Rage, Against Vanessa Carlton

 My buddy Joe M sent me this link this morning, and it really brightened an otherwise depressing start to my day.  First day back to work following my son's death, funeral, wake, cremation, flight home, and zoom wake for relatives yesterday.  I listened to this, and thought several things simultaneously:

- It is brilliantly done

- It's perfect for introducing Rage Against The Machine to generations of people who may have never heard them before, or think they're too hard to listen to, or that "rock is roll is not my kind of music" listeners

- It can be listened to by teenage tik-tok trolls who love music like Vanessa Carlton, and perhaps it can open their eyes and ears and hearts to the message within

- My son would have enjoyed this

- I need to share this with a wide-of-an-audience as possible

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did, wether you live in Kenosha, Portland, Washington DC, Charlottesville, Charleston, San Diego, Orange County, or wherever closed minded, anachronistic, 1950s-nostalgic, Confederate apologists, Nationalists, Alt Right, Q-anon, pathetic nazis, and white supremacists keep raising their ugly, delusional filled, willfully ignorant little heads.

Link: https://youtu.be/6kYco2Zt-cM

Talking NIN Heads, Only Blind

For about a week now, two songs have been running through my head, mashed together rather seamlessly, and blending into each other smoothly.  Talking Heads, "Blind" and Trent Reznor's NIN "Only", are not yet in a published Mash-up, but in my head they are already merged.  Several of my close friends and my son have been asked about this via text message, and most of have responded that they hear the similarities.  My buddy Rick even stated that it makes perfect sense because not only the 2 and 4 hi-hat, but the basic "Da-Da, da-Dah, da-da-da, dah-duh-da-da..." repeats merge nicely.


And Reznor's "Only":



Two very different songs, that came out many years apart.  I might be only of the few Americans who enjoy both bands passionately... but maybe there's more people out there with excellent musical taste.  =P   Being a father, (and Father's Day is approaching) I am delighted I could positively affect my son's musical repertoire and appreciation in exposing him to some of the Best music from the 80s and 90s as he grew up, both of these bands inclusive.

It's a fun blending of tunes in my head.   I hope you enjoy it as well.

Scots, Casbah, Nov 18th

Dr Desert Flower and I have tickets to the SCOTS show at the Casbah in Downtown San Diego on November 18th.  If you have not seen SCOTS live, you've been missing an awesome show.  They're fun, talented, high energy, eclectic, surf-punk-rockabililly-country-party fun.  The first time I saw them was at Dawg Gone in Spartanburg SC back in the late 80s, and they were a hoot!  I've mentioned them here before many times:
here: http://justjoep.blogspot.com/2012/03/scots-on-folly-beach.html
here: https://justjoep.blogspot.com/2010/09/scots-rhythm-room-16-sept-2010.html
here: https://justjoep.blogspot.com/2009/09/los-straightjackets-scots-in-reno.html
here: https://justjoep.blogspot.com/2009/08/camel-walk.html
here: https://justjoep.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-only-crap-has-been-produced-after.html
and here: http://justjoep.blogspot.com/2011/07/40-miles-to-vegas.html

I've since seen them in AZ, NV, SC, CA (both north and south), IL, and NC multiple times... more than 20 times, with DDF, my son, my buddy Joe, my buddy Matt, and sometimes by myself (though SCOTS is more fun with friends than it is alone).  Our son, Nathan Jr has lit their shows in Charleston more at least 4 times.  You should go see them while they tour the West Coast.  You won't regret that you did.

Enjoy

Please, Let This Be The LAST Jedi

We went as a family this afternoon to see "Episode VIII The Last Jedi" at the San Marcos Regal Theater.  I'd hoped it would be better than Episodes I, II, and III... and it was, for the most part.  The Original Star Wars (Episode IV) still remains the best, most impactful, memorable Lucas Film of the series, in my humble opinion.  This Last Jedi could probably have been much shorter, included fewer meaningless plot dead-ends, and flowed better than it actually did in the film we just saw... but that's probably the grumpy old man in me commenting openly ("back in my day, you cut people in half with light sabers; you didn't stab them!").

Sure, it was a western / space opera with multiple themes introduced, but it was not the tour de force that the lonnnnng intro & ramp up led the movie-goer to believe.  Hamil goes out far better than Ford went out, in Episode VII, and some of Fisher's appearances look almost computer generated, in the varied lighting she is depicted compared to those with whom she is speaking to or interacting with.  Admiral Ackbar, sadly, is no more.

