Much Ado About Nothing

In the right context, witty banter can be brilliant.  In other cases, it can be extremely annoying.  What makes one use of a snippy comment endearing as opposed to something that forever ruins a character forever?  Context.  No person seems to walk that fine line between clever dialogue and aggravating self-indulgent smugness better than Joss Whedon.

He honed the skill on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly.  I wasn't really a big fan of Dollhouse, but from the few episodes I saw, it tended to slip a bit into smugness but came back up before I moved on.  He did quite well on Avengers, making a group of superheroes also human in how they spoke to each other.

So, what happens when a man who is almost best known for how he has characters talk takes on a project where he gets nothing to do with the dialogue?

You get a remarkably unique movie experience.

Erik Eats Cereal: Golden Grahams

I vividly recall the commercials for Golden Grahams cereal.  "How do they cram all that graham?"

Ask Erik: Episode Forty-Nine

Today at Ask Erik we're going to tackle something a bit less nerdy and a bit more healthy.  With obesity rates and health concerns racking up medical bills across the country, and with the recent news that obesity can become an issue for children before they even enter school it seems like people are cutting unhealthy stuff in more and more ways and trying to replace it with a healthy "alternative."

But is it really that much better for you?

To Erik: Are baked potato chips really healthier than fried potato chips?

Yes and no.

G5 Games

If you have a smart phone or an iDevice, you probably know that's it's pretty fun to just be able to pull it out and load up a short game you can play on a lunch break, on a car trip, or even while sitting in bed waiting to fall asleep.  There are lots of little companies that all try to carve out their own little niche in the marketplace, but from my exposure so far, none seem to be able to spam out games as quickly as G5 does.

Having played through some of their games now, I've come to come conclusions that I will share below.

Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego Part One

While I love the cartoon show Mighty Max, I hit a good temporary stopping point.  They wrapped up their first major plot point, we saw Max grow as a hero, and I think that actually was the final episode of season one.  

So, where to go from here? 

Honestly, I made a list, numbered it, and then had a random number generator pick.  It could just as easily have been another season of My Little Pony, another look at Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills, a peek into history with Liberty Kids, or even digging into something a bit more Japanese.

Heck, I had Totally Spies on that list, because I'm willing to cut any show with Jennifer Hale playing a secret agent some slack.

What it did land on was my DVD containing four episodes of Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego, and I'm pretty excited by this.  I've already said before that Carmen Sandiego is, in my eyes, the most interesting woman in video game history simply because we knew nothing about her.  She was the world's greatest thief, she had a love of red trenchcoats and awesome red hats, and she could steal anything that wasn't nailed down and pretty much anything that was.  Heck, she stole entire rivers and the entire city of Casablanca.

She doesn't mess around.  The Hope Diamond is for rookies.

So let's look back at the program, starting with a brief introductory reminder of the fact that there used to be two programs based around the world's greatest thief.

The Invention Of Lying

Confession time again.

I think this might be the first thing other than a TV commercial that I've ever watched that has Ricky Gervais in a starring role.

I never saw the English The Office, I haven't watched An Idiot Abroad, and I haven't watched Extras.

But hey, at least I'm catching up, right?

So here's the summary of my first exposure to Ricky Gervais: The Invention Of Lying.

Erik Eats Cereal: Frosted Cheerios

I'm not even going to bother cutting the post for space, because this is going to be remarkably short.

Frosted Cheerios tastes like sweet Cheerios.  That's it.  I've never seen any ads for it, I remember when it first came on the market and I'm honestly somewhat amazed that it's still on the market.

If you want sweetened Cheerios, you know what you do?  You buy Honey Nut Cheerios.  If you're allergic to nuts, you've got oat rings and sugar, I'm pretty sure you could just sprinkle some sugar over your Cheerios and save some money.

I give it a 4 out of 10 for simply being the most redundant cereal I've ever tasted.