EXCERPT: Palpitating Hearts, by Olivia C. Dennis

He looked deeply into her eyes.  “Kiss me,” she said.

“I’ll go get a dental dam,” he said, and he threw her down onto the clean linen sheets.  They were cool against her cheek, and she could tell by the way they felt on her skin that they were high thread count– somewhere around 240.  Kenneth was all she had ever wanted, but could he be her destruction?  After all, the Ns in his name were in the middle, but they were not perfectly centered, a fact she noticed after having written his name 77 times on loose-leaf paper.

Review: Tesla’s “Earthquake Machine”

$49.99

Everybody knows that Nikola Tesla was brilliant.  (If you don’t, read all about him on The Oatmeal.  Do it!  Do it now!)

After the flop that was da Vinci’s “Hornithopter,” we thought we’d take a test drive of a work of true genius: Tesla’s “Earthquake Machine.”  Now you may be saying to yourself, “Isn’t it a little weird to be sexualizing an invention of a man who himself was entirely celibate?”

The “Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam” Drinking Game

Some call it the Turkish Star Wars.  Others call it the worst movie ever made.  Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam.  The film, written by and starring Cüneyt Arkın, will literally blow your mind, though the reasons for which are clearer upon viewing. In our experience, it is much easier (and more rewarding) to watch this film with the aid of alcohol, so we’ve come up with a drinking game– play along at home!

Review: The “Hornithopter,” by da Vinci

$1,399.95

Today I’ll be reviewing the Hornithopter, by da Vinci. And I’ll tell you up front, I wasn’t impressed.  You were supposed to do two things, Hornithopter.  Two things.

The Hornithopter is advertised as a combination personal transportation device and sex toy.  Let’s examine the inherent contradiction there.  Traveling is a public thing; sex is… well, I don’t mean to be a prude, but I like to be a little more discreet about those sorts of pleasures.  So off the bat we’re looking at issues.

Candy Crush Saga, or Late Capitalism in Miniature

Recently there’s been a lot of attention to King.com in leftist media, particularly to the company’s problematically pushy attempts to enforce its trademark over words like “candy” and “saga.”  Now as an avid player of Candy Crush, I find myself torn.  On the one hand, I’ve got a lot of free time on my hands; on the other hand, I’ve had a life-long intolerance for bullshit.

But I don’t want to focus on the wank/counterwank that is quibbling over trademark.  Instead, I’d like to investigate the idea that Candy Crush Saga itself is a wonderful model of late capitalism in miniature.

Let’s set the stage: you are a hyper-infantilized little girl named Tiffi, traveling along a loopy and colorful path through a land seemingly born of that one night when Lisa Frank got drunk and had sex with a gummi bear.