I have a massive stack of books to get through already, but you can never have too many. I couldn’t find my copy of Ubik by PKD so I ordered a new one and also saw a cheap copy of Great Gatsby soI ordered it too since I’ve been meaning to reread it for years (read it in high school). What did y’all think about it?

Started watching it on Pluto and only in the first season but I’m liking it. I’ve seen random episodes here and there and my dad rented the movie once it was available at blockbuster. Plus it’s cool to see a show with Air Force members as an Air Force vet. I assume since it ended before the woke era there aren’t any major girlboss moments.

Besides the obvious that they can’t make anything original, not sure how they would do this show today since a lot of young teen males watched for obvious reasons

Two questions actually. I'm wondering if you have any relatives or friends like I do posting the usual memes about how right wingers are the real snowflakes because we can't "handle" a beer can with a "trans person" on it. I always hate the "right wingers are the real snowflakes" argument because these are the same people who cry if a show that takes place in 800AD Iceland isn't diverse enough, or literally think it is genocide if you acknowledge the delusions of certain people as objective reality. I know some libertarians say just don't buy it and the market will take care of everything, and I agree to a point, but it has been shown time and time again that companies don't care what the consumers want and there are those who only care about "THE MESSAGE". I can understand people getting sick and tired of the constant pandering to certain demographics (i.e lgbt, black, girl power, etc) that make up tiny percentage of the population. So how do you respond? I get that I can buy something else or watch something else but that doesn't seem to change anything.

Second question: Do you think there are some execs or tv/movie writers who live in such a leftist bubble that they honestly think certain things will be popular or do you think it is all the message? Like I feel like some people at marvel honestly thought that America Chavez or Ironheart were going to be huge sellers and were shocked that they were cancelled. Same thing with the gay Superman. Also in certain heavily blue areas it seems to be trendy to be anything but straight so someone who lives in those areas are probably shocked to see that a movie like Bros bombs. I know ESG has a lot of influence, but I also think some people honestly believe that shows like Rings of Power will be huge hits.

I watch Demolition Man for the first time the other night. I always heard people say it predicts our current time and I definitely see that. The fines for profanity were funny, but hate speech laws are worse than that. Also the banning of meat and and salt

I just signed up with Rumble and downloaded the app. My main reason was to get the Alex Jones show but I see Nerdrotic and G&G are on there as well as some other conservatives I follow but I assume there are a lot of good channels. Any recommendations?

No source material though. Not like the idea of building a New Jedi Academy/Order has ever been thought of. Luke training young Jedi should’ve been one of the opening scenes of Episode 7. I know George wanted him on an island to meditate on the Force so you could’ve had one of his main students come to get him.

I have to do some cleaning due to friends coming over to watch Wrestlemania this weekend but I was curious if there were any wrestling fans here. I’ve been watching off and on since I was a little kid and my mom told me not to watch it. My first memory is my dad watching Hogan and Mr T doing a promo for the first wrestlemania. 80s wrestling was fun to watch as a kid and late 90s/early 00s were another boom period. Now they aren’t as edgy as they once were but can still be entertaining although some things have gotten woke. WWE network is worth the subscription just for its library of classic wrestling. Japan and Mexico have great wrestling as well.

I am on on a Star Wars Legends (EU) facebook group and I recently learned about a legends convention they are doing in California in September. I am going to try to go but not sure if I'll be able to. Totally separate from Disney which is good but it is a shame that it had to be this way. To think I thought Disney buying Star Wars and Marvel was a good thing when I first heard about it.

There will be some EU authors there and other guests I think. I really wish Disney would just sell the rights to the EU canon to someone else so that they can have someone who is interested in writing stories within that universe. Or allow like an animated adaptation of NJO or Heir to the Empire. If you haven't seen it, check out what Darth Angelus has done on youtube with his Heir to the Empire animated adaption. Sucks that he can't get paid for it and I fear Disney will do what Star Trek did. I guess they are intimidated by fans who have better story ideas than they do.

I've been watching the 1980s Twilight Zone revival/reboot that ran from 85-89 on Youtube and I am really enjoying it for the most part. I love the original and that is my favorite but as an 80s baby, this version is nostalgic for me since my parents would watch it so it brings back memories as a little kid siting in the living room. I didn't even mind the short lived 02 version. I remember when I heard they were doing another version and then I saw Jordan Peele was involved, and the episode summaries were pretty much the usual left wing talking points.

Honestly if I were to write a modern day Twilight Zone I would do some sort of episode where a guy like Ibram X. Kendi gets his comeuppance or something that shows all the holes in woke arguments.

