Remade thrillers lose luster


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The remake of Carrie comes out this weekend, marking the latest in a long line of recent remakes of horror classics. In recent decades, we’ve seen remakes of such classics as Friday the 13th, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Thing and plenty of others. The reasoning is simple: These movies are horror classics, […]

Moonshine hearkens to rule-breaking Prohibition era


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We all enjoy doing things we’re not supposed to do: staying up late on a school night, driving over the speed limit, mixing business and pleasure, even drinking while underage. I’m not making any confessions or pointing any fingers, but let’s be honest: It has happened. There was a time, however, when nobody, no matter […]

On my frustration with Neon Tommy


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I like Neon Tommy. I really do. I’ve admired its coverage (often jealously) for its originality, depth and thoroughness. During the mayoral election, the digital publication, housed in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, produced several interesting and important stories. And when I wrote for Neon Tommy, I always received thoughtful, critical and valuable feedback […]

Emailing can still be refined


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For its 16th birthday, Yahoo decided to celebrate by changing the look of its email inbox. The result? The makeover made Yahoo’s inbox look cleaner, flatter and eerily familiar — if you compare Yahoo’s email interface side-by-side with that of Gmail’s. The setup and the spacing of the navigation and inbox sections are now strikingly […]

Indie can offer fun change


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The term “indie” is often attributed to the coolest of the cool — those who don brands we’ve never heard of, smoke foreign cigarettes and take pleasure in tempeh burgers and kale. But me? Well, I’m the least alternative person you will probably meet. I come from the ultimate suburb — Irvine, Calif. — and […]

Pirating hurts film industry


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Watching movies and TV shows on streaming links and illegal sites for free is becoming increasingly commonplace. This is especially true here on a college campus where most students are not exactly flush with cash. The temptation to break a relatively minor law to get some free entertainment becomes very tempting when balanced against a […]

Tech keeps memories of loved ones alive


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I never deleted my dad’s cellphone number. And every so often, while I’m searching for something on my phone, I stumble upon it. My father died on Oct. 9, 2009 — four years ago yesterday and 20 days before my 17th birthday. He’d fought a six-year battle with multiple myeloma and then one Friday … And […]

Themed runs gain popularity


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Have you ever felt the need to run a race at night covered in neon powder? No? Well, to be honest, I didn’t either up until a week ago. As a result of plenty of Facebook advertising and a post from a friend, the Blacklight Run caught my attention. Black lights are pretty cool. They […]

Twitter IPO dampens investors’ projections


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It’s March 21, 2006. After another long day of debugging and hashing out code at the startup, co-founder of Twitter — twttr at the time — Jack Dorsey sends out the first-ever tweet. What Dorsey published was nothing out of the ordinary. The small team at twttr didn’t know what to think of the idea […]

Hip hop provokes thought


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Not all hip-hop is a fusion of raunchy remarks and bombastic beats (though I will admit that I enjoy E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go” more than your average 19-year-old). Many contemporary hip-hop artists have discovered creative methods to blend elements of other genres such as pop, reggae and acoustic music to create rich, wholesome […]