Toys are a $20 billion industry in the U.S., and not just because kids love them. Adults are as much of a target market as the kids who fall within the age range listed on a toy’s packaging. Take a look at the highly coveted Star Wars merchandise. According to…
Jenny Block is the writer of the Observer’s new sex column, Pillow Talk. She has published three books on the topic, The Ultimate Guide to Solo Sex, O Wow: Discovering Your Ultimate Orgasm, and Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. I get so many emails from women…
Jenny Block is the writer of the Observer’s new sex column, Pillow Talk. She has published three books on the topic, The Ultimate Guide to Solo Sex, O Wow: Discovering Your Ultimate Orgasm, and Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. San Antonio native Jessica Drake is one of…
Long-time Oak Cliff resident Carlos de la Fuente spun paper mache and crepe paper into gold when he made his first Donald Trump piñata. Last June, when media outlets and political commenters were scoffing at Donald Trump’s attempt on the presidency, Fuente saw something different: a chance to capitalize on…
Downtown Dallas was the site of a horrific shooting this month, but that hasn’t stopped people from readily flocking to the area for entertainment. The free, augmented reality app Pokemon Go allows users to catch animated monsters in their real environments. It has been as frequent a subject of conversation…
It was the mugshot seen ’round the world. A picture of a University of North Texas mug was trending on Facebook last week thanks to its awkward handle, shaped like a “C” and positioned to the left of the letters “UNT.” See you next Tuesday. Oh, did you think we…
There are 151 unique Pokemon in Pokemon Go, the app that has people in Dallas bumping heads and begging restaurants to let them inside just to catch a Pikachu that’s hiding on their patio. In order to “catch ’em all,” you have to visit different environments, since certain Pokemon live…
It’s only been a week since the release of Niantic’s free Pokemon Go app, but the revival of the popular ’90s franchise, which allows players to catch cute little cartoon monsters in real life using their smartphones, has already taken over Dallas. Pokemon Go: DFW Community, one of several local…
Dallas is known as a town that loves to shop, and the one thing we know about true shopaholics is that they hate having the same thing as everyone else. Fashion is about the thrill of the hunt; finding that one piece that completes a unique personal statement. So why…
Lauren Belmore is a local poet and noise musician who identifies as non-binary. They studied playwriting at the University of North Texas and now live and work in Dallas. (They pronouns are used when referring to non binary-identifying persons.) Here, they write about coming out and the non-binary artist community…
The gap in knowledge between parents and their children may have never been trickier to navigate than it is today. While it’s now widely accepted that one’s gender is not necessarily determined by one’s sex, we’re still right smack dab in the middle of figuring out how this affects various…
In the summer of 2012, the internet went out of its collective mind over a new game that became the undisputed sleeper hit of the E3 video game convention in Los Angeles. Game publisher Ubisoft released a trailer for Watch Dogs that easily overshadowed any other blood soaked, trigger-happy game…
If you dedicated your free time to playing video games on a computer in the 1990s, then you remember the first time you played the groundbreaking first-person shooter Doom. It’s hard to forget a formative moment that involves using a chainsaw to cut open a horned Hell minion like a…
Comic conventions have become snarling, hungry beasts that can never be sated. Every year they get bigger, with more parties, famous faces and costumed fans ready to declare their love for their favorite movie, show or comic book franchise. If this metaphorical beast was itself a comic book character, it…
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has built an empire on tech money and professional games. Now he’s eyeing another expansion — into the digital universe of the game Minecraft. In an unprecedented move, the Mavs have announced a partnership with Mineplex, one of the largest Minecraft servers in the world, to…
U.S. Poet Laureate Felipe Herrera could be frustrated. As the first Latino appointed to America’s highest honor in poetry, and a writer who often delves into his experiences as a Mexican-American, he could use the platform to express his disillusionment with the hostility being directed toward immigrants in the United…
A week removed from the onslaught of mayhem brought into North Texas by Vince McMahon, Stone Cold, Roman Reigns and the World Wrestling Entertainment’s Wrestlemania, it’s easy to forget that for some people, stage-dives, body slams and crowd-taunting turnbuckle gestures are a year-round life. While a hundred thousand fans gathered…
Video games are more a part of our daily lives than ever. Those cranky parents who complained about their child’s sedentary gaming habits never saw this coming. We can not only frag strangers from the comfort of our couches through an Xbox One or PlayStation 4, we can also kill…
It was squared circle nirvana this past weekend for over 100,000 fans in North Texas as Wrestlemania swept through town. The marquee event of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has grown from a single-day card into a multi-day entertainment extravaganza. The numbers show wrestling’s enduring power. The announced attendance…
The notion that wrestling is staged isn’t a new one. Even hardcore WWE fans who lived in denial for years that their heroes were just part of a pre-determined storyline designed to yank on their emotions like a Franciscan monk ringing a church bill on Christmas have accepted that fact. …
All types of people showed up for the three-day Texas Pinball Festival this month. The young and old, male and female, pierced and khaki-ed all came to Frisco to play more than 350 tables. The games spanned the history of pinball, starting with the first flipper games of the ’50s. Kids…
Flanked by cops and men in cowboy hats, hometown idol Kerry Von Erich strides toward center stage at Texas Stadium as 30,000 friends, family and fans roar. Emotions generally run hot at high-profile wrestling matches, but this bout is something special. The fourth son in the Von Erich wrestling dynasty…
