Serious question: what happens when Big Bird & Oscar need to appear in the same scene? Is there a stand-in performer for one of them, or have they really never shared the screen in 40 years?

When I was a kid I saw a Popeye cartoon where Popeye is trying to read a history book to his baby, but the baby doesn't want to hear it. Popeye asks,

I hope you are wrong about GRRM, but I can't help but imagine him like Grady Tripp from Wonder Boys, writing and writing and writing and unable to ever finish.

Well, the stories are in no way dependent on him not being crazy, which I think is obvious to almost everyone. They are really only dependent on someone (usually Bruce Wayne) dressing like a bat and and running about at night. Which is, you know, buggy as an anthill, but nothing about that needs to inform the…

There is pretty much no way a person with the intellect, talent, and resources of Bruce Wayne couldn't find a more effective use of his time to promote the social good than "dress up in a costume and punch muggers." I don't care which stories you read, there is no way a non-crazy person would choose to devote such…

While I agree that The Incredibles doesn't really align with Rand, there is still a pretty messed up message there. The film isn't "anti-mediocrity", it's "pro-ubermensch". The great crime that Syndrome plans to commit is to allow "lesser people" to become "special". His own evil comes from the fact that he is…

Yeah, Proteus' death was my biggest "Noooooooooo" moment since Wash bit it in Serenity. Poor little patchwork man.

Woah. Contrary to TV wisdom, defibrillators do NOT restart stopped hearts. They actually STOP hearts that are misfiring, so that the heart can start back up again with a normal rhythm. So if your heart is experiencing arrhythmia (the contractions are not coordinated, causing the blood to not flow properly and leading…

I thought that's what this was.

The NBA did not lower their age requirement. They had no age requirement. A long time ago, they required a player be out of high school for 4 years, but after Spencer Haywood sued them (and won a decision in the US Supreme Court) in the early 70's that went by the wayside. Daryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby jumped…

I think everyone should just be identified by their Pantone number

Hey now. Jennifer Jason Leigh is minor Hollywood royalty. Very minor, but Vic Morrow was probably a baronet or something, so she would be a…baronetess?

See? I love the ending. I think it makes the film. But trying to do comedy is pretty much guaranteeing that you will fail with a significant portion of your audience, no matter what. For me, it has always been Barton Fink, which I find unfunny to the point of near disgust.

It is definitely not for everyone. I like it, although among Coen comedies I prefer O Brother & Raising Arizona.

Using this event to defend the absolutely terrible "The Killing" is laughable. "The Killing" wasn't "slow crime", it was a series of red herrings leading up to nothing. If you think the advanced, sophisticated audiences of 2015 would appreciate it in a way those benighted troglodytes of the ancient past could not in…

"The wireless?"

Clearly Cyril is Frank Burns

I don't own a Kindle, but I read Kindle books on my touchscreen laptop, and the footnotes always work great. Click the little asterisk or number next to the footnote, and it takes you back to your spot in the book.

I would never try to make a list, but I want to stand up for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. That is a brilliant piece of work, and Pratchett fans always seem to ignore it.

Going Postal was the first one I read. From there I went back and read them all in chronological order. It is definitely an easy place to start.