Reviewing Is Magic: Episode Nineteen

Acting on what was, in essence, the universe daring him to watch an episode, Erik sat down and started watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.  It is, by far, the most insane program he ever watched in his life.

And he still, on days when he isn't feeling well, will toss in a short animated movie where the Chipmunks, Alf, Garfield, Bugs Bunny, Michelangelo (the turtle), and Winnie the Pooh discuss marijuana and other drugs.

But that's another story.

After the jump, he'll break down another episode and discuss what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what makes it just outright crazy.  This week's theme?  David Bowie!  ...well, actually, it's how to defeat bad guys by exemplifying the spoiled, prissy nature of the drama queen.

That's right.  It's a Rarity episode.

From Erik's Kitchen: Turkey Meatloaf

So, normally on Mondays people would get to see me slog through another episode of My Little Pony.  However, due to some technical issues with the blogging software, that will have to wait for tomorrow (hopefully), so after fighting the coding and twisting things around, I decided it was time to take another look at something I enjoy cooking.

It's simple, it's fast, and dear god it's delicious, it's Giada De Laurentiis' turkey meatloaf with sun-dried tomatoes and feta cheese.

Sigh.  Giada's so gorgeous.  And I'll admit, I love the way she emphasizes Italian words.

"Pan-schet-ta."

Five definitions from the Super Dictionary (with one bonus definition)

For anyone who hasn't heard of it before, the Super Dictionary is a book put out in 1978 that was, essentially, a dictionary for children illustrated with the characters of DC comics.  It's regained some of its former notoriety based on how absolutely bizarre some of the definitions are.

One of the most famous, for example, deals with Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor:

That's four tens!

However, that's not the strangest or most troubling definition in the book.  In fact, that one's rather tame.  Here's five definitions from the Super Dictionary that were shown to children.

TO CHILDREN.

Review: Tomb Raider

I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with Lara Croft.  Actually, considering I was sixteen when the first game came out, it was a bit more of a lust/hate relationship.  One the one hand, I wasn't a big fan of the gameplay or the visual style of the first game.  I had difficulty with blind jumps from platform to platform, I wasn't able to shoot a T-Rex if it sat on me, and my then-unfamiliarity with 3D level design had me standing directly under platforms I had to jump to wondering where I was supposed to go.  I wasn't even that interested in the character and her freaky polygon chest.

On the other hand, in 1997 the first Tomb Raider comic book came out from Top Cow publications, featuring a crossover with another character I had little to no interest in, Witchblade.  Two characters I cared nothing about in a comic? What could possibly grab my attention?

Ask Erik: Episode Fourteen...The Finale?!

Here at Ask Erik, we've spent a lot of time reading books and comics, watching movies, and browsing through the Internet in the hopes of finding the answers to life's biggest mysteries.  What would happen with religions if we found life on other worlds?  Would being able to replace body parts with machines strip us of what makes us human?  When will the world learn its lesson and follow the advice of Midnight Oil?

Having instead amassed a vault of useless knowledge stored in his head, Erik instead tackles your questions and tries to find the answers you care about (or a reasonable facsimile).  Or, if you don't care, he'll at least try to make you laugh and forget you just wasted time you could spend doing anything else.

Review: Wreck-It Ralph

Okay, so to be fair, this is a review I've been sitting on for a while.  I actually saw this movie in the theaters, and then watched it again after it came out on DVD to pick up more of the background details.

But, since the family dog just came back from some pretty extensive knee surgery and is feeling pretty sorry for herself, it seems like a good time to dig it out and air it.

Reviewing Is Magic: Episode Eighteen

Acting on what was, in essence, the universe daring him to watch an episode, Erik sat down and started watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.  It is, by far, the most insane program he ever watched in his life.

And he used to watch a cartoon where a teenage boy who turned into a sports car whenever he was exposed to "extreme heat" and would turn back to human when exposed to 'extreme cold."  One episode started with him having some kind of wild dream and waking up in car form, and having to drive himself into the bathroom to take a cold shower before his mom caught him.

Metaphor much?

After the jump, he'll break down another episode and discuss what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what makes it just outright crazy.  This week's theme?  Kids and rock and r-  ...wait, this doesn't work in text.  Hold on.  I'm going to need some help here.  Take it away, Mr. Charles Brown.

Play Song

Yet Ten More "Classic" Video Game Covers

So there's this great website out there on tumblr called "oh videogames."  I'm not really sure if there's an actual theme to it, but every now and again I love to look back and recognize games I used to play, games I missed out on playing, and games I never heard of.

Then I marvel at how absolutely ridiculous the artwork for the game boxes was.

Now, I've already done two installments of this here and here, but it's been a while, so I thought I'd present ten more "classic" images from "classic" video games.

It's Superman's 75th Birthday!

On this day, 75 years ago, Superman first appeared in newsstands and magazine racks around the country.  Created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, he's become one of the most recognizable icons in the world, has a new movie coming out this year, and can be found in every multimedia platform known to man, though it hasn't always been very good.

For instance, I was going to post a picture of the worst Superman video game of all time, but then I realized that it's pretty much all of them.

Ask Erik: Episode Thirteen ...Part 2! Wait, what?

Here at Ask Erik, we've spent a lot of time reading books and comics, watching movies, and browsing through the Internet in the hopes of finding the answers to life's biggest mysteries.  Can spiritual peace be found in a technology-driven world?  Is aberrant behavior simply genetics or upbringing?  How can V8 Fusion be really healthy if the first two ingredients are water and high fructose corn syrup?

Having instead amassed a vault of useless knowledge stored in his head, Erik instead tackles your questions and tries to find the answers you care about (or a reasonable facsimile).  Or, if you don't care, he'll at least try to make you laugh and forget you just wasted time you could spend doing anything else.

