Erik Gets Pretentious: Ten Words People Really Need To Stop Using Incorrectly

Anybody who knows me knows that I can get rather...obnoxious, we'll say, about how people use certain words.  For instance, I tend to always grit my teeth when I hear people say "I'm going to lay down," when they clearly mean "lie down."

Though I guess they could be planning on spreading feathers everywhere.

It drives me nuts that "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing, that nobody remembers the correct usage of "whom," and that the semicolon appears to have suffered a painful death in today's writings.

So, here I'm going to share ten examples of words I really, really wish people would use as they're defined, not how the masses tend to "think" they should be used.

John Oliver Is Why I Can't Try To Do Nice Things

So, I was going to try to do a lengthy article about beauty pageants.  I was going to discuss their history, their traditions, and whether or not they have any meaning in today's world.

And then John Oliver did it better than I ever could in fifteen and a half minutes.

Damn it.

So, uh, yeah.  All that.

Doctor Who: Season One

I am extremely late to the Who party.  I know a lot of people who can rattle off every character who appears, every alien race, every time period, every wacky gadget the Doctor has ever used, and considering the show has started its eighth season, I'm fully willing to admit that my starting now puts me really, really far behind.

But hey, I think we've established before that on a lot of things, I'm usually the last one to the party.

So, without further self-flagellation, let's discuss my opinion of the first season of Doctor Who.

Review: The Bank Job

I think I've mentioned before how much I hate the phrase "based on a true story."  However, I cannot for the life of me find where I've discussed it before.  The phrase has all the significance and meaning of the phrase "I'm sorry if you took offense" or "your call is important to us."  Simply being "based" on a true story could be "we gathered every detail we could and stuck as true to the story as possible while filling in holes with what experts believe happened" or simply "eh, in both stories there's a guy with brown hair."

As much as I loved Robin Williams, I have to admit that the liberties taken with the movies he's starred in has always bugged me, but I think the phrase "based on a true story" lost all meaning for me when it started being applied to Hollywood horror films involving possessions and ghosts.  It turns out the MPAA doesn't regulate the use of the phrase "based on a true story," so anybody can use it wherever they want.

"Based on a true story."

So on that note, let's discuss The Bank Job.

Cutthroat Kitchen

I am a huge Alton Brown fan.  Good Eats was the television show that really lit that spark inside me that loved to cook, and without him being able to break down the science of cooking in a way that not only showed me technique but also explained how, why, and (in a few cases) where things were happening.  When his show went off the air, I was rather depressed.  Thank heavens for reruns.  Also thank heavens for Iron Chef America, where I still get samplings of his encyclopedic knowledge base of food and how cooking works.

However, when I heard that he was going to be hosting a new game show on the Food Network...I wasn't sure.  I remembered an Ask Me Anything of his where he didn't seem too fond of cooking competitions with gimmicks, and while I do love programs like Chopped, it was starting to feel a bit silly.  Cupcake competitions, dessert competitions with bizarre ingredients, and all sorts of other shows were popping up.

But I started to learn more about it, and I became interested.  Well, slightly interested.  I was willing to give it a shot because, well, Alton Brown was hosting it.  Surely the smartest man Food Network ever hired wouldn't lead me wrong.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

I'm a child of the 80's.  I was born in 1980, and while I might have more clear memories of the 90's, I do remember a lot from my first decade.  Mostly, I remember the television shows and movies that came from that time, and a lot of them were absolutely crazy.

I mean, who could possibly forget Dinosaucers, a television program about dinosaurs from space who fought other, evil dinosaurs from space and everybody was conveniently color-coded?

Or there was Bravestarr, an epic space cowboy adventure?

Now, there have been a lot of homages to the 80's in one way or another, but if I had to pick the thing that best embodies the zaniest stuff from the 80's without actually being something from the 80's, the prize might just go to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

 

Hulk Vs. Thor

Now, see, Hulk Vs. Wolverine, this is how you do a short, contained story.  There's a clear beginning, middle, and end, and characters manage to get some depth added to them without turning the whole thing into one long narrative.  This is how you have entertaining action mixed with real drama.  This...is  is what you could have been.  This is much, much better.

So, having completely summarized my opinion in the opening paragraph for those of you with short attention spans, I'll now break it down a bit more and explain why Hulk Vs. Thor is the superior of the two films.  And the reasons go more extensively than "The Enchantress.  Mrowr."