This is how it works.

Driving with my dad when I was little, a song he liked would pop up on the radio and he'd tell me exactly how old he was when he bought the album that it was on. I used to think this was just part of his genius and while I still maintain that he's by far the most smartest, the same thing happens to me. And if it happens to both of us, then it must happen to everyone, at least once they get to be old enough to actually have some sense of value and reverence for the passage of time.

What's funny is how random it is, and how you can't make a conscious effort to associate music with any one particular thing. It just happens. Par example, I can't hear 'Toxic' without immediately thinking of pastel jellybeans in 2004, and that Regina Spektor song about the radio reminds me of Halloween last year and what I now recognize to be an uncomplicated, naive sense of possibility, and I usually don't even know about cool bands but Liz made me a CD that had some Modest Mouse song about a dashboard melting and that only reminds me of driving to work through Beverly Hills last year while wondering how the hell I wound up there.

All still apply.

I'll be right here.

The original 1982 version of E.T. featured the NASA agents bearing these huge guns, ready to shoot the kids or something if need be. I know, it seems a little extreme. Gunning down a 10 year old to prevent him from sending his alien friend home just doesn't really feel like the answer to me. Furthermore, since they did have guns, what the heck was stopping them from just shooting the air out of the kids' bike tires? That would have slowed them down for sure.

Anyway, the point is, when the movie was rereleased in 2002 for its 20th anniversary, the guns were digitally removed and replaced with walkie talkies, which, while being a hell of a lot less threatening, also make more sense in terms of the content of the movie. Sure, by all means, communicate with the base unit about the locale of the fugitive children. No need for any children to die here.

It must be nice to have options like that. Now if technology could provide me with a similar opportunity to to turn a few past guns into presently harmless walkie talkies, that would be stellar.

All that aside: this is a movie that makes people care, genuinely, I might add, about a mess of rubber and wires in the turd-y shape of an alien. Say what you will about emotional manipulation, but really? Job well done. I love this movie. Which most people already know, considering the mass influx of messages I got a couple of weeks ago when the E.T. house became threatened by the path of the fires in the Valley. Thanks for the alerts, everyone. I'm doing alright.