Nerd Pride Radio

Mike reports on his first session of Starfinder at the Gaming Table. Then, Mike shares what he learned about astronomy this week on the Science Corner. There’s a sad story of a dying elephant, and then Mike has a double feature movie review: The Big Sick and It. R2 delivers seven brand-new, listener-submitted questions on the Pod-O-Matic. All around awesome! Share this with five friends and good fortune is sure to follow!

Enjoy!

I also count when I am trying to sleep, as a coping mechanism for my insomnia. However, I count backwards from 1000, and my synesthesia makes their personalities entertain me a bit as I go.

Also, here, laugh at my neurosis: As you were talking about the poor elephant dying essentially during dental surgery I started thinking that my precious boy has dental surgery on October 4th during which they are putting him under and I started freaking out and crying in the car on the way to work. I know this was stupid and irrational, so enjoy a laugh at my expense!

Also, picturing the worst-case scenario--especially when it comes to your kids, and no matter how unlikely it is--is totally normal.

It's why having my kids around heights freaks me out. It turns my stomach to keep imagining what it would take for a kid to tumble over a railing or whatever. Bleah.

I want to take a moment to say thanks to Eliahad for his comment on the subjective nature of liking or disliking art- very well said. I came to a realization a few years ago that the only purpose in saying that certain genres of movies, music, books or tv shows suck is to belittle the people that like them. And the stuff that I like is notoriously not good-- horror movies, pop-ska, reality shows.

So I've decided that instead of saying that things suck, I try to say that they didn't appeal to me. Because those are two different things. I really, really, really do not like musical movies. But I understand that a large segment of the population loves them and derives a lot of joy from them. So by ranting about how musicals suck, all I'm really doing is saying- you (the collective majority that likes musicals) suck-- and that's a shitty thing to do.

The thing that Dave said is actually why I can't read one of the threads here about something you should be into but you can't. I started to, freaked, and haven't been back hahaha. Also, I haven't had time to read the boards in forever, and I still can't catch up, because I am swamped in every aspect of my life at the moment, but I love and miss you guys!

I'm listening to this one right now, and heard the request for book recommendations. I've got a couple:

Anne Leckie's Ancillary trilogy. Space opera. Incredibly well written and fascinating look at identity split between many bodies.

Tim Powers, Anubis Gates. Insanely fun time travel book.