the Fifth Line: Bracket Time!

Woo-hoo! The NHL playoffs have begun! Someone find my blood pressure medicine and hide my tequila!

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Scott Darling made how many saves in relief of Corey Crawford?!

I kid. My blood pressure issues are completely untreated, and even if you hid my tequila, I have plenty of whiskey. Whatever your drink of choice, you probably needed it last night if you were a fan of any of the Western teams that played.

Before we dive into the playoff brackets, though, a few words on a recently-fired tank commander. [Read more…]

Games on Addison: TableTop Day!

Today we recount and bid farewell to another successful TableTop Day, where we gathered together for the specific purpose of playing more games.

99f7ab00d896a77954636d6c8de3cd8b-225x225International TableTop Day grew out of the TableTop web series on the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel. In celebration of the series’ one-year anniversary, producers Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Boyan Radakovich created a day to get players together to celebrate and engage in tabletop gaming. This year was the third annual TableTop Day, and Saturday, April 11th, saw a plethora of opportunities for the Chicago gamer. All of the city’s big game stores (Chicagoland Games, Cat & Mouse, Wanderer’s Refuge) offered events and demos at each of their locations, and Geek Bar Beta had a full day of food, drinks and gaming.

For our group, the plethora of options was a blessing. Four of the Addison Recorder’s writers (joined by a husband and wee baby) all ventured out to play this past Saturday — and each person had a different availability. Because TableTop Day has become so big, and because we had so many options, we were able to accommodate more schedules than we could in years past. [Read more…]

the Fifth Line: Awards Season

Thank the hockey gods for giving us an interesting playoff race in the East.

What was once a moribund race has turned topsy-turvy, and only half the playoff spots have been claimed. There are five teams battling for the other four spots, and it’s possible that Boston or Pittsburgh could be the teams left out.

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At least Bailey will be available for Dodgers games earlier than expected.

The West is no slouch in the drama department, either. Winnipeg, Calgary, and last year’s champions are all battling for the final two spots, and it’s the Kings who are at the disadvantage. It’s a cliche to say that nobody could’ve predicted this, but… nobody predicted this.

Rather than focus on the brackets, which are still completely in flux with only two games left, how about we recklessly opine about the annual awards? [Read more…]

J&STAC: Lumberjanes

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

-J.: I initially thought this week would be ideal to talk about the slew of DC #1 issues coming out as part of their Convergence event. But then I read Convergence #0, a disappointing lead-in that reads like it wants to be a Neil Gaiman-penned prologue. It wasn’t bad, per se, but set a disappointing tone for the event. So, when Steph brought home the newly-released Lumberjanes, volume 1, and mentioned writing about it for J&STAC, I jumped. The question was, would it be any good?

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words by Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis, art by Brooke Allen. Published by BOOM! Studios

synopsis: A group of Lumberjane scouts discover more than they bargained for during their summer at Miss Quinzella Thiskwin Penniguigul Thistte Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. *Friendship to the Max!*

Steph: I had heard nothing but good things about Lumberjanes and I had been eagerly awaiting the release of volume 1. [Read more…]

Maple (Cocktail) Season

I know everyone wants the weather to warm up, but hear me out.

If you are a true North American, you don’t want spring warming up too quickly. You want it to warm up during the day, but you still want the temperatures to dip below freezing at night. You want this, because that’s the ideal situation for sap to run in the sugar maple trees throughout this continent.

And the more maple sap that runs through Acer saccharum trees this spring, the more delicious maple syrup this continent produces. It all works out, especially if you also want to make delicious cocktails with maple syrup, like the ones I’m about to talk about.

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[Read more…]

the Fifth Line: the Home Stretch

Hey, wanna see something totally not at all depressing if you’re a Chicago fan?

Arizona and Buffalo, the two teams whose front offices are tanking the hardest, are teams that have been gutted in an effort to land a top-two draft pick. Their games against each other are so awful, and filled with fans cheering against their own team, that such games have been likened to existentialist avant garde performance.

Chicago’s offense has been so bad the last couple months, they’re playing at these teams’ level. [Read more…]

-J. & Steph Talk About… Scandal?

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Scandal-son Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels television. Combine all that into a biweekly feauture  and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics Scandal.”

-J.: Um, I’m not sure why this post is here. Our next J&STAC piece doesn’t go live until next week. I don’t know what we’re supposed to talk about or why we’ve changed the schedule.

Editor’s Note: The writers here at the Addison Recorder have decided to explore our new found love for the best show in recorded history, Scandal. Instead of writing an article or two, we have decided to rebrand ourselves as the Scandal-son Recorder. We hope you revel in our new-found, shared devotion.

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-J.: Oh. Uh… I don’t actually know anything about this show. I don’t watch much TV. I have no idea what I’m doing here. Steph? Help? [Read more…]

the Fifth Line: Championship Time Nears

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Everything is accelerating now. Bubble teams are on their last ditch efforts to make the NHL playoffs, while playoff-bound teams jockey for position. Every little defect of a team is worried over, whether by paranoid fans or bookies.

Meanwhile, the NCAA teams have been seeded for the men’s national tournament. The Golden Gophers from Minnesota have already claimed the women’s national title. But we’ll get to them later. We start here in Chicago. [Read more…]

J&STAC: She-Hulk

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

One of the more celebrated titles of last year was She-Hulk, a new ongoing series starring lawyer-Hulk Jennifer Walters. After twelve issues, though, Marvel cancelled the series to the dismay of many. They tried to clarify that the goal had always been to publish the first twelve issues and see if it got enough traction to keep going, but that’s not how they sold the series.

The second (and final) volume of She-Hulk issues was released today, so we decided to look at the final arc of She-Hulk’s short-lived series.

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cover art by Kevin Wada

[Read more…]

the Fifth Line: Coming Into Focus

Only a dozen games (or so) are left on the NHL schedule. Teams have until April 11th to get out of the bubble and into a playoff spot.

There are some constants with the Stanley Cup playoffs: the Kings finally show up, they and the ‘Hawks are never quite dead, the Penguins will have their lack of depth exposed, and the Sharks will choke.

This year, though, the Sharks might fall on their face before the playoffs. If that happens, it’s because they first shot themselves in said face before planting it on the ice.

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Removing the “C” from this guy’s jersey really worked out, didn’t it?

[Read more…]