Kid Named Ben Turns 10 on 10/10/10

I've always been quite interested in Ben 10. I made an effort to watch the pilot episode back in 2005 and was hooked ever since. Unfortunately, we downgraded to basic cable sometime around the second season and I never saw the rest. The series concluded and Ben 10: Alien Force was created, aired, and wrapped up. And now, finally, we're all the way up to the third series: Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

Ultimate Alien premiered in Canada near the end of April without much excitement. Nobody ever gets excited about anything in Canada, except hockey. But Cartoon Network is doing something clever in the US, UK, and Asia. They've timed it so that Ultimate Alien premieres on the tenth day of the tenth month of the tenth year of the millennium: 10/10/10, but first preceded by an Alien Force marathon. Now that is timing. Even better timing than managing to schedule a tutoring appointment right as the Olympic torch is about to pass through your neighborhood. Kids and even many adults all over most of the world are gearing up for an entire day of Ben 10 tomorrow. Twitter has been alight for the past few days in anticipation of "Ben 10 Day." CookieCarmella tweets about Ben 10 finally turning ten on 10/10/10. Oh sure, because Ben has been Ben 9 for five years.

But someone is turning ten on 10/10/10, and it's not a cartoon character. Ben Reeves of Swinton, Greater Manchester is in fact turning ten years old tomorrow. On the very day that Ben 10 fans will be the most excited about Ben 10, an actual kid named Ben will be turning ten years old.

Think you've got it upside down there buddy.

You can't time this shit. For Reeves to turn ten tomorrow, he'd have to have been born in 2000. (See? My math isn't that bad.) 2000 was long before Ben 10 was announced, so it's not like someone extremely observant could have noticed how all the dates matched up and suggested he should be named Ben.

The article goes on to mention that Reeves was recently discharged from hospital after swallowing a plastic toy. Maybe he ate it think it would give him superpowers? I believe that's quite plausible. Nine is past the shove-everything-that-you-can-find-on-the-floor-into-your-mouth-stage, so it was must have been a conscious act done with a motive.

Epilogue for those of you who care: We went back to premium cable a couple of weeks ago and I have around 100 episodes of backlog to catch up on before I start watching Ultimate Alien. The first two serieses are no longer on TV and I will be acquiring them from another source.