kimmy

Racism? George is almost as pale as me. If he "got a haircut" he could "get a real job", just like in the song. He looks like an accountant with a mullet. There's a wonderful blues guitarist here in town. I've seen him play a few times at local joints, and I love the sound. I'd far rather listen to authentic blues musicians than hear some middle-aged white accountant with a mullet brag about what a bad-ass he is while simultaneously explaining that he's a deadbeat who can't pay his bills or keep the missus happy. -k

I don't even go out on my bicycle without a helmet. Still, I must ask: if someone doesn't have to wear a helmet, why should anybody else have to? Why is "my sky-daddy says not to cover my head" any more valid a reason than "it messes up my hair"? -k

I gotta say it... I enjoyed seeing the Eskimos smack the shit out of the Roughriders and Tiger-Cats! They ripped 'em up honey-badger style! 1000 yards of offense in the first 2 weeks! -k

I object to Guns And Roses being lumped in with the rest of that feces. They made some great music and their handful of radio hits was just the tip of the iceberg as far as what they were capable of. (as with Nirvana and "Teen Spirit" or Pink Floyd and "Another Brick in the Wall", so with Guns and Roses and "Sweet Child of Mine".) -k

Do you have a favorite pie? -k

For me, it was Aerosmith that made me turn off "classic rock radio" forever. You can only hear about some senior citizen "living it up while he's going down" so many times. Saying Nirvana only has "Smells like teen spirit" because that's all they play on the radio is like saying Pink Floyd just has "Another brick in the wall" because that's all that they play on the radio. It sounds like you should consider changing to a different radio station. George Thorogood has more than one song. It's just that they all sound exactly the same. Generic George Thorogood Hit G (I'm rather intoxicated.) G (My life partner is mad at me) C (because I sit around a bar all day) G (instead of looking for work.) D (I can't find gainful employment) C (and my financial situation is precarious.) G (I don't know how I find the money) D7 (to pay for all the alcohol I drink.) -k

Krista Erickson should not be criticized for asking questions of an artist who receives government funding. Krista Erickson should certainly be criticized for looking like a complete idiot. I love how she keeps referring to the viewers (both of them...) as "friends" and how she pronounces "great" as if it has 4 r's in it. Clearly she is somebody who spends more time in the tanning booth than she spends reading. If you didn't know better you'd think it was some character invented by Kristen Chynoweth for a SNL guest skit. I'm sure this interview was a big hit with the sort of guy who'll go tell his friends "haw haw, you shoulda seen that chick with the tan go after the artsie-fartsie chick, haw haw, it was great she really taught her a lesson hur hur hur" So... Krista Erickson is clearly an idiot of some kind, but I doubt that's actionable by the CBSC. Is all this free publicity good for Sun TV? I dunno, based on that display I can't imagine anybody wanting to watch more Sun TV. -k

Welcome Boges! Choose a sigil and family motto. In regard to sex, I think that while a few people earlier expressed a dislike of sex on TV in general, I think the more valid complaint in regard to Game Of Thrones is that it's become a bit of a running gag; people have taken to calling it "sexposition", as in if somebody's going to do some expository dialog they need a moaning hooker to tell it to. It's gotten to the point that people are making fun of it, which isn't necessarily a good thing. ...guyliner... Sean Bean... I think that without Sean Bean next season, that will free up some money for the CGI department. Some of the sets are pretty grand (although I think I heard they've been able to borrow some of the sets... the throne room in the Eyrie was made for a movie having something to do with a princess or something.) Even though they've avoided taking us to some of the locations in the book, they've still had to do several major sets, particularly in King's Landing. I think they made a decision to do a handful of sets really well rather than do more things badly, which overall I think is probably better. Still, they'll have to step up. There's war on the horizon and they won't be able to knock the point-of-view character unconscious for every battle. They'll need to boost the special effects budget as well, especially now that they have to put a notable fantasy element on TV. People noticed that the fearsome direwolves were actually friendly dogs and went missing for episodes at a time... they're sure to notice if the dragons aren't around. While being good clearly doesn't pay off... it's not clear that being bad turns out any better. The bad-guys had all the cards, but have ended up in a very precarious position too. Their heads are all still attached... for the time being... but that's not necessarily a permanent condition. Now that he's king he's less likely to take kindly to getting bitchslapped. Sandor warned Tyrion "he'll remember that..." the first time. I can only wonder how they're going to get a handle on the little moron. Well, that would be the prime example. It was also the main lesson of the Akallabeth. Then there's also the 9 lords who put on those stupid rings. Or Sauron. Or Melkor himself. Or Saruman. Or ... well, basically pretty much anybody who starts thinking that they're a big deal. -k

