All Activity

I met up with a friend and her family on May 4th. They were a bit late arriving because their 7 year old had to stop and get a photo with Chewbacca and a couple of R2s outside the Lego store, he was apparently thrilled by this. They said he knows Star Wars from playing the Lego Star Wars games. They were debating which film to show him first, my friend's husband thought he might be the right age to appreciate The Phantom Menace and he would probably think Jar Jar Binks was funny whereas my friend was very against that and thought it should be A New Hope. I can see both points of view.

Hmm... Marry Osha, she seems quite resourceful and ultimately caring or at least loyal. Bang Val, she's quite the beauty and... I don't know who else to choose. Kill Ygritte, because to tell the truth, I didn't really like her that much. Jealousy? Who said anything about that? Next, some interesting (I think) minor characters: Anguy the Archer, Alleras the Sphinx, Darkstar (Gerold Dayne) (There are so many more of these minor characters though. How does GRRM keep track of all of them and the story? It's incredible and crazily impressive.)

Teachers seem to generally be more alarmed at the idea of banning sex education for under 9s than the other connotations (since they note they don't exactly go around handing out "how to change your gender" leaflets in the first place). Puberty can kick in at around 9. A girl in my class at primary school - a Catholic primary school in the 1980s so ha ha ha on us knowing anything - started her puberty at 9 and it freaked the hell out of her because she didn't know what was going on. I didn't have any sex education of any kind until the first year of secondary school, although my parents had a fumbling go at explaining the birds and the bees a bit before then. Now working in Safeguarding, there's a common pattern of children suffering abuse not being able to recognise that abuse until they get into sex education and the parts of it about the age to be exploring that stuff and consent, and they abruptly realise something horrible has been happening to them and they can then report it. Pulling the age at which sex education can start upwards could actively stop some of that early abuse coming to light. I don't even think they expect any of this stuff to stick, it's just a last-minute thing they can do so Labour can reverse it and they can then paint them as weird sickos (despite the Tories having 14 years themselves to do something about it and they didn't, because they were actually listening to the experts up until recently).

Yeah, nowadays the Zelda canon is considerably less stable than, say, Doctor Who. Three timelines lmao But back then it was a pretty clear attempt to tell the legend in the backstory of LttP.

That was Gollum Beta. They totally redesigned and redid him for The Two Towers (Gollum Prime). In fact, they redid him again for Return of the King, to have something like twice as much detail and articulation, not to mention being able to shoot Serkis in-camera and replace him dynamically with the CG version, which was not possible on the original shoot. They were only able to do that for the pickups though.

I typed "Zelda canon" and "Zelda timeline" into Google and just got back a massive laughing face emoji. Still better than the time I typed in "Kingdom Hearts canon" and it was just a picture of the last admin of the Kingdom Hearts wiki with a gun to his head.

He was very briefly in thr first one; Frodo spied him in Moria

After Argillac cut the hands off that envoy there was no way this could end peacefully. Killing envoys is almost the same thing as guest right - there is a reason we let diplomats have immunity after all. And Aegon's counteroffer was decent too. It would basically give Stormlands "Dorne status", with Argillac more or less being the second or third most important lord in Westeros. I also very much question that Argella was his intended hier due to how fast the guards give her up. My gut tells me that she was not intended to inherit but to be married away. As for Argella herself, she should be happy that she got to keep her head after her rebellion. While I very much doubt the writing about Orys gentle treatment with her (it feels like propaganda) even the offer that she most likely got (ie "marry Orys or die") is too generous. She does, most certainly, not deserve Aegon's hand. If it had been me, I would have executed Argella and forced the Stormlords to swear fealty to me both as their king and as their Lord Paramount, and keep Storm's End and the Stormlands for myself, who de facto would stop existing, becoming part of the Crownlands. That would have solved many Targaryen problems down the line. Then I would have made Orys of House Baratheon Lord of Harrenhal and the new Lord Paramount of the Riverlands.

Yes, he’s meant to be Thufir Hawat. He became as useless as Tyrion.

Well this isn’t really a gaming rig hence the quotes heh.

Also: Zelda Ocarina of Time was incredible, although its status as a prequel (to Link to the Past) was kinda messed with later on.

All dogs are animals, but not all animals are dogs.

