Weirdly, I never had any trouble with the Bombadil section, probably because I was still coasting on the awesomeness of "The Shadow of the Past" and wanted to see what happened next in the journey, weird yellow-booted treehugger be damned. The part that gave me the most trouble on my first readthrough was the opening…

I wanted to check out of LOST about three-quarters of the way through S3, but kept with it out of a sense of obligation and because everyone else seemed to love it so much. I got about five episodes into S4 before finally deciding "Aw screw it." Even "The Constant," the episode that everyone seems to love, wasn't…

Having just now come from such a meeting myself, JVS, I must thank you for making me even more depressed than I was already.

We're all very proud of you.

I like "Myth" as defined by Tolkien, Lewis, and their ilk: stories that have the power to resonate with people of all backgrounds because they speak to something elemental inside everyone. This resonance typically transcends organized religion and ideology. "The Lord of the Rings" is a better example of this than the…

@MJD: See, this is the problem with people trying to force the Narnia books into an allegorical framework. Both you and DJM are missing the point. Lewis isn't taking Christian stories and replacing the Biblical names with fantasy names; he's telling a story that heavily incorporates images and symbols of Christian…

@ E. Buzz Miller: If I thought that you were capable of actually defining "fundamentalist" for me (as opposed to using it as a reductive buzzword), I might bother arguing with you.

Allegory
I kind of wish people would stop overusing the term "allegory." Employing symbolism is not the same thing as allegorical storytelling. Unless practically everything in your story represents a specific idea/person/place/whatever, it's *not really an allegory.* "Pilgrim's Progress" is an allegory. "Animal Farm"…

Yeah, what's the deal, AV Club? The Sirens of Titan is probably his best book after Slaughterhouse-Five, and it has a linear story to boot. I'd advise newbies to visit it after Vonnegut 101 (S5 and Cat's Cradle).

"Aggressive hand-to-hand combat between Arachne and Peter Parker"?
Wha…?

You're just splitting hairs here. Was Chris Brown's assault on Rihanna worse than anything that Sheen has (reportedly) done? Probably. Does it matter? No. They're both despicable human beings. The only reason the media and drooling Internet denizens give Sheen a pass for his pathological bullshit is because he seems…

Pearce is a great actor. I just saw The King's Speech last week, and he nails his part as the abdicator. He falls into the same category as Sean Bean: fantastic actors who have never gotten the career they deserved.

Only a drunk person would think that guy is funnier than Jon Stewart. Weiner's job may be more important, but watching him try out his comic stylings while speaking to Congress is like watching a church youth pastor rap about abstinence. Bleh.

Superhero comics
I love superheroes, ever since I was a kid. Spider-Man was (and still is) a favorite of mine, I'll watch just about any superhero movie crap that Hollywood shovels my way, and the obsessive nerdiness of it all really appeals to my dorky self. But I've never been able to get into actually reading the…

Meh, that guy obviously wishes he were Jon Stewart. I say "wishes he were" because man, he's no Jon Stewart. Though I guess I should just be glad that somebody in Congress appears to have a sense of humor about how butt-stupid politics have gotten.

I get the feeling sometimes that even some NPR staffers don't like Ira Glass. There was this one time that Glass was co-hosting one of their pledge drives with some other guy, and Glass kept going off on rabbit trails about how great This American Life was, and the other guy kept trying to steer things back to the…

To the Weenie-mobile! Weenie Man awaaaay!

Yeah, it's disappointing to hear that the writing isn't any better in this one. In particular, the cliches from the first book bothered me a lot, but I was hoping his writing would pull a Rowling and slightly improve with subsequent entries. Oh well, I guess I'll just wait until I can check out a copy from the library.

I'm just hoping the boss fights are less disappointing this time around. Remember how in the first game they got you all excited for a final boss battle with a Hulked-out Joker, then all you do is beat up his goons for five more minutes and then defeat him in a cutscene? I thought that was some bullshit.

It's the name of an Old Testament heroine lionized for pounding a stake through the temple of one of Israel's enemies while he took a nap in her tent. Only the Phelpses …