BruceH

Loved the flashforward prologue, and all the stuff with Mike. And Ted is alive? WTF?

Happy Birthday Tom! (This is just a guess, but I'm thinking you may have been born in 1960.)

Rewatched season 4 of Breaking Bad. Then I went through the commentaries on the last three episodes.

Hey, me too! I mean, seeing "Singin' In the Rain" on the big screen at the Stanford Theater. I can still kind of dig DVDs.

I was beginning to think he would last forever. RIP

They really ought to print a new edition of this book, or simply do a volume 2.

He was in "Anatomy of A Murder" too.

"North by Northwest" is a thriller, sure, but a comedy/thriller, and it's never funnier than when the danger is highest.

He's gone to that Mayberry in the sky. RIP

Ealing, Tati, Keaton, Hawks, Sturges...also "My Man Godfrey," "The Awful Truth," "Easy Living," and "The Thin Man." And "North by Northwest."

"Our Idiot Brother"

Now would be a good time, with the fifth season coming up.

This just came in the mail for me. Nice.

Bastard. You got there first Don't hold a grudge!

That IS creepy! My mother has had a Kindle since they first came out, mainly because it allowed her to buy new books so much more cheaply. She says they've gone up somewhat recently, which doesn't surprise me.

Went to a photography exhibit at the De Young last week.

Funny People had the benefit of the very hot hand of Judd Apatow who is easily one of the most inspired comedy directors in recent memory (along with Wes Anderson). I attribute its success more to that than Sandler. Even so, I found it overly long. Could have used some editing, but Apatow was too powerful to edit. Too bad.

In recent years comics have been at the top of best seller lists, so it's nice that you consider comics culture. I do. I think think the leading cause of there being more of interest in local book stores is the pricing laws. Had Amazon been forced to sell books 30% higher I'm sure most of our independent shops would have survived too. Quincy, it wasn't Amazon who put the local bookshops out of business. It was Barnes & Noble and Borders. The publishers gave those two volume discounts, and the small shops couldn't compete against that. Quite right. Then the same big-box bookstores that put the independent and local bookshops out of business were thumped by the internet. Borders went out of business completely, B&N just hanging on.

I agree. Those paperback anthologies with "Superduperman," "Starchie," and so on, I remember reading because of kids at school and around the neighborhood passing well-thumbed copies back and forth. Later, in the 80s, those early Kurtzman issues were reprinted in expensive hardbacks, with the original covers reproduced. It served to demonstrate how much MAD had declined over the years.

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

That did occur to me while watching "The Avengers."

Agreed, a very good actor. I'll miss him on Mad Men.

As a game show host I found him rather...creepy.

Sad. . . the poor guy. . . . I'm not sure it was a good move on the writer's part, but at least I found it more believable than what Joan did in the previous episode. Loved the scene where the Jag wouldn't start though! That was funny.

Yeah, what's up with that? Also, the last episode of Mad Men was, like, to die for.