Anyway, if you are looking for something to watch check out 80s Twilight Zone. Also, since 80s and 90s were a great time for anthology series you should also check out The Hitchhiker, Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside, Amazing Stories, 80s Revival of Alfred Hitchcock, Monsters, Outer Limits 90s revival, and Tales from the Darkside.

George RR Martin wrote some 80s TZ episodes. The man is a good writer, but everytime I see his name on the screen I can't help but get annoyed about Winds of Winter.

“One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience.” Thomas Sowell

I recently saw a news report where high school kids walked out of class to protest a bill that banned “sex changes” until a person is 18. Of course the media framed it as brave activists fighting “transphobia” but you see this with all the lefty talking points. Gun control, race, sex, lgbt, etc. Someone needs to tell these kids that it isn’t brave to support what is popular and trendy. I have more respect or young people who speak up for free speech, pro-life causes, or who don’t despise the western world because it isn’t popular to do so. During the summer of love I saw teens with signs claiming to be fighting for equal rights and I would’ve loved to have asked them what specific rights they are being denied. I’d love to ask modern day feminists or gay activists that question as well since “people will die” if you don’t celebrate or affirm.

To be fair I was a know it all teenager once and now I happily take any advice my parents want to offer so I guess it’s the cycle of life for most people.

I still have Hulu pretty much due to the fact that they have a good library of older shows, and I'm currently watching NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues. On one of the commercials they were showing an upcoming FX or Hulu adaptation of Great Expectations. I jokingly thought to myself where are the black people, and right on queue there was a black woman. I love British literature and for some reason have always been into British stuff. I read Great Expectations in 8th grade and plan on doing a reread sometime this year, but it is really sad to see what has become of the BBC. They used to be the pinnacle of programming (especially for a fan of murder mystery like me) but now you can definitely see everything wrong with diversity quotas. Also, I know that the white population in the UK is larger than America so it makes it even more ridiculous that they have to go along with the mindset that "everything has to be in everything". It is pointless to ask why they can't make original shows because they seem to get pleasure out of crapping on great literature from the past and injecting the typical leftist garbage. A few years back there was a show called Luthor where Idris Elba played a London detective that was good, so original content is possible.

I'm sure this will get high praise by the usual worthless gen-z critics (not all gen-z are bad of course) but what is really annoying is all the gaslighting that goes on around the representation/diversity nonsense. I know a lot of young people go through a phase where they think nothing happened before they were aware of things but this is ridiculous. Black Panther marketing acted like black people were never in movies or Captain Marvel acted like it was the first female led movie ever. I remember when I used to argue on reddit, someone posted a stupid article promoting diversity and how white people won't give anything that doesn't show white people a chance. I asked the poster how old he was, and he was in his early 20s (this was around 2019) and I asked him if that was the case then why were The Cosby Show, Family Matters, Fresh Prince, Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, etc. pretty popular with white audiences or look at Eddie Murphy in the 80s. He said I was being ignorant and then blocked me.

Ironically the excessive push with the diversity/representation in entertainment makes me less likely to watch stuff. If I see a female or black lead my first assumption is that it will be the usual talking points unless someone I trust recommends it. This is why my rule of thumb is to be very wary of anything made after 2014.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Thank goodness I have a massive mountain of books at my place. May come in handy one day.

I have too much vacation time so I took off early today and went to my local comic book store. It’s amazing that the same store used to make its money on new release comics but that was a number of years ago. Now it is the smallest section with Manga, tabletop, and back issues being much more in demand.

I tend to buy back issue comics and now try to support the stuff from those who don’t hate their customers like Eric July, Shad, Razorfist, Drinker, and now manga since they have this odd concept of writing stories people want to read.

I can understand trying to expand your market but at some point they had to have realized that the massive female audience they wanted just didn’t exist. And they didn’t take into account that ever since MCU popularity people love the idea of comic books but don’t actually read them so those polls they like to tour are meaningless. Similar to those polls showing that women make up half of all gamers but when you break it down it shows what you would expect regarding the games that generally appeal to men and women.

On the bright side I picked up the first appearance of She-Hulk. Now if only they had adapted the Byrne run instead of making a show to specifically piss of actual fans

The other day I was driving home and listening to sports radio and I guess they had been talking about a trade a team didn't make and the fans were angry. One of the hosts said that the angry fans reminded him of nerds who get angry and become toxic because their fan theories didn't come true. I couldn't have rolled my eyes any harder.

Just brought back memories of all the moronic critics when The Last Jedi came out. It wasn't enough to simply say they enjoyed the movie, they had to crap on everyone who didn't and Disney being Disney went along with it. I remember hearing the "you're just mad because your fan theories did come true" or "You just wanted to see a heroic Luke" I remember asking someone who said those exact things why it was a bad thing to want to see a heroic Luke. They didn't respond.

