Rhombus Magazine

Watch Premiere League Soccer

Jarren Bird — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 20:17:42 +0000

You like soccer right? Well what if, by some crazy means, soccer were actually called football? I know it seems odd to call a game where you ONLY use your feet “football” when there is a perfectly good game where you hardly ever use your feet called “football,” but such is the case in England. […]

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How to Win at Fantasy Football

Jarren Bird — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:02:09 +0000

Welcome sports fans to the wonderful world of Fantasy Football! Now don’t be scared. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. If you are worried about being able to pwn your fellow fantasy cohorts whilst being a “n00b” then look no further. Just for you, I have compiled a step-by-step process on “How to […]

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A look at iOS 7: the good, the bad and the same

Colton Chesnut — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 20:29:56 +0000

Here I was sitting and watching the live broadcast of WWDC and I thought, “Things have really changed with these Apple events.” I don’t want to get all uber-nostalgic with fanboy grandeur or anything, but I do have a comment on certain aspects of the Apple keynote that were completely missing from Monday morning’s presentation of iOS […]

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Exciting Games Shown at this Year’s E3

Jarren Bird — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:00:25 +0000

If you’re one of the many young people who grew up playing video games and have not decided to eschew them in pursuit of an “adult life” then you, my friend, are in luck. This week has brought us many promising new adventures in the video game world and I want to talk about a […]

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SNL: Surviving without Wiig and Samberg

Karma Chesnut — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 22:52:28 +0000

Saturday Night Live lost two prominent cast members in 2012 when Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg both left to pursue other projects. Before these two joined the cast (Wiig in 2006 and Samberg in 2005), the show was in a downward spiral. I certainly didn’t watch SNL and no one I knew did either. It […]

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2013 Android Phones: Televisions Don’t Belong on Your Face

Colton Chesnut — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 03:33:25 +0000

You know exactly what I am talking about. You’ve seen the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 when walking through the mobile department at your local Best Buy. The Note 2 is not a mobile phone. It is a television. I have had one up to my face and I don’t like it. Not because I would […]

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Top 25 Pop Songs of 2011

Hunter Schwarz — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:30:30 +0000

2011 didn't turn out like it was supposed to.

It was supposed to be the year that the electro-Europop ushered in by Lady Gaga completed its rise to total airwave domination. It was supposed to be the year hip-hop gave up trying to be as relevant as it was in the '00s. It was supposed to be the year rock staged a comeback. But none of those things happened.

Sure, electro-Europop was big, but it came via Rihanna and Britney Spears. Gaga had moved on already. While hip-hop is struggling to have as many big hits as it did five years ago, Kanye, Jay-Z, Drake, Nicki Minaj and Donald Glover continue to push the boundaries of what we expect of the genre. The biggest surprise of 2011, however, was the explosion of soul and folk music. Parents bought Adele's 21 at Wal-Mart while their kid's downloaded "Rolling in the Deep" for their iPod. British folk quartet Mumford & Sons not only landed a top 40 hit, but their two-year-old album rose to No. 2 in the album charts. Bon Iver shared Grammy nomination categories with Katy Perry and Bruno Mars.

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Last Man Standing: One Giant Leap (Backward) For Mankind

Hunter Phillips — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:18:15 +0000

In an episode of Louie this summer, Louis C.K. walked off the set of a fictional sitcom based on his own experiences in the TV industry. C.K. was frustrated by the bogus version of life in multi-camera sitcoms — the schlub with a wife out of his league who just nods along agreeably, kids he just can't relate to, a job with wacky coworkers/friends — and all he wanted was some authenticity. Would it be too much to ask for that schmuck's hot wife to not go along with his tangents and schemes? Would the show really be worse off if said schmuck had a character arc, learned some lessons, and (gasp) became a decent husband and father? Of course not. The multi-camera sitcom exists in a stasis where the only lessons learned are that the man was right all along — and his family was silly to ever doubt his wisdom. Rinse and repeat for 24 episodes, for 8 seasons. But this sub-genre of sitcom had (very recently) almost died out. In a post-Raymond world, few examples of the family comedy existed. Once According to Jim and 'Til Death ended their reigns of terror, this form of show was nearly an artifact. Enter Tim Allen.

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Breaking Bad: Season 4 in Hindsight

Hunter Phillips — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 07:58:42 +0000

I get the feeling that we'll be talking about this one for a long time. Back in July, nobody, not even Vince Gilligan himself, could have convinced me that Breaking Bad would be able to top its third season. Equal it? Sure. But for me, Breaking Bad Season Three was the an apex of dramatic storytelling on television, a milestone that would rarely be paralleled by any future show. Here I am, thirteen weeks later—and I'm eating crow, because they did it again. Breaking Bad topped itself, and holy **** was it one crazy ******* ride.

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How Apple Changed Music and Steve Jobs Made Rihanna (and the Cast of Glee and Lil Wayne and Taylor Swift, etc.) a Record-Breaking Star

Hunter Schwarz — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:07:37 +0000

Apple marked the passing of its co-founder and former chief executive Steve Jobs Wednesday, calling him "a visionary and creative genius." In the coming weeks, much will be said of Jobs and how he revolutionized the way we live. Evidence of his impact can be found in pockets carrying app-filled iPhones, DVD collections sprinkled with Pixar films and of course, the Billboard Hot 100. Before the launch of the iTunes digital store in 2003, the record industry was facing the unprecedented threat of online piracy. Consumers were freed from forking over $15 for an album with one hit song and a tracklist full of filler by file sharing services such as Napster. Suddenly, an industry that had made record profits in the late '90s with this model (think Cumbuwumba, Eiffel 65, Natalie Imbrugila, etc.) scrambled to restore revenue by resorting to lawsuits. Apple provided an alternative when it signed deals with the five major record labels to offer their artists' music on the iTunes digital store which made Jobs, a man who didn't even play an instrument, one of the most influential men in popular music history; the "father of digital music" as Billboard called him this week.

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