Rebekah Shafer is an author who published her first book in October. I met her in a Camp NaNoWriMo group and have been keeping up with her promising career as an author since. Here’s an exclusive interview with her about her first novel, her background as a creative type, and her future projects. Dan: Hey,…
I could probably write a whole series about things that I like more in theory than I do in practice in the pop culture world. A few examples: Sara Bareilles, Fountains of Wayne, Hoosiers, the Elder Scrolls series, and Pandora. But the #1 entry on that list might be fantasy books. It’s crazy for me…
Download link (you may have to right click and “Save As”) A few months ago, Earn This celebrated its fifth anniversary! In celebration, the site’s four main writers (plus my wife, Katy) got together to record a special edition of the Earn This Podcast: we got together to play the “Top 5 Anything” game, which Colton…
It’s holiday season again, which means it’s time for one of my favorite traditions: Watching the 2003 film Love Actually with my wife, pretending not to like it, but actually enjoying myself. A crucial piece of this tradition is spending some time after the viewing breaking down just how ridiculous, creepy, and strange some of the movie’s nine…
To celebrate our fifth birthday, each Earn This contributor is selecting his five favorite things from the past five years.Here are Dan’s picks. 5. Community, Season 1 (2009-10) The #5 spot came down to two seasons of NBC sitcoms that aired during 2009-2010, starting within a week of each other: Parks and Rec, Season 2…
Taylor Swift dropped her much-hyped fifth album, 1989, today, and as one of the millions who professes himself a fan of Tay-Tay, I’ve already made a few listen-throughs. I wanted to share my thoughts here. Let’s start by going back two years. Taylor’s fourth album, Red, put me off a bit when I first heard it. I had…
Oof. That was a slog. HIMYM Season 8 commits many cardinal sins for a sitcom, from forcing a relationship (Robin and Barney), to selling out its characters for cheap jokes (many times; but esp. Barney as a womanizing d-bag), to ridiculous, unbelievable twists (Barney pulling a several month ruse on Robin, then getting engaged to…
No show will ever impact me the way that the US version of The Office did. It was the show that taught me to love television as an entertainment medium, and it remains one of my favorite shows of all time. I grew up watching cartoons and multi-camera sitcoms, so when my friend Tyler (who…
If you’ve been keeping up with the Top 100, it should be little surprise that I’m a fan of young adult fiction in all media. I’m a sucker for coming of age stories — particularly thoughtful, male-oriented (or otherwise non-girly) stories. I’ve decided my unending enjoyment with teen-focused stories is twofold: First, stories with teens…
Download link (you may have to right click and “Save As”) The ETCast is back! Kevin and I caught up on Skype and debated to movies we disagree about: Shrek and The Lion King. As you know if you’ve been following our Animation Evaluation project, you know that I’m a big fan of both Shrek and The Lion King, while Kevin believes…