Musings from the basement...

Just how historically accurate was Mad Men?

May 9, 2016 3 Comments

The following piece is an excerpt from Celebrating Mad Men, available in paperback and for Kindle. “I talk to them about relationships, how people might interact with a certain company at a client meeting. I also ask really simple questions, like ‘Where did you eat lunch?’” –Mad Men researcher Kathryn Allison Mann on interviewing industry veterans (source) When Mad Men first hit the air, few things garnered as much attention as the show’s slavish devotion to capturing period-accurate detail. The show developed such a reputation for being correct in its period details that sticklers for historical accuracy have kept a close eye on things like the fonts being used just to catch them in an error. (Font Designer Mark Simonson has a fantastic breakdown on…
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Television

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I was a guest on the Geek*E podcast, take a listen!

May 7, 2016 0 Comments

If you’ve seen the ridiculous Youtube videos I’ve been doing with Tig from Nerd Out With Me, I’m sorry. It’s not my fault. And yet I’m going to go ahead and assault your senses once more – but thankfully, you won’t have to SEE me this time. Along with Tig, I was recently a guest on the Geek*E Podcast. We talked about Thomas the Tank Engine, Lite-Bright, why Red Dawn is a sequel to Dirty Dancing, and Strawberry Shortcake (the character, not the food). Plus favorite ’80s movies and TV shows you want to show to other people, ’80s toys I want to buy, and Big Trouble in Little China. So check it out. Click and listen: Geek*E: Geek Nostalgia

Geek Stuff, Works by Eric

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Check out my new article at Homebrew Talk: Growing Hops With Limited Space

May 6, 2016 1 Comment

Whether you’re a homebrewer, a gardener, or both, you’ll want to check out my new article at Homebrew Talk. It even has pictures of my hop plants growing all over my backyard deck! Growing hops at home is a lot easier than you probably imagine. You don’t need much real gardening experience to do it — I didn’t really have any when I first started — and once hops make themselves at home they are damn near impossible to kill. They’ll thrive all on their own without you having to do much, but they won’t take over your whole yard, either. They’re not like, say, mint. They’ll stay in their spot and do their thing each year without much help from you. They do take up a lot of space,…
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Craft Beer, Gardening, Works by Eric

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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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Is there still an interest in Hurricane Sandy survival stories?

May 3, 2016 4 Comments

The title question is a legitimate question, and one I want an answer to for legit, tangible reasons. It’s not just because I have a personal experience with the storm, though as this video taken from my bedroom window will tell you, I do: It is not because I lived it — LOADS of people did, and a great many had far, far worse experiences than I did — but because I devoted a lot of time to talking to people and writing about their experiences, and I’d like to see that material see the light of day. Years ago, I wrote a feature for the Philly Weekly about my Sandy experience that ended up winning second place in the 2014 Keystone Press Awards. Cool(ish). (Second place…
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Random Musings, Works by Eric, Writing

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