Erik Ackerman

The Beatles and The Stones

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

A good take on why The Beatles and The Stones were so important.

Stopping The Wheel of Time

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Someone else finally articulated why I won't be finishing The Wheel of Time

High Heels in Jurassic World

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

I always saw Clarie Dearing’s (Bryce Dalla Howard) heels in Jurassic World as almost an inside joke. They are commented on as being impractical, and when it comes down to it, she outruns the T-Rex while wearing them. She doesn’t need to take them off because she is competent with them on. They’re not a sign of weakness.

Disturbed

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:00:00 -0500

I am amazed by this, on several fronts.

David Draiman has an impressive voice.
Disturbed’s musicianship is well beyond what I expected.

This was enough to make me revisit the band’s other music and see if I just hadn’t been in the right mood when I sampled it before. Nope. Still not my cup of tea, although the fact that I use the phrase “cup of tea” might have served as an indicator for that.

Explanation vs. Excuse

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 00:00:00 -0400

I have long held that there is a fundamental distinction between an explanation and an excuse. In my “back in my day” moments I tend to feel that the distinction has been lost somewhere along the line, and that knowing the explanation for someones actions is now generally considered to excuse those actions. I don’t think it should. As usual, Roger Zelazny can say it better than I can.

There is always a reason. Whenever anything has been mucked up, whenever anything outrageous happens, there is a reason for it. You still have a mucked-up, outrageous situation on your hands, however, and explaining it does not alleviate it one bit. If somebody does something really rotten, there is a reason for it. Learn it, if you care, and you learn why he is a son of a bitch. The fact is the thing that remains, though. [He] had acted. It changed nothing to run a posthumous psychoanalysis. Acts and their consequences are the things by which our fellow judge us. Anything else, and all that you get is a cheap feeling of moral superiority by thinking how you would have done something nicer if it had been you. So as for the rest, leave it to heaven. I’m not qualified.

Roger Zelazny, The Hand of Oberon

Ballmer vs Jobs

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 00:00:00 -0400

In episode 165 of The Talkshow John and Guy discuss Balmer’s laughing dismissal of the iPhone and note that he just didn’t get it. Guy noted that Steve Jobs would bash competing products too, but that he seemed to get away with it where Balmer was mocked for his dismissal, and Guy wondered why Jobs got away with it. I think the difference was that Jobs would bash the products, but that he got what they brought to the table, even if he was publicly dismissive of it. I think you can tell the difference in their speech.

Pulp Movies

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 -0400

There are a number of movies that came out that were generally panned or poorly received. Not unusuall, but I think these were unjustly maligned. They were each based on source material that was largely foreign to the movie audience. They were each, if not great, at least good (and usually faithful) adaptations of their source.

Popeye (1980)

The Keep (1983)

The Shadow (1994)

The Phantom (1996)

The Saint (1997)

The Avengers (1998)

Flash Gordon (1980)

Dick Tracy (1990)

Veronica Mars Fan Base

Sun, 06 Dec 2015 00:00:00 -0500

I’m a little confused. Can you help me out? My memory from back in the day (2004-2007) is that the primary fan base for Veronica Mars was geeks. That is geeks in the “I watched Star Trek: Enterprise and I’m excited about these rumors of relaunching Doctor Who” sense. Geeks had not yet really become trendy. I too am a geek (shocking, I know) and I’m a fan of Veronica, but I’m not sure why the fan base seemed to skew that way. Any ideas?

Star Wars Head Canon

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 00:00:00 -0500

There are several items of head-canon that I had about Star Wars as a child, and which I carry to some extent to this day. Most have been shown demonstrably wrong by various episodes of the movies. I have almost no exposure to the Expanded Universe or even the animated series.

Light Sabers

To me lightsabers are a Jedi weapon and the blade is a focused manifestation of the Force. As such the color is personal to the Jedi weilding the lightsaber. It is their aura color if you will.

This idea was somewhat damaged as early as Empire when Han uses Luke’s to slice open the tauntaun, but I just told myself that the force was strong with Han and he’s just in denial. It would help explain his skill as a pilot and his general luck.

Span of the Empire

From Obi-Wan’s early tales of Anakin and himself fighting in the Clone Wars to Grand Moff Tarkin laughing at Vader’s hokey religion, I always felt that time scale was much more epic. Hundreds of years of Empire rule had passed. Obi-Wan is a Jedi and Yoda is 900 years old, so it’s easy to believe that he is talking about something that happened hundreds of years ago, not just 20. Too much in episodes 4-6 doesn’t make sense if the Republic fell 20 years ago.

Let It Begin With Me…and Me

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 00:00:00 -0500

Let It Begin With Me

Me too. Thanks Andy.