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Category Opinion
TikTok Question: “Are You Afraid of Bees or Do You Let Them Near You?”
Took the “studio” for a test drive on this one…
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TikTok Question: “What’s Your All-Time Favorite Video Game?”
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TikTok Question: “Would You Want Another Season of Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
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TikTok Question: “Who is a Creator You’d Love to Collaborate With?”
Bad Swipers: My Crusade Begins
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
I’ve got a bone to pick with a group of people in this country. Some people might say this is politically incorrect, but I don’t care. I need to get this off my chest and talk about…*deep breath*…
Bad swipers.
I don’t get it. You stick your card in the machine and slide it. That’s it. You’re not splitting an atom. You’re not slitting an alligator’s throat. There’s no need to go extreme in either direction. Just come in with a relaxed but can-do mindset and you’ll be fine. More importantly, you won’t hold up the damn line.
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Thoughts on Inspiration with Mr. Pepper and Eggs
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
So I’ve been thinking about my inspirations in life lately.
There are the obvious ones. My wife. My parents. My immediate family. My buddies from school. Members of my work family over the years. You’ve got the famous ones, Fred Rogers, Howard Schultz, J.D. Salinger, etc. I’m not going to rank them, because that’s not really how inspiration works.
But I thought of one the other day that hadn’t occurred to me in years. The sad thing is that I don’t even know this guy’s name, and that I only saw him a few times, if that.
He was a line cook in the dining center at Stevenson Hall at Eastern Illinois University. This was when I went there in the mid to late ’00s. He was in his late 60s or early 70s. Everybody else behind the counter was sort of stoic and going through the motions. This guy? Not so much. He’s smiling, enthusiastic. Dare I say jovial?
One moment sticks out very vividly: He’s making an skillet or something on the griddle, with the eggs and the veggies arranged nice and neat. Then he looks up at somebody in front of the counter. A girl I think.
He says, “Wow. Look at that. Doesn’t that look nice?”
The girls says something friendly and affirmative.
“HI-YAH!”
Dude starts chopping the eggs up on the skillet like he’s a ninja with a sword or something. The line busts out laughing at the sheer randomness and absurdity of it.
That memory will pop in and out of my head once in a blue moon. The more I think about it the more I realize that man, whoever he was, became a model for how I wanted to be in my professional life. You can argue whether that’s good or bad if you want. I’m certainly not saying I’m always successful in trying to be like he was. But I think the more we can connect with each other outside of the sort of robotic, monotonous haze we often find ourselves in, the better off we are as people. The better off the world is, really.
So thank you Mr. Pepper and Eggs. Wherever you are.
Email Rob at PrimaryIgnition@yahoo.com, or follow Primary Ignition on Twitter.
Video Game Speak: The Language of a Generation
By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder
I was out at the pool a few days ago, and there were two kids in the water playing pretend or something. One of them kept calling out, “DOOM Shark! DOOM Shark!”
The hell is a DOOM Shark? Is it like a distant cousin to a Street Shark? Or a Ninja Turtle? Or a Battle Toad?
The same kid then asks the other, “How much health does your character have? Mine’s running low!”
I’m ’80s born, ’90s bred. I had a Super Nintendo and a Sega Genesis and what not. Did we talk like that when we were kids? Like we lived in a video game? I honestly can’t remember…
Wait, yes I can! I used to play Sonic the Hedgehog with other kids. Ironically, it was at swimming lessons at the public pool. Sonic would collect gold power rings (probably still does). If he got hit or something, the rings would go everywhere. So if you got tagged or something, you’d have to run around and “pick them up.” But I don’t remember asking anyone, “Hey how much health do you have left?”
Holy crap. That’s a blast from the past.
But video games are so immersive now. Today, if your character has low HP, you better have a solid HP insurance policy. One that protects against pre-existing damage, ideally. Otherwise, how are you going to afford that weapons upgrade you put on the damn credit card?
See, THIS is how you can teach todays kids how to adult. They’re already addicted to their damn phones. You think toady’s teenagers are bad? Just wait.
Just be read or those boss battles, kids. They aren’t anywhere near as fun as they are in Sonic. Take it from me. I’ve got more XP than you.
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Carrie Fisher: More Than Just a Princess
By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder
This one hurts. This one hurts a lot.
As most of us know, Carrie Fisher went into cardiac arrest on December 23 during a flight from London to Los Angeles. She passed away this morning at the age of 60.
Naturally, Star Wars fans have reacted very strongly since Fisher’s heart attack. There’s been a lot of stuff to the effect of, “2016, don’t you dare take Princess Leia from us!” Plenty of animated gifs of Luke Skywalker screaming “No!” in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader doing the same in Revenge of the Sith, etc. It’s all done with good intentions. But I really wish people would stop.
