Game of Thrones - Season 1

Watch it again (or for the first time) in preparation for Season 2.

Season 1 will play on Thursdays at 10PM starting on January 26th. Season 2 starts on April 1.

Amateur Radio Quiz: As Seen on TV!

A quiz about ham radio on TV. Good thing this wasn't on the general class exam. I only got half of them right and I had no idea about the Tennessee Valley Indians.

This video will help you answer at least one correctly.

HigherDef TVs

3D TV? No thanks. More resolution? Yes please! | Challengers - CNET News: "1080p HDTV have 1920 by 1080 pixels. Sharp was demonstrating an 85" 8K4K set--that's 7680 by 4320. Toshiba has a 55" glasses-free 3D TV; I wasn't impressed with the 3D, which looked gritty. I did, however, like the fact that it doubles as a 2D super-HD set, with 3840 by 2160 resolution."

I've had no interest in 3D TV. According to the article the HigherDef TVs aren't anywhere near prime time. I think that's okay... I'm not sure the network can keep up.

Qwikster - We Barely Knew You

msuster lol “@ConanOBrien: Just spent 5 hours organizing my Qwikster queue. Really starting to love this new site! #qwikster4life”Mon, Oct 10 16:16:05 from Twitter for iPhone

I think I need to follow @ConanOBrien

Black Offices

wesrucker247 Derek Dooley and Dwight K. Schrute both have black offices, because black offices are intimidating.Wed, Sep 28 19:14:02 from TweetDeck

Top Shot 3 - August 9

Top Shot 3 starts on August 9 at 10:00 Eastern. Some people don't like the "Real World" aspect of it. Me, it doesn't bother so much. Of course, I often fast forward through a lot the non-competition stuff. Meet the competitors here:

Mad Men Streaming on Netflix starts today.

The wife will be very happy. Mad Men streaming on Netflix starts today.

Ringer

I really liked Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy. I'm glad to see she is back, but I don't have very high hopes for Ringer.

30 Rock

So the wife and I are watching 30 Rock on NetFlix. We just finished "Rosemary's Baby" (S2E4) with Carrie Fisher. I about lost it during this exchange.

Walking down the street, Liz (Tina Fey) and Rosemary (Carrie Fisher) pass a man carrying a pistol in his hand.

Liz: Is that guy carrying a gun?

Rosemary: Don't worry. He's not a cop.

Bazinga.

Unintentionally Funny

The Katy Perry loving football player reminded me of another unintentionally funny guy... Season 1 Winner of the Last Comic Standing Dat Pahn.

"The plan was to play hide-and-seek. Ralphie, reading his book, said that he'd read three pages more and then seek. At the "go" signal, everyone left the room -- and everyone but Dat came back right away. Dat took off like a bullet down the corridor. "I don't know how fast he thinks Ralphie is," Dave told the camera, "but he was just a streak." Ultimately, Dat landed in a hiding place in their theater, under the curtain.

What followed was mean. Juvenile. Cruel, almost. But absolutely drop-down hysterically funny. I laughed even harder than I did at last week's rat-hunt. The mainstay of the comics stayed in the living room, playing cards or just hanging out, while Dat hid and a graphic displayed how long he was there. Four minutes. Ten minutes. At 17 minutes he whispered to the camera, "Here's the thing. When he comes up, he's going to see you point that at me, and I'm dead. So point it somewhere else."

At 19 minutes, Dave narrated in a deadpan manner that it's been about 19 minutes that Dat has successfully hidden from Ralphie, and that Ralphie was intent on finding him. Cut to Ralphie intently and solemnly reading his book and everyone else collapsing in laughter.

At 23 minutes, Dat muttered that this was taking forever. Tess said in interview that at first she'd thought that they should get him out, but later changed her mind to leaving him for an hour, saying an hour would be enough time for him to think about how much he'd been stressing her out. (What is it about Dat?)

At 42 minutes, Dat said that he was trying to pretend there was an axe murder in the house who'd chop him to pieces if he knew his whereabouts, so he was trying to stay silent.

At 53 minutes Dat left his hiding place. "What the hell is wrong with you guys?" he asked. Cory explained that Ralphie looked everywhere. "You had the best hiding place."

At last they told him the joke, and roared with laughter."

What I remember next is Dat telling the other comics that he would never play with them again. I about fell on the floor laughing. I really don't think he had any idea how funny that statement was.

I did not enjoy the other seasons nearly as much as the original. It is hard to top Rich Vos and Dave Mordal bathes, Rich's interviews while ironing, and Ralphie May's girlfriend.

The Problem with Environmentalist Tree Hugging Hippies

[ SPOILER ALERT ]

[ SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK ]

[ SPOILER ALERT ]

Life imitates art again... George RR Martin discusses the response to the demise of one of his characters in the Game of Thrones series.

"It has come to my attention that a number of television viewers (mostly those who had not read my books and did not know what was coming)were shocked and upset by what befell Sansa's direwolf Lady at the end of the second episode of HBO's GAME OF THRONES.

Good. I mean, that was kind of the point.

But some people were reportedly so shocked and upset that they wrote angry blogs about it, and even declared that they would not continue watching the show.

Not so good. Obviously, I'm sorry to hear that.

I don't know if any of those people are reading my Not A Blog. But in case they are, perhaps it will make you feel a little better to know that Zunni, the Northern Inuit who played Lady, is alive and well, and has been adopted by Sophie Turner, the lovely young actress who plays Sansa in the show. We didn't really kill her."

But here is the kicker...

