I have great respect for the author, but I didn't care for Neuromancer either. (And I tried pretty hard to get into it.) I'm not a big fan of cyberpunk to begin with, but primarily it was the slang-heavy writing that made it so impossible to read. Stopping every several seconds to wonder what a fictional word means is…

This is what I thought too. Like other posters have already said, though, I preferred Surrogates over Gamer — it was marginally more realistic, even though both films are probably intended as allegories anyway. Plus nobody pukes into a gas tank in Surrogates (which would not even work).

I use Notepad to keep track of work-related tasks, and for working on my novel. (Matter of fact I completed a 150k-word novel entirely in Notepad.) I also use it for reading ebooks, most of which can be converted to .txt through various online converters.

This reminds me — in the Chinese dub of Toy Story, Mr. Potatohead is renamed 'Mr. Egg.' Of course the dubbers (and 99% of the target audience, no doubt) wouldn't have known why the original toy could not possibly have been based on an egg.

Gnosticism has some similar beliefs to a lot of Eastern religions — the notion of the material world being an illusory trap, for example, is reminiscent of certain Buddhist and Hindu concepts as well. Some Gnostic sects also believed in reincarnation, I believe.

Gnostic theology has innovative ways of explaining some of the more contradictory parts of the Bible. For them it's not necessary to reconcile the mass-murdering Old Testament God with Jesus' loving and merciful New Testament God; the Gnostics consider them to be different entities altogether.

The Sethians were an interesting bunch. Like many Gnostic Christians they believed that the physical world was something created by an inferior, lesser God to trap mankind in the material realm. Likewise they took a different interpretation on the expulsion from the Garden of Eden: eating the fruit allowed Adam and…

At the same time, there's something about this game that strikes a chord, too. Lots of us remember how "cool kids" would have birthday parties at places like Chuck-E-Cheese. This game makes us take a look at that sort of thing in a different light—what if this popular sort of locale wasn't what it seems? We know there…

True that. Even the witches' "Sabbat" was taken from the Jewish word for the Sabbath, and both witches and Jews were accused of blood libel (murdering people, usually children, and using the blood or body parts in various profane recipes.)

Notice the number of witches handling their broomsticks in this manner, specifically the naked ones. When you realize that the brooms were often rubbed with "flying ointment" (read: dangerously toxic hallucinogens/deliriants) which can be absorbed via the mucus membranes down yonder, it's easy to see how some witches…

What's crazy is how I saw the show all of once (even back when I was in the single digits I could tell it was a hot mess) yet still remember that stupid opening theme.

I was on a road trip and drove by this place the other day:

It always bugs me when zombie films make their zombies actual dead people. I find rabid humans (Quarantine, 28 days, etc) waaay more plausible than a decaying corpse that magically retains motor function and doesn't need to eat or sleep.

I once accidentally drank a shot of hot soapy water, which wouldn't have bothered me much if it hadn't contained some industrial-strength cleaner. The poison control lady laughed at me, too. I'm sure they prefer the harmless freakout calls over the ones with actual poisonings. (I was fine, btw.)

How about a virus that causes people to secrete fertility-suppressing hormones in response to stress? Populations or individuals under any kind of stressful condition (warfare, overcrowding, malnutrition, and so on) would naturally dwindle, whereas peaceable groups would thrive. Abusive spouses would no longer be able…

You make a good point about post-apocalypse fiction being an escape from a complex world into a simpler one (and one that would actually suck if you had to experience it.) That description covers a lot of fiction, ironically including a lot of utopian lit as well.

There was totally a Darkwing Duck episode with this premise. Funny stuff.

Marquis! This one really isn't horrible, just very strange (and actually pretty funny, if you like French adult humor.) It's based very loosely on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, so you know there's going to be tons of sexual weirdness in it. The puppet heads on all the actors were my favorite part.

I've seen this one many a time (and I remember hearing about the house, though I forget where). It's memorable to me for how young and relatively normal-looking Marilyn Manson is in this video.

My introduction to Heinlein came from my Dad, who told me "Well, his early stuff is really good. Then at some point he got famous enough to tell his editors to take a hike..."