Several issues I had with the film that still stick in my craw are:
- in space, you don't need bombers (there's only microgravity, or no gravity)
- furry penguins should be delicious, or comical, but not both
- tasting white crystals form the ground, is stupid & potentially deadly (could have been anything more toxic than just salt)
- since when are dueling weapons strong enough to withstand a light saber blade? (in IV-VI there was nothing stronger than a light saber blade)
- if the evil emperor is so knowing and omniscient, why would he be so careless to leave Luke's lightsaber on an oversized arm rest next to him?
- if a ship can be piloted into light speed directly in the path of enemy ships to obliterate through them, why wait until 80% of your fleet is blasted into nothing before making that last spectacular jump?
- if a casino full of the top 1% of the 1% of war profiteers is so opulent, why do they have only 5 cloaked foot guards and 2 little flying police cars?  (ever been to Monaco? I have...)
- if a rebel fleet is trying to run away on regular engines, and are running out of fuel, why doesn't the Imperial fleet just just into hyperspace ahead of the fleeing ship, surround it, tractor beam it, and obliterate it (or force it to surrender)?

Much of the film, depressingly, appears to be made to introduce more toys, more marketing, more character "bling" and accessories that I, as an adult man, could not give a care about.  ALL the previews leading up to the film (we got there 25 minutes early to get good seats) were for inane movies and products that I could not care less about seeing, buying, or mentioning here... but obviously idiocracy seems to be crazy about them.  There were no less than 3 major motion pictures previewed that are coming out that were video game extensions of concepts or movies that I consider irrelevant.  Just because making a CGI model is possible, doesn't mean it Should Be Made, every time.

If you're a HUGE Star Wars fan...  enjoy.  It's not that bad.  I just hope it's the Last Star Wars film I see now that all of the original characters, expect the droid and Chewbacca are gone (and Carrie Fisher is gone in the real world).

Three Billboards

Last night, Nathan Jr, Dr Desert Flower and I went to the old La Paloma theater in Encinitas where they were showing Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.  We'd heard it was good.  Mistakenly thought it was a Coen Brothers movie, as Francis McDormand is it in the lead role,  and the 90 year old La Paloma was somewhere we'd never been, so we bought our tickets in cash at the old time box office (they don't take credit cards), sat in the dilapidated non-reclining seats (circa 1928), and breathed the chilly air of the theater, waiting for the show to being.

It is a somber, moving film.  It is a Very Violent film.  It is a sad film.  It's a well acted and well directed film.  And, as someone who lived in semi-rural the South for 16 years of his adult life, I'd say it is a fairly accurate depiction of life, prejudices, and culture in rural American "fly-over" country.   Beautiful country-side combined with a deep, thick, undercoat of lawlessness and a loose-sense of imposed community that often times runs no deeper than superficial pleasantries.

Francis McDormand should win an Oscar or Golden Globe for her role.  Woody Harrelson is great in it, throughout.  Sam Rockwell - who admittedly is NOT one of my favorite actors as he often plays a goof (Hitchhiker's Guide), clown, a fool, a cocky & flawed playboy (F is for Family) - makes you Hate him, viscerally in the first 2/3rds of the film.  Clarke Peters (Lester, from The Wire) is under-stated in the movie.  I don't want to spoil it, but it was both a great movie and very disturbing at the same time.

After the movie, we were all somewhat down, silent, depressed, retrospective... pondering life & existence... akin to how my buddy Ryan and I were after seeing Schindler's List in Atlanta back in 1993, but without the genocide.  So we got a good meal and some strong drinks at the Encinitas Bier Garden, before driving back up to the homestead.

Stay Human, What's In A Name

Dr Desert Flower and I are big fans of Stephen Colbert.  We DVR his show each night, and enjoy watching it the next evening after dinner.  National ratings have shown that DDF and I are not alone, and Late Night with Stephen Colbert is now the highest rated late night show. Not all of Stephen's guests are interesting to us, but the monologue is always great.

Stephen was smart enough to ally himself with the musical genius and genuinely nice person Jon Batiste as his band leader, at the head of Stay Human.  From the very first time I saw the band name Stay Human, I started thinking about its origins, etymology and implications.  The First thing that came to mind, is the obvious concept "remain a human, a nice person, don't become a mean jerk".  And that Might have been what Jon Batiste had meant to imply.

