That Film Nerd with the Book

JRR Tolkien: exciting news everyone! there's a new lord of the rings movie!
Tolkien: finally, it's going to answer that big question on everyone's minds
Tolkien: what was gollum doing?
King:
Poe:
Barker:
Lovecraft:
Koontz:
Tolkien: everyone's always asking me, what was gollum doing?

Still works metaphorically IMO. His son is very uncomfortable with the fame after his first hunt, but Jamie is lapping it up. Not exactly Saturn devouring his son, but definitely living off his progeny.

Them coffin nails gonna take you someday, Constantine.
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©2020, 2025 Stephen R. Bissette

Also sorry to hear about Vermont, didn't know they deleted it

Is that a smartwatch or something on their wrist? Ruttech?

Sometimes age is a problem, but sometimes it’s the only way to win... (Brown) would signal a reassuring return to reality-based norms—economic, scientific, legal, constitutional—after a chaotic and frightening interlude.

As I told a friend yesterday, that scum doesn't deserve the pierogis scraped from the floor of the worst kitchen in Warsaw.

Washington Post: “Is fascism bad? The answer may surprise you”

Teen Vogue: “Here are three fun tips you can use this summer to disable an armored personnel carrier”

Ugh. Looked it up and it’s so not as delightful as I was expecting. 😑

Tamper-proof recession indicator

What??? I need details!

My theory is that if we taxed most of these people without telling them and the people they pay to manage their money didn't tell them, they'd never notice.

And if you'd never notice you should be taxed even more.

Tyler Childers’ ’Snipe Hunter’ Isn’t Country — It’s Heartland Rock It’s weird for a ’country’ or ’Americana’ record, but fairly normal for a ’heartland rock’ album, according to Steven Hyden.

Hey, I wrote about Tyler Childers! (And also my genre/linguistic pet peeve re: "Americana.")
uproxx.com/indie/tyler-...

i have been thinking a lot about how the entire concept of “the deal” is antithetical to transparency, fair play and rule of law, as larry notes. the deal is necessarily nonstandard, ad hoc and dependent on the whims of the dealmaker

We think of the White House as a big mansion, but the point is it's not a palace. It's a house. It's modest, one of the smallest residences for a head of state. The east and west wings are deliberately minimal and unobtrusive. It's not Versailles or Buckingham. It symbolizes civic republicanism.

And this doesn’t even cover the student loans that are about to balloon

YouTube video by Taylor Lorenz Age Verification Will Kill Free Speech Online

I did an hour long beginner’s breakdown on why age verification is extremely dangerous, bad, and leading to mass censorship, with tech policy expert @ericgoldman.bsky.social. What’s happening in the UK can and will happen here if we don’t fight it!

gift link
bsky.app/profile/stev...

Everyone blames the Kardashians for this, right? They did so the audience would hear both sides of the convo, and then I think it became a sort of accidental trend…?

#batfraction #justsayin #itsrightthere

I know! An incredibly interesting potential question barely ever even asked about, let alone answered.

It's going to be a Sidney Sweeney mastectomy diagnosis that's because of "the deep state" or something

Oh m' god. 🤦‍♂️ It's gonna be (b). Of course it is. And it's going to be so much dumber than the dumbest thing I'm trying to imagine.

Listening to Irish people making mocking English accents is a unexpected pleasure

"In a media landscape dominated by algorithmic feeds that aim to manipulate and extract, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose to read what you want, when you want, without anyone watching over your shoulder." LONG LIVE RSS!

I know this is dumb of me, but watching a handful of episodes of Old Enough on Netflix opened my eyes to my own coddling parental ways.

I follow this Facebook group of parents in a tech world, and it is as silly as it is bracing - these people trying to isolate their kids from the world instead of educating them, and throwing the word “porn” around for, I think, anything less wholesome than Winnie the Pooh 🫣😬

Reminder that three years ago this dork was confidently insisting that the metaverse was "the next chapter of the internet".

Every single billionaire hawking their AI shit sounds like the monorail guy from The Simpsons and once you notice that it's impossible to take them seriously.

Never have I so badly wanted to be a year in the future, reading my copy of Vol. 14's completed storyline!