Meet Chitan

I am emotionally WIPED OUT, in a good way, after Endgame and GOT this weekend and I just...I really needed this. Thanks, Last Week Tonight.

Sore Thumb

This was a Patreon early release months ago. I hope that even in its unfinished state, it makes you laugh.

SORE THUMB

When I was a kid, I was self-conscious. Not a great revelation, I realize. We were all kids, and to some extent, we were all self-conscious. But my sensitivity was different. How?

Let me tell you a story.

One frigid February morning, the ground was slick with crunchy ice in our tiny Indiana town. Kids everywhere were reluctantly pushed out their front doors encased in layers of mismatched nineties knitwear. Any scene from a horror movie where zombies emerge from tombs comes to mind. In this case, picture the zombies as tiny, grumpy, and inconvenienced instead of starving for human flesh. Cartoon puffs of winter breath dotted the still, snowless air. 

I was a "walker". I lived six blocks away from school and normally I braved the cold. 

Our kind fireman neighbor emerged from his front door across the street, his two youngest daughters in tow. He was tough. Like the Brawny paper towel man. He had a blonde moustache. Also like the Brawny paper towel man. He saw me ambling in the general direction of the school, a slow-moving pile of barely animated scarves, and wordlessly gestured to me that I should come catch a ride in his pickup truck. 

I Stay-Puft Marshmallowed my was across the street. It was too cold for words. Cowboy head nods would have to do. 

He got into the driver's side. His two youngest daughters climbed into the middle of the front seat. These girls were everything I wanted to be. They were stylish, pretty, and popular. They were good at sports and they smelled like Jean Nate, the fanciest childhood perfume of the nineties. Their family was comprised of five beautiful sisters with blonde, silky hair, a perfect collection of living Barbies. Whether I was wrong or right to think this, I felt like Igor anytime they were around. 

Because I was this:  

Not a Klingon. A nerd. Professional grade. All-star.

I hopped, as much as one could hop in a spacesuit, into the truck last. Then, I closed the passenger door behind me—on my right thumb. That’s not the weird part.

File this under "late to the party"

I couldn't sleep last night and I just kept thinking about that Rambo meme where he's giving the thumbs up. You know, this one?

I got curious about where it started and found Thumbs and Ammo, an entire website/subculture where people replace guns from iconic movie scenes with the thumbs up gesture. The juxtaposition is always hilarious. Always. 

Go. Peruse. Enjoy.

It Was A Good Week To Be A Space Nerd

Here's coverage from: 

Space.com

The New York Times

and Wired

Reminds me of this:

And this:

That video scared the bajeepers off me when I was a kid. How about you?

Time to Revisit That Viral High School Production of "Alien"

It's only a few weeks old, but I can't stop thinking about it. 

Makes me want to revisit Be Kind, Rewind, Michel Gondry's excellent treatise on how movie geekdom has the potential to unite the community. There's power in masses of people gathering to share an experience. We mostly think of film-going as an isolated occasion. Funny, isn't it? With so many of us sharing the same theater. The same mythos and emotional arcs.   

Here's another video that explores the subject of deeper meanings in familiar stories. The segment on Neverending Story, in particular, really makes you think.

The History of Myst...it's a Myst-Ory (I'm sorry. I had to.)

Back in high school, my friend Sara and I spent many a weekend crowded around her PC exploring the intrigue of Myst. We also spent a lot of time reenacting Tom Baker episodes of Dr. Who. Needless to say...we were pretty cool.

When I stumbled across this video yesterday, it made for an excellent, engaging Sunday watch. Definitely a time capsule worth opening.

Did you play? Do you miss it? What do you hope Cyan tackles next?

Kicking Around The Norway Pavilion at Epcot...in 2017

It starts with trolls and it ends with trolls, you guys. Prepare yourselves.

Hey, guess who was cleaning their Gmail account and found a million pictures from random travels? It was me. (You're a bad guesser if you didn't get that.) Enjoy a little tour of Epcot's Norway pavilion, by way of low res phone photos, from February 2017. That's right. It's your dream come true. I bet you feel like princess of the internet.

Let's begin with Exteriors, Exteriors, Exteriors: Live from Carnegie Hall!

This church and other churches like it have become a bit of a Pinterest fixation for me. Norway is definitely on my list of places to go. I knew a girl from Finland once. She was super nice and she brought us weird candy that had rum in it. Thanks, student exchange program.

3 Radio Dramas to Listen To After Indiana Jones and the Bridge to Yesterday

...and it's this fantastic live-action radio drama from IndyCast. I originally saw the news via IndyCast on facebook, but this post from MovieWeb covers the news pretty well.

Are you psyched? Will you listen? I may be listening right now. Are you a fan of radio dramas expanding on recognized properties? If so, scroll on my friends, scroll on.

1. As a very weird, but relevant bonus, I happened upon a Haunted Mansion radio drama via YouTube the other day. I was listening to this (it soothes my grumpy soul) and this auto-played afterward.

There's a long history of Haunted Mansion audio, this record came out in 1969, but I used to listen to it on the Haunted Mansion Live365 channel back in the day, you guys. Back. In. The. Day.

2. Here's my favorite Sherlock Holmes to listen to as I go to sleep.

3. There's a particularly fantastic radio broadcast of The Lord of the Rings from 1981 that I really love. You may notice that's a young Ian Holm on the right. Nifty, eh? HIghly recommend you track this down.

3.1 Oh, and I also recommend you track down the original BBC Hobbit recordings.