Meh, you kids and your Avatars. In MY day...

Part of me wishes that kids had strict viewing restrictions for movies with special effects.

For instance, everybody under the age of eight would be restricted to films made no later than 1960. You get Michael Landon as a werewolf, rubber suited monsters, and giant superimposed ants, and that's okay, because you're young enough to roll with it. At eight, the floor can still become lava at a moment's notice; visible zippers on sea creatures shouldn't be a problem.

On your 10th birthday, though, your card would come in the mail, and the wonders of the '60s would open before you. You could explore the Hammer vampires and Vincent Price's gothic horrors as if it were your own private new technicolor world.

And finally, on your 12th birthday, your mother would hand you a card and a gift-wrapped boxed set: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, and Alien, because you're just old enough to see the edges of depth there, of adult fears beyond mere monsters and make-up. You're just old enough to have your mind safely blown. And then, when she turns her back, Dad stuffs Star Wars into your eager hands, because, hey, you are still a kid.

And everyone leaves you alone on your 14th birthday, because not only do you have to finish the trilogy, you also have a pile of teen slasher flicks full of all the T&A your hormonal young mind can handle. As an added bonus of the staggered age of movie restrictions, your adolescence will be spared the Star Wars prequels and the slasher reboots. Lucky!

And when you've finally had your fill of the '80s and their rubber suited mini-monsters (ah, Ghoulies!) and unkillable killing machines, you get your pass to the '90s, and the very first film you're handed is Jurassic Park, and it is every bit as amazing as it should be, because you haven't been spoonfed post-Park CGI in your formative years. Also, your parents don't have to buy you a buttload of cheap plastic dinomerch, because get a job, that's why.

Okay, really I just want these damn kids to understand how utterly awesome the effects for Jurassic Park still are.

Apropos of flaming rectums...

Anyone who believes that teenagers nationwide are soaking tampons in vodka and inserting them rectally...
...is rightly concerned about America's youth.
...has never actually used a tampon before.
...should contact their Congressperson to push for a ban on menstrual products as part of the war on birth control. Can't have drunk zygotes!
...has never had anything inserted in their rectum before.
...should run through their local high school with a lighter held at waist level.
...has a very low opinion of vodka.
...should be kept away from their girlfriends'/wives' feminine hygiene products in the near future.

Vote now!

(But not really. I don't have poll permissions at this site.)

[ETA for linkage and to thank my kindly benefactor!]