Gabe's been exposing his heir to the Lord of the Rings movies, made timely by the release of The Hobbit, and we were able to snare a strip from the second film. That may end up being the only redeeming feature of their return, because Gabriel the Younger could not possibly be more bored.

My cohort was able to enjoy the films, but an effort to "skip ahead" and find out what happened in the books was stymied by the books themselves, and how (diplomatically speaking) "thorough" they are. Like, if you're into leaves or whatever. Lots of good material for the leaf enthusiast. If you are eight, you may well wonder why you are looking at people running on a hill instead of playing Minecraft. So his father could watch the movies, but not read the books. The son isn't especially interested in either.

You have to wonder, right? Were these forced viewings any more compelling than when our own fathers produced a baseball from nowhere, and a mitt from some equally mysterious place, and said that we should care?

No, of course not; never. Obviously. The things we like are actually cool.

But that tracks pretty solidly with my own experience, at my house; it won't surprise you to learn that I don't think videogames are a social ill, or worthy of the moral panic that currently surrounds them in and outside of the industry. What I will say is that videogames are, in entertainment terms, an Apex Predator; nothing else compares to them, minute for minute, they deliver brain chemicals at an unprecedented rate. They're pure HFCS, and the other things you fill a life with don't deliver those squirts with the same regularity. It's a matter of acclimatization for people maturing in this environment. In the end, I can say with confidence that books are right out, and movies; dubstep and porn gifs will be all they have left.

(CW)TB out.