You can adjust the genre labels (and comps) in your querys based on the agent. You could ostensibly say speculative fiction, climate fiction, dystopia, post apocalyptic, etc depending on what that agent is looking for.

Bin it for everything except the automated offside thingy. I love idea of VAR, but the PGMOL have completely and utterly fucked its implementation. I'd rather not have it at all in its current, clear and obvious, format.

The cinematography is very inline with Game of Thrones. Is HBO doing expanded universes now? When do the worms turn into dragons? Or did dragons turn into worms?

No. My 4090 can't run CP77 on max settings, meaning 144 fps, ray tracing, ultra settings, path tracing etc. It can do that at 60fps though, but only just and runs hot (I turned off path tracing because the effect is cool but marginal). I don't think we'll see a game max out CP77 for real until maybe the 6090 comes out. Wait, 256 GB of RAM? That's about five times what you need to run things even quite well (I have 64 GB and that was massive overkill, most people are still running 16 GB and 32 GB only recently became standard for new builds).

Andor and Rogue One were great. The Silmarillion is excellent, although its status as a prequel is highly debatable because Tolkien started writing the first version long before LotR and even The Hobbit. The Hedge Knight is outstanding (though there is some debate about whether a prequel needs to have the same characters and a direct connection to the OG story, not just "set earlier in the timeline,"). In video games, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak is outstanding. Batman: Arkham Origins is also surprisingly solid (arguably better than Rocksteady's "proper" two subsequent games). GTA: Vice City and San Andreas are far superior to GTA3, despite partially setting it up.

Biden Trump debate in June on cnn. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/15/politics/video/trump-biden-debate-cnn-invitation-atlanta-digvid

Season 2 was in pre-production and I think actual production before Season 1 debuted, so they were already rebuilding the sets in Scotland etc.* Season 2 I think will be a make or break moment, if the streams are poor, especially poorer than the likes of The Boys, Wheel of Time and Fallout, which are all much cheaper than this, I suspect it will be canned in short order. *ETA They hadn't started shooting but they'd basically budgeted the first two seasons together and dedicated time into them at the same time, so it wasn't really possible to make one and not the other. Interestingly, the original budget reports suggest the "they spent half a billion dollars on the first season alone!" actually meant the first two seasons, meaning they "only" spent a quarter of a billion dollars on each season. Which makes far more sense, if they did spend almost three times as much money on the first season than the entire Jackson trilogy, they need to explain where the fuck all the money went, because it certainly was not on screen.

Having just rewatched the scene in episode 10, the camera moving to Rhaena who even looks a bit embarrassed/ashamed when Daemon mentioned Seasmoke, Vermithor, and Silverwing are yet riderless could not only imply she yet lacks a dragon, but also that she may have tried to mount one or all of those dragons between episodes. Baela was with Rhaenys at High Tide, but Rhaena was with her father and stepmother on Dragonstone - with access to both the riderless dragons and whatever eggs were produced on the island. Rhaena's desire to have a dragon of her own was first established in episode 6 and reinforced in episode 7 ... the idea that she made no attempts in that direction after Aemond claimed Vhagar might be wrong. But then ... perhaps the plot will show that she is somewhat timid and has to be pushed to make attempts with adult dragons. That's then what Daemon might be preparing Vermithor for. Really hard to guess at. But her ending up with Sheepstealer would be totally weird.

