Does the Harry Potter Alliance know about your plans? Because HP+Charity is totally their thing and they do fundraising pretty seriously. http://thehpalliance.org/

It was funny enough to keep as an inside joke but didn't come up often enough to be a huge thing. Your next question will be, of course, What *IS* meatball?

Well that snuck by me. I guess there was no advertising either. And it's expensive. Thanks for pointing it out so at least I know about it!

This Is The End

It wasn't good enough for me to bother finding a poster, but it wasn't horribly bad either. Or particularly funny. The one part that struck me was a scene where Emma Watson and the six guys are in a house and one of the guys points out that they should agree to not rape her. The following discussion is not 'well duh, of course not', but about how they shouldn't even discuss the topic at all and how dare he even bring it up and make them uncomfortable. I'm not up on my feminist lingo, but it's a great demonstration of something that I'm sure there is a specific name for and fits somewhere between male privilege and rape culture.

Kon-Tiki (2012)

I read the book in grade 8 and from what I recall this is a pretty accurate retelling (though they skip a lot of the boring bits in the middle). Amusingly the menu offers the options of the 'English dubbed version' or the 'Academy Award Nominated Norwegian version'. Well when you put it that way... The best behind the scenes fact was that they filmed on the actual raft that Heyerdahl's grandson made to repeat the journey. Makes a good double feature with Trollhunter. Norwegians be crazy.

Says the person with a creepy monkey puppet avatar.

Oops, I accidentally a lot of that tumblr.

Indeed Bobby McFerrin's Wizard of Oz bit is not entirely improv. Notably he also did it here:

He is also amazing at improvisation though. For example, the Montreal Jazz Festival concert that was taken at consisted half of surprise (for him) guests that he collaborated with on the spot.

I have a non-smart cell phone, but it lives in the car and I put $10 when I need to make a call. This happens maybe twice a year. Otherwise it sits in the car and does nothing and costs me nothing. The things Zap lists I do on an mp3 player, a home laptop/media PC, a Canon T4i, or paper. Mostly I'm addicted enough to the internets when it's only accessible from home. Paying another monthly bill to increase an activity I do too much of...no thanks.

(Relevant: http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-m … a-tel,429/)

On topic, I generally prefer watching movies at home instead of at a theatre precisely because I can make occasional comment/observation. Not to mention I can pause the movie when my mom does the classic 'What's happening? Who is that? But I thought...'. Oh mom... 

I really enjoyed it. Its flaws are bothering me now, both scientific and economic, but it had enough interesting ideas and sexy art direction that I was with it most of the way. Apparently Blomkamp came up with the story idea when he moved from South Africa to Canada and was floored by the difference in standard of living. I guess our socialized medicine system really made an impact on him too. Whoo, I live in Elysium!

That said, I have a cunning plan that's way way better and safer than Spider's:

I was surprised that Patreon and Subbable weren't mentioned (though Subbable is brand new and was probably launched after the recording). They are like Kickstarter for ongoing projects (aka. NPR crossed with Kickstarter).

As for the 'morals' of who does what with money on Kickstarter, I think you guys pretty much covered it. With Amanda Palmer my impression was that most complaints were not from people who funded her Kickstarter, even though they were acting as if it was 'their' money to feel indignant about. People have endless judgments about how other people use money.

I also see a difference between exchanging interaction with AFP for playing on stage vs. exchanging 'exposure' for work. People pay for back stage passes, so it has value. As she sees it she is paying them in social interaction, just like she repays the rest of the audience in (less interactive) social interaction. She talks about it more in her TED talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMj_P_6H69g

That said, I do feel it is unprofessional to undercut musicians by working for free. Most professions have specific rules regarding when and how you can work for free specifically so that they don't undercut each other.

Aha! Trey finally figured out what Tumblr is for.