$5 million stretch goal, and the criticisms LeVar has heard are all bullshit.

Serious suggestion: this is the cheapest and easiest way to go:
Turn a tripod into a steadicam by simply removing one screw.

I thought there were 2 points made that had merit:

One was that low income kids are less likely to have the hardware required to use the RR app. That may boil down to racism or classism or something, but it has an odour of truthiness to it. My own between the lines reading of this point: public television might be the most meaningful place for a show like this, and perhaps the goal aught to be getting RR back on there.

The second point that resonated for me was profit. At some point I may be sufficiently motivated to look into it, but RR being organized as a for-profit raises questions for me. Sure there are many many corporations in the educational market, but this is an minor empire built on public grant money. Zack Braff and others have taken flack for crowdsourcing when traditional financing was available to them, this is just another facet of that discussion IMO.

[/devils advocate]

Always Fair and Balanced:

You-might-want-to-reconsider-that-donation-to-the-reading-rainbow-kickstarter

Not saying I agree. When Eddie tweeted the Kickstarter link I did not walk but ran to the page myself and immediately shared it around. They were already plussing way beyond $1mil at that point and my charity money is tight right now. Anyway, the Post piece makes an interesting argument, and I wanted to share.

"It's very good jam," said the Queen.
"Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate."
"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day."
"It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day'," Alice objected.
"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know."

I've deliberately not listened to the CoM commentary for 3 years. That era ends...well, soonish.

Also, totally ready when you guys finally cave to Trey's will on The Cowboys.

"Network" with people you know from work, sometimes Who You Know can land you the interview. I've got near perfect separation between fb/family and work-acquaintances/linked-in.

I think the word you're already using is the right one: "contrivance." Once you get that character up a tree, some of the rocks you throw are going to be contrivances, in the sense of piling-on otherwise improbable misfortunes.

No worries, I have yet to actually watch a movie in sync with the FIYH. Or, maybe I did Sunshine that way, but that was such a negative experience I never did it again. Kind of like sleep paralysis: you can try to rage and scream but nobody else hears you.

Pop quiz hotshot: your kid just jumped onto a fire ant nest. What do...well you know.

<--- Approves this course of action.

My bedroom growing up had kneewalls. We punched through the drywall and outfitted the space as kid's only forts. I can still remember the smell of the insulat...*Cough-hack-hack*