But a single interpretation is kinda boring... so I thought of several other meanings:

Stay, human!  - as spoken by an alien, who has a human as a pet, who is trying to train the human to behave when the alien goes to work.  Stay, sit, fetch, shake... all commands that an obedient human pet could obey, as long as they are smarter than the average alt-right voter.  The Porno For Pyros song Pets made me think of this concept.  (imperative)

Stay, human... Stay, human.... - the heart-felt wish of a werewolf during a full moon who may be visiting his fiancee's parent's home, and who doesn't want to change into a werewolf and kill his new family. (futile)

Stay human - a strategy move, proposed by a D&D player, to move one of his other pieces and leave his human character alone; the human stays still while the halfling or the elf moves forward.  (strategic)

Stay human - when Han Solo and Chewbacca show up at a cantina where they are not welcome, and the owner discriminates against Wookies whom he refuses to serve.  (discriminatory)

Stay Human - an intergalactic B&B where various species from different worlds who are traveling through want to rest.  At Stay Human, they cater to the needs of homo sapiens, and they've earned a 3 nebula rating.  = )  (recreational rental)

Stay, Human - a decision by a Federation of Planets Appellate Court Judge to prevent the Humans from doing something really stupid (again)... similar to how the 9th Federal Circuit Court here on Earth keeps stopping Drumpf's bigoted, misguided, xenophobic and illegal executive orders, declaring a stay on implementation of such idiotic and mean-spirited policies. (legal)

Stay, human? - an incredulous and disappointed trans-species cyborg response who was trying to become more machine like, when his friends and relatives implore him to stop the transformation and remain as a human... even though he was very determined to go through the full transformation to 100% machine.  (incredulous)

Stay human - as nations and political parties become increasingly tribal, isolationist, and hateful towards one another, unable to communicate or find common ground... perhaps through music, Jon Batiste believes he can bring such opposite polarized parties together, keeping everyone as "human" as possible  (aspirational)

Stay Human - the decision of the galactic leader of the sea otters from South Park, to prevent the humans from expanding and propagating throughout the galaxy, and containing them to a smaller sphere of influence.   (societal)

Run Like Hell

Not only is Run Like Hell a great Pink Floyd song from their amazing album The Wall, it is also what Tormund Giantsbane shouted to all of his comrades at East Watch on top of The Wall that had guarded Westeros from the dangers of the north for more than eight thousand years, in that fictional world.
(again, spoiler alert... if you have not seen the season finale of Game of Thrones, season 7, read this post after you've seen it)

The season finale was epic, dark, beautifully done.  I won't go through everything here scene by scene, but it IS Worth watching, for all of the ends it ties up, and the new circumstances it presents to the viewer.  Jaime does the right thing. Daenerys still knows how to make a Grand entrance.  Cersie remains one of the largest forces of selfish evil in the world, perhaps equalled by The Night King?  The Hound becomes more likable.  Arya is lethal with her blade. Sansa embraces her family before sycophants.  Sam enlightens the all-seeing three-eyed raven, who needs to get better at predicting things and warning his family about them, instead of just looking all white-eyed in his wheel chair.  The door was held closed for you, FFS!  Do something useful with your new super power Bran flake!

Now, in a physics based world, The Wall was made out of indestructonium since it stuck out into the Narrow Sea at East Watch, and yet after 8000 years of the sea water buffeting against it, The Wall  Never eroded.  Therefore, indestructonium must be one of The Hardest, Most Erosion Resistant, Most Corrosion Resistant, Most Crack Resistant initiating & propagating substances to ever be written about, in any book.  Indestructonium has to be magic... created by magic... shaped by it... maintained by it... However, with such formidable strength and durable properties, there comes a price.  Action / reaction.  If a magic dragon, hatched from an egg that had turned to stone long ago, but when that stone egg was heated in a funeral pyre back in the season 1 finale... and then that magic dragon gets killed by a magic ice javelin... and the thrower os said javelin then resurrects the dead dragon as an undead dragon...  then the magical power of that weapon of mass destruction apparently can over-power 8000 years of ice masonry and indestructonium's use as a long-standing barrier.

