Hey, that’s cool. AMC is running a two-day/one-day marathon of the 10 Best Picture nominees. 15 cities get the one-day marathon, and everyone else gets the two-day marathon. Probably the two-day marathon is saner. Sixty bucks a ticket for ten movies plus a $20 food card, so it’s four dollars a movie, which is not bad at all.

This video makes me wildly happy because a) it illuminates how explicitly Tarantino intended Kill Bill as a remix, b) it shows how well he executed his plan, and c) it reminds me how much I liked Kill Bill.

Apple said something somewhat confusing that nonetheless implies that the way in which they enforce the rules has changed. Gruber summarizes. If Apple means what they seem to mean, that’s alarming. Also difficult to enforce. If Amazon removes the store button from the Kindle app, but still sells Kindle books pushed to the iPad via their Web site, is the Kindle app still offering the customers the ability to purchase books outside the app? I can buy ePub books from various sources without involving Stanza, and then download ’em to Stanza. Does this violate anything? ...

Sony says Apple rejected their Sony Reader app on the grounds that all purchases on the iPad must go through the App Store. I don’t care that much about Sony on a practical level, but the implication is that the Kindle app is likewise in trouble, since it allows me to buy a book via the Amazon web site and download it to my iPad. If that’s no longer allowed, I’d be fairly annoyed. ...

I started with my previous recipe, and modified it to be in line with this one. I dropped the vanilla and changed the dairy products to one quart of half-and-half as per the second recipe – I’d wanted to thin out the fat content a bit, and getting rid of the whipping cream should take care of that. I also used just 3/4ths of a cup of sugar, and a smidge less than 2 eggs. I suppose I could have scaled the second recipe up but using 1 quart of half-and-half is awfully convenient. The ratio of sugar is a bit lower than before, which should allow the tea flavor to come out more. ...

LFR Mods I played everything new for LFR at DDXP except the epic. Brief, non-spoilery thoughts: The BI had a slightly less interesting story, but I thought it was better structurally. They had one special mission per encounter slot, which only one table could take; when more than one table wanted a given mission, they let the rest of the BI decide who should get it based on a brief speech. The special missions were level-band limited. Also, at the end of the the BI, the Coronal of Myth Drannor awarded unique items to randomly selected players. One of my friends got a special banner, and one got a pumped up version of the Bowstring of Accuracy that allows him to use any bow as a divine or arcane implement. You can give these items away to other players, but you can’t ever get them back. ...

I started with this: 2 eggs (used Eggbeaters to avoid raw egg problems) 1 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 cups whipping cream 2 cups half-and-half 1/2 cup 1% milk 2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla (original) The original recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of whipping cream, but I wanted to make it a tad less rich and they sell whipping cream by the cup, so it was simplest to just put half a cup of milk in. I cooked everything but the vanilla over lowish-medium heat till it hit 160 degrees, then poured it into a bowl over ice to cool quickly. The custard texture wasn’t super-thick, but it coated a metal spoon nicely enough. ...

I just realized that I am completely without a personalized letterhead.

I took advantage of a Christmas Amazon gift certificate to fill a few holes in my old Hong Kong movie collection plus make a gesture towards catching up on more recent Hong Kong flicks. I know the Hong Kong movie scene is never going to be quite what it was back in the day, but it’s not like the last decade was a wasteland or anything (original). I’m behind! Thus Susan and I watched Sha Po Lang last night. (You’d find it on US video shelves as Kill Zone; despite Miramax’s reputation and the horrendous new title, it’s an unclipped unmangled version.) Simon Yam was the big draw for me, cause I’ve always thought he’s a great Hong Kong character actor, plus it’s got a great rep, plus of course Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen. ...

The CEO of Evernote posted a followup on their Mac App Store numbers. Convenient; I was wishing they would today. The rush of new Mac users tailed off quite a bit but it’s still a big percentage. He’s gone from thinking that mobile usage drives Evernote to believing that “the presence of a well-formed app store is the single most important factor for the viability of a platform for third party developers.” ...