That's true. I suppose that I didn't mind because I was interested in the essays. The first book definitely set that tone.

Yep. It's all part of the wider universe of Veggie Tales and DC Talk and such (and with that, you can probably guess my age). It's all about having sanitized entertainment in order to remain safe from temptation. There's just enough now to keep someone insulated from birth to adulthood.

Nope, Nazarene. Worldliness seems to be a popular idea in many sects. "In, but not of, the world" was a concept we were to keep close to our hearts, lest our faith grow cold and die out when seduced by the temptations of life. I, uh, don't think it really took hold with most of us teens at the time.

Dull. The book where a linguist and the possessed body of a scientist have a fistfight to the death on Venus over the fate of that planet's Adam and Eve was dull to you. Was it the style?

If I remember my churchy childhood and teenage years correctly, the main purpose of these movies is to have something to watch with the congregation. It turns out that eschewing worldliness doesn't leave you with a whole lot of selection in terms of movies at church camp. I think that's where I learned how to riff…

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm glad that everybody made it there in time.

That was interesting. I think that the most interesting part is probably how the neural network perceives the video as two-dimensional. It is, but that's because it's a two-dimensional recording of a three-dimensional event (I don't know enough math to know how the higher dimensions figure in). Therefore, something…

That part was genuinely fascinating and startling. I honestly could not figure out what he was actually petting.

I wonder how they'd feel about the Quebecois version: happy because it's so old-school, or pissed because it's in French?

There's a Canadian version, too. It just swaps a couple of place names and otherwise works perfectly.

Wild as any freedom-loving racist
I applaud the actions of the chief
Tell me now, o beautiful and spacious,

"It puts me in mind of the words of the great Leonard Cohen: 'I've seen the future, brother, it is murder.'"

A pundit must die
For the lie in his voice

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country, but I can't stand the scene
And I'm neither left nor right, I'm just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen

I'm OK with the Watchmen movie. That said, it's a strange case as an adaptation. The most important aspects of the comic are unadaptable, in my opinion, so a) Snyder's extreme visual faithfulness didn't do much for me and b) its problems as an adaptation aren't necessarily his fault.

The one from Enter Tha 36 Chambers where they compete on coming up with methods of torture is still pretty funny.

My grandpa died when I was too young for him to teach me how to fix cars. I still don't actually know, but I'm determined to learn someday. He did teach me a cool knot (but my brothers got the whistling lesson and I didn't for some reason).

Weren't they all (including Olga) FatMan? This is confusing.

Yeah, that's the rub of the whole thing. It's sort of like technological standards: introduce a new one to unify everything and you'll probably just be adding one more to the pile. I think sie and hir make sense and are easy to learn, but few people are rushing to use them. I'm not fond of all the Xs myself, as I'm…

Good point. I don't know if there's an analogue to that in Canadian vernacular, and it's a pretty handy little word.