8.08. First time I've ever been early to an AV Club Simpsons Classic review.

The Simpsonsverse is not, as far as we can tell, the Buffyverse. It's possible that Ralph's leprechaun is real, as opposed to a pyromaniac delusion.

Like most politicians, you'll promise more than you can deliver.

And if you spare a last thought, maybe it's ghosts you wonder about…the ghosts of children standing in the water at sunset, standing in a circle, standing with their hands joined together, their faces young, sure, but tough… You don't have to look back to see those children; part of your mind will see them forever,…

Ironically I often wake up semi-involuntarily screaming denial-related short sentences (in my head, at least: it's hard to tell, but sometimes I think I only think they're out loud) and then wish I hadn't.

I love to read things that scare me. They make me feel alive. But I hate to read things that disturb me. Possessed/undead pets really, really disturb me. Any fictional cruelty to animals is really hard for me to take. I was right there cheering on Tony Soprano when he killed Ralph.

James Patterson's Swimsuit. It freaked me out that the protagonist and viewpoint character gets terminally beheaded about five chapters into the book.

Like many TV series, there's a monster at the end of it.

Not necessarily. I didn't read any of the Dark Tower series until I was an adult, whereas I read It when I was 14. The Dark Tower series informs one's impression of how King felt writing it, but at the time of reading It, I still thought of the Turtle as more a concept than an actual turtle. I think it's the way it's…

The devil is just a guy, no different than Homer or Lenny.

The Turtle is a theme in the background of quite a few of King's novels, particularly the Dark Tower series. The way he writes it, I get the impression that the Turtle is not an animal but a cosmic representation of the forces of nature, order and goodness. It's like how Cthulhu is still scary on a cosmic level even…

I was never scared of the clown. I was, and to some extent remain as a 27-year-old, scared of the thing in George Denbrough's basement/the thing Georgie saw the clown's face change into. Often when it's the middle of the night and particularly when it's stormy outside, I think of two things: Will Stanton being…

The ending to the book is fantastically well-written in terms of the metaphor about friendship. Really gives a sense of world order and everything being okay. The sex scene on the other hand is, in retrospect, a little on-the-nose - you would have thought that if they needed an intimate-group-connection ritual to get…

I wish I hadn't finished it. It bored me silly. OTT acting, terrible anticlimactic resolution. Now the book on the other hand…finished it, but deeply scary. All scaryness in fiction is good.

Recommendations: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (sort of), Chicken Chicken by R.L.Stine (a terrible book), and Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore's 'A Touch of Wind' and the Simpsons episode 'Tales from The Public Domain', the latter two deriving from the Greek myth of Odysseus and his encounter with the…

Did you use to be 'with it', but then they changed what 'it' was, and now what you're 'with' isn't 'it' and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to you?

James McAvoy is also that short, apparently.

'It's a damn sight harder making stuff up when you're under stress than you'd think…I reckon he told us the truth…just to keep us talking' - Ron Weasley

With that comment about how his next iteration might now be short thanks to his use of regeneration energy in this episode, it would be cool if the next Doctor was 5'7'' or under.

http://www.you'readumbassifyoubelieveanyofthis.fu/