David Selig

Faile is frankly a saint for tolerating the whiny fool Perrin so much. She did most of the leadership work while Perrin spent his time whining how he doesn't want to be a lord yet Perrin got all the credit.

I am not sure how useful and factual these "personal visual models" are. A lot of them are very different from the actual descriptions in the books. Hedy Lamarr had blue eyes and was much taller than Moiraine. Jacqueline Bisset has gray eyes unlike Nynaeve. Young Val Kilmer was way more handsome than Perrin is supposed to be and he has blue eyes too and much lighter hair. Etc, etc.

Great pick. Reverend Jim's driving test is for my money the funniest scene ever filmed. "Mental illness or narcotic addiction?" "That's a tough choice."

I am pretty sure that's not how genetics work. Fairly isolated population groups don't develop a completely homogeneous look in terms of skin colour over what is an extremely short period in evolutionary terms. The Two Rivers population originated from the population of Manetheren's capital which was most likely quite diverse.

Gitara Moroso sent the daughter heir to head out to the Aiel waste, Moiraine had nothing to do with it and didn't know about it. And even Gitara didn't know that said daughter-heir would be the Dragon Reborn's mother.

The quotes are from the books, the last volume to be precise.

Major casting news today on the official Twitter account of the show. So far: Rand - Josha Stradowski Perrin - Marcus Rutherford Nynaeve - Zoë Robins Mat - Barney Harris Egwene - Madeleine Madden

Circe by Madeline Miller came out last year and is both an excellent novel and really popular (it was a major bestseller, it has 150,000+ Goodreads ratings and won the Goodreads Best Fantasy Novel of the Year award by a country mile), it really should have been nominated.

I finished it yesterday. I thought the season was quite good as a whole, but the last episode was terrible:

I was watching this recorded because I couldn't get home in time for the start of the match, and towards the end I started fast forwarding a minute ahead on some of the biggest points to see who one the point and then rewound to actually watch the point knowing this because I was too nervous.

This match reminded me I don't watch tennis much these days, it is bad for my heart. No other sport makes me anywhere near as nervous. There is an unlimited potential for your favourite to collapse at any moment, no lead is safe and a player can't just wait out the end of the match, he has to win it. I don't know how these guys manage to hold on the court mentally for the most part while also playing an extremely physical demanding game. A shame Federer couldn't do it, he was so close. Djokovic might well be the greatest tennis player of all time at the end of the day and I say that as someone who's never liked him and his style of play. He's the only player I can think of who just has no weaknesses in his game. Though frankly, so much has changed in the sport in terms of rackets and courts that comparison between players of different eras are harder than even in most other sports. Wimbledon this year compared to let's say the mid 90s is so different in court speed that it almost looks like a different game. The slowing down of the courts combined with the racquet improvements have killed the serve and volley style or really any style which requires you to go to to the net more than once in a blue moon. Nowadays the top players habitually pull off passing shots that were physically impossible with the old rackets and strings. I wasn't a fan of the serve fest of the late 90s at the Wimbledon, but slowing the court wasn't the best solution. Back when I started following tennis in the mid 90s I loved how different every surface played, which made tennis different from almost any other sport. Now this is largely gone and I think it's a shame.

Just amazing tennis from Federer. What he's doing at this age is unreal. The backhand was so stable today.

Nobody was going to offer much for Westbrook's contract. I think this deal is really good for the Thunder and I say that as a huge Westbrook fan. He declined a lot last season and who knows whether he'll be able to bounce back given his age and the knee issues. I really don't see him and harden fitting well, but we will see. I hope it works out.

Rafe Judkins answered some questions about the Rosamund Pike's casting on Twitter today - http://www.thedailytrolloc.com/2019/07/rafes-rosamund-casting-q.html Probably the most interesting answer was: How much emphasis will the writers and showrunners place on actor's physical traits with the characters? For example, Rosamund is significantly taller than Moiraine. Will the show use angles and gimmicks to show Moiraine as being short, or will we just let Rosamund be Rosamund? Rafe: I’m of the belief that my most important job is to bring the truth and heart of these characters to life. I’m much more concerned about acting than physicality. I remember being a kid and seeing Hugh Jackman would play Wolverine and was furious - he’s 6’3” and Wolverine is 5’3”!! To me, it was against the very core of the character that he would be tall. But the truth is, when I saw X-Men — of course Hugh Jackman was Wolverine. It’s so much more important to me to get someone high caliber who embodies the character than a perfect physical match. Plus there’s a lot we can do with wigs and dye and lighting to still achieve the “iconic looks” of the WoT characters. I think #Twitteroftime will be happy when they see it