This also popped up in Game of Thrones with Arya killing the Night King and people getting called sexist for saying that it should've been Jon.

I guess in hindsight this exposed all the media shills for what they were. Anyone who was actually interested in the IP would know that fan theories have been around in nerdom since the beginning. Anyone who actually cared about the IPs would know this, but this is what happens when a site/channel that was made to cater to fans is bought out by a corporation and gets re-staffed with a bunch of hacks. Sci-Fi Channel and the Star Wars websites I would frequent in the 90s and early 00s come to mind.

I know I’ve asked y’all for a lot of recommendations and I have a mountain of books to get through in my room as well as a stack of like 30 books in my hallway to get through immediately (currently reading Revelation from Star Wars legends series).

As a fan of sci-fi and murder mystery/cop drama has anyone ever read a book that combines the two? I read A Scanner Darkly last year which is set in the future but any cop stories or detective stories that take place in a space colony or far future as well? Thanks.

If you haven’t already read them I suggest The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin and End the Fed by Ron Paul. I don’t know if anything can be done to abolish the Fed at this point though.

After hearing about the banks and the Fed bailing them out it made me think of those books. Also it really irritates me how these institutions waste time on crap like DEI or climate change hysteria . Just shows they don’t care about their customers.

I found a book of Steinbeck stories at a yard sale and it included it. In school the only Steinbeck we read was The Pearl. The book also has The Red Pony which I liked. What did y’all think of Mice and Men? I thought it was a good but sad book and I watched the movie (black and white one) afterwards. I didn’t see the foreshadowing until after the fact.

As I mentioned before, I've been collecting comic books since childhood and I've also collected sports cards (baseball/football/hockey). Yesterday Beckett (price guide for sports cards) had an article for Women's day or month about a female card collector and it hit all the notes you have heard from every "as a woman/minority in this hobby" rant.

There has to be some standard script they all go by. I guess it is the one way to expose a fake fan because there are women and minorities who can enjoy a hobby without needing to get on a platform and draw attention to themselves.

She was talking about mean comments on her youtube channel which reminded me of some panel of female gamers at one of the conventions who talked about guys saying "mean things" to them because whenever I've played Madden of Fifa with friends, nobody has ever said anything mean to me. She also whined about lack of sports cards for female sports (obviously has no clue about how a market/demand works) and she talked about how at a card show a vendor tried to sell her a card for more than it was worth. Shocking! There are unscrupulous vendors out there!!!!

At this point I feel like I need to put up a sign in front of any gathering of nerds that says that a lot of what are perceived as "nerdy" hobbies are male dominated and most likely white male dominated, so don't enter a hobby and demand that everything change to suit you. If that bothers you then find a hobby you do like.

In a normal and sane world a gaming company would've told Sarkessian that she can make her own games because if you are marketing a female character to a male audience it is probably wise to make her attractive and vice versa. Or maybe they should've been ruder, but you get my point.

Reminds me of someone who joins a D&D campaign for the first time and demands that all the rules change.

I’ll get the Xbox gamepass between now and then and officially move away from Sony. I know Bethesda has bent the knee but my dream of “Skyrim in space” is still strong.

Can someone explain why it’s so controversial? I bought it at a yard sale a while back but finally got around to reading it recently (I have a literal mountain of books that need to be read) and it wasn’t bad but I know it was banned at one point in time. Or maybe it’s like when my grandmother told me that Elvis swiveling his hips was scandalous and when I first saw footage of Elvis it seemed tame compared to the rap videos that were out at the time or the early 50s R&B song 60 Minute Man

So I've embraced my inner weeb by getting mangas and having a massive list of manga to buy as well as anime to watch, and listening to Razorfist has made me really want to check out French comics. Has anyone read any they could recommend? I plan to start with Valerian because I hear the movie didn't do it justice at all and the artwork looks amazing. Plus, there seem to be a lot of sci-fi themed comics so that is right up my alley. Thanks in advance.

I think I've mentioned it before, but one of my best friends and his wife have a vintage store where they sell comic books, toys, or any memorabilia from 70s - 90s. Sometimes they work small local conventions and ask me to help which is a great way to make a few bucks for the day and chat with fans because I have been turned off by a lot of the major cons.

The best thing about working these conventions is getting to know the different vendors and I usually go around and buy comics for myself before everything starts and towards the end when it gets slow. Anyway, I stopped by this one booth where a guy was selling old sci-fi/fantasy books and looked to be in his early to mid 80s. He was reading one of Heinlein's books and I told him that was one of my favorite authors and he really perked up and we talked sci-fi for about an hour. He used to run a book store and once his wife passed away he did the small conventions for fun and as a way to get out of the house.