As I watched what remained of Viserion repeatedly blast the architectural marvel that was The Wall on Sunday night, I thought to myself:

- is this hot blue fire?
- is this ice coming out of the dragon (like a Gygax dragon)
- is it some kind of psionic blast or energy beam?
- perhaps it is plasma, like that of a white dwarf star?  (but then the undead Viserion would have its own gravitational pull, since it would be far too dense)
... and it wasn't until I talked to my buddy Ryan when he explained to me that it was "magic" and that only magic could defeat magic...  um... ok.  Sure.  I won't think this through any deeper than I already have.

If it is magic breath from a magic beast that was impossibly hauled out of a semi-frozen lake north of the wall by the magical ruler of the magically animated and magically commanded undead, then why not let all that magical confluence take out a long-standing 8000 year old wall?  Sure. Indestructonium be damned!  There's magic at work here!

In that case, Daeneryrs and Jon Targaryen (yeah, He's not a Snow nor a Sand) and their remaining two dragons will likely / should likely be magically destroyed by the Night King and his undead Viserion WMD, and all the steel wielding soldier of Westeros be swarmed by the +100,000 horde of white walkers heading South.  Cersie and all of King's Landing should be wiped out by the undead horde, and all of Westerosy civilization should end as we know it.  I know that doesn't make for a good story or series finale... but if an undead Viserion can destroy an 8000 year old formidable piece of magical creation in less than 1 minute, then it won't take that much longer to kill both siblings, their riders, and let the ground army swarm anything that is still warm-blooded.  I am 99% certain that season 8 and all of GoT won't end that way... but if I was writing it, and I included The Wall coming down as it just did... then that's how I would end the series next season.  3 episodes at best... and then everyone is now part of The Walking Dead.

Whenever You Flash Those Baby Blues

(If you have not watched this week's Game of Thrones, don't read this posting, as it's full of spoilers)

As I accurately hypothesized, a month ago on July 18th (link here), the Night King did indeed kill one of Daenerys's three dragons, and he's turned it into a "wight dragon" or undead dragon, white walker / white flyer dragon.  He didn't need any of his 3 undead giants to throw a spear and kill the dragon Viserion, as I had theorized. No, apparently, the Night King is a Winter Olympic medalist in the javelin throw (I know the javelin throw is a Summer Olympics sport...  but it is still funny.. thank you my friend Ryan), and he has some wickedly powerful ice javelins at his disposal.


So now, for the first time in Westeros, there's a dragon under the power of the Night King.  This sure puts a massive twist into the plot.  Will the dragon breathe fire, as a living dragon would?  Will it breathe ice, now that it has been turned into a blue eyed thing of terrible beauty?  Will it not be able to breathe fire or ice, but still be huge, formidable, and destructive, and will it try and kill it's mother at the Night King's command?  We shall see (il faut voir).

For all of the positive points in last Sunday's episode,
- massive numbers of white walkers torched by 3 dragons
- Arya recounting the story of her father watching her archery practice
- Thoros explaining how drunk he was when he stormed Pyke with a flaming sword (back from a Season 1 reference)
- Tyrion giving counsel to Daenerys to not be like her father and other tyrants before her
- a white walker polar bear, killed by an obsidian dagger (dragon glass)
- lots of flaming sword action
- Arya not killing Sansa and taking her face
- Jon Snow trying to give Jorah back his sword and Jorah respectfully refusing to take it

... there were some MAJOR plot holes & inconsistencies that didn't make much sense to the logical thinking viewer.  Sure, they were necessary to move the story forward, but things like:
- The Flash like capabilities of Gendry to run massive distances ALL the way back to East Watch in just a few minutes, in what took the group hours to traverse
- the existence of a non-frozen lake, north of The Wall (why hasn't the ice wall melted, if a simple lake remains un-frozen?)
- why use steel swords to fight white walkers when steel doesn't kill them... obsidian does (Jorah has this Down, he gets it)
- the apparently "light speed traveling ravens", who could get from East Watch to Dragonstone instantaneously, and then the light speed flying dragons who could get from Dragonstone to East Watch in just a few minutes (perhaps the dragons can teleport?)
- the failure of any of Daenerys' dragons to take out the white walker leadership (pictured above) before they could kill one of them (dragons are supposed to be smarter than most humans, per Tolkien et al)
- Jon Snow's ability to hold his breath in freezing cold water, and swim while clothed in soaking wet furs, climb out of the lake and onto thin ice that doesn't continue to break (I spent alot of time out on frozen Big Pond between Highland and Hammond in the winter when I was a kid... ice doesn't freeze THAT irregularly, to be able to support men and horses, and then just break, willy nilly, with solid edges strong enough to support the weight of a man climbing out... that's why you need a rope or a ladder to extricate someone who has fallen into a frozen lake)
- the sudden convenient plot device of undead-but-still-pure-of-heart Uncle Ben Jen Once Again, appearing out of no where to save the day
- the sudden appearance of two MASSIVE ship chains, in the middle of No Where, north of The Wall, with which to hoist out a dead Viserion from the semi-frozen lake
- the appearance (off screen, not shown) of incredibly strong, white walker cold water divers, who could jump into the lake that had previously wiped out many of their numbers, wrap the mysteriously appearing massive ship anchor chains around Viserion's punctured neck, so that the dead dragon could be hoisted out of the water (maybe the Night King used his 3 undead giants for the underwater work, and then didn't bother to use the giants to pull out the corpse, instead having 100s of frail & decomposing wights pull on the massive ship anchor chains instead?)



