Let’s talk about Game of Thrones

With season 7 now in the books, all Game of Thrones fans are astutely aware that we are down to one season left, and if all the claims are true, there will only be six episodes.  So there are going to be six episodes left to close out a whole butt-load of storylines.

I’ve enjoyed the show all the way to current in spite of what people on the internet have been saying about it, and the incessantly endless debates between book purists and show-exclusive fans.  It’s entertaining, I don’t put that much tremendous thought into the plot, and the show writers are good at drumming up tension and drama, artificial as it might seem to some, and it leads to watchable television.

But six episodes to cover the sheer volume of plots and resolutions, that’s a tremendous task to be asking for, so I can’t help but be skeptical at what the quality of the final season can possibly be.  Maybe if every episode is stretched beyond an hour, they could literally buy some more time to tell more story, but if we’re talking about five hour-long episodes and maybe an extended finale, I just feel like season 8 is going to be a ride faster and more furious* than the entire Fast & Furious franchise combined.

*Especially considering the fact that characters are traversing from one end of Westeros to the other and back on horse and buggy faster than Vin Diesel could ever do a quarter mile, but let’s not debate semantics

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When will I learn

That my time is occasionally more important than many things?  Like an ill-informed opportunity to meet Ron Swanson.

Earlier in the week, I saw plug on a local website for An Evening With Nick Offerman, I guess a touring appearance circuit in order to push Nick Offerman’s newest woodworking book Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop.  I thought to myself, this is something that intrigues me, getting to see and meet Ron Swanson.  I hadn’t learned about this event until after it had passed, like most other cool occurrences throughout the city, and being held at Georgia Tech, it wasn’t in an inconvenient location. 

However, I have a lot of things that I need to do, and some things actually have a short window in which I need to complete them.  But as a diehard Parks and Rec fan, especially of Ron Swanson, it seemed like an opportunity that I shouldn’t let pass.

I decided to go.

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A piece of me died

This past weekend, I made a terribly long overdue visit back up to Virginia to visit my family.  After my dad had picked me up from the airport, I suggested that we go out to eat so that we could have some awkward father-son time together.  Ultimately, we ended up going to a Korean joint for jajangmyeon, but on the way there, I could help but feel tempted to suggest the Old Country Buffet that was also on the route to the Korean restaurant, for old time’s sake.

It’s a good thing that such did not come to fruition, otherwise my dad would have witnessed his grown son shed tears – it was closed, permanently.  And as of March of this year, no less.

I knew that OCBs and their parent company were in trouble, because I remember reading posts back in February that documented the company’s financial struggles.  Subsequently, I remember being relieved when the Fairfax OCB was not on the original list of 74 underperfoming restaurants that faced the corporate axe.

Clearly, this is around the time I kind of fell off the internet grid, fell behind in the news, and went dark to the happenings of the world.  Despite surviving the first round of cuts, round two came an abrupt month later, and then all OCBs, as well as affiliate buffet restaurants were all subsequently closed down, with most notably, the Fair City Mall location, that upon its departure, takes a piece of me with it, to the commercial afterlife.

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Catching up with stories

During my weekend alone, I think I made it kind of clear that I wasn’t feeling too great, emotionally.  Catching up on writing about things kind of helped, but along the way, in between posts written, I found myself getting distracted.  I would check Facebook or play a League of Legends match, and then I’d chastise myself for squandering the opportunity of time that I had, and that I shouldn’t be wasting time doing what I could do at other times.

This was Saturday afternoon.  Since then, I haven’t played any League, and I closed Facebook everywhere; my browser, the tabs on both my iPhone and iPad, and on my other laptop.  More than anything, I think not looking at social media has been something cathartic and the forced separation something of a good thing.  What started as an evening became a day, and then it’s become several days, and at the time I’m writing this, I still haven’t checked Facebook.

The funny thing is how many times I’ve had to stop myself from almost doing so, especially over my phone, while I’m at work, in between assignments, or those fleeting moments where I want to not be doing work, catch my breath and see what’s going on elsewhere in the world.  I’ve frantically forced quit the app numerous times since then.  Eventually, I’ll check again, once routine settles back down.

But the time not spent playing League or looking at social media and thinking about either, I’ve actually, not surprisingly, been somewhat productive, in a manner of speaking; by catching up with stories.  And not “stories” as in hicks talking about television shows per say, although I am talking about some television shows; but if it weren’t for the fact that I finished reading one book, then I’d basically have entitled this whole thing “catching up on movies and shows.”

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Revisiting Battle Royale

Over the holidays, mythical girlfriend got me a copy of the Battle Royale novel.  Like most instances, I’ve heard time and time again about how the book was better, and since I was a huge fan of the BR film that was released in 2000, I was curious to see how the book stacked up against a film that I’d seen numerous times over.

I recently finished the book, and I’m having a difficult time in determining which was the superior, or if it’s even possible to compare.  Due to my familiarity with the film, I had a general mental picture of all the players of the game, which kind of led to ease in reading story where the imagination is already filled in for most of it, leading to where I’m basically reading words.

I guess the book was a little bit better, in the idea that they simply fleshed out and gave just about every student a modicum of spotlight to display a little bit of depth and character, before they were inevitably killed off, and there were some things that the book had that were omitted from the movie, or altered for ease of filming.  Frankly, I understand why the film did what they did in some of these cases, and in comparison to the book, there are some blatant scenarios where particular characters were used or displayed, solely for the fact that they had actor obligations to grant screen time, or something along those lines.

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It’s not that simple

TL;DR – Time columnist implores Game of Thrones fans to stop comparing the books to the television series

Easier said than done.

The one thing about this article that stands out the most to me is the hypothesis that despite how gracious the book snobs have been throughout the gradual progression of the show, there’s probably no way in hell that the show snobs will be as considerate when season 6 of GoT airs, especially in the age of social media and hashtagging everything.

Basically, the fate of Jon Snow, albeit fairly predictable, will be likely absolutely unavoidable to find out once the show begins airing.

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I don’t know what to do with myself anymore

I started reading Game of Thrones in mid-October, and have been reading the series exclusively since then.  I recently finished A Dance With Dragons, thus making official, catching-up to the series as a whole.

I don’t really know what to do next now.

I’ve been carefully watching the television series, not to binge too hard, as to surpass storylines that might’ve spoiled books, but now that I’m caught up to the books, I suppose the rest of the TV series is fair game, although there’s lots of allegation that some events of season five are supposedly spoilers to things that would theoretically be in the unreleased sixth book.  So I guess I might avoid season five, although I have gotten to a point in season three where I’ve begun to notice some dramatic turns in the plot that deviate from the books.

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