By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week I spoke to Saleah Blancaflor, who wrote “In the Battle of ‘House of the Dragon’ and ‘The Rings of Power,’ the Real Winners Are Fantasy Fans” for Morning Consult. Here's what I wrote about it:

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and House of the Dragon are both coming out soon, and America is ready. A new poll found that 15 percent of respondents are interested in House of the Dragon, HBO’s new and expensive Game of Thrones spinoff. Furthermore, 18 percent of respondents were “very interested” in the new Amazon show adapting the appendices of The Lord of the Rings books, a certainly shocking statistic for any child who ever read the appendices of The Lord of the Rings books on a public school bus in 2002 and saw the ensuing social deterioration. Yes, this nerd stuff is thoroughly mainstream, a complicated time for someone who, and I’m being strictly hypothetical here, spent any significant part of their fleeting and ir…