Musings from the basement...

Go to hell, “R” key. Go to hell and die.

September 30, 2015 6 Comments

It’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools. That’s how the saying goes, at least, but you know what? “It” being the conspicuous lack of a goddamn “R” in every other goddamn word I type from my goddamn laptop. I may or may not have mentioned it before, but I don’t write on my desktop. Too many distractions. I have to get away from my desk and get someplace with as few bright and shinys as possible. That means grabbing the laptop and doing all my writing at the kitchen table or out on the back deck. I’m too prone to slacking off otherwise. This has worked out well for me over the years. Since 2009, eight books have my name on them, either solo…
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Random Musings, Rants

Mad Men’s Jon Hamm may finally get his due

September 18, 2015 0 Comments

Since 2007, Jon Hamm had been putting on an acting clinic with his subdued, measured performance as Don Draper, the dashing ad man with a past he can’t run away from. The Mad Men actor drew raves and a slew of award nominations, including eight straight nominations for the Best Actor in a Drama Series Emmy (including this year’s nod). Unfortunately for Hamm, he ran into a wall called Bryan Cranston. See, while Hamm was busy being awesome, Cranston was out there being just as awesome. Cranston won Best Actor four out of the first seven years Hamm was nominated, with Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights), Damian Lewis (Homeland), and Jeff Daniels (The Newsroom) slipping in the other years. With Cranston stealing the show year…
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Television

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The 5 Most Powerful Geeks of All Time

September 14, 2015 0 Comments

Let’s jump back a few years. Shortly after the release of Geek Wisdom, a book I was honored to contribute to, I was contacted by Men’s Health magazine to write a piece about the most powerful geeks of all time. It sounded like a fun assignment. I wrote the piece. It was supposedly filled with “awesome stuff” and “everyone at the office [loved]” it, according to the editor who contacted me. But they never used it, and I never heard from that editor again. Rather than let it languish on a memory stick, I figured I’d yank it from the archives and post it here. So here you go: The 5 Most Powerful Geeks of All Time Geeks. Hear the word and the usual stereotypes spring to…
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Geek Stuff, Random Musings

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Sandra Bullock has a cool (but flawed) approach to closing Hollywood’s gender gap

September 13, 2015 0 Comments

It’s no great secret that aside from a small handful of silver screen legends, Hollywood is not a place where older women thrive. There have been a slew of complaints about a lack of roles for older actresses — and in Hollywood, “older” often means “not in your 20s,” even for actresses like Anne Hathaway — a battle cry that has been growing in recent years. While some (like Russell Crowe) say the fault is with the actresses, not the scripts, studies show that in Hollywood, men talk and women show skin. Vulture also took a look at some films and found that in general, men age but their love interests do not. Sandra Bullock has developed a pretty good tactic for getting good roles even…
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Films, Random Musings

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Preacher is coming to AMC, and I’m ecstatic

September 10, 2015 0 Comments

Preacher, the darkly irreverent and hilariously blasphemous comic series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, is coming to AMC next year. I couldn’t be happier. AMC is on a ridiculous roll in recent years. They used to be focused on classic movies, then slowly started introducing original programming. In 2007, Mad Men debuted, and it marked the dawn of a new era. The channel would never be the same after that. (I wrote a book about Mad Men. You should check it out.) For me, the big breakout show was Breaking Bad, a show that grabbed me good and never let go. I’ve watched it four or five times over at this point. The Walking Dead didn’t start out so great, but even that has…
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Comics & Graphic Novels, Geek Stuff, Television

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