My book club's 'serious discussion' of 'Moby Dick' got hijacked by a guy who only wanted to talk about whale anatomy

We were at the library in Boise, and this dude brought a 3D printed whale skull to prove a point about the jaw structure. The moderator finally had to cut him off after 20 minutes. Anyone else have a member who derails meetings with weird tangents?

3 comments

3 Comments

oscar7437d ago

My friend's sci-fi group had a guy who would not stop talking about the real-world physics of warp drives. He once brought a whiteboard to a coffee shop to explain why the ship in the book would have torn itself apart in the first chapter. They spent the whole meeting on tensile strength calculations instead of the actual plot.

the_eric7d ago

Sounds like that guy missed the point of the group. It's sci-fi, not an engineering class. I get wanting some realism, but you gotta know when to turn it off. If the ship's design breaks the story, just roll with it. What's the most annoying "well actually" moment you've seen ruin a fun talk?

johnson.paul6d ago

Got a buddy who will pause any space battle to explain why the lasers should be silent in a vacuum. Like, yes, we know, but the pew-pew sounds are cool. He once spent twenty minutes breaking down the oxygen recycling system in a cartoon about talking dogs on Mars. Killed the vibe completely.