#Rendar Frankenstein
OPEN FOR BUSINESS: The OL Store!
Come one, come all! This day’s been in the making for longer than we’d like to admit, but it’s finally here! Today, we officially open the OL STORE!
We’ve taken the same overcaffeinated, slightly-delusional, fun-lovin’ panache we put into our posts and smeared it all over some t-shirts. The result? Nerd-culture t-shirts that’re bound to inspire conversation wherever you go – the supermarket checkout line, the watering hole of your choice, or your weekly D&D session.
Round One of the great OL STORE battle royale sees eight different designs climbin’ into the ring. Hit the jump to hyperspace, grab an ice-cold Pepsi, and check out our wares!
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WEEKEND OPEN BAR: Close Encounters of the Awesome Kind!
[WEEKEND OPEN BAR: The one-stop ramble-about-anything weekend post at OL. Comment on the topic at hand. Tell us how drunk you are. Describe a comic you bought. This is your chance to bring the party.]
Love `em or fear `em, there’s no denyin’ that extraterrestrials are an absolute fixture of our pop-culture consciousness.
Aliens have been depicted in variety of forms, from the benevolent bestowers of universal knowledge that helped build the pyramids to the nefarious sons-of-bitches that ruined Jeff Goldblum’s Fourth of July. Some spacemen want to go home. Others just want to call their folks. And the worst of `em want to kill Danny Glover.
Coming from outer-space (and thus being the most foreign specimens imaginable), aliens are elicit more fear, joy, and awe than anything on Earth. Who amongst us hasn’t looked to the skies and wondered whether or not we’d be visited by someone – or something – from beyond? You might’ve been inspired or horrified or curious, but I have no doubt that the thought’s crossed your mind.
So, the prompt for our open-bar: Who is your favorite extraterrestrial?
How to Talk Like (Tom Hardy’s) Bane!
In exactly twenty-four hours, I will have begun the odyssey that is The Dark Knight Rises. So what am I going to do for the next twenty-three hours? Well, I’m going employ time-honored geek pastimes – readin’ my favorite Batman tales, talkin’ speculative nonsense with my chums, and drinkin’ Diet Mountain Dew until the point of blindness.
But thanks to Benjamin Santiago, frequent OL passenger and all-around rad dude, I’ll be able to spend the day talkin’ like BANE! Hit the hyperspace jump to watch Mr. Santiago’s tutorial!
Monday Morning Commute: murder the cubs.
Old hands to the back, newcomers to the front. This here’s an introduction and I want to make sure there ain’t no damn confusion! My name is Rendar Frankenstein and I’m a hack-writer, born-again optimist, and caffeine junkie.
It ain’t a perfect life, but I like it just fine.
The quaint piece of scrap metal I’m currently tryin’ to lodge into your brain is the Monday Morning Commute! I’m goin’ to show you the various bits of entertainment I’ll be pouring milk over and chompin’ on in the hopes of warding off ennui-illness. Then, you hit up the comments section and tell us what you’ll be doin’ for esses and gees.
It’s a big, sweaty, nerd-based version of show’n’tell.
Let’s dance.
WEEKEND OPEN BAR: Your Character!
[WEEKEND OPEN BAR: The one-stop ramble-about-anything weekend post at OL. Comment on the topic at hand. Tell us how drunk you are. Describe a comic you bought. This is your chance to bring the party.]
Welcome to the open bar! Pull up a chair, pop open a brew, and join the conversation! I’ll get things started.
With which fictional character do you most closely identify?
Monday Morning Commute: Jungle Growls and Breaking Glass
It was a real, mean-as-hell, man-eating tiger.
He tried to assuage my anxieties. “A pot of coffee wouldn’t affect a cat of thissere size. Neither would those there beers I fed it. Thawwaz just some fun for the tourists, get `em to toss me a coupla extra bucks. Tough `conomy means we all gotta scrappup bucks in ways we wouldn’t otherwise.”
But there was no way that I was going to feel comfortable. No matter what this guy told me. No matter how carefully the bus driver navigated through the streets. The fact of the matter was that on this particular commute home, I found my normal spot on Metro-Transit Bus 142 occupied by a seven hundred-pound feline that’d spent the day being force fed coffee and alcohol in the hopes of entertaining sunburnt yahoos. I was still six blocks away from my apartment, but I tipped my cap to the trainer and got off at the next stop.
Bus had barely vomited its fumes into my face when I heard jungle growls and smashing glass.
It was a real, mean-as-hell, man-eating tiger.
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Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to show you some of the various ways I’ll be entertaining myself in the following days. Then you take your turn to hit up the comments section so as to display your own ennui-destroyers. What’re we all doin’ for fun these days?
Let’s find out!
Face of a Franchise: Peter Parker!
[face of a franchise presents two individuals that’ve fulfilled the same role. your task — choose the better of the two and defend your choice in the rancor pit that is the comments section]
It’s not hard to see why Peter Parker is one of the most popular characters in all of comics-lore.
WEEKEND OPEN BAR: Live Album!
[WEEKEND OPEN BAR: The one-stop ramble-about-anything weekend post at OL. Comment on the topic at hand. Tell us how drunk you are. Describe a comic you bought. This is your chance to bring the party.]
There ain’t nothin’ on this planet like live music.
We create as many venues for musical performances as possible, from drug-fueled festivals to cozy coffee shops. When was the last time you watched a late-nite talk show that didn’t feature some sort of live musicianship? Hell, one of the annual highlights of the Superbowl – a sporting event – is the musical halftime show.
It’s hard not to be affected by musicians who’re willing to wear their hearts on their sleeves in front of a live audience.
Some argue that concerts are magical simply because they’re ephemeral. There might be something to this notion, as the performances infiltrate our memory-banks and eventually germinate into the stuff of legends. However, there’re also no shortage of concerts that’ve been documented and still manage to entertain, awe, and inspire.
What we’re talkin’ `bout, of course, are live albums.
So what’s your favorite live album? Is it a classic like Frampton Comes Alive? Maybe a hidden gem like Iron Maiden’s Rock in Rio? Tell us which concert album (or DVD!) gets your toes-tappin’!
An American in Canada: Candy!
[In an attempt to expand his insular perspective, Rendar Frankenstein became An American in Canada! Join Rendar as he tells of the wonders encountered while traveling through North America’s most jovial nation. It’s one-third travel guide and three-fourths misguided interpretation!]
The urge to fill our gullets with sugar is a human condition, not a national one. Therefore, unless you were raised in the sullen ghettos of Dentalvania, chances’re pretty good that you like candy. With that being said, every country has its specialties, its own interpretations as to how one should simultaneously excite the taste buds and destroy the teeth.
Canada is no exception.
I present, for your informational consumption, three of Canada’s tastiest candy-treats: Smarties, Mr. Big, and Wunderbar.
