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Today, we raise a glass to the younger brothers in pop culture. The overlooked second children. The “aren’t you related to _____?” of the world. They’ve been compared to their siblings their entire lives and there’s nothing we can do about that. Except celebrate them.

[Movie still from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Warner Bros.]

Rub a dub dub, a geek in a tub! Who doesn’t love a good long soak in a nice warm bath? It’s time to sit back and let the nerdiness sink in with these bath goodies!

[Movie still from Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, New Line Cinema]

Happy New Year! Now’s the time for new beginnings and setting future resolutions. For the inhabitants of Middle Earth those resolutions might look a “tiny” bit different than most.

[Still from Supernatural, Warner Bros. Television]

2017 has come to an end, and with it, our hopes for checking off the last few New Year’s Resolutions still hanging around from last January. Hopefully you managed to hit most of your big ones – finding a job, perhaps, or keeping in better touch with long-distance friends, or eating more salad – but there are always those little add-on resolutions that seem to slip through the cracks, the ones we think that surely we will get to sometime during the year, but never feel like quite a high enough priority to actually sit down and do.

Like finally binge-watching Supernatural.

Look, if you are one of those people who started watching Supernatural early in its run and have been keeping up ever since, good for you. But for those who were late to the party, thirteen seasons (and counting) is a tall order. That’s 287 episodes of television. You know what you could accomplish in the amount of time it takes to watch 287 episodes?*

You could complete a training program for a full marathon. Twice.**

You could watch the Lord of the Rings extended editions 18 times, with time for bathroom breaks.

You could write a rough draft of a novel.***

You could walk from New York City to Detroit.

Basically, picking up Supernatural now is not just a matter of curiosity; it’s a long-term commitment, like a middle school romance.**** So it’s understandable if you’ve decided that, at this point, no matter how great your friends say it is, the Supernatural ship has sailed. It’s too daunting. Maybe one day if you are ever recuperating from a severe illness, or are put under house arrest, you might give it a go. But as it is, you know better than to put that show on your list of New Year’s Resolutions again. You’ve learned your lesson. Fool you once, CW.*****

Then again, maybe you’ll give it a whirl anyway. Who knows, 2018 may just be a year where you want to hermit away for a few weeks and power through 210 hours of epic battles between good and evil. No judgement. Sometimes building a blanket fort in your living room and watching a full season of television in one sitting really is the best and most logical option.

Here are a few other shows that you’ve heard were good, and you were thinking about watching sometime this year…if you can just find the time.

* or 210.5 hours, assuming an average of 44 minutes per episode

** It takes about 88 hours of activity to train for a full marathon, assuming around a 10-minute-per-mile pace – although you could run at a slower pace and still be able to complete the training program twice in under 210 hours.

*** writing 3.5 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, assuming you are a person who can draft a novel on that sort of schedule. If you aren’t, no shame.

**** 8.77 days, which… actually, that might be aiming a bit high for a middle school romance.

***** Supernatural has actually been around for so long that it started on The WB, not The CW.

Photo by Miika Laaksonen on Unsplash

New Year, New Bookshelf! As far as resolutions go, promising to get those piles and piles of comics organized and looking beautiful is a great one: it’s achievable, cheap, simple, and has an instant payoff. Just looking at shelves of beautiful comics, knowing that all of your favorites are at your fingertips…that’s a warm glow to keep you going in a cold January.

The question is not whether to organize your comic collection—it’s how to do it. Especially for new collectors, the options seem endless. How to keep all those comics in a way that is beautiful, useful, and makes sure that they stay in good condition, just in case they’re worth money one day. If you’re looking at how to organize your growing comic collection this year, we’ve got all your questions answered right here. Happy sorting!

Image by Social Butterfly from Pixabay

New Year's Eve this year looked very different than it would have a hundred years ago. No midnight selfies to post on Instagram, no club-hopping between venues with a $50 cover and too many drunk people, no last-minute Tinder dates to try and find someone to kiss when the clock strikes twelve. Despite these new ways to celebrate, New Year’s Eve has always been an important night to mark in the calendar, and people have always done something to celebrate. A more sedated ball, a house party (not the kind with red solo cups), a family evening around the fire, or some champagne with a few friends have been the go-to for centuries. And while cultural norms around drinking come and go, one thing is for certain: our favorite authors have no doubt dealt with some serious New Year’s hangovers at one time or another.

But how would these classic literary figures deal with the first day of the year if they were in their prime this winter? We have some thoughts.