Sure you can be unintentionally racist. That's why you have those videos about "what you said was racist" versus "you are a racist", no? You want to have the former conversation in the hopes of at least getting getting the person who said the thing to consider whether it was racist or not.

I was wondering if "Safe and Sound" should go under a Taylor Swift essentials list… it's really different from the rest of her stuff and a great tune, but not really a road she explored much further.

I'm not sure how the book could have been written in any other way while keeping Katniss as the first person PoV. I think there could have been a lot more polish applied to the book, but the whole point was to put the reader into the shoes of a figurehead with no agency. It made for a frustrating read, but I think…

Clickbait? You know, I always wonder what I'm missing when I surf the web with noscript… the things I miss in the name of security…

She did do this: https://www.youtube.com/wat… , which indicates to me that she has a pretty good idea of what country music is…

Utada Hikaru was never an idol, though. She was born in the States, wrote her own songs, was generally off putting to Japanese reporters, especially early in her career and had a great deal more control over her own life than idols do. She also played a lot of Tetris…

Yes! And I don't know if it was the case on your network feed, but here in Canada, they didn't even censor the word "shit" when he said that, which I found remarkable. Maybe Colbert isn't the only one outraged by the deliberate missing of the whole point.

The first season of Veronica Mars comes to mind… it stands alone quite well. Subsequent seasons were good, but nowhere near as great as the first season.

Is that Annie Clark? I thought that was Shara Worden (aka My Brightest Diamond).

Regarding the original letter, part of the problem with board games these days is that all games are treated as expandable. This leads to problems; the more expansions there are to a game, the more likely that one of them is bad, tainting your experience with the game as a whole. This is particularly true for…

Amazing comment. I see so much of myself in what you describe (I don't have autism, though, I'm told, I'm just not trying hard enough). But the self-hatred, the walking through the crowds untouched, the desire to belong… I feel ya, man, I really do.

Yes, for me, the best Christian music deals with the difficulties of faith. A great example: Sufjan Stevens' _Casimir Pulasky Day_ (https://www.youtube.com/wat… ). And Julie Miller's _By Way of Sorrow_ (http://www.youtube.com/watc… )

I've been getting a sense of ambivalence toward American football from a lot of sports fans and writers lately, as if it's a guilty pleasure. These are people love the game. It's part of their heritage. They painted their faces, attended tailgate parties and probably got drunk the for the first time watching a…

25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago comes to mind.

You mustn't read much Brandon Sanderson. You're really missing something if you aren't.

I think the phrase Jo Walton came up with is "visited by the suck fairy". As in, "I read this awesome Xanth series when I was a kid. When I revisited them a week ago, it had been visited by the Suck Fairy and I can't bear to read the books any more." The same thing happens when you watch Lost in Space reruns.

I think you're looking at the shows of Whedon past through rose-coloured glasses. Buffy didn't really get rolling until the end of the first season… Xander and Cordelia were pretty much stereotypes for Buffy to bounce off of and S1 Angel… wow…. David Boreanaz really gained a few levels in acting over the next season,…

You mean as in Dead Like Me?

If you haven't heard the Jon Brion "leak" of this album, you're in for a real treat, particularly when you compare "Oh Sailor" to "O' Sailor".

So, what do you think of Electronic (the band featuring Marr on guitar and Bernard Sumner on vocals, with a healthy dash of The Pet Shop Boys)?