Misc.

From the Archives: The Last Days of My Dog

by Brandon AndreasenLeave a Comment on From the Archives: The Last Days of My Dog

I recently found an old blog I wrote many years ago. Going through it, I was struck by how much my writing has changed, yet somehow stayed in a very similar vein. Every once in a while, i’m going to drop some old blog posts I wrote. Ones that I feel strongly about, or still strike a chord with me. I wrote this one in early 2012, I think just a few hours after I had to put my first real dog down.

15 years is a long time to know somebody. I can count the number of friends I’ve had for 15 years on one hand. 15 years accounts for more than half of my life. 15 years ago, I was 12 years old. I was in the 7th grade. Sammy Sosa was my favorite baseball player. I listened to Sublime constantly in spite of the fact that I really didn’t understand the lyrics. Titanic came out for the first time when I was 12. It was also how old I was when we got Pepe.

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Sports, Wrestling

WWE And the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

by Brandon AndreasenLeave a Comment on WWE And the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week
WWE And the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Say what you will about WWE, but whether it’s in the ring or in real life, they know how to keep people on the edge of their seats and wanting more. Since Thursday, the company has lost over a billion dollars, were again heavily criticized for being a gleaming travelogue for an authoritarian regime, had most of their staff held essentially hostage, and put on one of their best shows in years. Wrestling fans always love the blurring of lines between kayfabe (wrestling speak for the characters and storylines that they operate under) and real life, but none were as starkly dramatic as the events of late last week.

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Sports

Fancy Boys Football Mailbag Week 9

by Jack BakerLeave a Comment on Fancy Boys Football Mailbag Week 9
Fancy Boys Football Mailbag Week 9

Fancy Boys founder Matt Drufke doesn’t know anything about football. Lucky for him, Brandon Andreasen and Jack Baker do.

Each week, Matt emails Brandon and Jack NFL questions, they then immediately go and make fun of his lack of knowledge in a secret group chat. They then go and answer the questions. Here are those answers.

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Misc., Pop Culture, Sports

I Was Saying “Boo-Urns”

by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment on I Was Saying “Boo-Urns”
I Was Saying “Boo-Urns”

On October 27th, during the fifth World Series game between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals, the Jumbotron in National Park showed a shot of President Donald Trump, his wife, and a group of GOP lawmakers who were attending the game. If you follow sports, or politics, or know anyone who does, you probably know what happened next: Nationals fans booed the president, also throwing in a cheer of, “Lock him up!” for good measure. Reading about it the next day, my reaction was a bemused chuckle. 

But it didn’t end there.

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Music/Movies

You’ve Got My Letter, I’ve Got Your Songs

by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment on You’ve Got My Letter, I’ve Got Your Songs

Last weekend, my wife and I met friends for a night of tapas. On the way home, with our bellies full of Spanish meats and cheeses, we turned on the radio and heard “The End Of The Game,” the newest single from Weezer. That a band who has been making music for 25 years can get a new single on the radio was, at the very least, surprising. The fact that the song sounds exactly like Weezer was, well, not surprising.

But as I heard the newest song from a band who has made 14 albums (their newest album, Van Weezer, will be the third album in two years), I couldn’t help but think about their second album. In the course of the song’s three minutes and twenty-one seconds, I didn’t even hear the new song anymore. Every chord and lyric I heard made me think of an album which came out over two decades ago. For days, one major question just kept popping into my brain like one of River Cuomo’s sing-along melodies:

Did Pinkerton break Weezer?

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Music of Star Wars, Music/Movies

The Music of Star Wars, Episode II: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

by Michael Grace1 Comment on The Music of Star Wars, Episode II: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The Music of Star Wars, Episode II: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

So the good guys won and it was pretty great. However, we all saw Darth Vader get knocked into space instead of dying on the Death Star with Grand Moff Tarkin and friends. So the Rebellion, still a relatively ragtag operation in comparison to the Empire, has really pissed off Vader and his boss. The Empire Strikes Back will take us to new and beautiful places, and with it comes more timeless music from John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra. Put the angry tweets down, I’m not going to cover this entire score. There is so much to this film that I’m just going to try to nail down important cues and motifs.

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