Author: Chuck
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Wikipedia and Intelligent Design
My SFist article this week is brought to you by the letter I, for Insomnia. The reason I went on so long is because I’ve been reading about Wikipedia ever since I saw that libel story. And the more I read, the more I had the feeling that there was just something troubling about the…
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God Speed, Screw-On Head
My favorite comic book of all time in the history of the world ever is The Amazing Screw-On Head by Mike Mignola. It’s just brilliant; the art is Mignola’s usual Hellboy style, which is to say awesome, and then the concept and the writing is dead-on perfect absurd humor. It’s all old news at this…
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Llorando
Speaking of being a p—y: I was talking tonight to my friend Matt who’d come out to SF for a business trip, and we got on the subject of being subjected to weepy movies in public places. There is a short list of movies that it’s okay for guys to cry during: Brian’s Song, Old…
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That’s a Little Cornball
It’s probably just because I’m a big p—y, but I think the best way for a TV series, movie, or any other piece of art to show that it’s got merit is in how it handles sentimentality. And that’s yet another way that “Arrested Development” gets it exactly right. If you were cynical, you could…
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Good Grief
A friend’s e-mail reminded me that it’s already the 5th of December. I keep thinking of this TV movie where Robert Hays gets a gold watch that can stop time and various hilarious hijinx ensue. If I had it, I think I’d just use it to get caught up on work and reading. Which of…
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Katamari Dumb-assy
Another SFist post from me is up, where I go off on a tangent about Roger Ebert’s claim that videogames are inherently inferior to real art like literature and film. It surprised me that his comments bugged me as much as they did, considering that I don’t technically work in games anymore. And I’m as…
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Bullitt for the New Millennium
I’m not a car guy, at all. I hardly know anything about them, I can’t generally tell one make or model from the other, I’m not much more than just a functional driver. I drove a Jeep for a few years mostly because my brother liked them, and it was the cheapest convertible I could…
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Fun and Failure
Anyone who knows me at all will say that my defining characteristic is my positive, upbeat attitude. It’s infectious, even. I don’t ask “can I?” I ask “I can!” So where a lesser man would look at my situation — it’s November 28th and I’ve only written just over 12,000 words of my 50,000 word…
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SD-86ed
Word on the street is that “Alias” has been cancelled and will stop airing next May. Now, my show-cancelling and band-breaking-up powers may be legendary, but I’m not taking the blame for this one. I’m 99.9% sure I didn’t get Jennifer Garner pregnant. And I didn’t force Vaughn to leave the show, and I didn’t…
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Turkeys
Did I mention before about how bad my NaNoWriMo thing is sucking? Because it bears repeating. In my head, it’s a rollicking adventure story that ingeniously reinvents pop culture conventions and cliches, cleverly making light of the shallowness of these conventions while staying true to what’s great about these popular adventures and what makes them…
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Wycked Sceptre
I watched the first disc of “Arrested Development” last night while failing to adjust to Eastern Daylight Time. Good show, as everybody knows by now, and it already made some of the later episodes funnier because of backwards references. It’s a little easier to see how daunting the continuity of the show was/is for attracting…
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Embedded Journalism
I’m reporting live from suburban Atlanta, where I’m rethinking my earlier claim that nothing is colder than San Francisco weather. It’s 18 degrees right now. They’re predicting a high of 28 degrees tomorrow. I mean sure, the “snow and freezing rain” effect on the Apple Dashboard weather gadget is pretty cool, but eighteen degrees. I’ve…