So now, the questions I have are as follows:
1) will the wight dragon formerly known as Viserion be used to melt a hole in The Wall, through which the horde of White Walkers will pour through?
2) if the undead Viserion can no longer breathe fire, will the undead giants be used to bash down the rickety, poorly maintained tune, door through which Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane's party passed through, so that the horde of undead can pour South?
3) When Daenerys and Tyrion sit down with Cersie for parle, assuming they bring the writhing white walker they captured (if the Night King doesn't just make the captive die or shatter), will Cersie be convinced that the threat from the North is real?
4) will obsidian weapons be distributed to everyone, or just Jon Snow's army and the Free Folk get them in order to dispatch white walkers?
5) Since geography doesn't matter, ships can sail around a continent in less than a day, ravens and dragons can traverse 100s of miles instantaneously, Lannister armies can march on and destroy High Garden in just a few days... how many hours or days will it take for the Night King and his horde to reach King's Landing?  It Should Be just one or two days, like "the next episode" and not "next season", considering all the previous precedents around geography & time set by D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.  Perhaps old Walder Frey's "The Twins" can be destroyed by dragons so that will stall the horde slightly.

I'd really hoped that the 3 dragons would torch all the white walkers, and this would be the last season of Game of Thrones... but Weiss and Benioff love money so much, they're going to milk the series for all it's worth.  Dethrone Cersie, put Daenerys on the throne like she's always wanted, draw & quarter Euron, let Jon Snow and his 1/2 sister Daenerys rule happily ever after. Conflict resolved, game over... but... that's why I am not a Hollywood producer or multi-millionaire; il faut voir.

Finally, Eastwatch

Game of Thrones season 7 episode 5 last Sunday helped close some loose ends, but opened up a few new ones.  As always, if you have not yet seen the episode, stop reading now, as this will likely spoil it for you.


I've been a fan of the opening credit sequence of GoT over the last 7 seasons, and when Eastwatch was shown, with very few gears (barely working), multiple cracks in the wall (falling into disrepair, or severely in need of repair) I was a little disappointed to see how weak the fortification was, but the 2nd time I watched it (and screen grabbed it from HBO To Go) the more clarity it gave me.  Much like how Winterfell's bevel gears were chipped and the dire wolf's head was replaced with the flayed man while the Bolton's held the castle, Eastwatch is not so much a castle as it is a neglected relic.

It is an understatement to say that Jaime Lannister's ability to hold his breath and swim massive distances underwater (nearly a 1/4 mile, from the scene where he and Bronn Finally surface away from the burning loot train) means that not only is Jaime the finest swordsman of Westeros, but he can swim better (faster, longer, more strongly) than Michael Phelps.  Phelps never wears full plate mail or a golden hand when he swims, and the length of an Olympic sized pool is no where near a 1/4 mile, so Jaime is at least 10X better a swimmer than Michael Phelps, as far as physics is concerned (and no, I don't believe that farcical statement).

Despite the fact that Jaime isn't dead (though he should be), he did serve a nice role in having a parle with his little brother down in the catacombs.  Useful plot advancement, sure... but then he never should have tried to skewer Daenerys when she was attempting to un-spear her dragon Drogon, now should he?

