Marisa LaScala: Writer, Editor, and Good Addition to Your Bar Trivia Team

Just wanted to pop in to urge everyone to check out the September issue of Parents magazine, which features a beautiful new redesign including a brand-new font! Just look at that lowercase "a!"

It's been an honor going through the redesign process for the front-of-book, and really rethinking what we want moms to experience when they open the magazine—finding that right mix of humor, service, and heart. Take a look at the September FOB and see what you think.

Before we launched our big redesign, I got to do a couple of super fun pieces for August that I'm particularly proud of, too.

Disney World is on of my favorite places on Earth, so I was extremely excited to be one of the first to visit Pandora: The World of Avatar in Disney's Animal Kingdom for Parents. I had some tips on traveling there with the kiddos. 

"1. Carve out some time to just explore the land. You may think that, with only two rides, it'll be easy to breeze through Pandora, but there's a lot to be seen just by walking around the paths. One Disney expert I spoke with suggested that you plan on spending 45 minutes there in addition to the time you'll spend waiting on line for the attractions. Look for interactive elements, like playable Na'vi drums and exotic plants that steam and squirt water at guests.

2. Pandora looks completely different in the daytime, when you can see all the details of the extra-terrestrial flora, and at night, when the bioluminescence of the land gives everything a blacklit glow. It's worth it to see it in both lights. Animal Kingdom is looking to beef up its other nighttime offerings, like adding the new Rivers of Light show (which was sadly rained out for my visit). If the kiddos can't stay up that late, though, you can get a good idea of the bioluminescence in the Na'vi River Journey.

3. Talk with the cast members. Everybody has a tale of how they ended up on Pandora—you can start by asking them if they were born on Pandora or Earth. The "Field Guides" walking around can give you even more background about the world's creatures, teach you some of the Na'vi language, and offer hints about what you may see, like how to tell the difference between a true Na'vi and a lab-created avatar. (Hint: Count the fingers.)"

I can't believe how fast this year is going. Here's a couple of the things I've been up to as I've been ignoring this site. All of them are from Parents magazine.

Ahh, the August stretch of TV season—aka the dregs. Still, this month for Bustle, I...

...ranked all of the OK Go videos I could find to honor the anniversary of their album, Oh No, which gave us the famous treadmill video. 

...recommended that Saturday Night Live add more than on young, white, male cast member. They need someone who can do a decent Hillary!

...scoped out the competition for two of America's Top Model Cycle 22 contestants—Nyle DiMarco and Mame Adjei—plus the prizes they'll get if they win. 

...rooted for Project Runway underdog Amanda Perna, who almost made it on the show once before.

...hoped that Job or No Job's Jane Buckingham would give me career advice.

...dug up some more train based entertainment to kill time while waiting for the second half of the last season of Hell on Wheels. 

...discovered who the heck Michael Carbonaro is, and what make his prank show different. (Close-up magic!)

...looked into what's cooking for Below Deck's new chef.

...found out there's no one, real sugar baby behind Lifetime's Sugar Babies. 

...speculated about the possibility of more seasons of Becoming Us, Hollywood Cycle, Humans, Stitchers, and Proof, and gave advice on what to watch while we wait. (Phew!)

Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty

This month on Bustle, I...

...read way too much into the (possible) symbolic meaning behind Felicia, the waitress with the scars, on True Detective. 

...learned I wasn't the only one with crazy True Detective theories. 

...wrote an ode to True Detective's Paul Woodrugh, the show's true underdog. 

...made a case for why Halt and Catch Fire deserves another season (love you, Cameron).

...speculated about some of the (many, many) cameos in Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and (fewer) returning castmembers for the last Teen Nick episodes of Degrassi. 

...figured out the real-life musical inspirations behind Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, including Denis Leary himself and his previous hit single.

...explained how non-Stewart, non-Hamilton Dean Geistlinger fits into Stewarts & Hamiltons, and what his (surprisingly big) claim to fame is.

...researched who plays Jim Gaffigan's wife on The Jim Gaffigan Show (and how she compares to her real-life counterpart),who plays Fin's (replacement) daughter on Sharknado 3 (since you never know—the last daughter is now the star of the Jem and the Holograms movie), and who is the host of VH1's Twinning (spoiler alert: she's not a twin).   