Looking Back: Phantasy Star 3

With so many great video games coming out these days, it's easy to set aside the games of the past and embrace the advances in technology, storytelling, and technique that are being applied to games.  However, every now and again I spot something in a game that I feel might've been done once before.  Perhaps it was done better, perhaps it was done worse, or perhaps it was just done in a way so original that I haven't seen it done since.

In this article, I'm going to look at one example: Phantasy Star 3.

Reviewing Is Magic: Episode Seventeen

Acting on what was, in essence, the universe daring him to watch an episode, Erik sat down and started watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.  It is, by far, the most insane program he ever watched in his life.

And he used to watch a cartoon about the Flintstones.  As children.  Where they watched another show about a caveman named Captain Caveman.  And his son..

After the jump, he'll break down another episode and discuss what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what makes it just outright crazy.  This week's theme?  ...well, I can't really think of one.  Unless it's "Babysitters are underpaid" or "For god's sake, don't *#%@ with Fluttershy."

So, there was this other time...

No big post today.  I'm working on my taxes.

And remember, whether you're a legitimate businessman or a murdering psychopath, Hulk says pay taxes!

Click for it to be larger.  It's worth it.

So yeah, there was once this time...

...that the Juggernaut tried to impress a girl by attending a poetry slam.

Ask Erik: Episode Twelve...Part One?

Here at Ask Erik, we've spent a lot of time reading books and comics, watching movies, and browsing through the Internet in the hopes of finding the answers to life's biggest mysteries.  When will man be able to travel to Mars?  What life exists at the deepest points of the ocean?  Why did they cancel Crystal Pepsi?

Seriously, that stuff was good.

Having instead amassed a vault of useless knowledge stored in his head, Erik instead tackles your questions and tries to find the answers you care about (or a reasonable facsimile).  Or, if you don't care, he'll at least try to make you laugh and forget you just wasted time you could spend doing anything else.

Erik's Top Eleven: Video Games That Should Be Movies

Some friends of mine recently posted a link to a list of ten video games that should get the film treatment, and I have to be honest here, because to be dishonest would be to wrong my readers and I would never do that.

It felt like a pretty lazy list.  To me, it screamed "Let's take some of the biggest video games of all time, some of the highest reviewed ones, and a few classics and toss them in a list.  Boom, where's my paycheck?"

I mean, seriously.  Halo?  I get that it's huge, but to have a game starring a guy whose face you never see?  Master Chief isn't a character, he's a blank slate for the player to put themselves into.  I mean, unless they want us to get to see Channing Tatum's head under the mask when the helmet comes off, because that's what gamers want, right?  Same with Dead Space, because that's what I want to sit through for two hours is someone running around a spaceship shooting up monsters that aren't actually scary.  I saw that, it was called Alien: Resurrection.

So instead, I'm looking for games that have a good story, a world that needs development, and characters who are interesting, and I'll try to avoid any games that had either a live action or animated adaptation.

Reviewing Is Magic: Episode Sixteen

Acting on what was, in essence, the universe daring him to watch an episode, Erik sat down and started watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.  It is, by far, the most insane program he ever watched in his life.

And he used to watch a cartoon about guys in giant robot suits playing ping pong.

After the jump, he'll break down another episode and discuss what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what makes it just outright crazy.  This week's theme?  Performance anxiety!  And not the kind that bumps the rating of this blog!  ...or does it?

Review: Oz: The Great And Powerful

A lot of times, Erik likes to go back and take a fresh look at movies he saw when he was younger (and sometimes movies he originally missed) but sometimes he tries to go out and see something in theaters.

So how well does it work when you take an American classic and try to give it an origin story decades later?  Oh yeah, and there might be some spoilers in it, but...well, if you really think about it, you already know what the characters look like in the movie it's based on, so how big can the spoilers be?

Influences: Roger Ebert

Erik wasn't born with this natural ability to write.  His sense of humor, his taste in language, his ability to communicate ideas and form opinions were all shaped by numerous influences in the world around him.  Some, like the Marx Brothers, helped shape his ability to point out the absurd in any situation.  Others, like watching that one five minute clip of Jersey Shore probably killed a bunch of his brain cells.

Today, however, we discuss a legend who just passed away.

Ask Erik: Episode Eleven

Here at Ask Erik, we've spent a lot of time reading books and comics, watching movies, and browsing through the Internet in the hopes of finding the answers to life's biggest mysteries.  Is there anything beyond the edge of the universe?  Could technology advance to the point where it surpasses us as the "masters" of this world?  Why does Adam Sandler keep getting to star in movies? 

Having instead amassed a vault of useless knowledge stored in his head, Erik instead tackles your questions and tries to find the answers you care about (or a reasonable facsimile).  Or, if you don't care, he'll at least try to make you laugh and forget you just wasted time you could spend doing anything else.

Reviewing Is Magic: Episode Fifteen

Acting on what was, in essence, the universe daring him to watch an episode, Erik sat down and started watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.  It is, by far, the most insane program he ever watched in his life.

And he used to watch a cartoon about He-Man and She-Ra where Skeletor learned the true meaning of Christmas.

After the jump, he'll break down another episode and discuss what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what makes it just outright crazy.  This week's theme?  Religion!  ...wait, what?

Let's Talk: Depression

Every now and again, I like to take a moment to discuss something that directly affects me.  It might be a post a friend makes on Facebook, it might be a comment I hear on the street, it might be something in the news.

Or, it might be something that affects me directly.  There won't be a lot of humor in this post.  I'll try to keep things from getting too bad.