Author Rob Wieland

Board game bender: 5 places to enjoy a game and a drink on International Tabletop Day

April 27, 2016

//Not long ago, playing a board game at a bar was an exercise in sadness. It was usually some beat-up old copy of Trivial Pursuit with 90 percent of the questions about Richard Nixon or Mork & Mindy. B...

Spock you like a hurricane: Justin Freer and Dennis McCarthy talk “Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage”

Rob Wieland

March 10, 2016

//Music is an important part of the pop culture breakfast. Theme songs, especially, spark a rush of nostalgia and emotional connection to favorite scenes or characters. But of all the pop culture franchise...

Why MKE and NXT make a great tag team

Rob Wieland

January 14, 2016

//Fun fact: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's famous "Austin 3:16" catchphrase was born right here in Milwaukee at the 1996 King of the Ring tournament. This is but one of many tidbits of wrestling history threa...

Author Patrick Tomlinson prepares to launch ‘The Ark’

Rob Wieland

November 2, 2015

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo if you’re into the whole brevity thing, began yesterday. Writers throughout the country go on something of a creative crash diet to do the one thing everybody needs to...

Throwback to the future: Cosplay Rave 3.0 vs. ’90s rave culture

Rob Wieland

July 15, 2015

Kids these days, with their hula hoops and their raps, might not realize it, but their parents may have spent their youth as part of the early ’90s rave culture, tracking down underground parties full of thuddi...

Regal definition: An audience with the queen of the Bristol Renaissance Faire, Jenny Higgins

Rob Wieland

July 7, 2015

By the time July rolls around, the itch to cram in as much summer fun as humanly possible usually means one thing: a road trip. For many Milwaukeeans, scratching that itch involves heading down to the Illinois ...

Tracklist: 6 Safe House improvements we’d like to see

Rob Wieland

June 22, 2015

Local movie money moguls Marcus Corporation announced late last week their purchase of perennial tourist bar Safe House for an undisclosed sum. With nerd bars popping up all over the city and kitsch theme pubs ...

Postmodern Jukebox brings YouTube razzmatazz to Turner Hall

Rob Wieland

June 11, 2015

Novelty acts have it rough. Not only must they catch a popular song before it hits saturation, they have to come up with a clever riff on it, record it, and get it out to the public just long enough to have it ...

Off Base: 10 Brewers/Star Wars bobbleheads we’d like to see

Rob Wieland

May 28, 2015

Wisconsin’s recent run as a contender in various sports has been a refreshing change of pace. The Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Bucks both made the playoffs last season, and are full of young talent. The Wisc...

Table Top Hobby Game Shop won’t stop until the orcs drop

Rob Wieland

May 19, 2015

Milwaukee’s nerd community is getting spoiled these days. The city has several excellent comic book shops to help folks keep current on today’s big crossover events that will become tomorrow’s tentpole summer b...

Chris Hardwick makes dick jokes for science at Pabst Theater

Rob Wieland

May 9, 2015

Scott Fitzgerald is famously misquoted as saying there are no second acts in American lives. Anyone can prove the folly of that quote by jumping onto the Internet where celebrities reinvent themselves as the su...

A certain point of view: Milwaukee’s connection to Star Wars reference site Wookieepedia

Rob Wieland

May 4, 2015

The Star Wars Expanded Universe—all the books, comics, video games, and other materials that expand the story beyond the original films—has a complex relationship with the ever-popular franchise. Some things ar...

Milwaukee Record’s guide to Free Comic Book Day 2015

Rob Wieland

April 30, 2015

When Free Comic Book Day began in 2002, comic books were really only just beginning to climb into the mainstream of pop culture. Films like Spider-Man and X-Men 2 spurred comic book sales, even without the mode...

Funtown Mountain Wondershow to bring carnival-style insanity to Club Garibaldi

Rob Wieland

April 20, 2015

Wisconsin Dells once boasted dozens of weird roadside attractions before it erected a strange mix of water parks and human Habitrails masquerading as hotels. Many Milwaukeeans have an affinity for such guilty p...

First Impression: Binary: Games, Food & Spirits

Rob Wieland

April 14, 2015

Milwaukee is known for having a bar on every corner, with many of those bars featuring a theme. Sports bars work because it’s awesome to share the thrill of victory with a room full of fans. Irish bars offer a ...

Where to go (in Milwaukee) and what to play on International TableTop Day

Rob Wieland

April 9, 2015

Now that March Madness has ended and the usual hopeful-yet-melancholy Brewers buzz has settled in, it’s time for the nerds to have their day. On Saturday, April 11, International TableTop Day will encourage gam...

Why can’t Milwaukee support multiple nerd-themed conventions?

Rob Wieland

March 24, 2015

Last spring, things were looking pretty rosy for board gamers, role-players, cosplayers, and all the other geeks in Milwaukee with money to burn and wall space looking for some signed pictures. Three new nerd-t...

Bob’s Burgers LIVE! brings comedy, music, butts to Riverside Theater

Rob Wieland

March 23, 2015

Shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons are the anchors of Fox’s Sunday night of animation. Other shows have come and gone, but few have built a cult audience like Bob’s Burgers. The cartoon chronicle of the Bel...

Anime Milwaukee is Summerfest for geeks

Rob Wieland

February 11, 2015

One of the many non-beer-related nicknames Milwaukee has racked up over the years is the City of Festivals. The most obvious evidence of that moniker exists on the lakefront during the summer, with a series of ...

Midwinter Gaming Convention celebrates 15 years of dressing up as sexy vampires (and other things)

Rob Wieland

January 15, 2015

Time stretches out like a barren graveyard, with the headstones marking the frailty of joy and hiding crypts full of regret. But enough about the shitty weather. There’s only so much time one can spend huddled ...