December 2016 - Rampant Discourse

Take off the Fanboy Goggles: Rogue One is a Mediocre Movie

December 30, 2016

This article will discuss aspects of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story that are dependent on seeing the movie. For maximum discourse potential, we recommend seeing the movie before reading this article. Since Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has been released my social media feeds that are even tangentially related to Star Wars have exploded in absolute praise over Rogue One being some sort of magnum opus for the…

Rogue One is the Star Wars Movie You’re Looking For

December 22, 2016

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This article will discuss aspects of Star Wars: Rogue One that are dependent on seeing the movie. For maximum discourse potential, we recommend seeing the movie before reading this article. Excitement and apprehension built for months preceding the release of the first official Star Wars spin-off movie, Rogue One. What could we expect from a new story taking place in between the established episodes, especially one between the first two…

Car Free Tempe Baby

Father and son biking past the Tempe Center for the Arts

December 20, 2016

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Getting started When I first learned that we were moving to Tempe, Arizona I figured we’d take our car along with us. We’d be moving there at the start of August, when temperatures could easily break 120 F. I’d done a fair amount of non-car travel in my past, but we’d have our 8 month old baby with us in this harsh desert, so of course we’d have to have a car,…

RIP Xbox Fitness (Challenge)

December 16, 2016

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Well, the Xbox Fitness Challenge is over. Not entirely. In a bizarre decision from Microsoft, despite the official “sunset” date being on June 30, 2017, the Xbox Fitness team has discontinued two of its oldest, most varied and most substantive workout routines over 6 months early: Mossa and 10 Minute Solution. Together, they represent a total of 33 different routines containing workouts ranging from low-impact dance moves to weight-lifting; from…

Every Hearthstone Expansion Arbitrarily Ranked

December 14, 2016

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Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, Hearthstone’s eighth expansion, has just been released. We’re nearing the 3-year mark since the game went live and now seems like a good time to take a look at all the expansions released so far and give them a bit of an evaluation. Everything here is completely arbitrary and based on personal opinion. Feel free to file any complaints and/or errors in the comments if you feel…

Xbox Fitness Challenge: Month 2

December 8, 2016

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Note: If you want to read more about the challenge kickoff, check out the Xbox Fitness Challenge Kickoff post. Now I know why people choose to start exercise and diet changes as New Year’s resolutions instead of kicking it off in November. I absolutely don’t want to make excuses, but here are the “challenges” that I faced sticking with my plan for November: The change of season means coming down with…

Book Review: Transmetropolitan, Vol. 4: The New Scum

December 6, 2016

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“I’m the only one who’s remotely fucking interested. You’re all fucking killing me!” The fourth Transmetropolitan collection continues Spider Jerusalem’s coverage of the presidential election with the six issue story “The New Scum.” We get to see Spider go one-on-one with both The Beast and The Smiler. Spider’s hate and venom for both candidates is in full bloom during these interviews. Some of the strongest dialogue and best food for…

Whitelash? An Alternative Theory on Trump’s Win

December 1, 2016

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It’s been a few weeks since the election, and a few interesting narratives have seemed to pop up surrounding what, exactly, happened. I thought it might be interesting to dig into a few of them, and add a few more thoughts that I’ve had since the election. Note: The majority of data used below comes from CNN exit polls along with the Wikipedia articles on the results of the 2012 and…