Tuning in to TV

“It’s scary,” Mr. Gill said. “I was in the van five minutes before this happened.”

Mr. Nelson said he did not know the exact size, speed or weight of the cannonball.

Cellphone game gets Baldwin kicked off plane

American Airlines used social media to explain its actions Wednesday after Alec Baldwin said he was booted from a flight for playing a word game on his cellphone as the plane was about to depart from Los Angeles.

Without naming the “30 Rock” actor, the airline said on its Facebook page that an “extremely vocal customer” declined to turn off his phone when asked to do so by a flight attendant.

The company said the customer stood up and took his phone into the lavatory, slamming the door so loudly the pilots heard it.

On Twitter, American Airlines said its flight attendants followed federal safety regulations regarding electronic devices.

Mr. Baldwin boarded another American Airlines flight to New York after Tuesday’s incident, but said he wouldn’t fly with the airline again.

Before being booted from the first flight, the actor was playing a game called “Words with Friends” while the plane idled at a gate at Los Angeles International Airport, said Mr. Baldwin’s spokesman, Matthew Hiltzik.

“He loves ‘Words with Friends’ so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it,” Mr. Hiltzik said.

Mr. Baldwin, a prolific Twitter user, took to the social media site to vent, saying a “flight attendant on American reamed me out 4 playing Words With Friends while we sat at the gate, not moving.”

Mr. Baldwin tweeted that it would be his last flight with American, despite the fact that they show “30 Rock” for in-flight entertainment.

Netflix CEO believes his Internet service will prevail

To hear Netflix CEO Reed Hastings tell it, the boneheaded decisions that have dragged down the Internet’s leading video subscription service during the past five months eventually will be forgotten like a bad movie made by a great film director.

Shaking off the stigma of a massive flop won’t be easy, a challenge Mr. Hastings acknowledged late Tuesday when he spoke at a UBS investor conference in New York. After his host mentioned the mystique surrounding Mr. Hastings as Netflix’s fortunes soared a year ago, Mr. Hastings quipped: “Now, it’s just pity.”

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