"(Rhodri Hosking, the young actor who played the butcher's boy Mycah, was not actually killed either, though oddly, no one seems quite so upset about him)."

How often do we hear about saving the tree/bird/unicorn, but with nary a word mentioned about the impact to people?

Game of Thrones

They've already been picked up for Season 2. Thanks to NotTNJeff for the heads-up. Also, a great summary of the major characters, locations, etc. is here.

A Contrast

This was a big week-end for me. I got to go see Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 and I ordered HBO just so I could watch the new Game of Thrones series. You might have seen me post about these things once or twice before.

Stop reading now if you want to avoid any potential spoilers.

Below are my comments from each of the two shows.

Atlas Shrugged
I felt like they used the "Who is John Galt?" question as a catchphrase. Eat my shorts! To me it was as if the actors were looking at the audience and winking as they asked the question. My wife, who has not read the book, didn't feel that way. In the book, the question is an expression of hopelessness and frustration. As the world is crumbling, no one even thinks to find this John Galt person - if he even exists at all. It is just something everyone says.

Matthew Marsden plays James Taggart. I pictured Jim Taggart to be much older. I think we got a little too much "hollywood" in casting this character. However, the worse offense was making Jim too active in the political games. While he was a political creature in the book, you felt like he was being swept along with the other socialists. In the movie, he takes much more initiative and blurs the lines between producers and looters.

Hank Rearden is very socially awkward in the book. My wife described the movie version as smooth and suave. Fail.

People have criticized the physics of the train running on the new Rearden Metal track. That didn't bother me nearly as bad as the attempt to explain the magical motor.

I don't think the movie did a good job of showing the root cause of the problems. Maybe this is because Rand spent a bazillion pages pounding the message into my skull and the movie was trying to compress those philosophies. Likewise, Rands views on the role of sex and relationships between men and women are completely left out. There other plot points that are missing - like the relationship that was formed between Dagny and Francisco as children. The lack of detail on Francisco's background and prior achievements is a huge gap.

And is everyone sharing the same limo?

Now that I'm done beating it up, I will say I am glad I went and I'm sure I will see Part 2. (Also, a mini-plug for Regal Cinemas. My wife and I dug out a hundred year old gift certificate that was for $5. They couldn't find it in the system, so they just gave us a free ticket. Customer service isn't dead!)

Reviews
Rotten Tomatoes
The View from North Central Idaho - Joe Huffman
ExurbanLeague - sounds like he had people clapping at the end of the movie, too.
Walls of the City

Game of Thrones
I've been more excited about this than Atlas Shrugged. As I mentioned, I even added HBO specifically for this show - that's almost $18 per month, so I better like it.

In short (and in contrast to ASP1 above), the first episode was exactly as I pictured it in the book. It was fantastic!

I was worried about some of the actors as I did not think they would fit their characters, but everyone was fantastic. I really liked Lena Headey (from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as Cersei Lannister. I did not see her as a good match, but she was great. I predicted I would like Peter Dinklage (from The Station Agent) as Tyrion and he lived up to the expectation.

The opening scene was very well done - from the CGI, to the pacing, and tension it created. The first few minutes would compare well to any classic horror movie.

I also thought the opening credits were very smart. You get a bird's eye view of Westeros, but you don't see each of the Seven Kingdoms. It only shows the ones that are currently relevant. My guess is that they will change the opening as the action moves between kingdoms.

Definitely, money well spent. It makes me even more excited that the next book is coming out. When A Feast of Crows came out, the bookstore provided everyone with a cheat sheet to remind us of what was happening with all the characters at the end of the book. The series will be a nice refresher without having to re-read some of the books.

I can't wait for next Sunday!

Top Shot 2 Challenges

I'd pay good money for someone to provide a place where I could try my hand at the Top Shot challenges. Even tonight's 100 plate team speed challenge with 1911s would be easy to setup, but it looked like a ton of fun.

I'd also like to try the high speed, low drag (as one the competitors called it) Razorcat Racing Gun from the Quick Fire Faceoff.

Updated - found the link and image to the Razorcat.

Discreet Carry

House was awesome tonight - rocking a combo ax and shotgun cane to take down some zombies. The ax blade was retractable and must have been spring-loaded (very Buffy-esque). I think the cane acted as the barrel as House bolted on a grip and magazine tube/pump. Talk about discreet carry, I've been watching House for a long time and I never noticed he was packing heat. Unfortunately, it did not appear to have the bitchin flames.

And then later, he and Cuddy were re-inacting the classic scene from Butch and Sundance.

A very entertaining episode.

Top Shot 2 - Compound Fracture

The compound bow expert can hit an aspirin thrown in the air at a distance of thirteen yards. Amazing.

Top Shot — Season 2 Episode Guide — History.com

Amazon Prime adds On-Demand Streaming at No Extra Cost

If you already use Amazon Prime, this is a great deal. I am cheap, so I usually just order my stuff on the slow boat that is free. And, with my toddler running around, I don't watch as much TV as I once did. Amazon on Demand is available on your PC, Roku, TiVo, and others - but not the Wii.

Top Shot 2 - T-minus 24 Hours

Catch Top Shot 2 tomorrow night at 10:00.

Top Shot 2

Top Shot 2 premieres Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 10/9 on the History Channel.

Winter is Coming

Winter is coming via an HBO series.

"Winter is coming" is the motto of House Stark from the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin that I've mentioned in a previous post.

I think "Preppers" would appreciate the attitude of the Starks.

I don't have HBO, so I may have to figure out a way to watch it.