My wife, two kids, and I love playing board games together as a family. One of our favorite times to play is during dinner. It’s a natural setting since we’re already gathered around our dining table. In the fast paced modern world, it can be tough to find a lot of time to sit together as a family and enjoy each other’s company. We tried the suggestions for asking the…
The Rampant Discourse Podcast: Episode 66 – The Movies of the 2000s – 2007
Our series on the movies of the 1990s went so well that we decided to bring the crew back together for another decade. Join the Rampant Discourse crew (with a special guest contributor) in the continuation of the series as we go year-by-year and explore our favorite movies of the 2000s as well as the ones that we feel have been most influential. Next up? The year 2007. Top Grossing…
The Game That Brought You Into The Hobby: Magic The Gathering
I blame my mother. My mother gave me my first Magic: The Gathering card; I believe it was a Prodigal Sorcerer. She had seen some younger coworkers playing the game in the break room at Burger King. The fantasy theme and illustrations must have caught her eye enough to ask for a card to give to her middle school age son. This must have been 1994. My first exposure to…
The Game That Brought You Into The Hobby: Pandemic
Right now, it’s 2020 and we are living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in 2008, the only pandemic we had to worry about was the cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock. I played a lot of the role playing game Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in middle school. For a little while I dabbled in the strategy game BattleTech. The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering ruled my gaming life…
Hail to the Muscogee
I Grew Up Loving the Sport of Gridiron As a native of Washington D.C., born in the city and raised in its suburbs, I was lullabied in fight songs about victory and swaddled in burgundy and gold. The then-named Redskins won a Super Bowl shortly before I was born, and then the team won two more in my formative years, including a performance against the Denver Broncos in January of…
Six Months into a Pandemic
The Modern Movie Problem The proliferation of SARS-CoV-2 and the pandemic that has caused are the story of 2020. Everything else is just a piece of that tapestry. How the pandemic has affected our work and economy, our political system, and our day-to-day lives is something so profound that it takes up all of the oxygen from the environment. Since the discovery of the disease my life, like everyone else’s…
The Rampant Discourse Podcast: Episode 65 – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure Watch Party
We’re children of the 80’s, and as a result, the time traveling adventures of Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan have a soft spot in (most of) our hearts. Incredibly, after 30 years, Bill and Ted are back in an unlikely third movie. In preparation, the Rampant Discourse crew decided they would do a watch party of the original movie: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Join us as…
The Rampant Discourse Podcast: Episode 64 – The 2020 Presidential Election
It’s the most important election of our lifetimes… again! The 2020 US Presidential election is a little over two months away. Join the Rampant Discourse crew as we discuss all the important election developments over the past few months. Was Kamala Harris an inspired pick for VP? Is Biden a good candidate for a time period with increased scrutiny on over-policing? Is he a good candidate at all? Does Trump…
The Rampant Discourse Podcast: Episode 63 – Book Club – The Fire Next Time
We’re back from a brief hiatus with a new podcast episode! We’ve often tossed around the idea of a book club where we all read a book and then discuss it. We finally took the leap and this is the first episode of what we hope might end up being a recurring series. For our first book, we decided on The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin in the hopes…
The Rampant Discourse Podcast: Episode 62 – The Movies of the 2000s – 2006
Our series on the movies of the 1990s went so well that we decided to bring the crew back together for another decade. Join the Rampant Discourse crew (with a special guest contributor) in the continuation of the series as we go year-by-year and explore our favorite movies of the 2000s as well as the ones that we feel have been most influential. Next up? The year 2006. Top Grossing…