Another issue with the E-Ink technology. You do have to get a clip-on reading light, because they haven't found a way to backlight it so it won't strain your eyes. Or you can just do what I do, and turn on the light. Printed books aren't backlit either (though I guess they're considerably cheaper than $360).

I would have never bought it for myself, but since I love to read, it was a great Christmas gift. And it's really nice to be able to have everything on one little device: your novel, magazines, today's newspaper, RSS feeds, the works. Really doesn't strain your eyes, and it can do rudimentary web browsing over the…

Selick
Hopefully, this means Selick will start getting the credit he deserves for Nightmare Before Christmas, most of which went to Tim Burton instead.

Another bump for the excellent Hank Thompson books. If you have a Kindle, he's giving away all three for free on Amazon right now.

I hope
that the employee he got rid of in the move got a new job.

Okay, I know this is weird, but I have to say that despite being presumably the product of Chang/Candle and his Asian wife, that baby looked white.

Slumdog
Nabin, thank you for justifying my hatred of this manipulative and precious film. It'll steel me for when it wins Best Picture next month and I have to hold my tongue while half the people I know talk about how "important" it is.

"All these goats are retarded."

Sally Hawkins
Maybe I'm just a neophyte to the Mike Leigh world and haven't tired of all the British realism, but I thought Happy-Go-Lucky was terrific and Sally Hawkins was excellent in it. I suppose this is just another case of comedic roles losing out at Oscar time (she won the Golden Globe for best musical/comedy…

I thought she was delightful as well, though I'm a bit perturbed by the fact that they basically convinced her Lee Pace was really disabled, etc. to wring out a better performance.

I'm almost certain that the video (and its predecessor) were meant to ape the Los Del Rio "Macarena" video: two old guys in a white room with an old-school microphone and some questionably hot female backup dancers. Probably some sort of meta-commentary on novelty hits?

Inevitable gay-sex question
I'm curious if this film handles the gay relationships (Penn with Franco, and Luna) in a more casual, realistic way than, say, Brokeback Mountain. As nice as that film was, I (and my gay friends) was underwhelmed by the romantic scenes, versus the more traditional dramatic ones. Is Milk as…

Sincerity
There was an interesting profile of Vaughn in Esquire this month making more or less the same case. He apparently has a hard time being sincere in his actual life as well. The article ended up praising Jon Favreau more than Vaughn.

Arcade Fire is my second-best show. Saw them right before Funeral really broke, at a tiny student cafe at Tufts. We went four hours early because my friend has plantar digititis (she can't stand up for more than ~15 min), and we needed to get her a seat. The workers helped us rig up some chairs in the balcony, and we…

Hi Isis! Good luck. If you want some advice from an admitted Jeopardy! loser, I would find the nearest console and start playing reflex-based video games ASAP. Couple hours a day, maybe. If you're bright already (and I'm sure you are), the button IS the game.

I would be the fourth Jeopardy contestant (and loser) on these boards. They're right, it's all about the buzzer timing. I would usually have the question (answer?) read and mentally answered by the time Trebek managed to get the words out. But I just wasn't fast enough on the button.

I'm seconding Pasadena. The worst part was that it came back to Fox in a watered-down form as The O.C., and then it was a huge hit.

Middlemarch
I doubt anyone will make it this far, but the book that I would force on everyone if I could is George Eliot's "Middlemarch." It's a remarkable novel, so packed with modern insight that it's hard to believe it was written in the 1880s. And it was written by a woman!

Can I just note
How astoundingly funny the alt-text on these photos is? I laughed out loud at the "Nick and Norah" one. I'm glad that AVC, as usual, is committed to the little things.

I just need to note that this thread has made me feel that much less alone in this world.