My Weirdest Pet Peeve

January 20, 2006: Hello? North Dakota? I have a very weird, probably unique, pet peeve. I have never heard anyone else express this pet peeve, and I’m not even sure I can explain it as well as I’d like. I guess you could call my pet peeve the violation of proper drive thru menu protocol. [...]

Awesome Movie Review: New Moon

Awesome Movie Review: New Moon

In his book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, Mark Baulerine writes: The Dumbest Generation cares little for history books, civic principles, foreign affairs, comparative religions, and serious media and art, and it knows less. Careening through their formative years, they don’t catch the knowledge bug, and [...]

The Bushification of Video Games

The Bushification of Video Games

So there I was, enjoying a nice gaming session of Red Dead Redemption, when I stumbled upon a Generalissimo seeking my help killing people and burning a town. Since killing people and destroying towns are the two main reasons I love playing video games, I gladly accepted. I went through the town killing people and [...]

Awesome Movie Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Awesome Movie Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

The fundamental challenge in adapting a novel for the screen is narration. In literature, narration blends seamlessly with dialogue and action, allowing the reader to move in and out of characters’ minds and settings. Film cannot direct the viewer as easily as literature can direct the reader, so compromises have to be made. In bad [...]

Poolside Book Review: Box 21

Box 21 is a book filled with frustrating characters, sensationalistic themes, and a masterfully constructed plot. The novel tells the story of Swedish police investigating a hostage/murder-suicide incident at a hospital. The perp is a young girl who has been kept as a sex slave for three years. The police have to uncover the dark [...]