As we do most years we are taking advantage of the final episode of the year to take a look back at the year that was. 2025 was, as years go, “a bit of a year” for most of us. As we all firmly enter our mid-40’s I am pretty sure full calendar years of whimsy and fun are things of the past. At least until we start experimenting with whatever drugs they will be giving old people in the year 2060.

To begin with, let’s just toot our own horn a little bit, shall we? Between this show, Go Plug Yourself and all the festival shows we do in a year we ran up about 30,000 downloads in 2025. I know it’s a drop in the bucket in the big podcasting game but even that modest number is big enough to make me smile a little. Thank you rare listener who reads the show notes, we do it for you.

So after making a little room for our personal 2025s we dive into some of the headlines from the world of sports and politics. The politics talk bums us out so then we talk about more fun things like movies, TV shows and video games. Those were a lot more fun.

We keep the general theme of “year in review” going over on Garbage Time. Scott and Keith talk about some of the albums and concerts they enjoyed in 2025 and then turn their gaze to the future to figure out what movies and shows might pique their interest in 2026.

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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We missed out on ranking Wake Up Dead Man on this one but I guess that’s fine because it gives Keith another few weeks to watch it and then all three of us can chime in on Rian Johnson’s latest Knives Out mystery.

I do love that Rian Johnson committed to making three full feature length films in the style of a modern Agatha Christie character where many filmmakers would just remake Murder On The Nile or whatever. It’s nice that someone is writing new things, ya know?

Even though he has no plans for a fourth Knives Out at the moment I have faith that we haven’t seen the last of Benoit Blanc. Why? Who knows where faith comes from Joe.

For your viewing pleasure I found the exact reel that Scott was talking about from the Instagram account “yojoe_collectibles” and believe me when I say it’s breathtaking.

We wrap things up talking about the incredible and varied career of both Rob Reiner and John Cena’s final match on Saturday against Gunther.

As we often do on Garbage Time we keep the wrestling chat behind our very affordable paywall. As we briefly speak about on the main show John Cena retired over the weekend so Scott and Keith break down whether or not John Cena is the wrestling G.O.A.T. or if he even manages to make it on to the Mount Rushmore of professional wrestling (or sports entertainment if you think those are two different things). We also talk about some Golden Globe nominations and Keith has been watching Fiona & Cake,

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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So the Trump administration has reversed their decision on not releasing the Epstein Files despite the possibility of a photo of… checks notes… “Trump blowing Bubba.” I can’t really be excited by any of this since I’m pretty sure if they’re releasing the files they’ve already scorched any ties that the orange man might have had with the pervert anyways.

I guess we shall see.

So Paul McCartney joined a bunch of other British artists to release an anti-AI album and it’s one part protest and one part tricking and misleading the algorithm. The fact that they are apparently also releasing the album on vinyl is somewhere between hilarious and insane.

Anyhow, Keith played all the way through 2022’s “Stray” and Jon watched Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein. Those are two things that happened so we talk about them.

Finally, Dave Mustaine from Megadeth wants Megadeth’s last show to be actually in space and I really want that to happen. That is all.

Meanwhile on a brand new episode of Garbage Time we talk about the phenomenon aphantasia and discuss how Jon most likely actually has it. That’s right, it’s a 30 minute conversation that is mostly about how the three of us process information and remember things. I don’t know if this is peak garbage content or possibly the best Garbage Time we’ve ever recorded. We read a bunch of quotes from this article on CTV that references a lot of the actual studies on the topic.

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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Two out of three of us are dads here on 9ES. When is it ok to show Zach Cregger’s Weapons to your kid? 12? 13 years old?

When is it ok to show Thanatomorphose to your kid? Probably never?

Weapons was pretty great and I can’t wait for Jono to watch Barbarian so we can dutifully compare and contrast. If Zach Cregger was a recording artist, Weapons would be an excellent second album. Which we know from many, many subpar sophomore albums is still quite the accomplishment. Barbarian is still the original though, the first break out into the world of horror film making and I think Weapons may suffer slightly from having too many echoes of Barbarian to truly break out and stand on its own.

Still definitely worth the watch though, don’t get me wrong.

As you do towards the end of October we watched a bunch of other horror movies. Scott showed Prince of Darkness to his kid which is exciting, while I watched Oddity, Wolf Man and started into Welcome to Derry. Tis the season after all. Finally we wonder out loud if Stephen King is the most recognizable author on the planet.

We will return to (slightly) less horror-centric content next episode probably. Maybe.

Meanwhile on a brand new episode of Garbage Time we talk about Stephen King some more while we talk about Edgar Wright’s upcoming take on The Running Man. Keith has made it to The Trial of Magneto as he plows through Marvel’s Krakoan Age and that leads us to talk about the X-Men.

