I'm just under two weeks away from my 59th birthday and a bit more than five weeks away from my mom's 84th birthday.

Somewhere between those two dates, she will be out here to witness the first marriage of a grandchild, my daughter. This is after Mom's knee replacement surgery three years ago and her trip to Greece last summer, where she climbed up the Acropolis at Athens, walked under the Lion Gate of Mycenae and put her daughter and another granddaughter to shame with her spunk.

"Gramma Amy" gave birth to three children, powered through the death of my father (the love of her life), got all three of us through college, worked up through her seventies, full time and into her eighties, part time, climbed waterfalls in the Bahamas, went kayaking and mountain hiking in Alaska in her seventies and eighties.

Yeah, she's Super Mom, and she will out live us all. Happy Mothers' Day, mom. You deserve it.

We took my granddaughter to the first Narnia movie, two years ago, when she was six. She was just enraptured. "Granpa, that little girl is like me, but with brown hair!" she exclaimed.

Now at age eight, she is extremely excited to see the sequel, all the more so having seen the trailers. I really hope she won't be disappointed.

You know, over the years I've cut you a lot of slack, given that you seem to be the most reviled movie reviewer on Salon.com. However, this tears it.

In short, WTF were you thinking when you wrote this review? You blithely give away most of the plot points without bothering to post a spoiler alert. Really, after all these years are you that fucking stupid and/or incompetent?

Really, your editor should have come in an bitch slapped you into next week for submitting that review.

The gloves are off, girl. Screw up again like this and a lot of $$ paying subscribers are coming after you.

most of us are not into all that kinky stuff.

Well, at least I won't be. Not these two, not "Swingtown", hell, not even "The Bridges of Madison County."

I am far from a prude, but increasingly, I'm switching off from this insult to my intelligence and going to the news channels, The History Channel or just switching the TV off and reading a good book.

Just think back a few elections ago--- Bush, Sr., Clinton and Perot were all left handed.

So am I, my ex and our darling granddaughter.

We ARE the future, mofos. Get used to it!

First, the good doctor displays his lack of reading comprehension skills by inplying Mr. Smith is pulling down $100,000+.

Second, he whines about only making $66,000 as a college prof with a PhD.

Wow.

One can only hope he exhibits more competence in whatever classes he teaches than he does here.

However, let's go back to the money thing, as that seems to be his main concern. Just how is it that he got the idea that academia is ever likely to be the road to riches? Perhaps I am a bit old fashioned, but going into teaching always seemed to me to be more of a calling than for a way to pull down the big bucks. Then again, I'm just a middle school teacher, doing what I always wanted to do, much like most commercial pilots. Yeah, you know how that is, getting hit with snarky comments about only having to work until 3 PM, having the whole summer off to do jack squat while drawing down an unconsciously high rate of pay. I'm sure you've heard much the same, Dr. T.

Too bad you can't see that.

No only will I not go to see this in the theater, but will refuse to watch it on cable or regular broadcast TV (which will occur uncomfortably soon.

I can only add that several weeks ago, when my son took his 8 year old niece, my granddaughter, to the latest Indian Jones movie, they showed the trailer for "Mamma Mia!", which caused Zara to proclaim that she absolutely HAD to see it. Uncle Marc quickly quashed that, as well he should have.

let me say you cannot imagine what you have ahead of you.

For the most part, it is damn good but there are times. As the father of two kids, born 16 months apart, I have to tell you that for about the first six years after the birth of my son, I never, ever got to finish a cup of coffee while it was still hot. Then there was the time when our infant son had his first ear infection and a 7-11 clerk almost called the cops on me. Really.

OTOH, despite my son's predilection for turning into a human fountain at diaper changes, he never once got me. He did, however, end up on one occasion peeing into his own face. That was amusing. Close to 30 years later, it is fun to remind him of that.

You'll do fine.

the writer of this piece realises that if Robert Conrad ever reads this article that he, the writer, is likely to be the recipient of one of this century's most massive beat downs.