One of the first tags I created here on the blog was “Future TV” which seemed to best sum up the various articles and such I was absorbing about what was sometimes called “Peak TV” and sometimes a new “Golden Age” of television. In hindsight, “the streaming wars” should have been coined as a nod to the far more fun “cola wars.” That’s because it became clear that Peak TV and the “wars” were over…
Given my name and the fact that I’m a cinemaniac, it should come as no surprise that I enjoy seeing Vikings on the big screen. I mean, all seven or nine of my regular readers know I like to post about Vikings. And my brother and I have a particular love of the Rohirrim from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (whose film versions aforementioned readers may recall are always somewhere in my list of 50…
I could ask the question, “Who doesn’t like waffles?” — but we all know the answer. Communists. Communists hate waffles. Communists hate the liberties freedom-loving folk take in placing any variety of fruits, whipped cream, or simply syrup –but not simple syrup— on their waffles. Wait, scratch that. If you want to put simple syrup on your waffles, do so. We can’t let those Commies win. I know you have questions. Have I always been…
I’m happy to say I’m in another interesting audio fiction project that’s going into production. “Havana Syndrome” is being written and directed by award-winning storyteller Lisette Alvarez and promises to be audio spy-fi on a global scale. “But wait,” you say. “Isn’t ‘Havana Syndrome’ the name of something that really exists?” Yes! If you vaguely remember there being an attack on American personnel in Cuba by some heretofore unknown sonic weapon (or… something), that’s where…
As it happens, I haven’t been thinking a lot about the Roman Empire recently, but I have finally gotten around to reading the Honor Harrington series… which draws inspiration from the Horatio Hornblower series. And Hornblower was a big fan of Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, so it’s clear he thought about the Roman Empire a lot. And that’s as good a reason as any to put down what…
I’m working on a few more audio fiction productions this year… even as I’ve been working on the next installment of my own. But I recently finished recording a character I really enjoyed playing. Those of you who’ve been around the upper Midwest have probably run into someone like Deputy Ray Lester… and if you like like some audio horror, then you’ll like Partial Veil… though I will say it’s way more “TV-MA” than what…
My 7 or 9 longtime readers will know I am generally interested in elections and voting rights. I especially like the use of ranked choice voting (explained here with both extant animals and, also, dinosaurs) as well as other voting systems which might engage the electorate and lead to good representation of constituent needs. But Ranked Choice Voting continues to pop up in various places around the United States. As of this post, it’s only…
I’m working on a couple writing deadlines, so keeping the motivation up is important and I find Kurt Vonnegut to be a good source of pithy motivation. I’ve referred to him before, most recently in regards to routines, but Emily Temple made a collection of some of his ‘greatest hits’ for Literary Hub back in 2017. I should note that Literary Hub appears to like Vonnegut a lot, so you might respond to some of…
Bob Newhart has died. He wouldn’t want people to be anything other than low-key about it… perhaps a deadpan quip. And 94 years is a great run for a person. Maybe not for an elf, mind you, but remember he was management. Still, I’m quite bummed, and I’m hardly alone. You can read obituaries and appreciations from CinemaBlend has a good rundown of where you can see and hear some of his work. And the…
My post earlier this week about the Paramount sale reminded me of one of the annoying aspects of the streaming era: that films and shows can go missing This isn’t a new phenomenon. Even before the succession of VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray (not to forget the attempts of Betamax, LaserDisc, and HD DVD), prints of films and TV shows could be hard to find. But if a longstanding truth of the way to make…