Quite a few of them are about the social disconnection of gifted people. The Incredibles, for instance.

Here's a little American cultural history for you, Yamete. In the old days, American slaves weren't given last names, apart from the name of their master. When slavery ended, a lot of them picked their own last name, and many chose the names of famous presidents and other symbols of liberty — Washington, Jefferson,…

Yeah, when I wrote that post I had to think for a bit about the boundary lines. I mean, did the '60s start with Kennedy's inauguration, Yuri Gagarin, or the Cuban Missile Crisis? But for the '00s, it's a date certain.

They say that your taste in music is defined by whatever you were listening to for your senior year in high school. As proof, the fact that I read through that list and said "Hey, I really like a lot of those songs!"

Most cultural decades are like that. For Americans, the 1930s lasted until December 7, 1942. The '60s didn't really get started until 1962 or so, and they ended after Watergate and the Vietnam withdrawal around 1972. The '80s started on time with the Reagan election in 1980, but didn't end until the fall of the…

Well, Cult of Personality's core riff goes "ba-deebly da, ba-deebly dah dah", and Cherry Pie goes "ba dee, ba da, ba deeble dah dah", so they're not *too* far apart. Cult of Personality's the infinitely better song though, since it immediately subdivides the riff and takes off, while Cherry Pie just goes on repeat.

Thanks, I'm planning a dining vacation in Quebec soon, that phrase will come in handy!

How do you say "Cherry Pie" in French anyway?

The holographic will bit is interesting too. Hughes would totally have recorded his will with a ruby laser and a pile of glass plates if he'd only lived into the 1980s.

Extra bonus Soviet madness: they built it in the landlocked Caspian Sea, which made it less vulnerable to high seas, but completely useless strategically.

For discussion: was Howard Hughes the Elon Musk of his day, the Steve Jobs, or the Donald Trump? Because it's definitely one of those.

Fantastic topic for a Wiki Wormhole!

Yeah, but both of 'em were a match for Nathan Fillon in the "sexy banter" department. Stana Katic is a conversational wet blanket.

How can God be omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient, and still allow evil to exist in the world?

I say, go for a series finale and start over with Alexis P.I.: a nerdy young twentysomething tries to launch a business as a private investigator while keeping her wacky and irresponsible father out of trouble. Like all P.I.'s, she's got a friend on the force, but how awkward, it's her stepmom!

Molly Quinn needs her own show, that's for sure.

Especially problematic because the "Big Episodes" of Castle are uniformly awful. Castle's at its best when it's trying to be Moonlighting, and at its worst when it's trying to be 24.

When I was a kid and first picked up this book, I was like, "wow, a train that goes from Paris to China? What a great setting for a murder mystery!" Imagine my disappointment to find it didn't even get halfway across Europe.

Murder on the Orient Express is like the song "Yesterday". It's been redone so many times that it's not about whether the world needs another one, it's just whether this one is any good.

Poor guy. Hopefully, the completely ludicrous amount of money he's presumably being paid to direct this thing will be some consolation.