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zwolanerd

“I guess I just like liking things”

December 12, 2012 Monster of the Week

This isn’t a huge entry, but I’ve been wanting to share this for a while and couldn’t decide on a way to include it in a larger post. Besides, it’s just so wonderful that it deserves a standalone entry.

This person is watching through The X-Files and drawing a comic about each one, and it is just fantastic. You can tell she loves the show and also has a grasp on it in wonderful ways that come out in the comics.  If you like the show, you’ll enjoy the comics, as each one is a nice reminder.

Honestly, it’s kind of making me want to watch through the series again.  If I could draw, this is probably the sort of thing I would do about every show, so you should count your blessings.

 

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December 11, 2012 Tuesday 10: TV I Haven’t Seen Yet

Sometimes shows come along that people can’t stop talking about.  Even people who don’t watch regularly still know enough about the show to follow conversations because the show gets embedded in the culture so thoroughly. Today’s list is shows that have made huge splashes that I haven’t watched. I’ve seen many of the shows you think should be on here, so don’t get after me about not including Seinfeld, Arrested Development, and The Sopranos.

These are shows I’ve seen less than a full episode of, and the list is in order of how likely I am to eventually watch it, with the most likely at #1.

10.  Lost – I know a lot of people who loved the show while it was on and even still love it.  I followed along with it here and there, hearing bits and pieces and looking stuff up, but it was more out of a sense of requirement since everyone else was talking about it. I had zero interest in it then and I have zero interest in it now. If I want a meandering plot with more unanswered questions than answered ones, I’ll stick to The X-Files, thank you very much.

9. 24 – This show was huge for a while there.  And, honestly, it did look like something I might enjoy, but I never got around to it. Once a season was in full swing, it didn’t make sense to try and catch up on it.  I may eventually watch the first season of this, but I really doubt it.

8.  The West Wing – I have watched other Aaron Sorkin things (loved Sports Night, fell off Studio 60 after about 4 episodes), but I don’t have much interest in politics. Most Sorkin fans I know say this is his best work, but it probably won’t happen.

7.  The Walking Dead – I haven’t seen the show, read the books, or played the games. The only zombie-related things I even have a slight interest in are the Resident Evils, and I mostly tolerate them rather than enjoy them. Zombies just aren’t my thing.

6.  Battlestar Galactica – This is the breaking point for the list. From here on up is stuff I definitely want to see.  I’ve heard nothing but good about this series and I like scifi, so I suspect I’ll like this.  It’ll have to wait until after I’m through all the Star Treks, though.

5.  Six Feet Under – I go back and forth on this one. I’m currently on “want to see,” but a year from now I might be all “nope.”  The older I get the less I like to watch death-related stuff, so this one might fall off the list permanently at some point.  I’m intrigued by what I know of it, though, and I have a good friend who recommends it highly.

4.  Game of Thrones – Boy, the Internet is just crazy about this one right now, isn’t it?  Actually, the top four here are all Internet darlings.  I first saw Peter Dinklage in The Station Agent and thought he was fantastic. Honestly, his being in this is the biggest draw for me. If I ever hear through the grapevine that his character gets killed off (because as I understand it, every character gets killed off in Game of Thrones), I will probably move this one to my “nope” list.

3.  Mad Men – It just looks so darn stylish.

2.  The Wire – This is #1 on so many “BEST SHOW EVER” lists that I feel like ignoring it would be some sort of personal failing.

1.  Breaking Bad – The big draw here is seeing Malcolm’s dad go dark and evil.  Just the pictures of Bryan Cranston in character tell me tons about the character.  I’ll probably wait until the show is done before I start watching it.

Almosts – these are shows I’ve seen less than ten episodes of:

  • South Park – the “You Got Served” and World of Warcraft episodes were some funny, funny stuff, but I would never make it through this show.
  • American Idol – I don’t even know why people watch these kinds of shows :/
  • Everybody Loves Raymond – it’s not that I don’t find some things about this show amusing, I just don’t see it being a “long haul” kind of show for me.
  • Frasier – I might eventually get around to this one.
  • Law & Order – I really don’t see much point in going through this one. This is more of an “I’ll watch it if it’s on” kind of thing.
  • E.R. – Medical dramas? No thank you. Scrubs is the only version I need.

