When I moved to Minnesota, once a major Northwest Airlines hub, I lived near a public-radio station with a news ticker on its outside (still do.) It took me forever to realize "NWA Announces New Layoffs" referred to the airline, not the Compton music group.

Well, stick with tradition. "Jedi" pooped all over the redwoods, so might as well have the new version poop all over endangered bird sex. Pity the birds won't poop all over Abrams.

Ian McShane as Baloo. There you go; your full cast of Nature Is Evil. Which is kinda true.

Don't know if you're still around (and thanks for all the good book recs) but, if you are, here's one that popped into my head late: "The Tough Guide To Fantasyland" by Diana Wynne Jones. It's a fake travel book through fantasy cliches, done with love for the genre, and had me howling at points. Like, if there's a map…

Yeah, I don't get it. If you don't enjoy her style or subject matter or attitude, that's your affair. But to pretend she's not a skilled writer is nonsense.

And I liked Best Served Cold, and was avoiding The Heroes. I didn't want to read a bunch of blather about noble Northmen fighting/dying nobly. Now I've put The Heroes on my library list and can't wait, thanks!

It's not stupid for adults to read simple YA books (obviously there are simple and more complex ones, just like anything.) That's how they relax, I presume. It's no stupider than any other form of relaxation. I know brilliant people who enjoy formula mysteries or romance novels. Some very good writers switch between…

Joe Abercrombie's the best!

Yeah, you hope artists don't diminish real-life tragedies that way. But they often assume "it happened long ago, it's OK." Like the Robert Shaw "Indianapolis" monologue in "Jaws."

Lots of Natives in MN; but proportionally far more in SD. Good take; that sounds interesting.

I'm not sure if the criticism is of filmed live performances specifically or plays adapted to the screen generally, there's been tons of those that were good. If it's filmed live performances, yeah, that's hard to pull off — but still worth trying, like filmed concerts are hard to pull off but still thrilling when…

Hopefully the ROBOT MACHINES are just as courteous towards us in the future. AARGH, ROBOT MACHINES!

It's unfortunately diminishing returns with the next two. I started skimming Book #2, and got #3 from the library just to skip to the end and see if the way humanity gets saved (spoiler, humanity gets saved) was surprising. It wasn't.

Growing up in Portland it was hard not to be excited about Gus Van Sant's movies. But now I live in Minnesota, which claims as its own anyone who was born anywhere or lived anytime in the state; that's a lot of famous sorts, even though they almost all left. We still have some of the MST3K people around. And Garrison…

Hah . . . that would be terrific!

But with 50% more Gaiman! And approximately the same amount of corpse decay, I would guess.

Here's your booze trivia for today.

Fischer's firing was for me one of the missteps of this season. Just on a realistic level; don't prison guards in NY have a union? With procedures you have to go through before you fire someone? If so, the show could have had a bit of dialogue about how she knew she could keep her job but decided against it.

Yeah . . . basically, emotions are "twee." Apparently we should have Spock doing heavy metal, that's the cool alternative.

Yeah, but "Death And The Maiden" was pretty tight.