The internet rumors about how Jon Snow and Daenerys are either Aunt & nephew, or cousins, or 1/2 siblings from a different mother, were given serious wind in their sails when Jon took off his glove and bare-handedly petted Drogon's nose on the windswept cliff of Dragonstone while Daenerys was riding her largest and most vociferous child.  I doubt that I would have been able to muster touching the nose of such a large beast, and would have been concentrating on not evacuating my bowels or voiding my bladder to be that close to history's most lethal biological killing machine.  It was a Very Nice touch to be added to the series (double entendre intended).

The "fool's errand" that Jon Snow, The Hound, and Tormund Giantsbane undertake to "capture" a white walker and bring it back to show the Southerns that the threat is real form the army of the dead, is just going to get them all killed.  Much like Saving Private Ryan, or the United State's misadventures in Afghanistan, or any of a dozen search-and-rescue movies popular in modern culture... you know it's going to go terribly wrong.  The Night King will see them coming from miles away, and the entire party that sets out through the East Watch tunnel should be killed or turned into white walkers immediately, regardless of how much dragon glass they might or might not be carrying (no time was spent showing weapons being forged from Dragonstone mined dragon glass obsidian... but one can assume that some kind of spears or daggers were hastily thrown together).

I DO think that Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) is one of The Most under-appreciated and under-rated characters in all of GoT.  He's brought his red haired tribe south of the wall to escape annihilation.  He watched as The King Beyond The Wall was set to burn at the stake at Castle Black.  His female kin who hooked up with Jon Snow also got killed in the battle of Castle Black, and then he VOLUNTEERS to go to the decrepit Eastwatch Castle to be run over by a horde of white walker undead. He's a remarkable warrior, a great leader, attracted to strength & skill... From a cultural stand point, this leader has been through ALOT.  His patience has been tested, he's been openly insulted in several episodes by lesser men, and yet he keeps on being a reliable, go-to, force majeure.  I will be sad if/when he inevitably gets killed & turned into a red haired white walker.  I would have enjoyed fighting alongside Tormund, sharing a roasted goat or sheep with him, and exchanging tall tales around a warm fire after a pitched battle.

Geography Still Doesn't Matter in a Dragon Based Economy

Last month, I stated that "Geography Doesn't Matter in a Dragon Based Economy" (link here).  Euron's fleet and Daenerys Targaryen's fleets occupied the same space in the Season 7 opening episode of GoT, and not a single mention of it was made in the show despite the Narrow Sea and the close proximity of Dragonstone to Kings Landing.

(if you have not watched any of Season 7 and want to avoid spoilers, stop reading now)

Horizon of Dothraki 

The 2nd episode had Euron's Iron Island fleet mysteriously SURPRISE and DESTROY Daenerys's renegade Greyjoy fleet and apparently All the armies of Dorne who were aboard as well, AT NIGHT, with very few casualties among Euron's angry bunch, which was farcical for multiple reasons.  Euron's flagship finds Yara Greyjoy's flagship, undetected, without any warning, raids it, kills or imprisons everyone on it, and sinks it, in the middle of 1000s of ships (no radar, no satellites, no infrared... yet 100% successful for despicable & revolting Euron).  None of the Dorne soldiers apparently survived... but Dorne is a much larger and formidable force & geographic area than the tiny pugnacious Iron Islands.  Instead of firing a bunch of arrows into Then as he jumps over board, they sail away and just let him bob in the cold water...  all ridiculous aspects of an otherwise well written, acted, and presented television show.

Silly Scorpion, Don't Aggravate A Full Grown Wyvern

Last night's episode (#4 in the 7th season) DID FINALLY bring out the wyverns (remember, they're technically NOT dragons since they lack front legs / limbs) directly into a battle, unleashing the full fury of organic napalm delivered from the throat of a very angry, full grown Drogons.  I loved the "Smaug moment" Drogons had when Jaime's Lannister archers let loose a volley of arrows that harmlessly bounced off Drogons underbelly scales.

Silly Human Archers

But the reason I have reiterated that "geography doesn't matter" is because of the episode ending where Jaime is knocked from his horse (apparently by the flame resistant Bronn who has repeatedly saved Jaime's behind) and he falls, slowly dragged to the bottom of a very deep body of water, by his gold hand and his heavy plate mail armor.  Well, if you're going to arrange for a very deep drowning pool to be part of the plot, you can't have a gentle slope of meadow grass tapering off at the water's edge.  Such a gentle slop would have made the water 1 or 2 feet deep MAX where Jaime was knocked from his horse, 1/2 a second before the running equine was turned into ash by the wounded and angry Drogons' fire.  One or two feet deep, and muddy, would have been the "water" that Jaime fell into, after charging the wyvern & Daenerys with his steed and spear at a full tilt (while his little brother pleads from the hill top, futilely, that Jaime flee, instead).

