Best Place to Rent Robocop
Like one of those automated luncheonettes with hot meals just behind the steamy windows, that shiny new store at the North Division Y serves up DVDs with just a swipe of a smart card. Stroll into Videomatic anytime -- even when you're craving a horror flick at 4 am -- key-card your way in, browse on a touch screen for the latest Steve Buscemi movie, then rent it for just a buck or two per day. (You could try "Earl Grey, hot," but we're pretty sure you'll have to type in Star Trek: Next Gen before they'll let you have a DVD.)
Eighth-Grade Angst
Cassie Sullivan isn't politically correct -- according to the conservatives at her middle school, that is. So she spends a year journaling and reading Tolkien and Kurt Cobain and just generally being treated as an outcast in Brian Mandabach's new YA novel, OR NOT. Mandabach will read at Auntie's on Friday at 7:30 pm.
We Showed the Snow
Great turnout at the Snow Show on Nov. 16-17 -- swag bags, boarders riding the rails, local resorts signing folks up for season passes -- and judging from the view outside our windows, now there's actually some white stuff to slide around on. Our advice? Go to the nearest Northwest Rocky and ski it.
Hangin' With Mr. Higgins
Germans may have 22 more vacation days a year, but we've inflicted our TV reruns on them. Proof? In Germany now, they have a cell-phone game based on Magnum, P.I: "You are Thomas Magnum, ex-U.S. Navy Seal turned private investigator, and it's your job to scour Hawaii for known criminals in your loud beach shirts." In Dusseldorf, the stylish ballcaps are the Detroit Tigers'.