Yes! Correct, congrats. Next time I'll really choose something more normal

It seems that the show kind of does that. I mean, I was hugely surprised by the prominence of Lord Jason Lannister in season 1 as a serious contender for Rhaenyra's hand. That was nicely done, just as them having the hunting party effectively being the proto-Greens (Hightowers, Lannisters, and Redwynes). The same way it seems that Simon Strong is going to be prominent as a member of a well-established house in season 1 - something George kind glossed over in the book as Rhaenyra's ties with Harwin actually do help explain why Daemon is rather lenient towards old Ser Simon (while Aemond's eradication of House Strong is much more irrational in light of the services rendered to the Greens by Lord Larys). It was less well done in relation to House Baratheon as Borros should have been right there at Storm's End during Rhaenyra's courtship progress, possibly as a contender for her hand. We also got some build-up for Brackens-Blackwoods in the show as well as Tully build-up thanks to Lord Grover being mentioned repeatedly. The huge letdown in this regard was the total absence of House Arryn. Lady Jeyne Arryn or other relations should have been right there in the pilot when Queen Aemma was expecting her child as well as attending Rhaenyra's wedding to Laenor. They are the king's own in-laws and could expect to hold high positions at court. Daeron/Oldtown won't work if there is no build-up for that in season 2. And sure enough - Daeron and Ormund should not just be mentioned, they should be in season 2. But postponing them could work as well. For instance, a slow escalation of the war could work easily enough. Start with fighting in the Crownlands and Riverlands close to KL, and then have other regions to join the fray as an attempt to deal with local/regional threats. The groundwork for the Reach plot could easily be in season 2 by way of having the Tyrells suddenly and unexpectedly declaring neutrality, with certain Reach houses eventually declaring for Rhaenyra. The Hightowers assembling their army to defeat the Black Reach lords could easily start only in season 3. And there is ample evidence that they are planning something like that as we already got the Caswells as crucial Black supporters in season 1. Once the news about Lord Caswells reaches Bitterbridge his widow is likely going to be among the first big players in the Reach to declare for Rhaenyra. And the Merryweathers could be another such case. The Tarlys and Rowans being the most crucial houses of the Reach to declare for Rhaenyra could also easily happen in season 2 through talks with actual Tarlys and Rowans only to feature in season 2. The Beesbury murder is also something the show had and which can have similar repercussions as it had in the book. The Battle of the Honeywine is about Oldtown being attacked by two Hightower bannermen as well as the Tarlys and Rowans. So Gwayne Hightower could show up in KL telling Alicent and Otto that cousin Ormund has to tread very gently for the time being in support of Aegon II as several of his own bannermen are very pissed about the death of old Lord Lyman. Season 3 could then have the Battle of the Honeywine as a result of KL insisting that Lord Ormund march against numerous Blacks in the Reach. After all, starting the Reach plot early would mean they would have to drag the army's march through multiple seasons as well as having them, potentially, do little or nothing at Tumbleton. Making this whole a less drawn out plotline (but still one spreading through 1-2 seasons in total) might be a better take. Having a wild dragon in the Mountains of the Moon just comes entirely out of the left field. We had Vale scenes and talk in season 1 but no talk of dragons being there. Yes, the show established that dragons are more left alone in the wild than in the book, with Seasmoke remaining behind on Driftmark in the wake of Laenor's 'death' as well as Vhagar being allowed to settle on Driftmark, too, after Baelon's death, but the Vale would be much farther away. And, in fact, the notion of Sheepstealer as a wild dragon from the Vale goes specifically against dialogue from 'The Black Queen' which has Daemon say the three wild dragons all 'nest here' [i.e. Dragonstone]. They would have to make Sheepstealer 'a fourth wild dragon' or come up with another scenario where a wild dragon from Dragonstone is somehow drawn to the Vale. Not entirely impossible but hugely implausible. Even more so as the best way to make Rhaena a dragonrider (and soon) would be to urge her to try to mount Vermithor or Silverwing rather than for her to chance on a wild dragon (and much less to have her try her luck with one of those). I mean, Daemon singing to Vermithor most certainly isn't supposed for him to make the old beast ready for some random bastard to claim him ... but rather to prepare him for his dragonless daughter. Thus I'd take this whole thing with more than a grain of salt at that point, regardless of the source. Whatever Rhaena's story is going to be - they have to explain why she doesn't bond with Vermithor and Silverwing at least (Seasmoke might only be tried in earnest after it becomes evident that Laenor is gone) before she leaves the Vale. And if they have Stormcloud hatch from one of the eggs we might have a succession of scenes there where Rhaena first tries her luck with the adult dragons, then hopes for an egg dragon after Aegon got one, resulting in her taking promising eggs to the Vale.

Plus it seems to me the popular notion of "Tolkienian" has already been greatly reshaped by the New Line films. A lot of snipes aimed at Amazon in S1 for not "being true to JRRT" honestly read as "not being true to the 2001-3 movies" IME. Similarly, a lot of the ways GRRM's work is described nowadays (especially as super cynical & nihilist) feel a lot more informed by David and Dan's efforts, with GOT, than ASOIAF.