Pop Culture
The Fall and Fall of IMDb
I’ve been a bit off the map lately due to a visit from my dear old Ma, so I haven’t been posting too much. It’s interesting hearing her comments on Bangkok, which often make me do a double-take and go ‘really?’ and wonder if I used to think the same thing when I was new [...]
Seen in Bangkok - Mecca Cola
One of the first things I do in any new country I’m visiting is hit a convenience store. You’ll never find a more compact display of what makes that country unique. In Korea they have kimchi (fermented cabbage) flavoured fish sticks; in India, they offer little packages of sauces for about 2 cents that taste [...]
The Simpsons Hits Twenty. Twenty!
I never thought I’d see the day. The Simpsons, possibly the most consistently funny show on television, has just started its 20th season. I remember watching the first episode back on December 17, 1989 when I was 14 years old and thinking it was pretty stupid (you may have figured out that 2008 - 1989 [...]
A Welcome Lull in the News
Because I’m a nerd, the first thing I do when I wake up is roll out of bed and into my command station computer desk to check what’s going on the world via my Netvibes RSS feed. When I checked things out this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see no screaming headlines about protests, [...]
Indy Deserves More
As is obvious if you’ve read my previous post on watching the Indiana Jones movies with my Indiana-virgin girlfriend, I’m a pretty huge fan. It should come as no surprise, then, that the fourth movie in the series, Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has me jumping up and down like a [...]
GI Joe Gets Real
When I was a young kid in the 80’s, there were two icons of toy-dom that stood tall above all others: GI Joe and the Transformers (both interestingly owned by Hasbro). They were on completely opposite ends of the spectrum - one was a group of badass soldiers, the other was a group of extra-terrestrial [...]
An Indiana Jones Education
I remember watching Raiders of the Lost Ark on my 10th birthday - my Mom rented a VCR player and my friends and I were held rapt. We particularly enjoyed rewinding the part where that dude’s head blows up, much to the shock of my Mom who thought it was all a little bit [...]
“Ruke, I am your father.”
Can anyone - even non-fans - deny the impact that Star Wars has had on pop culture? One of my favourite movie scenes is from Clerks 2 (a disappointing sequel in most respects) when some random fanboy dares to try and convince acid-tongued Randall that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is better than Star [...]
Comics are dead. Right?
Who doesn’t remember the halcyon days when the mighty Calvin and Hobbes ruled the funny pages? It’s hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t know the dynamic duo of the smart-ass kid with a huge imagination and his stuffed tiger who could talk - but only to him. From 1985 to 1995, Bill Waterson [...]
Almost Enough to Turn Me Gay. Almost.
Now, I’m not gay. Women are, to me, the best invention ever, better than video games, better than driving really fast - even better than pizza. I love the way they smell, taste, look, move, feel, smile, laugh, giggle, swoon, yell… even a woman farting has a certain dirty innocence to it. [...]
