I need some advice here. As a member of the Television Academy and the Writers Guild and a couple of other groups, I am periodically deluged with "screeners" — DVDs of current motion pictures and television programs. They're sent to us free in the hope that we'll vote for these movies and shows when we vote on awards.

There are hundreds of these things piled up and filling boxes in my home. I may even have a few crates of 'em in my public storage locker…and I'll tell you how long I've been getting them. I have at least four boxes of screeners on VHS tapes. I might even have one or two on Beta.

I have not watched all of them, of course. No one who gets screeners in the quantity that I get screeners watches all the screeners they get. You couldn't. But I watch some and, truth be known, a few have perhaps left me more inclined to vote for what I saw for some trophy. At least one or two have left me less disposed.

But I welcome them all and have even done some the honor of placing them on the shelves where I store DVDs that I intentionally purchase and wish to keep in my library. That still, however, leaves a helluva lot that I don't know what to do with.

The nature of screeners has changed. When I first began getting them, they were usually accompanied with stern, lawyer-authored letters and warning stickers ordering you to watch them and then destroy them like you were a C.I.A. agent receiving hush-hush top secret instructions which could doom Democracy if they fell into enemy hands. You were threatened with incarceration if you sold them and the death penalty (or worse) if you did anything with them of a bootlegging nature. Your copy, you were warned, was encoded with tracking information that could lead the FBI to you faster than you could say "Efrem Zimbalist, Jr." — that is, if you could even say "Efrem Zimbalist, Jr." I can't.

I never understood two things about those warning letters. One was that why they were so worried about someone bootlegging a DVD of a TV show that could be recorded off the air or a movie that could be rented in two weeks from Netflix. At one point, this perhaps made a wee bit of sense as we sometimes got screeners of films that wouldn't be released on home video for a few months. But the time between a film's theatrical exhibition and its availability on DVD and Blu-ray has now narrowed to almost nothing. Moreover, the same ominous warnings came on a DVD screener of an episode of Sex in the City that I still had on my TiVo and which would rerun five times the following week on HBO.

I'm against copyright violation but I have to wonder: Has any pirate ever not pirated because he didn't get his copy of the movie free and had to go rent one? Is there really a lot of dough to be made by duping and selling a DVD of two episodes of Pawn Stars? You probably couldn't even pawn the thing.

The other thing that puzzled me was whether the folks who wrote these letters really understood what they were writing. What all the threatening notes and stickers seemed to be saying was this…

We know you didn't ask for this video but we sent it to you anyway and you're in big trouble, fella, if you don't handle it the way we tell you to handle it!

Can I really get arrested for what I do with an unsolicited gift? And is trying to intimidate someone like that a good way to get them to vote for your movie as Best Picture of the Year?

Anyway, the screeners pile up here and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. I'm not going to go to the trouble to destroy hundreds of DVDs. Too much effort. And I think it's tacky and probably illegal to try and sell them…and besides, there can't be a lot of money to be made there.

Someone I asked suggested I post a list here and offer to mail a few to any readers of this site willing to pay postage. I don't want to spend my time taking and filling orders.

I could just throw them out but that seems either wasteful or like I'm just handing them out to strangers. On trash night, there are people who come by in trucks and go through the garbage bins in this neighborhood, looking for stuff they can use or sell. I guarantee they'd grab these. (I once saw a homeless guy on Hollywood Boulevard set up with a display of screener DVDs for sale.)

Is tossing them out for the trash-rummagers my best option? It may well be. But before I take it, I'm putting the question out for suggestions. Even though those threats from the studio are kinda vacuous and empty, I'd like to not violate the spirit of their silly, unenforceable laws. I also have environmental concerns.

I can't be the only one to have this problem, though few have perhaps allowed the accumulation to reach the magnitude of mine. Is there a practical way to recycle hundreds of DVDs — some in cardboard folders, others in elaborate and expensive special bindings — in a way that the studios bless? Is there some charity that could use them? An agency that ships them to servicemen and women? Anything like that? Drop me a line if you have a great solution.

We like Neil Patrick Harris, especially when he's doing big production numbers. Here's a pretty big one he did back in 2013 to kick off the season of Disney trying to see how much money the corporation could wring out of Christmas that year. This, by the way, is not in any way an insult or gesture of disrespect towards that grand holiday and institution. But wishing someone "Happy Holidays" is war…

Does this blog look any different to you? We've moved. In fact, I've moved all my blogs to a new hosting company, Chunkhost. It should mean more speed for you and it definitely means fewer bucks for me.

