Over The Pylon

It’s the offseason in BSU football land, spring athletics are just now firing up, and winter sports are still a bit away from their post season. As such, it’s time to pass on your OTP leadership’s recommendations on things you shouldn’t be living without. Between the folks that run this here site, our tastes and likes run the gamut. We pass that diversity in entertaining pursuits on to you in a little thing we like to call OTP’s Offseason Guide to Chirptastic Living, where you can take our word on things that you should promptly put in your possession. Enjoy…

Movie of the Week
My selection for this week’s Movie of the Week in the Offseason Guide is perhaps the hardest one to explain that I could have chosen. As I was lauding it to people while it was in the theaters, if I didn’t do a fantastic job of explaining it, folks would fall somewhere on the continuum of “Oh… so it’s like tech porn?” to *blank stare* and at face value, I can understand either or all of those reactions when you tell someone the basic plot line of a movie is a man falling in love with an operating system. For Her to be explained that way is like explaining Heat being about a bank robbery. If you stop on step 1, you would be correct. But that’s ignoring myriad other steps which are all valuable, intriguing, and thought-provoking. To give away significant themes explored in the film would be to ruin some of the self-realization that I hope you find, so I’ll walk gingerly around the topic. Suffice to say, Her is at its most basic a personal study of paradoxes and how an antiquated old-fashioned feeling adapts and evolves in a highly evolved technologically savvy world. It’s one of the rare escapes in film that gives you a case of the feels, the wows, the sads, and the thinks all at the same time and all related ultimately to one another.

Book of the Week
I am not ashamed to admit that I am a fan of Howard Stern. Anyone should know this when they hear the nickname I’ve dubbed Jason (Bababrewey). The Stern universe is an immense one, filled with Wack Packers, odd characters, and general nonsense that people like me pay around twenty bucks a month to Sirius satellite radio to enjoy. Even with all the ridiculousness, strippers, porn stars, and celebrities, there is perhaps no more fascinating a story than that of Artie Lange, the Sten show comedian who despite being paid handsomely well battled heroin and alcohol addiction to the tune of a suicide attempt and his removal from perhaps the greatest gig in comedy. Lange’s most-recent memoir, Crash and Burn, tells that story with gut wrenching honesty and a personal look at addiction and its demons. For Stern fans, it’s a behind the story look at a story that has colored the Sirius years for the Stern crew, and for those unfamiliar with it or Lange, it’s a chance to introduce yourself to a comedy genius who happens to have his fair share of baggage like the rest of us. Like some of the best autobiographies of celebrities, this one tells the story warts and all, and it’s a story that you’ll love from the introduction on through to the moment you take a lengthy exhale, close the cover, and wonder just how Artie made it as far and as high as he did.

Game of the Week
If someone tells you that board games or card games are not for adults, then they have been living under a rock for a while. I’ll grant you that standby favorites like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders are for a younger subset, there are a whole host of games for the inner child within the adult in all of us that is making this the golden age of adult games. We’ll be spotlighting some of these treasures in this space during the weekly Offseason Guide, but the first one comes hard and may very well be the belle of the ball. Cards Against Humanity was explained to me as a politically incorrect Apples to Apples. That’s perhaps the best way to describe it and if you’re an A2A player, no further explanation is needed. If you haven’t had the pleasure, picture friends and you sitting around, one person pulls a topic card, other players answer that topic with their own submission cards. That’s where people’s sarcasm, wit, and downright off-color humor can shine. Few rules, great cards, and a cult following make Cards Against Humanity the first OTP Game of the Week you should pick up. I wouldn’t play it with kids. I wouldn’t play it with your grandparents. I would play it with a group of friends who can sit back, laugh, enjoy a beverage or three, and not take life too seriously. Basically, the target market of this site.

Gadget of the Week
Though not a gadget per se, it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while and was brought to my attention by OTPcast co-host Jason, who is not traditionally known for his coolness but serves as living proof that even a blind squirrel can find a nut from time to time. I would count on Jason to bring me tidings of electronics or kitchen appliances, as those are his strongest forays, but his first contribution to the OTP Offseason Guide is an epically stellar one. If you are a person who enjoys a beverage of the distilled variety occasionally like your OTP leadership and you are using old school antiquated square ice cubes, then you are missing out on elevating your awesome by a substantial margin. We are subjects to old-fashioned ice cube geometry no longer thanks to the Tovolo Sphere Ice Molds. Fill the molds with water, let them freeze, then your booze gets poured over a perfectly round ice ball and then down your thirsty booze-hungry gullet. I can safely say after seeing Jason use these, my booze hasn’t seemed as cool as it normally does. Don’t believe me? Jason has proof of the freezing badassery that you end up with to lord over your friends with and show your booze who, in fact, is boss:

For each of the above, you’ll notice that we’ve also included a purchase link to Amazon.com, a site where OTP is an affiliate. By purchasing through our links, you’ll give a small little kickback to the Pylon and help keep the site afloat. If you’d like to help the site in a free way, you should check out an Amazon Prime 30 Day Free Trial by clicking here. It’s a great opportunity for streaming video, free express shipping, and all sorts of other goodies.

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