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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Tron is a weird franchise and Tron: Ares just continues the weirdness. From what I’ve read, none of the three movies were considered hits for Disney. But somehow three of them have been made and they made a really expensive roller coaster to celebrate the franchise in Disneyworld. Hard to figure out the actual numbers but allegedly it was in the same price range as the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind ride and that cost $500 million USD.

That’s a lot of money for Tron.

So, Tron: Ares.

OG Tron:

Budget $17 million

Box office $50 million[1]

Tron: Legacy:

Budget $170 million[5][6]

Box office $409.9 million[6]

Tron: Ares

Deadline Hollywood reported a total cost of $347.5 million, including production and advertising, for the film and estimated that it ultimately should lose over $132 million.

Whoopsie!

Meanwhile, you know what else involved a lot of money? The Riyadh Comedy Festival.

We didn’t have the Marc Maron quote on the show, but here it is in all its glory:

“I mean, how do you even promote that? “From the folks that brought you 9/11. Two weeks of laughter in the desert, don’t miss it!” I mean, the same guy that’s gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a fucking suitcase. But don’t let that stop the yuks, it’s gonna be a good time!”

You’re a legend Mr. Maron.

Meanwhile on a brand new episode of Garbage Time you won’t believe it but Jon and Keith talk more about Silksong! For the last time! Both of them are sitting at 100% game completion so they finally get it all out of their system… until the inevitable DLC is released. Keith also went to the Pounding the Pavement exhibit on now at the McCord Museum in Montreal (until October 26 so you’re probably already too late) and Scott wrestled a coyote.

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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Credit where credit is due: We did not cook up the “firewatch challenge” but rather Scott listened to them do it over on the Confused Breakfast podcast and thought it was a good idea. And guess what, it was!

I went into the exercise thinking I might make a few bold choices here and there but at the end the day I think we all more or less decided to stick to comfort food. Movies we’ve watched over and over again already and safe bets to keep our mental sanity in check for 12 months of relative isolation.

It probably won’t surprise you that a number of films on The List feature pretty prominently although there are some glaring absences. Also, if you listened to last episode’s Garbage Time you’ll remember that 1999 might be the best year ever in cinema and that holds true here as well.

To remind you, here are the rules for our take on the “Firewatch Challenge”:

We each have been assigned to an isolated fire tower in Northern Quebec.

We can “rent” one movie a month and it will be the only thing we can watch on our crummy little televisions.

If we try to rent the same movie as one of the other hosts the other hosts will sub in a movie they deem to be close enough.

There are no special features on any of the movies.

We have access to a “little bit” of weed if we want it, but only really in the summer months.

Wrestling Pay-Per-Views are allowed.

Meanwhile on a brand new episode of Garbage Time you won’t believe it but Jon and Keith talk more about Silksong. Keith took a bit of a break and Jon is definitely right at the end game. We also take a look at the White Wolf 5th Edition Humble Bundle deal that’s going on right now.

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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I guess we’ll never know whether or not Disney suspended Jimmy Kimmel just to make some noise and piss people off or something but boy is it a wild time for free speech.

You know you’re getting pretty crazy when Joe Rogan looks at what you’re doing and is like “yeah – this is a little crazy.” Ted Cruz and Joe Rogan being voices of reason is a pretty clear sign you’ve done something pretty messed up.

Anyways, free speech reigns forever on the 9to5 Entertainment System!

They will never silence our right to… umm.. Talk about the Spiderman movie from 25 years ago? Never I say!

Jono watched the James Gunn Superman flick and I think we will only probably talk about it once more after Scott watches it. I still don’t understand how Scott hasn’t watched Peacemaker yet, but that’s another story.

We also finish up setting the rules for the “Firewatch Challenge” and I’m going to type them out here:

We each have been assigned to an isolated fire tower in Northern Quebec.

We can “rent” one movie a month and it will be the only thing we can watch on our crummy little televisions.

If we try to rent the same movie as one of the other hosts the other hosts will sub in a movie they deem to be close enough.

There are no special features on any of the movies.

We have access to a “little bit” of weed if we want it, but only really in the summer months.

Wrestling Pay-Per-Views are allowed.

Meanwhile on a brand new episode of Garbage Time Jon and Keith talk about Silksong some more because it’s really the only video game that matters anymore. Keith watched a documentary about Devo on Netflix and Scott watched a documentary about how 1982 was one of the best years in cinema history. We quickly decide that 1999 was even better.

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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Jon and Keith played the heck out the original Hollow Knight when it came out and even if they haven’t been full blown participants of the Silksong hype they both were excited enough to get Silksong on launch day.

