Monthly Archives: September 2010

Bend It Like Glenn Beck

I’ve heard rumblings that some members of the Religious Right are peeved at Glenn Beck’s assuming the position of a conservative religious leader when he’s a Mormon. After all, Mormons believe something slightly different about their wrathful, bloodthirsty deity than … Continue reading

Posted in Celebrities, Christianity, Fox News, Mormonism, Religion, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Doom and Goombas

Picture by The Lonely Goomba After covering the Slimes from Dragon Quest last week, I thought it would be appropriate now to look at the comparable really easy and really numerous type of enemy in the Mario games, the Goomba. … Continue reading

Posted in Mario, Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Television, Video Games, Zelda | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Glinda’s Kin

Glinda, Good Sorceress of the South, is one of the most mysterious characters in the Oz series. We never learn her origins in any canonical book, but the hints we are given suggest that she’s been around for a long … Continue reading

Posted in Characters, Oz | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Better Than Ezra

The origins of most traditional religions are lost in the mists of ancient history, leaving only myths behind. Despite what biblical literalists might argue, Judaism is no exception to this. Modern scholars can’t be totally sure Moses even existed, let … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Personages, History, Judaism, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Frigging Goddesses!

It is a curious aspect of Norse mythology that two of its most prominent goddesses, Frigg and Freyja, have very similar names. In fact, some have speculated that they might have originally been the same deity, only to later acquire … Continue reading

Posted in Greek Mythology, Mythology, Norse | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

You Got the Right Wing, Baby

This week, my wife and I watched two documentaries with related themes. I believe they were still pretty new when she added them to our Netflix queue, which just goes to show how long it’s taking to get through that. … Continue reading

Posted in Fox News, Politics, Television, VoVat Goes to the Movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

It’s Slime Time

The Dragon Quest series was hardly the first to include sentient slime monsters. In fact, they seem to be pretty standard in fantasy role-playing games. According to this, producer Yuji Horii was directly inspired by the Creeping Crud from the … Continue reading

Posted in Captain N: The Game Master, Dragon Quest, Television, Video Games | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

‘Tis Terribly Odd in the Land of Nod

As a follow-up to my post on the Kingdom of Dreams near Oz, I feel I should mention some other examples of dream countries in other series. These places are often surreal and disturbing, and things are subject to change … Continue reading

Posted in Comics, Dreams, Final Fantasy, Kirby, Lewis Carroll, Mario, Oz, Television, The Simpsons, Video Games, Zelda | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Drifting Off to Dreamland

If you look at the map of the countries surrounding Oz from the endpapers of Tik-Tok of Oz, you’ll notice that the area just to the east (which is left on this map for some reason) of the Growleywogs’ territory … Continue reading

Posted in Dreams, Oz, Places | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

If You Doze Much Longer, Then Life Turns to Dreaming

Dreams are a popular subject of discussion and speculation, not to mention art, probably largely because we’re not quite sure why we have them. It seems to be the subconscious mind reviewing and combining various ideas that are weighing on … Continue reading

Posted in Dreams, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments