Ooooh, good story. I have grown so grateful to Popcorn Fiction (whenever I have a wait to fill, first I stop by GITS, and then on to PF, and before I know it, wait is over, works every time). Such great stuff.

For anyone interested in real life thief story to riff off, from Telegraph via Pitchfork, thieves in London saw opportunity in riots and robbed Sony.

Kindle sales matched tree book sales recently at amazon, huge news, am so curious if digital format and easy access to great and varied work will make this nation truly a nation of readers (discouraging stat from last May, via Jane Friedman, "Stat from BEA: 7% of books published generate 87% of book sales. And 93% of all published books sell less than 1,000 copies each.).

Wow, that is a shocking statistic: 93% of published books sell less than 1,000 copies. Does that pertain to ebooks as well?

I don't think so, stat from May 2010, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis' annual stat release, and wow have ebooks exploded since then. I am stunned. And delighted. (Esp at the growing DIY publishing possibilities.) Digging through charts, best I can ascertain, their metrics don't yet encompass ebooks, rather book stats captured through "recreational paper products" and "publishing (including software)", and the latter has been identified as growth sector (here and here). (Maybe Amazon can publish more detailed analysis :-).)

Came across that 93%/<1000 stat last May, so discouraging, the narrow array of our country's reading. Also means it's even more critical to write great entertainment for the screen, so that folks get truly engaged and learn and think etc. (Yesterday saw three Dr. Who, the quality of writing (Russell T. Davies) blew me away, great example that quality writing far more important than quality sets, so shout-out to Dr. Who, in case anyone looking for truly compelling entertainment.)

Scott, I suggested Contagion as clip, realized then, eeek, spoiler?! Sorry about that. In case you do end up using, let me know, happy to transcribe clip.

Atlanta, the reviews of "Contagion" as it debuts at film fests is quite strong. Good to see for a smart, taut drama that doesn't go in for typical Hollywood histrionics, but plays it -- as I understand it -- very realistic, making the whole thing that much more frightening.

It was reading (very likely in one of your posts or post links, Scott) about Soderbergh wanting realism that made me so excited about Contagion. I suspect too will amp the terror, am curious to see if that's the case. Having spent time in hospital recently (it's all good, family member getting better), I got to where I could winnow down doctor speciality just watching them walk in room, and could ID surgeons (who'd be seals if they were military, astronauts if they were with NASA) and infectious disease doctors (the quirky ones, askew posture and crooked smiles, and brilliant) off the bat. And the infectious doctors were my favorite (one even got invite to visit, should she ever be in Atlanta to visit CDC), looking forward to seeing smart scientists and infectious disease doctors in Contagion.