This week, we have our friend Bob Alberti on to talk about the first commercial multiplayer role playing game and the first commercial Multi-user MUD, Scepter of Goth! Bob was actually responsible for the creation of said game way back in 1983, which many of our listeners probably assumed was a time before computers existed. The story of the creation of the game and the eventual collapse is interesting stuff and we are thrilled Bob joined us to talk about his experiences.

Some links with more information:

TPT Documentary about the tech boom in Minnesota

Bob’s paper on the history of Scepter of Goth

Go here if you want to play Scepter of Goth! ssh -p 2233 [email protected] (password: muinet)

This week we take a look at how our response to social situations surrounding religion have stayed the same as we’ve become older and more willing to set boundaries for ourselves. Things like going to a religious family occasion out of a sense of duty or saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes. How has our response to these situations changed over time and how do we draw boundaries?

This week we are discussing The Menu, a black comedy/horror film featuring Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nicholas Hoult. There are many spoilers to be had if you listen to this episode so we would encourage you to check it out on HBO Max before you listen to our discussion about the film. If you don’t, we cannot take any credit for spoiling your dinner.

This week we are joined by frequent guest Eric Knight to discuss religion in sports and specifically American Football. In the wake of a serious medical emergency at a football game, there were all sorts of pictures of a circle of football players kneeling in prayer while medical professionals saved his life. The store because about the players praying and not about the medical professionals. The demonstrative nature of religion in Football brings us to topics like really terrible supreme court decisions and Tim Tebow. Eric also get to answer our new five questions!

Hello friends! It is a new year and what better time to recap some of our favorite things from the year gone by? We could have focused on the negative but we totally didn’t! We talked about the cool geeky stuff that made us happy when we weren’t thinking about things that made us unhappy. Things we aren’t going to talk about in this intro text or in the podcast itself!

This week we are joined by Star Wars superfan Greg Parks to discuss the latest Disney Plus Star Wars installment – “Andor!” The show revolves around Cassian Andor, whom you might remember from “Rogue One.” If you don’t remember him from “Rogue One,” stop reading this and go watch “Rogue One.” Now, if you haven’t seen “Andor,” we are going to spoil the shit out of it so you should go watch that because it is fantastic and may be some of the best Star Wars ever. Yes, you heard us.

This week, we discuss the Netflix Original film “The Wonder” starring Florence Pugh. The film is about a young girl in Ireland who may be a miracle and the woman who is sent to help determine if that is the case. Aside from a really weird framing structure that begins and ends the film, it is a good movie but more importantly, it provides some fertile ground for discussion of how fanaticism can poison people to the point of doing real harm. We do spoil the movie so you may want to watch it first but if you are just interested in atheists talking about religious themes, that’s what we are talking about for the most part!

It may be a couple days after Christmas but we are atheists so who cares about such things? Windy Bowlsby, a HUGE Christmas movie fan, joins us to talk about the newest crop of Holiday movies and specials. We spent a lot of time discussing the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday special (with KEVIN BACOON), Spirited (A new take on “A Christmas Carol”) and Violent Night (which is AMAZEBALLS). We also touch on a new holiday rom-com called Hollywood Christmas and the Santa Claus themed slasher “Christmas Bloody Christmas.” Happy whatever you celebrate!

This week, we talk about the newest Knives Out Mystery: Glass Onion! Rian Johnson’s newest installment featuring Daniel Craig as Beniot Blanc, the world’s greatest detective, is pretty amazing but it is also super easy to spoil. So don’t listen until you’ve watched the movie. Trust us. You’ll be happy to you watched it.