So far, I'm really happy with Chunkhost. If you need a company to host your web presence online, go take a look at them. And if you go there through my link and sign up, I get a teensy cut of the action.

My buddy Joe Brancatelli has some tips on how to avoid long delays at airports. Unfortunately, when I fly, I rarely seem to have much choice of flights or connecting airports…but a lot of this is good to know.

For a limited time — so don't delay — many articles from the New Yorker archives are online for free reading. Greg Kelly points out to me that you can read Calvin Trillin's 1989 piece on Penn & Teller, for instance.

So the other night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart mentioned environmental protestors and they used a quick news photo of some. You see that guy with the beard? That's Ken Gale, who hosts the program Eco-Logic on WBAI radio in New York. He used to host 'Nuff Said, which was the first (or at least, the most notable in terms of pioneering) radio show devoted to comic books. Ken has two passions — the environment and comic books — which shows you his passion for desperate causes. He's written comics and written about comics and he even hosts panels at comic book conventions. Yes, I'm not the only person who does that.

I did Ken's radio show a few times. When I used to go to New York often, I'd fly in on Sunday in time to check into the hotel, catch a Broadway show that evening, take my date to Ollie's Noodle Shop for dinner and then drag her to this funky radio station in a bad neighborhood while I guested live on Ken's program. He seemed to have a surprisingly large and dedicated audience — they even tuned in when I was on — and he and his co-host Ed Menje were good interviewers. Sorry that went away…and nice to see him again even for a fleeting glimpse over Jon Stewart's shoulder.

I miss my old pal Howard Morris, who passed away in 2005. Howie was a great comedic actor who usually worked in support of folks who were louder and bigger so they got more of the attention. Here he is getting his clothes ripped off on a sketch with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on Your Show of Shows. Boy, he was good…

Congressguy Peter King is outraged over the color of Barack Obama's suit. Well, not really. What offends him is the color of the president's skin but it's safer to make it about the suit.

Why do airlines cancel flights? According to Amy Cohn, it's not for the reason you'd think; that it will save them money.

We're going to see a lot of these…articles speculating on whether Comic-Con International will decamp from San Diego and relocate elsewhere. I am cited as a person whose opinion — that Comic-Con will not move — is worthy of some consideration. Let me explain why I think what I think…

It's not that the folks who run Comic-Con would refuse to move if they felt the convention was being harmed by staying put. They clearly like San Diego and the set-up they have there but if they couldn't get the terms and cooperation they need, they'd migrate. I just don't think the folks in San Diego who control the convention center and the connected businesses could possibly be so f'ing stupid that they'd let this thing get away.

Estimates vary on how much loot Comic-Con brings into the local economy. Whatever it is, it's a lot. Comic-Con is by far the largest annual convention to hit the city and even if some of us are a little frugal in our dining, it's a massive cash infusion. If Comic-Con does not do wonders for businesses in San Diego, no convention does and they shouldn't have built that big convention center in the first place, let alone be frantic to expand its size.

And it isn't just a matter of how much Comic-Con itself energizes the economy there for five days each year. It's that that whole section of town is constructed to cater to conventions. That's why they built the Marriott next door and the Hyatt next door to the Marriott and the Hilton on the other side of the convention center and the other Hilton across from it, etc. It's to service and exploit those who attend whatever's in the convention center and/or at Petco Park. Petco Park alone won't do it, especially when it ain't Baseball Season.

The entire financial Raison d'être of that area began with Comic-Con. Comic-Con is what made San Diego a convention town. Before that, the whole area was bars and strip joints…and tattoo parlors in the Good Ol' Days when the only people who got them were sailors. Downtown S.D. and the area now filled with hotels and the convention center catered to sailors stationed in the area. And when that stopped being a viable industry, along came the convention industry.

Comic-Con is the keystone to that industry. If the city lost that, they wouldn't just lose what Comic-Con brings in. They'd jeopardize their entire rep and momentum as a town that attracts other conventions. So I don't think the city will ever be dumb enough not to give Comic-Con the terms and support it requires.

Ah, but might Comic-Con move in order to get bigger? To expand beyond the capacity of that building in San Diego? I don't think so. For one thing, even a larger convention center might not serve Comic-Con's needs because it wouldn't have the outside support. The Los Angeles Convention Center has more square footage…but it doesn't have all those hotels and restaurants within easy walking distance. It's also a terrible, terrible convention center with a confusing, sprawling layout and awful parking and too many other crowd magnets within a block or two. For reasons I've stated here before, I don't think Las Vegas or Anaheim would work, either. Those are the alternatives.

