TicketNetwork Blog

My name’s Crystal, and I’m a Tumblr addict. I love Tumblr because at any given time I can find amazing illustrations, comics, and news items not covered by the mainstream media juxtaposed between gratuitous pictures of food and an adorable video of puppies.

There are tons of Tumblrs out there now, some that I’ve already written about in a post a few weeks back. Here are a few of the blogs I follow and love.

Garfield Minus Garfield

I loved Garfield comics as a kid, although it didn’t do much to foster my love for actual cats (sorry, cat lovers). But I’d all but forgotten about Garfield as I grew up. Garfield Minus Garfield takes old Garfield comic strips and Photoshops the lasagna-obsessed cat — and his thoughts — out of it "in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle" (according to the creators). Jon was probably the least interesting character in the strip. Like, less interesting than the spiders Garfield would try to kill. But without the other characters, Jon is the star, and it brings up a question I’ve always wondered: is Jon crazy? Seriously, guys, is he, or can he actually talk to and understand his cat? And if he could talk to and understand his cat, is he crazy anyway? Some of the strips are pretty funny without Garfield, while others are a little sad, but either way, I find it pretty interesting.

Let me start by saying I’m a massive fan of bubblegum pop music. A few days ago, I admitted to my co-workers that I got tickets to see the Backstreet Boys for Christmas, and that I was un-ironically excited to attend the show. (I went, by the way, and IT WAS AWESOME.) I effectively obliterated whatever “cool” points I’d amassed (none) in my unabashed love for awful pop songs.

That said, I’ve never gotten on the Taylor Swift train. Like, ever.

At least not until her latest two singles. But I’m so in love with "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "Trouble" that I just went ahead and bought her latest album. Millions of others can’t be wrong, right?

Regardless of how you feel about "Red," it’s shattered records for album sales, garnered the star a boatload of money, is one of the hottest concert tours, and, yes, falls victim to some awesomely-bad pop lyric tropes.

To be fair, pop music is never intended to actually be deep. It’s supposed to be fun! It’s that in being fun, half the time the song lyrics are nonsense, and the other half of the time they’re embarrassingly bad. But the good kind of bad. Let’s start with a few from country queen Taylor, shall we?

Red

The lyric: Loving him was red/Yeah, yeah, red/We're burning red/And that's why he's spinnin' 'round in my head/Comes back to me, burning red/Yeah, yeah/His love was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street

The verdict: Taylor will not be winning awards for her metaphors anytime soon.

The three items I'll discuss this week are each huge in their own way. So let's get to it.

BCS: Notre Dame vs. ?

One team has been decided, but there is still one game to go before we know who will join Notre Dame in Miami for the BCS Championship game. Tomorrow the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs will face off for the SEC Championship game. Will Alabama get a chance to defend its title or lose their shot to Georgia? If you're itching to see the SEC final, there are still some tickets listed.

That's it for this week. We'll see you back here in December!

The following is a guest post by Mel for Pepsi in support of X Factor UK.

In the music biz it’s difficult to develop that cross-Atlantic appeal. British acts find it increasingly hard unless they have somebody championing them who has already 'made it' in America. The US is a big place and that means lots of ground to cover, literally. But, there has been an explosion of success stories recently, and it seems that America is now all ears when it comes to emerging British musical talent. Here are just a few UK artists who have enjoyed success stateside.

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

Oh wait, that's Star Wars, created by George Lucas. But that's to whom Peter Jackson is being compared, in some corners, following his decision to extend the film adaptation of The Hobbit. There will now be three films instead of the originally planned two.

Of course, people were anxious when Jackson announced two films. After all, The Hobbit is a fraction of the size of The Lord of The Rings. One book instead of three, and about 300 pages instead of more than 1,000. The argument was that while two films worked for LotR, it would not translate so well to "Hobbit". But after a time people seemed to get used to the idea of two films.

People are even less sure about three. The main worry people have is that there is simply not enough material from the book to carry it through three movies. Or, at least, not enough to do it without it seeming filler-y in places. So, even with some original material thrown in that didn't originally appear in the book, as was already planned, can it work?