Book Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky Synopsis The history of “the only rock we eat,” and how finding, producing, and transporting it has shaped economies and governments from pre-history to the modern day. Pros Extremely well-organized, with short chapters presented in chronological order describing how a particular region and a particular group of [...]

Anybody who’s been reading this blog for a while knows two things: Every year or so, I try to redesign everything. It always ends up being a ridiculously laborious process and it always ends badly. I guess there’s also 3. I need to get out more. This most recent time, I decided I wanted to [...]

I’m always hearing people (sometimes it’s me) complaining about a TV or comic series, saying, “They’re making it up as they go along!” Most of the time, I don’t see the big deal about that — they don’t have everything planned out? Cool! It means they’re “nimble,” right? But sometimes it gets awkward. This week’s [...]

I’d been looking forward to seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, since I’m a fan of “How I Met Your Mother,” and Knocked Up was one of my favorite movies of last year. I wasn’t disappointed; the movie’s hilarious, and I’d recommend it to just about anybody. Anybody who’s not in my immediate family, at least, since [...]

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters got a ton of attention from videogame sites around its release last year, as well as from the critics. It’s all deserved; it’s just a great movie. Of course, to appreciate it to the fullest, you have to have spent a good bit of the 80s in [...]

I’ve gotten back into the Homestar Runner site lately. It’s pretty cool; y’all should check it out. Especially the new toon they put up today. No, seriously, check it out. That’s about as cool as videogame promos get. This one is good too: As is the teaser, which was released on April Fool’s Day: In [...]

Where is that from?!? At some point in the distant past, there was a commercial, or a TV show, or music video, or something, where a guy ends saying “Word to your mother,” and then his mom comes on and says “That’s me. I’m his mother. Word to me.” I can’t remember where it’s from, [...]

Book The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis Synopsis A collection of letters sent from the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, advising the younger demon on the best ways to tempt a human soul away from Christianity to become food for Hell. Pros Brilliant concept, with a ton of potential for satire. Has one moment [...]

Previously on Spectre Collie: about once a month I’ve been squeezing out a lengthy treatise intended to debunk some “myth” about storytelling in videogames. I’m still headed towards making a point with those, more or less, eventually. But they take a long time to write, and sometimes it’s easier just to state the obvious. This [...]

The fourth season of “Battlestar Galactica” starts this Friday, and I couldn’t be more excited even if I were the guy from Anthrax. The SciFi.com home page is currently overtaken by a bunch of video clips intended to drum up anticipation and make you buy a Walkman phone. The “Phenomenon” clip has a bunch of [...]