I despised Caillou so badly whenever my kid watched it; from the terrible character models, to the grating art palette, to (of course) Caillou himself. But it’s a testament to nostalgia that now that my daughter is 11, I feel kind of sentimental for the show.

Caillou is French for ‘pebble’, hence the kid’s smooth, stone-like head. It’s just a Charlie Brown-style visual abstraction. The show is based off of a series of books by a French-Canadian author which were, while banal and too-cute, not nearly as terrible as the cartoon show.

It’s just so interesting how camp expanded and evolved so much since ‘66, that you can’t just say you’re making it under the camp banner and have it work.

I feel the same way. It felt like a curative after such a brutal year. Clarke being able to shift from something as lore and detail-heavy as Strange and Norrell to something deeply empathetic as this just reaffirmed how impressed I am with her writing.

I’m playing Fallen Order right now, and by the sound of it, in about the same place you are. After initially being excited by the general positive tone of the game, to then being beffudled by the creative decision to use slides as a major game play mechanic, I’ve settled into feeling this is almost an archetypal…

My wife and I rewatch all three Ocean’s movies with startling regularity. They are both weighted-blanket comfort viewing and clever, attentive films. It’s the best of both worlds.

Better Maul Saul

Yeah, the protagonists truly did find the least efficient method to use their immortality to help people.

I started off cold with this movie, but significantly warmed up to it by the end. It’s the perfect b-movie - smart enough to not get in the way of the stupidity. Sure, the final thesis that violence is necessary to promote peace is the same kind of pretzel logic in service of making a questionable, but rad narrative…

This is true.

Thank you, and that’s fair. I’m always happy to know people are still striving towards the angels (aliens?) of our better natures. But these last four years have been such a brutal experience, my empathy for willful ignorance has been greatly depleted.

Thank you, and that’s fair. I’m always happy to know people are still striving towards the angels (aliens?) of our better natures. But these last four years have been such a brutal experience, my empathy for willful ignorance has been greatly depleted.

So the thing about mocking flat earthers. I was watching a couple of clips from the web show “All Gas and No Brakes”, where the host goes into all sorts of esoteric groups and interviews the members.

For me, it wasn’t even the commercial, just the narrator saying presented by Dolly Madison snack cakes made me feel disproportionately warm.

Underwritten by Dolly Madison snack cakes.

Good gravy. Well, I guess we all like to imagine ourselves as having the fortitude of character to blow us and our best friend up with a grenade in hopes of slowing down an unstoppable murdering xenomorph.

This would never happen to Internet Eating Sensation David Chang.

I went to see this with a friend of mine back when we were both out of high school. We were walking around afterwards processing our feelings when he told me “That is why I’d enlist if there was a war”. I can’t remember his exact reasoning; wether it was the theme of sacrifice, or the unequivocal threat of the Nazis,…

What I remember the most was how the atmosphere moved around the ships as they first came into the planet. Seeing the clouds boil and shift from the enormity of the saucers was the first time I ever really felt the weight of a ship like that in a movie.

Did he try telling COVID he had to defer due to bone spurs?