At first, I thought it was raining.

The loud noises outside my window as I late-night binged on YouTube sounded for all the world like raindrops hitting the roof.

The show today is remembered by Millennials for its vaguely ancient Mayan theme, the giant animatronic stone head voiced by Dee Bradley Baker that provided exposition, and the fact that almost no one ever beat the temple.
Nickelodeon has unearthed the old show as the basis for a TV movie.

Jim Liebich was 25 and in his last year at Sonoma State University when his youngest brother Bill invited him to a fencing class. Thinking it might be fun, Liebich decided to try it out. Twenty years later, he’s the biggest proponent of fencing in the Bay Area.

A fencing instructor since 2001, Liebich started his own fencing club in Santa Rosa in 2008 called En Garde Fencing, after the club he used to teach at closed down.

After a year of waiting, Rooster Teeth’s anime-inspired hit show “RWBY” is back. Now in its fourth volume, “RWBY” continues to balance out fights and dramatic scenes with moments of humor and good character work and animation that is much improved from previous volumes.

Fine arts major and self-proclaimed comic book nerd Emily Martin was still at Sonoma State University when she started dating Brett Grunig. On their first date, Gruning started talking about how Japanese manga was underappreciated. He then mentioned “Battle Angel Alita,” which just so happened to be Martin’s favorite manga. Martin responded with a marriage proposal.

Over the past few years, the boom in superhero movies has led to many imitators trying to repeat Marvel’s success. “Max Steel,” based off the long-running toy line from Mattel, is definitely one of them. And that’s about all that can be said about it.

In 1915, “The Birth of a Nation” was praised as a groundbreaking work of cinema that invented the epic movie and created filming techniques that directors still use. Over 100 years later, it’s a little-remembered embarrassment that no one dares touch, thanks to being considered highly racist even in its heyday. Nate Parker’s film of the same name has similar themes and takes place around the same time, but is not a remake. If anything, this film is a rebuttal to the first, or as Parker calls it, a reclamation. 

It started simply enough.

Mike Holbrook, toy shop owner and frequent attendee of various conventions around the state as a vendor, was getting tired of always having to travel to other cities in other states to sell his wares. He sold his personal toy collection to have enough to rent out Grace Pavilion at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds, the biggest place he could find, and used his personal contacts to get vendors and sellers there.

It seems as though it’s a normal part of September now. 

Alongside the school year starting again, and ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’ coming and going with little fanfare. There is now a new annual event - people crowding around their nearest electronics store for Apple’s newest iPhone.

One can usually tell how funny a comedy is by its trailers. If they keep repeating a few scenes, it means there weren’t enough good jokes to go around. The trailers for “Masterminds,” the new comedy based off real events, are 90 percent the same. Which is not a good sign.

When Jeffrey Reeder first came to Sonoma State University in 1998, it was just a place where he hoped to find a job. Almost two decades later, there’s no place he’d rather be.