So what’d I miss?

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December 10, 2012 Lego

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Lego is the best toy of all time.  The bucket of multicolored bricks I had when I was a kid provided me hours of entertainment and education in architectural forms. My brother and I had basic sets: squares, rectangles, slanty pieces, a few windows, a rectangular green base platform, that was about it.  Just a few hundred pieces, but I don’t remember having any actual kits.  We built what we could, which for me included a lot of small space ships and some houses made of all-on-color stripes.

I don’t have any kids of my own, but my brother has two. His oldest just turned 11 and recently participated in his school’s team for the Lego robotics competition. He’s been playing with Lego for most of his life, so it was a natural step. This kid has more Star Wars Lego kits than I even knew existed, and I have to admit to a little jealousy. Kits these days are very specific to that kit, with strange little pieces that wouldn’t help you much anywhere else.  I can’t imagine how you’d ever sort them all out if several kits got mixed up together.

Spidey meets the sarlacc, and Sony gets an idea – soon to be a major motion picture

Somewhere along the line, he got the Spider-Man minifig pictured here in the grip of the sarlacc. But my nephew’s not really into comic books, he’s pretty much straight-up Star Wars, Lego-wise. He sold me the Spidey minifig for $1.37, but he let me take that picture for free, so I guess I made out all right.

I am constantly seeing Lego kits that I want to buy for myself.  Most recently, they’ve released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kits, and even though they’re not the Turtles I’m familiar with, I still want all of the Turtle minifigs.  But I can’t get past the “what would I do with them?” question of buying a kit.  Sure, I could put it together and I know that would be fun, but then what?  Lego kits aren’t the sort of thing you display (especially when you have a wife who made you put away your Batman cookie jar when you got married), and I don’t have any kids who would play with them, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t want them to because, hey, those are mine!

Still, I love the idea of putting a kit together!  There’s something so orderly and satisfying about it. I’m an instruction follower by nature and Lego kits scratch me where I itch. Is it worth $70, though, just to put something together in 2 hours that will need to be taken back apart directly thereafter and then put on a shelf? I go back and forth on this, but I have yet to end up on the “yes” side of it long enough to actually buy a kit.

There is one kit I would buy in a heartbeat, though, if I could afford it. I saw it for sale at a local toy store four years ago for $50 but decided it was too expensive. This is a decision that haunts me to this day.

I cannot explain to you how much I wish I could buy this kit. The Tumbler is my second-favorite Batmobile of all time, and I think the Lego recreation of it looks fantastic.  It’s been out of production for a long time (for some reason that I’m sure some Lego executive thinks is good), and even though I want this so much, I’m not prepared to spend $915 on it.

The more I think about it, the sadder it makes me. I know that’s ridiculous!  There has just never been any other Lego kit I have wanted to build as much as I want to build this one.  Sure,  the Death Star is neat and the super-awesome Batcave has some sweet stuff going on, but I would never in a hundred years be able to do those. This one’s sad because I could have had it.

Cue the Sinatra: “Regrets, I’ve had a few.”

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December 7, 2012 GTiBS: Lindsay Lohan’s Career

I can’t adequately explain how sad I am about Lindsay Lohan’s path thus far. I completely understand that we live and die by the choices we make, and we don’t have anyone else to blame. Still, to the outside observer (me, in this instance), there’s an evident sadness and I, like many others, worry she isn’t long for this world if she doesn’t make changes very, very soon. There’s no need to reiterate her many troubled missteps here, you’re well aware of most of them, I’m sure.

Let’s talk about the good stuff!  Here are the three best things in Lindsay Lohan’s career – more correctly, these are the three best things in her career that I’ve seen.  Rumor has it that her Parent Trap remake wasn’t horrible, but I haven’t seen that.

1. Mean Girls. This is the one that usually comes to mind when you’re thinking about good stuff Lindsay has done.  It’s not an awesome movie, but it is a lot of fun and has many quotable lines. Granted, most of them aren’t from  Lindsay’s character, but she acquits herself well in a movie where she’s surrounded by great characters.

Some of the best lines:

  • You can’t just ask people why they’re white!
  • Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die!
  • She doesn’t even go here!
  • Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen.

