Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad,” my son told me last spring.

He was 2, and he’d heard it from his older brother, who’d heard it from an especially sophisticated kindergartner who probably also told him the endings to “The Sixth Sense” and “The Crying Game.”

Anyway, there died all our plans for giving our boys the perfect “Star Wars” experience. And “Star Wars” was at the top of our list.

You know, the list. When you have kids — even before you have kids — you start thinking about all the things you’re going to share with them someday. You buy new copies of your favorite books and movies. You get your old toys out of the attic.

At my brother’s request, I’m recapping this week’s Glee Mad Men-style. Play-by-play.

And I’m really excited about this episode because we’ve been promised a wedding. I love weddings. Especially on TV and in movies. (Best wedding movie? Monsoon Wedding. Also Muriel’s Wedding. And … The Wedding Singer. And The Wedding Banquet.) Anyway, weddings! Let’s do this.

“So, Pelini apologized,” a co-worker said to me in the elevator lobby Monday afternoon. “Do you think he meant it?”
“No?” I guessed.
Then he said something else that sounded a lot to me like, “Football. Football football — Husker Huskers — football football football. Foot. Ball.”
It was my turn again. “He sure was mad,” I ventured.
If this conversation had taken place at this time last year, it would have taken me a few seconds to figure out who Pelini was, and then I would have had to guess what he was …

So I watched a lot of Dancing With the Stars to prepare for my Sunday column about the Bristol Palin voting controversy ….

And I have to say, the dancing on that show is terrible. Like, REALLY terrible.

Finding a way to cheat the “Dancing With the Stars” system isn’t like tampering with ballot boxes or campaigning at a polling place.
It’s dirtier.
Because when you mess with “Dancing With the Stars,” you’re messing with something that people still have faith in.
Have you avoided the Bristol Palin reality show controversy so far? Here’s a quick recap (bail out now if you want to keep your brain clean):
Bristol Palin is on “Dancing With the Stars” this season. “Why?” you ask. “She isn’t a star.” I know. Almost nobody on the show …

So … I was not one of those Glee fans who threw up on their good yoga pants when Gwyneth showed up as a substitute for Mr. Schue. (Some people hate Gwyneth. You can tell who these people are because they call her “Gwynnie.”)

Much like the kids on the show, I was happy to have Gwyneth stop by for an episode. She’s got a good voice, she’s funny, and the writers didn’t have to destroy existing plotlines just to wedge her in. (Cross your fingers next week for Carol Burnett.)

The last Harry Potter movie comes out Friday. Well, the first half of the last movie.
If I were saying this out loud to you, I guarantee that someone in the vicinity would say, “Oh, yeah, that’s right, two movies. Two movie tickets. They’re really milking fans as much they can, huh?”
And then I would say, “Shut up, you imbecile.”
OK, no, I wouldn’t say that, because what if that other person was my mom? Or my boss? Or handsome family man Hugh Jackman?
Honestly, I can understand why someone who’s not into …

Universal Studios knows its audience.
If you go to the Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, it’s because you want to be terrified or you want to throw up. Or you want to be terrified until you throw up …
Unless you’re a Harry Potter fan.
I’ve been planning my pilgrimage to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter since the moment I heard it might be on the table.
The idea — the possibility — of visiting Hogwarts, actually visiting Hogwarts, made me tremble. (Not exaggerating. Not employing hyperbole for dramatic effect. Very, …

A lot of my favorite stories start out almost exactly the same. There’s this normal, mundane muggle-type person who unexpectedly finds herself, or himself, sucked into another world. A magical world. Usually there’s a quest involved, and only our hero or heroine can get the job done.

This never gets old for me. Whether it’s Harry getting that letter from Hogwarts or Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole or Wendy ending up in Neverland.

But all of the classic portal fantasies (you can read an even nerdier breakdown of the genre here) are for young adults.] If you love those books, but don’t feel like rereading them for the millionth time, here are some adult books that deliver that same brand of magic. (And by adult, I mean written for grownups, not for perverts.)

got nervous last night when the Glee guys started fantasizing about Coach Bieste as a way to turn themselves off during makeout sessions.

Glee has a nasty habit of focusing on a put-upon character (a fat kid, a gay kid, a kid with a disability) in a really exploitive, insensitive way — all in the guise of celebrating diversity. Sometimes it seems like the message is, “Glee is for misfits, even the totally disgusting ones!”