2016 Oscars: Tom’s Best Picture Round-Up

By and large, I don’t put much personal stock in the Academy Awards.  They strike me as an excuse for Hollywood to pat itself on the back for all the good work it says it does.  If I watch the show at all, it’ll be the last few minutes to find out who won Best Picture, and that’ll be it.  The humor is rather lame, the musical numbers dull, and the low-burning outrage over what did and didn’t win can linger for decades.

Case in point:  Forrest Gump beat out both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture.  I don’t care how much you like Gump, there’s no way anyone can justify it is a better movie than both of those other two.

But then this year, I actually saw most of the Best Picture nominees.  Thoughts after the cut.  No predictions, though.  If you want predictions, try Watson’s article.

Monsters In Literature Are Spootacularly Scary!

There is nothing scarier than a terrifying monster appearing in your minds-eye as you read your favorite scary story while you sit alone….in a dark room… with the wind blowing….and a silent house listening to your every breath.

Thanks to Morphsuits, they have researched the scariest of the scary monsters in literature, causing many a sleepless night for all of us here at Gabbing Geek. Beware gentle reader…this list is not for the faint of heart. Mwwwaaaaahahahahaha!

Podcast Reaction: Planetary Edition

Not that Planetary.

This week on the podcast, Ryan and Watson discussed numbers and such.  Yawn.

They also debuted the Meerkat thingamajig, but I don’t have a twitter account, so that means nothing to me.

But then there was a game where Watson was challenged to see if he could recognize various fictional planets and their source material.  Ryan did call him to task for not knowing Earthsea.  To be fair, while I do know Earthsea is the product of Ursala K. Le Guin, that’s about all I know.  Plus, Earth-C is a legitimate homonym.  Captain Carrot deserves better.

But then I got to thinking about other things…