Anybody remember those '90s CD-ROM games created by The Residents? At the time, I thought "Bad Day On the Midway" was the coolest-looking thing I'd ever seen, and I wished I had a 486 system so that I could play it. Ron Howard's production company even optioned it as a television show for David Lynch.

The Star-Spangled Banner
Anybody know of a worse national anthem? Kurt Vonnegut famously described it as "gibberish sprinkled with question marks."

Spoilers wanted
I love John Landis, but I missed this episode. From the preview for it last week, I guessed that the note is given to the wrong person, and the bride, in fact, is the serial killer. Either that, or they're both serial killers, and she "beats him at his own game" (yawn). Now, from what I've read…

Wimpy wimpy wimpy
Thanks for this write-up. Sometimes, when I want that nostalgic "all alone at the homecoming game, watching the girl I love with her boyfriend" feeling, I can always count on The Field Mice.

Also: I've only seen the theatrical version of "Zodiac." I've read, however, that the documentary about Allen included with the director's-cut DVD paints a more complicated picture of the man, and that his possible culpability isn't as clear as in the film.

I think the movie makes a good case for him being the killer, even if it's all circumstantial, but I'm aware of how ignorant that sounds, since watching the movie accounts for the depth of my knowledge about the Zodiac killer.

Yeah, I can't wait to die, go to Hell, and hang out with all the cool people. It's like a hot tub: uncomfortable at first, then you get used to the heat — and you have an eternity to get used to it, so I don't see what the big deal is about it.

The movie, at least (haven't read any Zodiac books), definitely indicates that Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac killer. Maybe whoever did the AVC write-up was being mindful of his being ruled out as the killer — but he was cleared over and over again (fingerprints, handwriting, polygraph) during the investigation,…

Thanks for the Eudora Welty/"Simpsons" belching reference.

He was like Kurt Vonnegut, only more "beat" and more suicidal.

Writing
I've stated along with other commenters that no matter who they get to direct episodes of this show, it's nothing without good writing, and so far it's been a lot of nothing.

In some of the unfavorable reviews I've read of "The Enchantress of Florence," comparisons have been along the lines of "like John Barth at his worst." Many aspects of Rushdie's book (which I haven't read) sound similar to Barth's Scheherazade stories or especially his novel "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor,"…

Clearly, in 1990 Fat Mike from NOFX built a time machine, traveled exactly 17 years into the future, watched the "Hell-A Woman" episode of "Californication," giggled uproariously at the "go down on your sister" line, then traveled back to 1990 with his hilarious boon of stolen future comedy fruits, and used that line…

Actually, I do all my writing with lead weights. I have to replace the keyboard four or five times a day, though, so maybe it's not a very practical method of composition.

Dave and Steve
I hate to sound like an indie-rock hanger-on who can't get over the '90s, but I wish Dave Berman and Stephen Malkmus would collaborate again on another Joos album. Berman has more than proven that he doesn't "need" Malkmus to make great music, but the music they make together is especially good. …

I'd probably fuck a girl who was a gamma-monster. Sounds cool.

Like "The Orphanage," it definitely appropriates elements of "The Innocents," but I wouldn't call it a remake; it's got a possibly mad woman tending to children in a possibly haunted mansion, but those are some pretty basic ghost-story building blocks.

Zoo-y Dishabille
Whenever I read about the zookeeper feeding himself to lions, it sounds kind of cool and disturbing. Is it really so poorly executed that it's laughable and akin to the Black Knight in "The Holy Grail"?

"The Sixth Sense" and "The Others"
I had mentioned the Brazilian birthday-party footage in "Signs" being what I thought was the most effective thing Shyamalan has directed, and it occurs to me that the sequence in "The Sixth Sense" that made the biggest impression on me was the bit with the red balloon and the…

I think Connelly is hotter in general, but she hasn't been looking so buxom lately. The green might be more becoming than that overtanned look, though.