I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work there, Remiel. Ser Loras fled King's Landing with Renly several episodes ago. Renly has been declared a traitor; Loras is a suspected confederate of Renly's, so it would be very dangerous for Loras to return to King's Landing. He'd probably end up as a hostage in the dungeon, if not on a spike next to Ned. Also, something mentioned in the book makes it an impossibility; it's something the producers are keeping in their back pocket until season two, so I won't mention it, but trust me, it couldn't be Loras. Also, Cersei is not Loras' type (ie, she's a she... ) Also, IMDB confirms that Lancel was in episode 10 and Loras wasn't. I suspect they're fun to read because as I flounder along trying to guess where things are heading, you're thinking to yourself "*snicker* Boy are you in for a shock!" I write a bit myself, and I also spent several years in a writing group doing editing and providing advice to other would-be writers. So thinking analytically about how to tell stories kind of comes naturally for me, and some of what I've written in this thread is kind of me thinking out loud as I try to analyze how they're telling the story. Some of it has been just me needing to vent/emote/aarrrgggh! Anyway, being able to chat about the show with you gentlemen has been a lot of fun. Kind of like book club, but with less reading. It's been a pleasure walking down the Kingsroad with you guys. I've already pledged my sword to House "Wants to see Cersei weep hot, bitter tears" but I would rally to the banner of House "King Joffster's Head On A Spike" if they called. That occured to me: Sansa's value as a hostage probably doesn't last much longer, and she doesn't have any further value as a strategic marriage for Joffrey. But then again, the Joffster clearly isn't much of a strategic thinker. And Cersei might not have any say in who he marries... she seems to have lost her control over him. You just like him because he's living the libertarian dream. As somebody rooted in Tolkien, this display of hubris made me uneasy. If this was JRR Tolkien, his newly swollen head would lead to inevitable ruin. But since it's GRR Martin, who knows. The slapping, or One And A Half Men? I love the team... they've gotta take Bronn along to King's Landing. The slapping was strangely therapeutic... I couldn't stop watching it. -k {"In this land of dire wolves and lions, sometimes the rarest creature is... a friend."}

I did! The final scene made my eyes tear up. First off, because it was just so beautiful. It gave me that sense of wonderment that reminds me why I love this sort of thing in the first place. It was just enchanting. Secondly, because it was like our little girl is all grown up now. She started off as this scared helpless little thing, and look what she's become. By episode 8 she'd become a strong woman, but all that strength was derived from being Mrs Drogo. When he took ill and that guy told her that she'd be nothing once he was dead, it kind of seemed like he was right. Not so, she replies, I'm not nothing, I was never nothing. And it turns out she was right. Now she's strong because of who she is, not who she's married to or what she has in her belly. I mean, of course I'm assuming that those kittens are going to get bigger. If that's as big as they get, she should probably call off the invasion. The third reason it made me tear up was, ridiculously, because it reminded me of the day I got my kitty. I'd asked my parents for years if I could have a dog, the answer was always no. Then they gave my little brother a dog, and I was, as you might expect, furious. Then one day, "surprise!" they thrust this stupid little kitten at me, and I was ready to hate it because it was such a pathetically transparent attempt to buy my affection, and because it was not a dog. But it looked at me and reached out with his tiny little paws and cried out "mehhhh!!!" and it melted my heart. And when Dany's little guy climbed onto her shoulder and let loose his triumphant "mehhhh!" it reminded me of that moment. And it made me all emotional, because ......anyway... This was really Dany's episode, not just the epic final scene, but also everything leading up to it, from her grief at the miscarriage and Drogo's catatonic state to euthanizing him to how she dealt with Mirri Maz Dur. When Mirri Maz defiantly told her "You will not hear my screams!" I loved how she replied "I will." What was really great about this was that they spent the whole season building that scene. It didn't just happen, she paid for that moment with every moment before it. She's been pondering those eggs every episode. They've been hinting that she wouldn't burn right from the first moment we met her, when she steps into the scalding bath without flinching. And when she put them on the pyre, you had to know it was coming, yet it was still incredibly awesome. ... So, among the non-Dany parts of the episode... I'm not really sure what the point of the scene with Grand Maester Pycelle and Roz the hooker was. Was it just an excuse to put Rather Attractive Roz on the screen one last time? Or was there some plot point we were supposed to get out of it. What I got out of it, I guess, is ... Grand Maester P wanders around hunched over like a feeble old man... but in this scene as soon as Roz is out the door we see him doing deep knee bends and standing up straight, right until he's dressed and heading out, then he's feeble again. So ... like everybody else in town he's putting on a facade. Maybe we're supposed to think that Grand Maester P's blathering about Joffrey's future greatness was a bunch of crap he was saying so that Roz would mention it to Littlefinger. Or maybe I'm overthinking it and it was just an excuse to put Rather Attractive Roz on the screen one last time. Varys and Littlefinger sniping at each other didn't really serve much purpose either. They did the same thing earlier in the show, and this didn't really reveal anything new. Dany's eggs were a gift from Illirio, and Illirio and Varys were conspiring in an early episode, and the eggs had to come from the Red Keep, so it appears that Varys wanted Dany to have the eggs. Wonder why? I felt that the bits at the Wall were a little hammy. The love Jon's friends feel for him feels authentic, but the bit about reciting their vows again seemed a little cheesy. As did the drums and horns and voiceover as the watchmen gird up to ride out. It had something of a Shatneresque quality to it, I felt. Cersei's crafty plans have been ruined by her idiot son... she's in deep shit with dad... and her beloved Jaime is imprisoned by the Starks. Cersei seeks comfort in the arms of ... wait, is that Lancel Lannister?! Oh Cersei... sweetheart, we need to talk... I do like Jaime. If he weren't in love with the worst woman in the world and desperately trying to please the worst dad in the world, he'd probably be a dashing rogue or lovable rascal. "You should get some sleep... it's going to be a long war." One thing I wasn't clear on: Robb and his lords were arguing about whether Renly or Stannis was the rightful king. But unless they knew that Joffrey wasn't Robert's son, wouldn't they think Joffrey the rightful heir? And didn't the secret of Joffrey's parentage die with Ned? Robb should probably ship Jaime to Stannis as a gift. We have yet to see Stannis; I gather we're supposed to get that he's a serious bad-ass from the way others talk about him. In this episode Sansa has transformed into Li'l Cersei. Like Cersei, Sansa is a bitter and hate-filled girl who will be wed to a guy she despises and is planning to kill. In Cersei's case, the hate part didn't happen until the honeymoon, and the planning to kill part took longer, so Sansa has a head start. When The Hound stopped her from shoving Joffrey off the catwalk... was he protecting Joffrey, or was he protecting Sansa? In the book, when he walks her home from the tournament he becomes angry with her feigned politeness and her attempts to hide her disgust at his horrific scars, and he confronts her and makes her look at it and tells her the story behind it... and afterward they sit silently for a long time and she tells him that Gregor is no true knight. Reading that scene I wondered whether she'd won a bit of respect from him. And here I'm wondering if he felt a bit of sympathy for her. "Spare yourself some pain..." "Keep it... you'll need it again." Sandor knows as well as anyone what a miserable piece of crap Joffrey is. Of course, even if he did want to help her, there's not actually anything he can do for her anyway. I liked the scene with Tyrion and Tywin. Even though Tyrion pretends not to care, he still craves validation. It felt good to see him receive the strong vote of confidence from Tywin, and the affirmation "You're my son." As close to a touching family moment as you could get in that twisted clan. Shae The Funny Whore will be an interesting plot element to watch next season. I don't think for a moment that she's what she appears. Shae the Funny Dornish Assassin seems more likely... on a related note, I hope we haven't seen the last of Bronn. He and Tyrion make a lovable team. And I'm certainly looking forward to seeing Tyrion slap some sense into Joffrey. -k

