The Month of Billy Joel (September 2011)

Due to my summer-heavy work cycle drastically opening up, I’ll have a lot more free time during September than I have in many months. One way I plan to take advantage of this (along with quite a bit of doing nothing, reading, and catching up on TV shows) is to write a bit more for…

TV Review – The Hard Times of RJ Berger, Season 1 (2010)

Rating: 3 stars (out of 4) If you were to watch this based on the show’s premise as advertised by MTV — “a high school nerd accidentally reveals he has a long penis, and his social life turns around!” — you’d be disappointed. That one trait of the central character (despite being referenced in the…

Why I’m rooting for LeBron James

I know we don’t write much about sports here at Earn This, but I’m going to file it under the “pop culture” part of our description. Let’s rewind a decade. A dominant Shaq-Kobe Lakers team stifled MVP Allen Iverson in the Finals to go 15-1 in the playoffs. Chris Webber and Gary Payton were still…

In which the Annie Awards redeem some credibility

In the past I have analyzed and criticized the Annie Awards. Here is an update on the situation. Hey, I guess someone out there is listening to me*! Less than a month after I discussed the flawed voting structure, ASIFA-Hollywood elected a new president and vice president. The outgoing president — Antran Manoogian, who, though…

In which The Annie Awards lose all credibility

In the past I have praised the Annie Awards for providing a lens into the most important animated features from each year of the past couple decades. The largest mark against the awards came in 2008, when Kung-Fu Panda won Film of the Year against Wall-E, which was by far the most recognized and important…

Happy 25th Anniversary, Pixar!

On February 3, 1986, Pixar became an independent company by LucasArts selling the organization to Steve Jobs. (Little known fact: Jobs’ first billion actually came from Pixar, not from Apple.) Pixar spent its first decade exclusively releasing shorts before it partnered with Disney to bring you Toy Story in 1995. The rest, as they say,…

The Best of Earn This

As we approach the 18-month mark for our web-site, we’ve decided to revisit a few of the best articles from our annals. Each of the three main writers for this site have chosen a few of their own favorite articles. There’s also a list of the most popular articles in the history of the site.…