I liked it more than that, but I see where you are coming from. I think Gaiman is full of odd and interesting ideas, and I think the main idea of American Gods is really great. I agree with you that his digressions into side stories were very engaging, and I am guessing I think the pieces added up to more than you did.

I read the book and I think there are a lot of parts that would be hard to impossible to put on screen. It has god stuff in it, of course, and a lot of mystical things work better with words than images. And as you point out, there's no way to get it all into a limited time on screen.

What do you have against Richard Stans?

Many do. They do where I live although kids are allowed to opt out if they don't want to. My understanding is that the kids generally see it as one of those eternal rituals of school life, sort of like everyone wears navy blue shirts and every Friday there's pizza for lunch.

Garden centers often sell them alongside other herbs. You can also buy them online from a million places, from the big plant sellers like Parks and Burpee to smaller outlets. They cost maybe ten bucks. Look for "Laurus Nobilis" because other varieties of Bay aren't for cooking.

I'd disagree with the old herb piece. It's true flavors fade, but they don't fade uniformly. So in the oregano example, adding more old oregano can be nasty because you get a weird grassy flavor that dominates after the better flavor has faded more quickly. Likewise for rosemary — if dried rosemary sits around for…

Fresh bay leaves are great. Old bay leaves don't do much.

You need a rope ladder, dammit. Like the kind you pull up into your treehouse to keep the girls out.

I liked Get Out more than Logan too, but agree it's not a wide margin.

I saw Logan this weekend and I agree it's great. Tremendous acting by the leads, including the actress who played Laura. It's a huge risk to have a youngster in such a make or break role, but she did a ferocious job.

Places like the Phillipines, Hawaii and Guam also eat a lot of Spam due to US Army and Navy cuisine.

That's a tremendous book — I loved the idea she gave for the title that when the Wolf is at the door, invite him in and cook him.

The government also pushed for the production of another sugar substitute — syrup from malted barley. When WWI ended, malt syrup production quickly rebounded because of Prohibition — it was in demand from bootleggers and home brewers. You could buy it legally in stores or wholesale and it was a cheap source for a…

Inside Man made a boatload of money for a moderate budget. I wish it had led to more smart thrillers by Lee, but for whatever reason they didn't happen.

40 Year Old Virgin was probably her biggest hit.

They published an excerpt a few weeks ago. I skip their fiction more often than not but found myself drawn into it. I can't say I'd read the whole novel, since the setting isn't up my alley, but it was really well written.

It's interesting that the Catholic Church sponsored a bunch of speeches to stop nuclear war back in 1982. Today, the Archbishop for my city seems mostly concerned with blocking Obamacare, shutting down inner city Catholic schools, and pushing for state money for well-off suburban Catholic schools. Basically the same…

Grr, this is making me get all nitpicky, and I hate that, but I'm going to call BS on the idea that Pilsner was invented by accident.

I wouldn't say they had no skills — I saw Muresan play, and while he was really slow up and down the court, he was agile within a small space and had a good touch. Bol was also quite capable if he didn't have to move outside of a three foot radius.

I was afraid this was going to be one of those things where a guy buys out an entire theater so he can watch it with just his friends.