Yes, I enjoyed seeing the "oh FUCK no!" look on her face as she realized that her cunning masterstroke was being undone by her dumb-shit offspring whose grasp of politics begins and ends with "I'm the King so everybody has to do what I want." The scene early in the series where she tries to educate him on the way politics works gives some insight into what was going on in both of their heads at that moment. Many excellent scenes on the TV show were scenes that don't appear in the books. Particularly scenes involving the Lannister family. Cersei's tutelage of Joffrey, Cersei and Robert talking about their marriage and the future of the kingdom, Jaime and Jory talking as Jaime stands guard outside Robert's bedchambers as he cavorts with a legion of prostitutes, and the touching father-son moment we had with Tywin and Jaime ... none appear in the book, because there's no Lannister point-of-view characters, but they've all been really good scenes that add depth to the characters. While it's somewhat blasphemous to say the movie beats the book... this is one area where the movie beats the book. They've greatly fleshed out the villains. I can hardly wait. I'm stoked! Yet also sad that it's over. I'm surprised that there even is a fifth book, because I'd assumed from the title of the fourth book, "A Feast For Crows", that everybody would be dead and all that was left was carrion. As a fan of the books, how do you feel about the TV show as far as being a true and worthy adaptation? Personally, from reading and watching simultaneously, I've been really impressed by how closely they complement each other. Everything just fits. When I saw the end of last week's episode, my first thought (once I'd recovered) was that I was so glad I saw that before I read it. I think I'm going to do the same thing in season 2. I wouldn't want to cost myself a moment like that. -k

But that doesn't appear to have been the case at all. According to the article BC linked to above (thanks, Dick!) it wasn't the longevity of their bulbs that led to the end of Shelby Electric Company. It was amalgamation into a consortium of electric light companies that was owned by General Electric and eventually disbanded as a result of a federal Anti-Trust suit. -k

Topaz also thinks Alex Jones Infowarz is real. -k

In all seriousness, I think there's something to this. Perhaps not a bounty on raccoons specifically, but to the idea that there's a pool of unskilled laborers out there who could earn some money doing things that would be useful to cities. In my neighborhood, there are very efficient bottle-pickers. I leave empties out by the alley and they're gone by the next morning. I met one of them a few weeks ago when I was out behind the garage doing a bit of painting. He rolled up on his bicycle, which was heavily loaded with empties already, and asked if I had any, mentioning that empties are often left here. I did, as it turns out, and I brought them. He thanked me, I thanked him, we did a "fist-bump", and he was on his way. So... this was a mutually beneficial exchange. I could take the empties to the bottle depot myself, but compared to the annoyance of finding time to do it and waiting in long lines in a smelly, noisy bottle depot where your shoes stick to the floor, the financial incentive isn't really that compelling. For him, he earns some money doing this, and he feels like he's doing something useful. He's not sitting on a sidewalk begging for money, he's earning it, and I think that mattered to him. He seemed to have a much more upbeat attitude than the panhandlers I encounter. Bottle-recycling does seem to work pretty well. How could the same principle be applied to other things? -scrap metal is a big one. Scrap metal recycling is becoming such a big business that some people aren't even waiting for the metal to be scrap before they recycle it. There have been lots of stories of buildings being stripped of electrical wiring overnight by people who just wanted to steal the copper. For urban campers, however, scrap metal would be too heavy to recycle without a vehicle. -paper cups. I can't walk down the street without seeing Tim Hortons cups lying around. Maybe there should be a 5-cent deposit on paper or plastic cups. People might grumble about their coffee costing 5 more cents, but they've brought it on themselves with rampant littering. What else? I dunno. The idea of providing some small financial incentive to perform some small task that would make your city a little bit nicer would be great. It would be great if somebody could earn $5 by going out and cleaning up all the litter on some stretch of road, or something like that, but how could you actually do it? A bounty on bottles, or paper cups, or raccoons, is easy to figure out because it's a single identifiable object. Other sorts of labor couldn't be as easily verified. -k

