Yesterday I survived the virtual Hunger Games/Battle Royale/Thunderdome process of buying convention tickets for the 2015 New York Comic Con. I was one of the lucky 141,000 people who managed to secure tickets after sitting through hours of website crashes. Per the NYCC website, “When the ticket queue opened at noon, there were already more…
“We (Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris) have been writing Steampunk since 2009; and even after five years, we still face the question of the ages: What is steampunk? Perhaps a lazy, shallow way to look at the genre is to simply call it “Victorian Science Fiction” and that be the end of it. Truth be…
I spent the last few days at the PAX East gaming convention in Boston. PAX East is a celebration of all types of gaming; tabletop, card, arcade, computer, handheld, mobile and console. The attendees range from industry veterans to tweens just starting to appreciate the world of PS4. Young or young-at-heart, we are all united…
The Hershey Company recently banned the import of British chocolate into the United States. This draconian move has outraged a large contingency of chocoholics across the globe. The prohibition feels like a personal attack upon those who love their Cadbury’s Flakes and Yorkie bars. The reason for this emotional response is simple – our comfort…
This week’s East Coast blizzard dumped up to three feet of snow across New England. In my part of Connecticut we got off relatively lightly with only a foot of snow falling overnight. As anyone without a snow blower will tell you, that is still quite a large amount of snow to shovel from a…
This week I took my four-month-old Yorkshire Terrier Boudicca (aka Boo) for her first puppy swimming lesson. It may surprise you to know that not all dogs swim the first time they encounter water. Even a Labrador puppy may panic the first time they fall into a pool or pond, with disastrous results. Therefore, I decided…
Each January, members of the Screen Actors Guild have the opportunity of voting for their fellow performers to receive a SAG Award. One of the industry’s most prized honors, the voting system allows guild members to cast a ballot for the best acting and stunt performances in the preceding year’s films. It’s both a privilege…