...found a clue that suggests Laura Prepon will return next year on Orange Is the New Black. (But will it just be a flashback/dream sequence?) 

...explained to viewers what to expect from Spike's Tut.

...told fans of the brothers Winchester that they'll have to wait for a while still before Supernatural season 10 comes to Netflix, but there are other movies they can stream in the meantime if they need a fix.

Recently on Bustle, I...

...wondered if True Detective's Ray Velcoro could be the new Rust Cohle.

...came up with some theories about what True Detective's mysterious Black Mountain could be (though I'm pretty sure my first guess is correct).

...praised Orange Is the New Black for forcing its actresses to use different creative muscles, like taking singer Annie Golden and making her character near-mute.  

...speculated about whether or not Fake Off, The Comedians, and Happyish will be renewed for more seasons. 

...explored Boom! host Tom Papa's friendships with Seinfeld and Soderbergh.

Image: Lacey Terrell/HBO

I've been behind in posting my Bustle articles—very behind—but here are some of my favorite posts I've done in the meantime:

Mad Men Season 7 Premiere "Severance" Has An Ominous Title, But Does It Actually Tell Us Anything?

15 Selina Meyer Quotes That Prove The President (Yeah, President!) Has The Perfect Thing To Say In Every Situation

As Justified Rides Off Into The Sunset, Here's What's Going Ro Be Missed The Most

Aquarius Lead Sam Hodiak Vs. Fox Mulder: They Have More Than David Duchovny In Common

Halt And Catch Fire Season 2 Emphasizes The Women Of The Show & We Couldn't Be More Excited

Here are the rest of the TV shows I've covered since I last posted:

AD: The Bible Continues (2); Agent Carter (2, 3); American Odyssey; The Americans; Aquarius (2, 3); Battle Creek; Between; Black-ish; The Blacklist;  Blood, Sweat, and Heels; Brides Gone Styled; Catfish; The Casual Vacancy; Cleveland Abduction; The Critics' Choice Awards; The 87th Academy Awards (2); Dancing with the Stars; Empire (2, 3, 4); Gotham; 500 Questions; Forever; Halt and Catch Fire; Hindsight; The Josh Wolf Show; Lake Placid vs. Anaconda; Labor Games; The Last Man on Earth (2); Little Women: NY (2); The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2); Mad Men; The  Making of the Mob: New York (2); The Messengers; MTV's Scream; New Girl (2, 3); Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards; Orange Is the New Black; Parks and Recreation; The Prancing Elites; Proof; The Returned (2); Saturday Night Live (2, 3); Seeds of Yesterday; Sense8; Shark Tank; Stitchers; Sons of Winter; Swab Stories; Texas Rising; 'Til Death Do Us Part; The Tony Awards; 12 Monkeys; Turn: Washington's Spies (2); Undateable; Weird Loners; The Willis Family

I also got to spoil Fifty Shades of Grey for people who didn't want to watch the movie and just wanted to know if the ending deviated from the book.

Image: Justina Mintz/AMC

For its 1995-themed week, The A.V. Club let me write about one of my favorite film subgenres: mid-'90s internet paranoia movies. 

1995 Marked the Birth of Internet-Paranoia Films

"...The internet and virtual-reality films of 1995 also show the emergence of a problem that filmmakers are still struggling with today: how to represent a digital world on screen. You can see early attempts to create some sort of cohesive visual language to stand in for the internet. Status bars, for example, are used in more than one of these movies as a quick way to ratchet up tension; the heroes have to wait until the bar reaches 100 percent before they can flee to safety. It’s a cheap thrill, and one we sadly haven’t outgrown yet.

Mostly, though, attempts to create a new look for the internet are hideous, trafficking in cheesy, psychedelic swirls of numbers and symbols and environments that look like video games circa Nintendo 64. Hackers andVirtuosity both fall victim to the allure of pop-art colors: Virtuosity makes is virtual exit quickly, bringing SID 6.7 into the real world, but Hackers often goes into the “architecture” of circuitry, with skyscrapers of squares and rectangles standing in for the systems they’re trying to break into, and dreamy-looking equations standing in for the data they want to collect. Today, it looks dated..."

Click through to read the full essay at The A.V. Club, or download the PDF.