It goes without saying that Carrie Fisher will be remembered most for Star Wars. It’s one of the most iconic roles in cinematic history, and Disney will continue slapping her likeness on t-shirts, posters, action figures, and what not for decades to come. Her performance inspired many and it’s a great thing for little girls to see.
But Carrie Fisher was so much more than Princess Leia.
Fisher’s sharp-tongued wit was like no other, as she illustrated in countless television appearances and in her books. One of her memoirs, Wishful Drinking, was adapted into a stage show, which Mrs. Primary Ignition and I were fortunate enough to see in Chicago. I’ve always been grateful I got to see that show. That’s the case now more than ever.
What you see below is one of the more famous appearances Fisher ever did, roasting George Lucas as only she could. Much of what she said was pulled from Wishful Drinking.
Fisher’s battles with mental illness were well documented. She dealt with bipolar disorder, and addictions to both cocaine and prescription medications. But to her eternal credit, she never shied away from them. She even turned them into a semi-autobiographical novel, Postcards From the Edge. Mental illness still has a stigma in 2016, but we’ve broken a lot of ground in terms of understanding and tolerance. But Postcards came out in 1987. Imagine the courage it takes to open yourself up to the public like that when everyone knows your face. As someone who’s dealt with mental illness himself, that’s a tremendous thing to see. Especially from someone you watched when you were a child.
I’m not sure if I’ll end up with a son or daughter someday. But as much as I’d want a child of mine to be inspired by Leia’s bravery, it’s more important that they be inspired by Carrie’s. Whether it was the world’s perception of mental illness, the rules for women in Hollywood, or the injustice of ageism, Fisher refused to keep quiet. More than anything, she was honest about the world in front of her. That honesty made people uncomfortable at times. But we were better for it. The world was better for it.
There are many others who’ve spoken about Fisher more eloquently than I. Here’s some recommended reading…
I’m a Star Wars geek. I probably always will be. While I understand what people who love Princess Leia are feeling right now, it’s important to keep things in perspective. Leia is a character in a space fantasy. The woman behind her was someone who endured real hardships, and overcame real obstacles in the real world. But in spite of it all, she never lost her wit, her humor, or her will to go on.
In the end, Carrie Fisher was the real hero.
Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.
Blatant Insubordination: “What’s Star Wars About?”
By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder
“What’s Star Wars about?”
A young lady asked me this at work the other day without a hint of snark. She’s an outdoorsy girl without much use for movies. But still, it’s easy to just assume everybody knows what Star Wars is. You’d think people would inevitably see the original simply by virtue of being alive.
But I think that’s a geek bias seeping through. After I got this question I put the above meme (Get it?) on my Facebook. One of the comments I got read: “I’ve never seen a Star Wars movie. Thought about getting the DVD and starting from the beginning, but I’m not sure where it starts.”
I don’t push Star Wars, or anything else I love, on other people. But if people are curious about this kind of thing, I’m happy to offer my opinions. And this idea of explaining what Star Wars is about intrigues me. How do you offer a simple explanation of something that’s come to encompass so much?
For whatever reason, when I got this question I thought of Kyle Gnepper over at Unshaven Comics. I’ve seen Kyle and the Unshaven crew a bunch of times at Chicago area comic conventions over the years. When he’s hyping a new comic series, he’s always got a one-sentence pitch to hook you in. Something to catch your interest and intrigue you. I won’t try to directly quote him for fear of butchering his words. But for instance, he might hype Unshaven’s The Samurnauts by saying: “It’s about a group of samurai astronauts led by an immortal Kung Fu warrior monkey.”
At that point you’ve got to at least look, right?
So what would a similar pitch be for Star Wars? And by Star Wars, I mean the original 1977 film. The young lady I spoke to was shocked to hear there were seven movies in all, with more on the way. But Episode IV: A New Hope is how the world at large was introduced to this strange universe, and it obviously served as the basis for everything else. That’s where newbs should start.
I figure simplicity and conciseness is important when you begin to explain something like this. Don’t start by trying to explain who Darth Vader is, or what a Jedi is, or how the Skywalkers are all related to each other. You’ll lose them if you try to explain all that stuff.
Here’s the “Gnepperfied” Star Wars synopsis that I came up with: “It’s about a galactic dictatorship with a weapon that can destroy a planet, and the rebel heroes fighting against them.”
Some might argue it’s too simple or generic. But that’s the point, isn’t it? You lure them in with the broad strokes, and then explore the intricacies as you get closer. Once you’re past the simple explanations, you can get into how the Empire works, who the iconic characters are, etc.
On the subject of those iconic characters, I’ve recently started wearing character socks to work. Star Wars, superheroes, etc. Because, you know, that’s what cool people do. One such pair features little images of C-3PO. This girl in question sees the socks, her eyes pop and she asks: “Are those Minions on your socks?”
We can only do so much.
Click here for more Blatant Insubordination.
Image 2 from usatoday.com. Image 3 from digitalspy.com.
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