"Hey everybody! Look! I'm not watching hockey! Hey, I like baseball! Hey, everybody, listen! I don't even like hockey! I'm telling you, I don't like hockey! Didn't anybody hear me the first 100 times when I said I don't like hockey? Everybody pay attention! I'm telling you, I don't like hockey! I like baseball! And football! Doesn't anybody want to talk about baseball with me? Please?" -k {not sure how playing football all winter long makes anymore sense than playing hockey in June.}

That is nifty! -k

I was just freaking floored. I was pretty much shell-shocked until bedtime. Even though I was aware of the premise that shocks would happened, I wasn't prepared for *that*. It left me quite happy with my strategy of not reading ahead of the show, because if I'd read that in the book first, it just wouldn't have left me gobsmacked the way seeing it happen live did. Which leaves me with a bit of dilemna. I've read that filming of season 2 begins next month, but it won't be on TV until next April. I don't know if I can wait that long to find out what happens next, yet I don't want to spoil it by reading the book first. argh! -k

I thought this was cute... In a fire hall in Livermore California, a light bulb is still going after 110 years! It's probably the only lightbulb in the world with its own website, as well as a Wikipedia entry. The legend of the bulb even inspired a side-plot in an episode of the sci-fi show Warehouse 13. The bulb is a "Shelby Bulb", a slightly different technology from the popular Edison incandescent bulb. One wonders if the Shelby Electric Company left the lightbulb business because people never had to buy replacement bulbs. -k

The interesting part of this to me isn't the riot itself, which is nothing new. The interesting part to me was the role that social media is playing in the aftermath. We're at a point in history where everybody has a camera and a video-recorder in their pocket, and the means to publish their pictures and videos to an audience of millions. There are a number of websites involved in collecting and posting photos and videos of rioters, and a lot of people are visiting those sites to see if people they know are in those videos. There's now a Facebook group with 100,000 members devoted to the same task. ...a task which has been made easier thanks to some morons boasting of their riot exploits on their own facebook pages. http://www.vancouverriots.com/ http://publicshamingeternus.wordpress.com/ -k

Why pay 50 cents for dead raccoons when enterprising Urban Campers could use the pelts to make stylish fur hats worth a hundred times that much! -k

what -k

One of the things that's interesting about the show right now is that the 3 strongest characters are women. You wouldn't have really expected it to pan out that way based on earlier episodes. Cersei, of course, is running everything at this point... or she thinks she is, at least. Nobody has been better at imposing their will. Dany has evolved from frightened little pawn to a woman who feels confident enough to boss around a whole barbarian horde. And Catelyn Stark, while not having the ambition of the other two, is the steel in Robb's spine as he leads the northmen to war. She guides and mentors him without ever undermining him in front of the lords under his command. The TV show doesn't make this as clear as it is in the book, but she's the glue holding Robb and the whole north army together. One think I liked in the book that was missing from the show was that when Robb "called the banners", there were actual banners. It was described with some amount of pageantry, the banners of all the lords who came when Robb called them. I think we only saw Greatjon's banner, in the background in the dining hall. "Your meat... ...is bloody tough!" was a great scene on TV. Some of the other bannermen have also been cut or condensed into Greatjon for the sake of expedience and not having a cast of thousands. The Glovers, Bolton Roose, and a lord Tallhart appear to have been composited into Greatjon. Jorah's dad is a regular on the show, commanding the forces at The Wall. Jorah's mom also appears in the book, a grey-haired woman armored like a man, leading the Mormont forces. She tells Robb he's just a boy with no business leading an army... then adds that she has a grand-daughter he should meet. One of my favorite moments on last week's episode was when Tyrion introduces his motley crew to his dad, and concludes with "...and Bronn, son of ... " then he and Bronn exchange blank looks. "You wouldn't know him," Bronn shrugs. I also liked the part where Ned asked Varys who he really serves, and Varys replies "I serve the realm. Somebody has to." He has a point... none of the nobles, including Ned himself, has considered the lives of "the small people". They've all opted for paths that will lead to war that will cost thousands of lives. It would be nice to think that Varys is doing all of this work behind the scenes to try to prevent war and save all those lives. But we already saw Varys conspiring with Illio to --it looks like-- try to bring the barbarian horde across the sea, and as we saw this episode there couldn't be much worse for "the small people" than a Dothraki horde stampeding around Westeros. Still can't even guess what Varys' angle is. I'm pretty stoked for tomorrow night's episode... it's the 2nd last, there should be great doings, and I can't read any farther in the book without spoiling it. -k

