@Kevin - Yes, that's "The Watson" played straight. You might also call it a minor use of "The Idiot Ball" as it strains credibility and willing suspension of disbelief for anyone who's taken a physics course to ask what a singularity is (but in retrospect, even theoretical physicists differ on the nature of black holes, so it's an opportunity to set the rules of the universe).

Wonder how the Game of Thrones series ever made it to print, more incest than a family reunion in Arkansas.

@DSKekaha - Deconstructing the lampshade. I love it.

Home Alone 2 was filmed in the Plaza Hotel (known then as the Park Plaza Hotel) and the staff, at least, are portrayed as "the finest idiots in New York". I'm sure the hotel received monetary consideration (and a "special thanks" as the production actually filmed inside the hotel. For you just to mention it, I'd say as long as you're just using it as a place to be there'd be no cause for alarm on anyone's part. Legally speaking, the hotel is a "place of public accomodation"; while not public land, the rights of the landowner including privacy considerations are necessarily relaxed.

@Aerovistae - Why's it funny? It's actually fairly logical in the era of WYSIWYG editors. You won't be able to control all of the specifics your publisher will in something basic like MS Word or AOO Writer, but InDesign/FrameMaker/QuarkXpress were written specifically to allow this level of control. The only question is cost.

The script for the movie, and the director and actors, used "Jack" from the Reader's Digest series (which exists) as the name for Norton's on-screen character to differentiate from Brad Pitt's character (and from true narrations), because (spoiler alert) Norton and Pitt are the same person with the same real name. And, the film is pretty firmly in the "dark comedy" genre alongside Dr. Strangelove, The Graduate, etc

That makes sense, and there's some truth in television there; even if everyone forward of the gallery rail is competent in legal procedure, the guys in the jury box and the gallery behind are not, nor would they be experts in the exact subject matter of the trial (such as medical malpractice), so participants in legal proceedings very often have to explain things to the jury that would be common knowledge to most of the participants.

Fight Club did much the same; "Jack" (Norton's character) narrated most of the story in a combination of VO and fourth-wall on-screen exposition. It really only works on-screen for these kinds of comedies, where you're allowed to play with the idea that at least one person in a movie knows they're in a movie (or in the abstract, telling a story)

The idea of NaNoWriMo got me started on what I'm currently writing, from hearing it last year. I only managed to write the first chapter or two that month as I have a day job and kids, but I've kept at it and it's starting to turn into a story. Still nowhere near ready to show anyone, but if nothing else NaNoWriMo gave me the impetus to start the project and keep it going even if I'm a year overdue.