Before leaving he gave me some Heinlein books for free as well as a big stack of 50s pulp books (bad shape but still readable) for free and said us Heinlein fans need to stick together. I love talking to actual sci-fi fans or any real fan of the hobbies/IP's that have been destroyed and demonized. Modern sci-fi companies would see him as an evil old white male while giving another hugo or nebula to a worthless hack like Jemison or whatever author has the correct talking points.

It used to be on my bucket list to attend at least one San Diego con but some old timers told me they stopped caring about nerds or comic book fans a very long time ago. An old friend of mine recently sent me some pictures from cons we went to like 15 years ago and there were some pictures of me with booth babes (which I think have been banned). But back then the panels were actually for the fans and not some BS diversity lecture.

On Facebook I am a member of a few Star Wars groups that are strictly pre-Disney or EU/Legends related. A post came into my feed as a suggestion that showed a picture of Luke and Mara Jade together and I assumed it was an EU page but I was wrong. Mostly modern Star Wars fans and one lady was attacking anyone who liked it or said anything good about because it wasn't canon and George Lucas said it wasn't canon. I told her that I was aware of what Lucas said but that it is my head canon. She then went off on me calling me a hater and that I am not a real Star Wars fan since the EU was nothing but glorified fan fiction and I shouldn't criticize what lucasfilm is doing now.

I asked her why she is so bothered if people like the old EU and she simply said I was a hater and that Star Wars wasn't for me (despite the fact that I've been a fan since as long as I can remember and I got Heir to the Empire for my 12th bday in 92 and have been reading the books/comics ever since). But she just kept saying "bye hater".

I am sure George Lucas is under some sort of deal where he can't totally trash what disney does but it is common knowledge that he wasn't happy with the direction they went. I should've brought up that if she was such a canon purist then isn't the sequel treatment that GL gave them the official canon? Comic books have taught me that everything is canon..... until is isn't and I feel that once George Lucas dies his real feelings will become known and he will be attacked like his ex-wife was when her feelings about the sequels became known after she died.

I know Lucas told the EU writers back in the day that they could write in the OT timeframe and in the future as well as the distant past but to leave the prequel era alone since he was going to one day do another trilogy but those books and comic books kept Star Wars relevant for a long time along with the games when there were no movies or anything coming out.

I guess I'll chalk this up as a lesson on the importance of gatekeeping because I definitely was pushed out because when Disney bought it, it was amazing how fast the shills popped up or sites that had a lot of praise for the EU all of a sudden talked about how crappy it was. Of course the funniest was how ridiculous Dark Empire was with the Emperor coming back. I honestly wish Disney wouldn't even take ideas from the EU and just use their own since they have so many "talented and diverse" writers.

I've had yahoo mail since 04 and unfortunately to get to it I have to go through Yahoo News which is an aggregator of news but pretty much every article is something about lgbt crowd, why everything is racist, or how evil republicans are. Surprisingly they reinstated comments after like 2 years and I saw yet another article gushing over the previous episode of The Last of Us. I haven't watched the show due to my "be very wary of any show made after 2014 unless you have a trusted recommendation" policy but from what I heard the episode was basically a gay romance so naturally critics are raving over it and the comments were full of the usual virtue signaling or attacking people who pointed out that it wouldn't have received the same amount of hype had it been a straight couple.

The most annoying posts were those pointing out they were gay in the game. I barely played the first last of us because I traded it in to get money off a new release at the time and I know they were gay in the game but I hear the show expanded on it.

I guess my annoyance is with the people who will throw at you that they were gay in the game but have no issue with the endless race/gender/sexuality swaps we see all the time. Or like with Marvel, they have super woke comics now that they adapt and ignore decades of stories so they can say "but it's in the comics".

I know the TLOU was a well loved game and I remember with the first trailer for TLOU2 at E3 the gaming sites were raving about it so I saw that as a red flag.

Sorry for the rant, I guess I'm sick of the overhyping of things simply for checking a box. Also tired of getting attacked for simply noticing massive lgbt, black, strong female who don't need no man overrepresentation.

This reminded me of that San Junipero episode of Black Mirror. Ok at best and there were better episodes, but it won so many awards and you know for a fact that if it had been a straight couple nobody would've remembered it. I've mentioned the Stranger Things season 3 thing before (subverted expectations lesbian reveal). But it goes both ways, I know they were gay in the game so how about respecting the source material across the board?