Geek Stuff

NEW VIDEO: Top 5 Childhood Cartoons you’d want to experience again for the first time

May 5, 2016 25 Comments

Ever try to revisit a cartoon from your youth? It usually doesn’t go well. Except for classic stuff like the Warner Bros. shorts, that stuff usually does not hold up, especially if you were a child of the ’80s, when all cartoons were just long toy commercials. You can’t recapture the time and place that made it special in the first place. But if you could erase your memory and relive them for the first time, what would you choose to watch? Here’s what we said on the latest Hours in the Attic:   Also, shame on me for forgetting the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon! It was just formulaic bullshit, like all these shows were, but to my young mind it seemed pretty epic. Tiamat…
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Geek Stuff, Television, Videos, Works by Eric

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What I learned from watching all the Star Trek movies in a row

April 29, 2016 26 Comments

I was a pretty unlikely candidate to marathon all the Star Trek movies. As noted when I started this Trek-a-Thon, I’m a casual Trek fan at best. Star Wars is my star jam. Trek is that other thing I sort of respect and kind of know because you can’t run in geek circles without knowing at least some Trek, but despite having seen many original series episodes, most of The Next Generation on TV, and all the movies through Generations, I’ve never been able to call myself a Trek fan. Hell, I’ve playfully mocked it over the years because that’s what you do. All in good fun, but yeah. Poke poke. So I was the last person who should have been revisiting these movies. Yet…
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Films, Geek Stuff

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Star Trek: Nemesis is proof that fan recommendations aren’t worth much, because it’s way better than they say

April 29, 2016 12 Comments

Word of mouth and fan reaction can be a funny thing. Fans know their material more intimately than anyone, Trek fans especially, so when word on the street sets your expectations about a franchise, chances are pretty good they’ll be met. That has been evident throughout this marathon, when this Trek neophyte’s views have fallen almost exactly in line with Trek fandom’s. The one major exception has been with the very first Trek movie. And now the last. Because despite the middling reviews and lukewarm word of mouth, I think Star Trek: Nemesis was pretty outstanding and a fitting end to the Next Generation saga. Admittedly, it starts off rather questionably. Hints of The Undiscovered Country, with the Romulans now in the mood for peace…
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Films, Geek Stuff

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Speak & Spells, Scratch & Sniffs, and another foray onto Youtube with Hours in the Attic

April 28, 2016 0 Comments

Part of the fun of doing Hours in the Attic with Nerd Out With Me‘s Tig Carson is that you get to play with the goofy old shit you played with as a kid. And part of that fun is realizing just how damn lame that stuff really was. The Speak & Spell, for instance: Why was this a thing? I have no idea, as is clear from our all-too-brief video on the topic. Poor Tig. I’m sure he thought we were going to squeeze a lot more out of it than that, too. On the other hand, we had a lot more fun scratching 30-year-old scratch n’ sniff stickers and being reminded of grandpa smells. For real: Smelling old stickers. This is my life….
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Geek Stuff, Random Musings, Videos, Works by Eric

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Star Trek: Insurrection is a glorified TV episode and does not belong on the big screen. Fact

April 28, 2016 43 Comments

The danger of relying on your television creative team to craft a major motion picture is that your major motion picture may come across as more suited for the small screen rather than the big. Such is the case with Star Trek: Insurrection, which feels not so much like another Star Trek movie as it does like a two-part episode with a slight (very slight) increase in the special effects budget. Which is to say, it’s a disappointment that often borders on being a bore. The fact that it opens in some throwback village and then immediately descends into Data Has Gone Stark Raving Mad insanity as a way to create intrigue is an early red flag that this movie is going to go astray….
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