I could be wrong about the city driving Comic-Con away. San Diego has not always had the sanest governing bodies — Google "Bob Filner" for but one example — but they'd have to be quite mad to lose one of the best things that ever happened to that city. And the only way I see Comic-Con getting bigger is to expand into more of the surrounding city, which is not really an option in L.A., Vegas or Anaheim.

I think…I hope we'll be there for a long, long time. One of these days, I'll write a long post about how my feelings about Comic-Con are changing; how some aspects of it no longer thrill me as they once did and I've found others to take their place. But that'll be a post about me, not the convention. The convention as it is works just fine, right where it is. I don't want to see them screw with it by trying to move it to another city. (Then again, WonderCon did survive the relocation from San Francisco to Anaheim, so…)

We're changing hosting companies. Normal posting will resume sometime Friday.

Fred Kaplan on why he believes Obama should not bomb Isis in Syria. I don't get that anyone really knows exactly what to do with Syria or even what we want the place to be like when we're done with it. All I know is that the people crying loudest for us to bomb there are the people who are always yelling for us to bomb everywhere. And if we'd gotten President John McCain, they probably would have gotten their wish.

That's Jack Kirby, dancing with his beloved Roz at a surprise birthday party some of us threw for him in 1987 when he turned 70. He was born in the not-so-affluent part of New York on August 28, 1917 so he could have been 97 today.

I have written thousands of pages and articles about Jack and somehow, it never seems to be enough. There are people out there who think he was just a great comic book artist and the co-creator of some of the world's most popular fictional characters. That would have been enough to warrant all the honors and accolades he achieved in his life…and the recognition of him has only grown since we lost him in 1994.

But Jack was more than that and it's tough to put it into words. I used to use "visionary" until it came to be applied to everyone who ever thought of anything. "Genius" isn't bad but Jack's uncanny ability to understand and prophesize didn't span the galaxy like so many of his stories. His mind raced about from topic to topic, leapfrogging over some to land in the darnedest places. He would start talking about the future and take you there via a load of yesterdays and even a couple of todays. If he sounded disconnected, it was partially your fault for being unable to bridge the gaps as he vaulted from one thought to another.

He knew he was the best in his field but somehow, he was amazingly humble about it. When one of his comics or stories met with disapproval somewhere, he wasn't bothered. He just said, "You watch. One of these days, most people will come to appreciate it." And more often than not, that's exactly what happened. It's why his work — even work which at the time was deemed a flop — is constantly reprinted, much of it in very fancy volumes.

I loved the sheer, non-monetary value of being around him. There was so much to learn and somehow, when you talked with Jack, you came away feeling more talented and energized. That was because he treated you as an equal so some of the sheer imagination within him was absorbed by osmosis. You didn't have to actually meet Jack to be inspired by him — you could do that by reading darned near anything he worked on. But meeting him sure helped. It reminded you that human beings could do things like he did and that he thought you were fit to breathe the same air.

Happy Birthday, Jack. It's hard to miss you when there's so much of you surrounding us. But miss you, we do…

While Jon Oliver's on vacation, they've been releasing little "web-only" videos — like this one, for instance…

The news that Mitt Romney may run again reminds me of joke that Mort Sahl (I think it was) told in 1961. It went like this: "Looking ahead to 1964, the Republicans are thinking of running Richard Nixon again so they won't have to break in a new loser."

I agree with what Jon Stewart said last night. At times, I don't think Fox News is the right-wing channel so much as it is the haven for white people who think the whole world's supposed to go their way on every issue. The whining and outrage about folks wanting to acknowledge that there are other holidays adjacent to December 25 is a dead giveaway.

I recently read Behind the Curtain: An Insider's View of Jay Leno's Tonight Show by Dave Berg, who is no relation to the guy in MAD who used to do "The Lighter Side of Staple Removers" and other controversial articles. This Mr. Berg worked on the show for years and since he had a political background, was very much involved in the booking of politicians who came on. I found the book pleasant but not particularly packed with revelations.

Berg is a big fan of Leno (as am I) and he doesn't dig any real dirt because, and this corresponds to what I've always heard, there wasn't much. A few guests' misbehavior is about the extent of the scandals. He does go through the whole Jay/Conan mess and his version matches my understanding: NBC made a series of bad decisions and Jay unfairly wound up looking like the Bad Guy. If you're interested in reading that and the rest of the book, you can order one here.

Lastly: Posting, I know, has been light here lately. I have a few longish pieces in the works so it will all average out.