I blame Christian Slater; I really do.

When I was 12, I stumbled across the last 30 minutes or so of a movie on TV. I didn’t know what it was, or even really what it was about, I just knew that Christian Slater was skateboarding through windows, leaping out of cars to bypass a traffic jam and hanging on to the back of a sports car speeding down the highway to save a girl while his buddies followed in a Pizza Hut pickup driven by Tony Hawk.

That movie turned out to be Gleaming the Cube, a 1989 film about Brian (Slater), a skateboarder who, while trying to find a reason for his brother Vinh’s death, learns Vinh (Art Chudabala) had uncovered a weapons smuggling ring being run out of a Vietnam aid organization.

And I loved every bit of it. There was a lot of good drama between Brian and his dad that’s my jam now and might go along way to explaining my love for family dynamics in fiction, but 12-year-old me was mostly all about the skateboarding.  The X Games premiered a year later, and that’s when I realized I’d fallen hard for the sport.

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The Twitter Collection vol. 2

 

I intended to have a character study of Teen Wolf’s Peter Hale this week, but I don’t. And since I don’t want to break my post-a-week streak this early into the year, I’m reviving The Twitter Collection, a look at what you’re missing if you don’t follow @theLTtweet.

Given that it’s 2017, I’ve had the account since 2013 and have a grand total of 425 tweets, it’s probably safe to say you’re not missing much, but I’m trying to do more. For instance, sometimes I talk about the things I do not regret in the slightest.

Why you should watch TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana

Earlier this year, I started watching TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana, a webseries for the role-playing game Wil Wheaton created with his son Ryan. It’s 10 episodes of Wil playing Game Master as Laura Bailey (Dragonball Z, Fruits Basket, Full Metal Alchemist), Yuri Lowenthal (Naruto, Ben 10, Code Geass), Alison Haislip (Attack of The Show) and Hank Green (vlogbrothers, Crash Course, Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers) make their way through a campaign with characters they created. The popularity of Wheaton’s other webseries Tabletop notwithstanding, in general you might not think watching people play an old-school, tabletop  RPG  would be all that fun.

And  you would be wrong.  I was late to the party when I started, and even later to finally finish, but what a treat it was.

Don’t do what you’re doing, Netflix

Yesterday I had a rare Saturday evening off work. But did I spend it catching up on the sea of current shows I’ve fallen behind on, continuing binge watches of shows that haven’t had new episodes in years, read a book or clean my house?

No, I spend the better part of the evening trying to figure out what had gone so wrong with Netflix and why nobody else was talking about it.

Big Block of Cheese Day!

In case you missed it, as I apparently did last year, The White House is having a virtual Big Block of Cheese Day. Not sure what a Big Block of Cheese Day is? Let the cast of The West Wing reunite and explain it to you:

And just because a Big Block of Cheese post is not a Big Block of Cheese post without its original TWW inspirations:

The first speech:

– The West Wing, “The Crackpots and These Women”

And the second:

– The West Wing, “Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail”

Both of those episodes are great, and if you haven’t seen them, you should watch them. But first, take a moment and think of a question you might like to ask your White House. Then ask it Jan. 21 on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram with the hashtag #AskTheWH. And if you’re still not sure what’s going on,  you can read all about it here and see what times specific people will be answering questions. For instance, if you really want to know about climate, energy and conservation, you might ask your question from 1-2 p.m. (ET).

 

Toby and Josh speak for me tonight

As my state re-elects three horrible people, this is how I feel:

Source: The West Wing, 4.01: 20 Hours in America, Part 1

The context may be different, but I don’t even care. Have the video, too:

The Twitter Collection

In keeping with my plan to do at least a weekly update but also recognizing that the things I’m working on need more time to simmer, I give you the inaugural Twitter Collection post. Part of my Twitter stream is devoted to post updates, but sometimes I just have small, random thoughts or things to share that just aren’t fitting (or just not quite ready) for a full blog post. So here are a few older things you missed if you’re not following @TheLTtweet (for newer things, just look to the right).

It’s a good system.

 

The post for this movie is still getting more hits per month than anything else.

 

I found this out while doing “research” for my Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter review.

 

Even when I get bored of Caskett and all the obstacles related to that ‘ship, I never get bored of Ryan. Or Perlmutter, who should be on the show more often. (I was really tired of Ryan’s floppy hair though. If you’re not Hugh Grant, you probably can’t do the floppy hair.)

 

It’s such a good show. Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, Ty Burrell, Fred Willard and Josh Gad all work at a TV news station.

 

And sometimes I join the masses with a good retweet:

The force will be with us, whether we want it or not.

I read a  few hours ago about Disney buying Lucasfilm and planning for a “Star Wars 7” in 2015. I was going to post immediately about it, but all I could manage was a series of shocked, monosyllabic questions. Then came a sense of overwhelming dread and some bigger questions that led to  cautious optimism and finally, a new, small feeling of hope.

English: Opening logo to the Star Wars films (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Long Haul delay

I spent my day at the DMV (lucky me), so the Long Haul for Journeyman 1.5 — The Legend of Dylan McCleen will be postponed until Monday. Until then, here’s a just a tiny peek of the funniest thing I’ve seen on the internet this week.

Full version: “How much do cat’s actually kill?” by The Oatmeal