Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed.
plumberduck
William Hughes
plumberduck
Writer on The A.V. Club's Newswire desk since 2014, covering stories ranging from TV, to film, to games, to that time the Harry Potter lady said wizards used to poop on the floor, like dogs.

I have been having a blast with F-Zero 99. (For reference, I played but never got into the original SNES game, but I adored F-Zero X for the N64. Never played any other version.) Read more

BRING BACK MARIO 35, YOU COWARDS!!!  Or at least make an SMB3 version. Read more

My game! All those times your non-fighters punched a Swarm of Rats to death, they finally get their revenge. Read more

I’m still sticking with Meet Your Maker, possibly due to some kind of sunk cost fallacy. I scraped together enough of the Orange currency to actually get a bigger space upon which to build my killbox. It’s starting to build up enough kills to be somewhat self-sustaining, presuming I don’t blow my budget on other Read more

Yeah, I think one of the weird elements of their relationship is that it’s transactional but they both feel emotionally safe knowing that. So the transactions blend with affection Read more

“We can get an off-the-shelf funeral.....Reagan’s but with tweaks” is the line of the season so far for me. Read more

True story I started the game on hardcore.  Wasted all my ammo on the first genado.  Got to the village with 4 bullets after some looting.  Spent 15 minutes trying to stealth kill enemies only got one.  Proceeded to run around the village fumbling with ammo, accidently getting hit by the bull on fire, nearly grenaded Read more

I watched Octopus Teacher the other day to prep for this episode and the biggest thing I took from it was how shitty it would be to be a teenager and your dad just wanted to talk to you about this fucking octopus everyday for a year.

I think my only critique of Monkey Grifter is that they give too much away in the Read more

Really well written review, Mr. Hughes. The synthesis idea felt like a good description of Documentary Now!’s comedic style: Take the spirit of the original, make some loving jokes about its more recognizable themes, then drive the crazy school bus straight into the absurd. Read more

Yes, but it used to be a more thriving community of sad, sad nerds, with more people not giving a shit and just brain-dumping the progress they’d made over the past week, where they made it up to, and what they were going to work on next. And then other sad, sad nerds would pop into the comments and say, “Ooooh, yes, Read more

Watching Archer deep-six a dude down a bathroom drain Read more

I beat the final boss of Elden Ring a couple weeks ago* and I think I’m ready to put the game down for the time being, at least until the DLC drops (unless the DLC is heavily PVP-focused, as the colloseums scattered about the Land Between seem to suggest). I enjoyed my time, but there are plenty other games out there Read more

Elden Ring general rule of thumb: if you ever find yourself thinking you might need more Vigor, you absolutely, most definitely need more Vigor. Read more

I was speaking more in generalities rather than accusing you specifically; but that you expressed shame in enjoying the game (ironic or not) feels like it highlights something toxic in how we tend to talk about pop culture. Sorry if I didn’t express that very well. Read more

Laszlo after hearing about the New Jersey Devil’s low hanging balls and button cock—”fantastic” with just the right amount of respect and/or breathy arousal. Glorious and sublime. Read more

July 31 seems to be an important date in pop culture. Lisa Simpson (in the timeline established in “Lisa’s Wedding” (which granted, may have only been a dream) was set to marry Hugh (before she called it off due to his dislike of Homer) on July 31, 2010. Weirdly, I know a Lisa who *was* married on that date.
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