Stuff

Still can’t believe that it’s 2009. NY Times’ A.O. Scott on “The Apartment,” a New Year’s in New York kind of movie, with a touch of darkness but a touch of hope. There’s a lot of darkness out there, so it’s kind of hard to stay hopeful.

There are plenty of reasons why the US ex-presidents and current president don’t quite talk to each other all that much; still, it can’t be a bad idea.

Neil deGrasse Tyson – the man who (via the NY Times, possibly) got the general population heated up about whether Pluto is a planetmay be asked by the Obama administration to head NASA (wow!); until then, he’s still host of Nova ScienceNow.

Speaking of the up-coming Obama administration, the Republicans in the Senate are apparently a little too eager about asking US Attorney General nominee Eric Holder about clients that he had while he’s been a Big Firm lawyer. So, doing work in the private sector gets one scrutiny (not to say one can’t do conflicts checks, because that is the point), but doesn’t this kind of discourages people from going into the public sector/public interest? So Holder made money; nothing says that he can’t do the job of US Attorney General. I hope the Republicans can do their end of the hearings correctly.

I only read one Nelson de Mille book; but the profile about him in the NY Times was fascinating and confirms how he got all that realism into his books (research and life experience).

NYC bloggers who blog about NYC. Hmm. Can be kind of crazy, I guess.

I don’t poke around Entertainment Weekly’s website all that much (it’s kind of kooky over there, not gleaming pretty like the hard copy magazine), so it wasn’t until Time’s James Poniewozik reported on his blog did I learn about Ken Tucker’s Watching TV blog on EW.com; Tucker’s blog seems pretty cool. I’m kind of unsure of what to expect for 2009 tv, but he raises interesting stuff.

Ken Tucker on Neil Patrick Harris on Saturday Night Live last night. I only caught the opening monologue. Legen-wait for it-dary. Silly me for not watching the rest of the show (when they got the Today show skit, I couldn’t watch; Kathy Lee Gifford mimicry, no matter how dead-on, didn’t grab me).

I thought the video below was cute: Harry Bellafante v. Animal, in a drumming competition of sorts. Bellafante’s enthusiasm was great and Animal… well, he’s quite the Muppet.