I stay off the internet at work, so I had no idea this was happening until just now, when I got home. Now I'm trying to figure out whether it's over or not. Horrifying.

The recycling of specific plots doesn't bother me at all, so long as there's a creative intelligence behind it, bringing something new to the table. Movie remakes are almost always just cynical cash-grabs, though. Here's how Peter Parker got bit by a spider…again.

On the one hand: most remakes are terrible, and unnecessary. Everyone knows this (and yet we go see them anyway!).

Maybe. More stories about Darth Vader would have been cool, as long as he remained his bad-ass self. I just thought it was ridiculous to try to transform a (super-awesome) 1-dimensional character into a 3-dimensional one. Especially in the hands of George Lucas, who's not exactly a master at drawing deep characters.

The idea behind the prequels (as well as the execution) was pretty lame. Who cares how Darth Vader became Darth Vader? Wasn't it better when we didn't know?

Differences (without spoilers):
— The reboot was canceled abruptly, but the original has a proper beginning, middle, and end.
— The reboot has a conspiracy angle (who are the men in black helicopters? etc.), not in the original.
— The reboot has a lot more action than the original. Lots of people running around with…

The 70s BBC show Survivors is the same deal. Kind of utopian, in a dark way: plenty for everyone, if you were one of the lucky few to survive the apocalypse (a plague that kills 99% of the world's population).

If I had to get rid of all music by bands whose lead singer was completely full of shit, I wouldn't have much left to listen to. "Morrison was too self-serious" seems like a lazy criticism to me.

For me, the classic stuff from 20 years ago was Hendrix, Zeppelin, Doors, Janis, Stones, et al. For kids today, it's…Nirvana? That would be a strange perspective (well, only because it's not my perspective).

Hamsters, not gerbils. I'm not a pervert.

Also: disappointingly small collection of videos with actual hamsters.

My last name is Bush, and NO ONE'S PAYING ATTENTION TO ME! WTF, people?!

That bugged me too…I'm only halfway through the current season. Oh well.

Seems like WTF is covered only rarely in Podmass, even though he's had some pretty amazing guests lately (Patrick Stewart, Steve Albini, Keith Richards, Lemmy!). Conversely, they will cover it when the guest is someone I don't really care about.

I would say that Minnesotans are not regular American assholes: they're weirdly nice and friendly. (This is based on a sample size of a dozen people I've known from Minnesota…and Fargo.) They are attached to their Minnesotan identity, though, for sure.

The main difference between Texans and the rest of us is that they think that being from Texas makes them special or interesting. Eliminate that difference, and they'd be regular American assholes like me and you.

Just trying to help.

They could just call it The Friendly Giant, or The FG…the Big is redundant, no?

You could just as well argue that the Shaggs are failed recording artists who recorded some really bad pop/rock. William Shatner singing Byrds songs is really bad folk music. Manson's "Mechanical Man" is another kettle of fish: if Jandek sang that song rather than Manson, I think you'd have no problem calling it…

It doesn't cease to be outsider music just because one disapproves of serial killing. As it happens, I'm interested in weird music, and have very little interest in serial killers per se. I'm not recommending it exactly, just saying…it's there.