For some reason this one isn't showing up in the iTunes feed yet. It's been awhile since the last Intermission, so maybe it got lost on the way there.

There's no money to be made.

That, to be honest, is the main problem. Yes, the things you create that get you there may make someone else rich (not you, most likely), but nobody is going to fund your project to start with. As the joke goes, the best way to make a small fortune in space is to start with a large one.

Dune is one you might need the right mindset for. As a teen I had a rule that I would give any book 100 pages to suck me in, and seem to recall Dune had me from the start. I wasn't a big fan of the second and third books, but loved God Emperor of Dune and was enjoying the later ones when Herbert died. It was the first time an active writer I liked passed away (I've stayed away from the stuff his kid has been churning out).

That reminds me of something that came up at a conventions years ago. The panel speaker was asking why people kept reading stuff like the later Dune books, when they're clearly declining in quality. Someone replied that us readers have built up this knowledge base on these imaginary worlds, and WANT to be able to use it somehow. Reading another Dune, Pern, or Star Wars book lets us do that.

I almost wish I had gone up to Toronto to check out the Lord of the Rings musical that was in previews up there. It didn't get good reviews, and never made it out of Canada that I know of, but some disasters really do have to be seen...

I, unfortunately, won't be able to join everyone. I planned on it, my sister even saying I could use her house and high speed internet for the event. But, not only can't I really trust you guys not to wander onto topics my 8 year old niece shouldn't hear, but we have Buffalo Philharmonic tickets for that evening (Prokofiev's Fifth). Alas...

I hope, when you guys post this, you keep all the between movie bits. No editing, just cut it into three files!

I think it's more that a woman's rise in status, through marriage, is assumed and normal, thus the story usually starts AFTER that has happened in this version.

There's other applications to the whole "add a mistake for them to catch" thing, which an old manager of mine when I was a supermarket baker did. Every week, when the owner came over to talk to him about that week's paperwork, there was always some little math error. Some mistake the owner had to correct, playfully chide the head baker over. It didn't mean much, as our department had such a good profit margin every week!

Well, after he left to get a job a relative got him for the county, all the paperwork got looked at by fresh eyes... and the guy had been leaving invoices out of his balance sheet. The venders got paid, but that fact was left off his department's records, making it look like we had extra profit. Who knows what yearly bonuses the guy got because of that

Robot Chicken already mentioned that possibility