Blogger, and fount of seemingly endless pop culture knowledge, Mark Evanier had a post earlier this month, right before his birthday. It was about getting older and just not caring about… I guess we could call it “irrational umbrage” about certain pop culture things like specific comics or movies or music or whatnot. You can read the post here. One of my brothers has a habit that I’ve tried to cultivate in myself: when someone expresses…
Addressing the problem of gerrymandering and generally getting more people out to vote is something I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog (most recently being rather depressed by the solutions or lack thereof). Well, the wonderful wonks over at FiveThirtyEight have an interactive map where you can see different strategies for redistricting and what that does, either on a national or state level.
The writers at FiveThirtyEight have never been afraid to get wonky. So when they look into how to best pursue a regular course of exercise — surely something that people are grappling with now since we’re still in the glow of New Year’s resolutions — I found it worth reading.
Especially with the Virginia legislature elections this past November, I have been following what, if any, measures may be introduced to add more non-partisan redistricting to electoral districts. I’ve been happy to see the cheerfully wonky site FiveThirtyEight look into gerrymandering in general, but two recent pieces, both by Galen Druke. One is a reminder of what went down in Arizona when they tried to ensure that districts were competitive. The more recent entry is…
A common household dinner strategy of ours is to have roast chicken one night and chicken soup the following night. This past weekend was an excellent weekend for soup. But anyway, one thing has always puzzled us: why are raw, uncooked chickens more expensive than cooked, ready-to-eat chickens? Daniela Galarza over at Eater.com exposes the grocery conspiracy.
New years, like birthdays, are popular times to look at the year ahead and take stock at the year past, and I certainly join in as well. One topic that’s come up with several friends and acquaintances both online and off for the past few weeks has been job satisfaction as well as what to do with one’s life. My current main breadwinning gig, project and program management, has nothing to do with what I…
25 years ago, Star Trek decided to go where the franchise had not gone before with Deep Space Nine. Variety has a piece looking back at its creation and evolution… and has some pictures of the cast and crew at this part of this linear existence. Some of you have already clicked on the link above. You know who you are.
At long last, I can reveal myself to the Jedi. By which I mean, we get to go see The Last Jedi. So it seemed like a good time to share the work of some intrepid artists who decided to bring Ralph McQuarrie‘s marvelous concept art for the original Star Wars to life. The Star Wars: Concept Trailer from The DAVE School on Vimeo. I actually have a collection of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art buried…
Look, I might as well end out a whole week of video posts with one more celebrating the season. So, here ya go: Enjoy, be merry, and maybe ask someone if you’d had too much egg nog before you don some antlers. Just in case.
In case you just weren’t into the Star Trek holiday videos from yesterday, perhaps you’d enjoy the marriage of one of my favorite holiday tunes (and not just because it can be repurposed by Lovecraft fans) and my favorite pop culturally-impacting puppets (and not just because they’re part of one of my favorite TV series). Okay, it’s not as good as their take on the song everyone knows to headbang to, but it’s still fun. Plus,…