Key reasons this is good: Tina Fey, Neil Flynn, Rachel McAdams – really, just a great cast all around.

2. A Prairie Home Companion. I know Robert Altman movies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved this semi-fictional look at the making of Garrison Keillor’s long-running show. I’m sure a lot of my enjoyment of this movie comes from my enjoyment of the radio show, and another part of my enjoyment comes from the Robert Altman-ness of it all: the tracking shots, the intertwining conversations, the 4,076 characters that all manage to be important to the story.  Lindsay is the outsider teenager, who doesn’t fit with the show’s folksy atmosphere, chained to it by family.  But when she needs to sing, she comes through in a wonderful way.

Key reasons this is good: Again, she was surrounded by a wonderful cast. Also: Robert Altman.

3. This commercial here:

Key reasons this is good: Come on, Bill Cosby is in it.

 

I think the reason Lindsay’s ongoing bad decisions are so sad is that we’ve seen glimpses of what she could have been. Here’s hoping she turns her life around.

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December 6, 2012 Mission Statement

So what’s this site all about?  After a month of posts, maybe it’s time I told you.  You could click on the About link in the upper right there and get a sense of it, I suppose, but I think most people don’t click on Abouts.

It should be fairly evident by now, but I love pop culture. TV, movies, videogames, Internet culture, you name it, I like it.   Obviously, I don’t love all of every bit of each of those things (let’s be reasonable!), but I have a general appreciation for pop culture.

A lot of sites that talk about pop culture seem to be heavy on the sarcasm and the snark, almost a “we love to hate pop culture!” mindset. While I appreciate the picking something apart can give you a deeper appreciation or understanding of  something, often the dissected item is ruined. I felt there was a place for a site that celebrated what people like about pop culture – after all, “pop(ular)” culture wouldn’t be pop culture if large groups of people didn’t like it, so why not enjoy it?

I get the “Why?” question a lot. “Why do you waste your time on _____________?” I get that. I won’t argue that it’s a valid point in some instances. After all, if everybody only ever consumed pop culture, nothing would get done. “Surely there are better uses of your time” is the other one I hear. Well, yeah.  In the grand scheme of things, pop culture isn’t IMPORTANT, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.

One of the biggest benefits of pop culture is as a reference point. To me it’s like this: when pirate ships would attack other ships, the would pull up alongside and throw grappling hooks over to the other ship to pull closer to them so they could board. Any connection we make to other people is a grappling hook, pulling us closer to other people.  One of my favorite things about Batman and ALF and Assassin’s Creed and Seinfeld is how it can connect me to other people.  You like Seinfeld? What’s your favorite episode? Why do you like it? Who’s your favorite character? What’s your favorite moment of that character? Your answers to those questions tell me more about you than they do about Seinfeld, and though I could find those things out some other way, Seinfeld offers us a shortcut.

Now, the danger is relying on the shortcuts. If all we have in common and all we ever discuss is Seinfeld, I don’t think pop culture is doing its job. If it exists only to feed itself, it is pointless. If, though, we use pop culture to connect to other people, it becomes a useful tool.  I love the stories pop culture tells me, the lives I wouldn’t know anything about if I didn’t have it. The more I learn about more careers and life situations, the better-suited I am to be a contributing member of society.

The long-held view of geeks and nerds as basement-dwelling anti-social snobby slobs doesn’t do anybody any favors. Are there people like that? Certainly. Is every Star Trek fan a Trekkie? Nope. Are there managers who learned better team management techniques by doing high-level raids in World of Warcraft? Yep.

Bell curves tend to happen because there are always extremes, but most people fall in the middle. Extremes, though, make for better examples.  “Three Starcraft players died after playing for 36 hours straight!” makes a more exciting tale than “Mother of two plays Skyrim for an hour after the kids go to bed and still gets plenty of sleep and is a productive worker the next day!”  Excessive attention on any one part of your life can throw the rest of it off balance.  Someone who works 70-80 hours a week at work is just as broken as someone who plays Halo nine hours a day, it’s just that society okays one and not the other.

So, mission statement. I guess it boils down to this:

“I enjoy pop culture, I think there’s value in it, and I want to talk about it with you. Let’s enjoy it together.”

That won’t put me on the Fortune 500 list any time soon, but I hope it helps us make some more connections.

 

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