It’s great. If you’re bad at it then get good and you shall be rewarded.

This is a pretty “tight” episode by our standards. We talk about the biggest video game release of the year (Silksong), a movie that is still in theaters (Fantastic Four: First Steps), another relatively recent film (The Phoenecian Scheme) and a movie that is about to get released this week (The Long Walk). We also talk about some up to the minute politics and Trump’s creepy ass letter to Epstein in the infamous “Birthday Book”.

Sometimes we talk about the 80s and sometimes we talk about stuff happening right now. What do you want from us?

Oh and by the way, we don’t talk about it on the show but if you listened to last episode and wondered how Syko Stu is doing, apparently he’s been released from the hospital and is miraculously expected to recover. Fucking wild.

Meanwhile on a brand new episode of Garbage Time Keith has watched the entirety of Twisted Metal Season 2 and it was pretty great in a silly popcorn kind of way. The boys discuss the rules of the “Firewatch Movie Challenge” that will be featured on an upcoming episode of 9ES and Scott started watching Alien: Earth. Hot fresh garbage!

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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Note: This episode is a little (a lot) late because of some unexpected technical hiccups! Whoops!

So Rampage Jackson’s son Raja Jackson jumped into a wrestling ring and slammed Syko Stu into the ground and then delivered 23 unprotected headshots to his unconscious body. Oh and he streamed the whole thing live because it’s 2025.

It’s wild to me that there are wrestlers defending Raja Jackson here but I’m not surprised. Wrestlers are fucking weird.

I guess it’s kind of nice that Rampage Jackson has come around to the fact that his son is a piece of shit?

“”I feel bad about what happened to Syko Stu,” Jackson remarked. “I don’t condone what my son did at all. . . . I’m a father, so I gotta have my son’s back, but I’m gonna let justice play out — take its course. . . . I hope one day I can meet Syko Stu and shake his hand and have a man-to-man with him.

“. . . I hope Syko Stu can forgive me, as a dad, for not understanding everything. Let’s see what happens from here.”

While we talk about this, Jon briefly unpacks the streaming platform “Kick” which honestly the more I learn about the more I hate.

The French streamer that Jon talks about died only a few days before the Raja Jackson incident. Even though that’s just a Wikipedia link you may not want to go down that clickhole. Gnarly stuff.

Anyways, it’s not all doom and gloom. We also talk about the Expulsion of the Acadians by the British Army in 1755. Wait, that’s still doom and gloom isn’t it?

Whatever man, Jono walked on the edge of the CN Tower and Silksong is finally coming out. See? Good things DO happen.

Meanwhile on a brand new episode of Garbage Time Scott talks about introducing his son to horror films. He showed the kiddo Alien and Aliens which lead (naturally) into a full re-watch of Stranger Things. We then wonder if the final season will be any good and Scott thinks the internet has turned on Millie Bobby Brown. Whatever, Keith pre-ordered that Hellfire D&D module since he thinks it will be cool to sit on his shelf. Don’t tell Sarah.

If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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The Montreal podcast that deep dives into very particular eras of X-Men comics has returned with your bi-weekly dose of nerdy ass shenanigans.

We kicked off with my festival marathon: Osheaga and ÎleSoniq back-to-back, five days of crowds, dancing, and metro hell. Pro tip: alternate shoes and insoles, or your feet will revolt after 100k steps (dancing not included).

No Jono around means there’s nobody to stop Scott and I from talking a LOT about comics. We geeked out on X-Men tropes, mutant madness, and the Krakoa era: resurrection drama, timey-wimey futures and that bonkers “X of Swords” tournament scattering across titles. Weirdly Scott decides to ship Jean Grey and Steve Rogers and I don’t hate it.

Scott also starts fancasting Excalibur mostly from the Ted Lasso cast: Phil Dunster as Captain Britain, Juno Temple as Meggan and Heather Waddingham as Saturnyne.

I told you this was a nerdy one.

Meanwhile: ChatGPT-5 dropped unannounced, killing old models and your “clanker” buddies. It’s drier, sloppier, sacrifices accuracy for speed—devastating if you’re using it for therapy, RPGs, or brainstorming like Scott.

Finally, presumably out of fear that we were going to make him watch it for a “Best Movie Ever” – Scott watched Amazon’s “War of the Worlds”—Ice Cube as a solo analyst fighting data-eating aliens via socials and drones. Is it as bad as the internet says? Yes and no.

Meanwhile over on Garbage Time, Scott and I dig into some of the worst powers in Marvel comics sticking with our comic book theme. I genuinely feel like we might have done this before but I don’t remember some of the characters were spoke about so maybe it was a different list? Who knows, man? If you would like to show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time that would be appreciated.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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