Well, forgive my skepticism, but I don’t lend much credence to deities who tell their people to follow a hummingbird to their shiny new capital in the middle of a lake (not next to, IN the lake) and then have them say thank you by cutting out some poor sap’s still-beating heart and feeding his guts to the pets in the royal zoo. HUMAN SACRIFICE FAIL.

Anyway . . . at midnight tonight Pacific time, check your watch. If it clicks over to 12:01 and you’re still here, we can keep up the hope that the Aztecs were right.

Normally I don’t turn too much attention to the threat of necromantic reanimated because zombies are so slow, dull-witted, and careless that even moderate sized infestations are easy to contain. But a new phase of evolution has begun among zombiekind, illustrating the dangerous possibility that they may have gained something in intelligence. I give you ZombieHarmony.com, the place for zombies to meet and gather online. I know that I shouldn’t get too concerned about this; after all, a zombie would need at least one eye and a hand in order to read the screen and click the mouse. But still! We cannot be too vigilant in our efforts to thwart these evil foes.

Don’t believe me? Let’s follow the logic train:

1. Zombies are allowed to meet through ZombieHarmony
2. Zombies have a lovely time expanding their social spheres, enjoying nice meals of espresso and Kindergarten teachers while chatting about the advantages and disadvantages of the lifestyle of the modern urban undead
3. Zombies form an unstoppable horde
4. Zombies take over the world
5. All scientific activity stops
6. Robots are never invented
7. The robo-apocalypse never comes

Zombies pose a physical as well as strategic threat to you. Zombie Goo (sanguinary ichor) contains compounds that are highly corrosive. Beware, my minions, lest your tender cerebrums end up on a sushi platter shared by two lovey-dovey ghouls who met on ZombieHarmony.com. Zombies are the common enemy to us all. As the UNSC and The Covenant had to set aside their differences to destroy The Flood, so must human beings obliterate this mutual threat lest it undo us all.

So I leave it to you, my loyal army of minions. Arm yourselves with a shovel or a cricket bat and seek out the undead hordes. Should you see one of these fiends logging in, wait until after they have succeeded. Then proceed to destroy the zombie in the way that seems best to you. I prefer a wood chipper. Then attempt to access the zombie’s contacts, make arrangements to meet, and obliterate the zombie’s entire list of friends. We cannot be too cautious. Lest our pride bring us down we must be vigilant.