Don't forget that he also reached down a dude's throat and ripped his tongue out! That's pretty bad-ass (although, not very realistic, because tongues are pretty slippery and probably hard to grip.) Hey, he's a plot device. A big, strong, scary, muscular, rather handsome plot device... I think that (like Lovecraft) it's his ideas that made him popular, not his actual skill with prose. He was an academic with a vast knowledge of a large number of modern languages and extinct languages of northern Europe. And surviving examples of ancient languages are often in the form of sagas and epics and heroic verse. And I think that's kind of what inspired him as an author. I recall that not too long ago somebody published a big pile of Tolkien's academic work, including his translation and critique of Beowulf. -k

It's gotten to the point that an unhappy ending for Cersei would qualify as a happy ending. Even if it's watching her weep as snow zombies and eternal blizzards destroy everything she's fought for. Still, maybe it's not as bleak as I'd figured. They still have to get Boromir out of prison somehow right? His picture's on the DVD set, they can't kill him off yet! Perhaps Robb will surprise us. I recall chambers full of barely-clad harem girls, and a snake the size of Texas, and I recall James Earl Jones' eyes turning into snake eyes and then transforming into a snake entirely. And he took a snake and used it like an arrow and shot some chick with it... and I think there was some kind of big cult or something... and ... I remember dudes wearing really bad wigs that appeared to have been inspired by "This Is Spinal Tap". All I really remember was that it was pretty trippy. If the new movie takes me to a trippy world, I might want to go back. Possibly with mind-altering substances to enhance the experience. If they just give me an angry dude with a sword avenging this and liberating that, it'll be pretty dull. I suspect they're using "sword and sorcery" to describe a sub-genre of fantasy, just as they use "high fantasy" to describe Tolkien's and similar work. I gather "sword and sorcery" refers to the lurid stories Howard published in "Weird Tales" magazine, and work inspired by them. Tolkien's work owes more to Nordic sagas and Arthurian legends and Beowulf and the Kalevala. Tolkien's day job was as a professor of languages... he created imaginary languages for fun, then decided to create imaginary people who spoke them, then an imaginary world for them to live in, then an imaginary history for his imaginary world... and all of this was imagining was going on for a couple of decades before he decided to actually write a complete book set in his imaginary world. The Hobbit might have been published after Howard died, but Tolkien was already building Middle Earth when Howard was a toddler. Weird Tales must have been quite a magazine... I recall that that's where H.P. Lovecraft's work was originally published as well, another author whose work was a powerful influence on everybody who followed, yet at the time was just filler in a pulp magazine. -k

This week's episode was pretty tame compared to the last one... Syrio fighting off the guardsmen with his wooden practice sword to let Arya escape was splendid. I've enjoyed him; I assume he's dead now. Tyrion becoming, apparently, a general is a pretty funny development. Jaime leads 30,000 Lannister soldiers to glory in the Riverlands... and Tyrion, apparently, will be leading 3000 clueless hillbillies with furs and pitchforks into battle against an imbecile child and his insane mother. Tyrion himself would think that was hilarious, I think. I suppose Robb rallying the north to war should have been rousing and inspiring, but the way things go on this show, you can't be roused or inspired because you already know it'll end badly. They'll get to Lord Frey's bridge, and he'll pretend to honor their allegiance, and they'll discover too late that he's been bought by the Lannisters. Robb's army will be routed back to the north, Riverrun will fall to Jaime, and Lord Frey will be installed as the new Lord of the Riverlands. I don't know it, but it just seems inevitable, y'know? It seems telegraphed. After I watched the 7th Harry Potter film, I found myself thinking: there's only 1 episode left, and it doesn't seem like nearly enough time for the bad-guys to get the payback they deserve. They could spend the last half hour of the series blasting Bellatrix in the face with a baseball bat, and it still wouldn't seem like enough to pay her back for all the murder and suffering she's committed in the prior several films. To say nothing of the guy with no nose. Game of Thrones is starting to seem like that... it seems like there's increasingly small chance of "the bad guys" receiving any payback that would fit the injustices they've inflicted. -k