Sam Nixon
All Stories

Words From a Nerd: So long, and thanks for all the clicks
I've come to my last column for the Daily, and goodbyes are one in a long list of things that give me the jitters. I never get the order of...

Words From a Nerd: Slip the kitty a mickey
I'm feeling a little constricted by the title of this column. Does talking about cats fall under the umbrella of "nerdy" activity? Has the cultural day in the sun ended...

Words From a Nerd: Explorer pays the price of adventure in ‘The Lost City of Z’
Early on in "The Lost City of Z," a lavishly shaded and haunting account of British adventurer Percy Fawcett's repeated trips to the jungles of the Amazon in the early...

Words From a Nerd: ‘Return’ takes a buckshot approach to comedy
"Mystery Science Theater 3000," the Minnesota public access television show turned '90s cult phenomenon, perfectly predicted the current generation's obsession with snark. Before the comments section of every article or...

Words From a Nerd: ‘Persona 5’ personifies JRPGs at their best
The "Persona" series of Japanese role-playing games has a well-deserved reputation that's primarily based on two qualities: being really good and being really strange. Talking animal mascots make regular appearances...

Words From a Nerd: Podcast dependence
A few weeks ago, The Atlantic published an article titled "Podcasts Are the New Xanax." Hyperbolic titles aside, the author of the piece, Pamela Druckerman, describes how she used podcasts...

Words From a Nerd: Unnecessary whiteness
From D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" back in 1915 to the #OscarsSoWhite boycott of the 88th Academy Awards, Hollywood hasn't exactly had the smoothest relationship with race. While a...

Words From a Nerd: ‘One Punch Man’ milks anime tropes for action and jokes
Anime is a strange beast to revisit after stepping away for a few years. While most styles of animation and different genres of shows tend to recycle tropes, anime often...

Words From a Nerd: New ‘Zelda’ more than just a pretty space
I've spent the better part of the last week playing "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," Nintendo's first-party title that serves as both the swan song for the...

Words From a Nerd: Wolverine the chauffeur
With "Logan," an X-Men movie that's more Western than world-shaking summer blockbuster, Hugh Jackman has donned Wolverine's adamantium claws for the ninth — and supposedly last — time in 17...