Just the Ticket

      Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Ticketmaster Good academic news again this week, Ticketholders! Business Simulation is behind me, so now all I have left is Change Management (half of my classes this term have been some kind of Management course where I have to teach a fake business how to change or expand) and Values-Based Leadership (where I have to record myself delivering a PowerPoint presentation with a personal story in it, which is going to be a challenge for me because I record like a child, I have stage fright and a strong dislike for the various inconvenient aspects of humanity, and the focus of my personal story died this year, but since I really enjoy this Marketing program and I want the degree and the portfolio that comes with it, another personal change moment is inevitable). As I try not to let the next ten weeks of academia pass me by, please remember to like and comment at the bottom of this post,  Become A Ticketholder  if you haven...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. the Ticketmaster. After revisiting some unflattering Nicolas Cage reviews in last week's Ticket Stubs , I thought I would give his Renfield performance a fair taste to see if it was bloody good...or if it sucked as badly as my vampire puns. Please remember to like and comment down below,  Become A Ticketholder  if you aren't already, and follow me on  Tumblr ,  Reddit ,  Facebook , and  Twitter  for the latest news on my content. In my research prior to writing this review, I confirmed a few things that I had suspected while watching Renfield . As a product of NBC / Universal , and featuring characters based on the "Universal Monsters" cinematic universe from the 30s and onward, it's quite obvious that Renfield  was originally meant to be part of the twice-failed "Dark Universe" that began with Dracula: Untold  and re-began with official branding and The Mummy . Even in its current, action-comedy form, Renf...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, Spontaneously Retrospective . After plans to make an entire  Arabian Nights  franchise (beginning with  Aladdin  and a Belinda-focused  Lamp  series) and an ongoing  Sinbad  series were canceled, all it took to get more  Sinbad  stories was a year of publication time (the last issue of  Sinbad's City Of the Dead  arc was released in 2010, and the trilogy up for review today was released in 2011), a company-wide event series that killed off all of the canceled  Zenescope  characters (which we'll get to much later in the  Retrospective ), some vaguely vengeance-fueled time travel, and giving a fictional character whom we've never seen before lots of gold and alcohol. I don't have high expectations when it comes to gold, and my alcohol days are mostly behind me. But please remember to like and comment down below, Become A Ticketholder if you aren't already, and follow me on  Tumblr ,...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Ticketmaster Happy Independence Month, Ticketholders! I was going to do another gun-themed Ticket Stubs  post, but it seemed in poor taste, considering my family history with firearms (see the referenced article on my sister's death from last week's post ) and how that colors our feelings on the explosion-laden atmosphere at this time of year), so I combed through the remains of the SW@ Ticket Archive  for something just as patriotic, but far less ballistic to cover. And I was reminded of a short-lived WB (precursor to the CW) television series called Jack & Bobby , which was supposed to follow the lives of a TV-typical American family of the time (which is to say, "just like us," but younger, richer, whiter, and better-looking) and try to capitalize--in it's own, slightly differentiated way--on the serialized, timey-wimey format that Lost  made popular at the time (see tomorrow's GFT Retrospective  for more over-use ...

      Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Ticketmaster Work was emotionally draining earlier this week, but my "weekend" (a.k.a. my days off) was physically and academically fulfilling, plus I got to get some relaxation and writing done on top of that. My father has gone into hypochondriac mode since returning home from his heart procedure, worrying and wanting for medical attention in the event of every wobbly tooth (a dental visit that resulted in denial of services because he just had heart surgery ) and hemorrhoid (again, caution and observation only because  he just had heart surgery ), while making infuriating, important, falsehood-based medical decisions behind our backs and downplaying the severity of his actual health. Which is why I spent Thursday morning listening to Slash while shoveling and raking hundreds of pounds of gravel to fill in my parents' driveway, then spent several more hours soaking in a tub of shockingly cold water, then drank a large Red...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. the Swimsuit In My Dresser Edition. Yeah, as someone with impulse control issues who may soon hurt himself trying to push forty (but has had the same pair of swimming trunks in his dresser drawer since he was running multiple miles and swimming hundreds of yards while staring down twenty), I am no longer in possession of a "swimsuit bod." I'm happy if I can sweat out five pounds while mowing the lawn. But we're not supposed to "fat shame" or objectify the human body anymore (how do those two things coexist with any measure of sense, by the way? It's like that Tony Stark meme where he says "don't do anything I wouldn't do, and don't do anything I would do." Where's the middle? Where's the creme filling? Where's the beef? And why do I keep reminding myself of things I can't eat anymore?), so let's focus on numbers that we like to see go up. As in, please remember to like and comm...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. the Ticketmaster When things of the past fade, it can be hard to track down certain pieces of information. It could be something personal and important, like the names of my three nieces, whom I've never met, and were just babies when my older sister died on Independence Day in 1995 . Or less important things like what the sequence number was on a particular review I did for a social media platform that no longer exists. The former is a bit too heavy of a subject for me at the moment, but we are still in the month of Independence, where we use loud noises and colorful explosions to celebrate our freedom from other white people whose accents and form of government are foreign and formerly oppressive to us. Among those freedoms are the right to bear arms (the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ) and the enjoyment of excess (not so much with the Constitutional enumeration on this one). So this week, I bring you a double-feature of Nicolas Cage...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a.  Illustrious_Owl_84 , a.k.a. A  MasakoX  fan Hello, Ticketholders and Redditors! Before we begin, please remember to like and comment down below, Become A Ticketholder, and follow me on  Tumblr ,  Reddit , and  Facebook  for the latest news on my content. And it is actually my content this time; not a response to someone else's Dragon Ball What If? on the MasakoX subreddit. Though I was inspired to come up with the concept for today's showcase while listening to MasakoX's "What If the Ginyu Force Turned Good?" story on YouTube. There isn't a ton of detail to what I came up with, but I'd like to see Masako do something with it, and maybe flesh out my own concept in the future. Also, shoutout to Devonsterling123456  for being my only commenter on the topic, who agreed that it would be a fun idea to explore. As I do with these Reddit showcase posts, here is the content of my original submission: I'm watching the Gi...

     Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Ticketmaster Just about everything is good news this week. My father had a successful heart valve replacement in Seattle, and made it back home without incident. He did have a seizure at home, but no "aftershocks" in the emergency room like he has before, so he was released after overnight observation. His cognition, energy, and physical condition seem to have improved since the heart procedure, as well; which is a challenge because he feels like he can be Superman even though he's 79 and still has surgical incisions to heal from and several weeks of therapy ahead of him. As for myself, I have been running a simulated bicycle business for the past month, and managed to make a major recovery from an awful fifth quarter of business. I made the mistake of pouring too many resources into my weakest brand, which led to short-stock penalties, diluted the favorability of my other brands, put the company in major debt, and tanked my earn...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, Feeling Retrospective . We're at the next big milestone, Ticketholders! You know, besides Just the Ticket hitting 100k views.... The Grimm Fairy Tales  Retrospective  has been a long time in the making, and will continue to be a long time in the making because I'm not going to stop here. That said, the review itself (as I drafted it some years ago) has enough introduction built in, so please remember to like and comment down below, subscribe to my blog, and follow me on  Tumblr ,  Reddit ,  Facebook , and  Twitter  for the latest news on my content. GFT #50: Hard Choices So it’s finally here. After something like a hundred issues of Grimm Universe awesomeness and nonsense, the main series hit fifty issues, and it is huge in both page count and implication. It starts with a flashback to Germany in the year 1806, with two children who are clearly Sela and Thomas . Sela is a little girl again, now wearing glasses because conti...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. the Ticketmaster. Hey, Ticketholders! I am crack! As opposed to being on  crack (like a large portion of my city of residence) or having my head up  my crack (as is my natural state of existence). Welcome back to Ticket Stubs , where, just like last week, I am going to repost an old review that I forgot was already reposted on here as one of the Ticketverse Throwbacks . Go give that post some readership love here , and please remember to like and comment down below, subscribe to my blog, and follow me on  Tumblr ,  Reddit ,  Facebook , and now, Twitter  again, for the latest news on my content. I doubt that telling you the plot of the movie, giving away all the funny parts, and telling you it's the best thing I ever saw could in any sense be called a review (except that I now watch at least two movie reviewers on YouTube who do almost the exact same thing: Doug Walker and Decker Shado ). I'm calling it a review a...