Little Brother's insight, not heeded by older brother

Is Jaime dead?  Did he drown, dragged down by his armor and gold hand?  He should be.  If he's not, when he surfaces, he'll be a crunchy treat for Drogons, who has not yet been fed this season (on camera).  So wether he drowned in an impossibly deep body of water that should have been 2 feet deep at most near the bank where he fell in, or he surfaces and gets eaten, it doesn't matter.

Why do I care at all about geography, when there are witches, 3-eyed ravens, white walkers, wyverns,  resurrected zombies like The Mountain, and a flame-proof Daenerys inter-woven into the story?  Because geography matters.  Geography anchors the reference frame, it provides logical context, to is the foundation upon which the rest of the "world" from H R R Martin or anyone else can exists, function, facilitate commerce, livelihoods for the citizens of that world... so that it can be believable.  Throw in the magic and mythical creatures, and that makes it more exciting to the readers / watchers. But make a gentle sloping river bank lead to a DEEP Sudden Ledge of a drowning pool... make a bay so narrow that it cannot hold thousands of ships that couldn't see each other... it creates a landscape with so many unknowns that the watcher / reader doesn't know if Up is Down, left is right, gradual is sudden, light is dark, etc.


In Avatar, they had floating geography, that the "unobtainium" caused to hover above the planet's surface, sure.  But the "unobtainium" was intrinsic to the plot, it was Why the humans were mining the planet and disturbing the entire eco-system.  The viewer could suspend disbelief because of how central the geographic features were to the viability of the plot.  In GoT, the geographic anomalies keep getting in the way, making the world of Westeros into a farce instead of a fantasy realm.

Enough said... now it's time for me to make some dinner.

Big Sick, Yes. Baby Driver, No.

Dr Desert Flower and I went to go see The Big Sick a week ago.  It was a sweet romantic comedy, written by Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon, based upon the story of how they met and how Kumail got to know her parents.  Kumail's immigrant family expects him to marry a nice Pakistani Muslim woman.  Kumail can't find an arranged bride who appeals to him.  The movie is well written, well acted, touching, and a good "date movie".

This morning I donated blood in San Marcos, near the Civic Center, and on my way back from the bloodmobile, I stopped by the Edwards Regal cinemas in San Marcos, hoping to see a pre-noon showing of Dunkirk, which I keep hearing is a massive adrenalin ride and emotional assault on the human condition.  When I got to the theater, it was 1045am and the next Dunkirk was not for another 40 minutes.  Baby Driver was showing at 1045, and being one who doesn't like previews, I opted to see Baby Driver.  It had Kevin Spacey & Jon Hamm in it, and even a cameo by Flea, so I thought "why not?"  Bad decision.

Baby Driver had a body count upwards of a John Wick movie.  Director Edgar Wright loves car chases and shoot outs, and if the shoot outs are killing mobsters or human traffickers or other scum, I'll sit through it, and maybe I might enjoy it.  But in Baby Driver most of the bodies were law enforcement, security guards, and people who were just going about their own business.  Gratuitous violence. Graphic & ruthless death.  Unlikeable characters.  As soon as the closing credits started to roll I was the first person out of the movie theater.  A waste of $7.50.  I'm sorry, but unloading a clip from a semi automatic to the rhythm of the music playing, as if pulling the trigger is the bass line, is insulting, unrealistic, and profoundly insulting.  Sure, there's 2 fast-paced and superbly executed car chases around the Atlanta metro area included in the film, but the rest of it is full of unpleasant, unlikeable, unredeemable characters doing terrible things to each other.  Not something I want to pay to watch.

In A Dragon Based Economy, Geography Doesn't Matter

In a Dragon Based Economy, apparently geography doesn't really matter.  Or "everything you wanted to know about the Game of Thrones season premier, but we're too afraid to ask".

Dragonstone is near Jamie's feet, Kings Landing is 1/2 way to his sister & lover Cersei

I call it a "Dragon Based Economy" because that what John Oliver called it on Colbert's Late Night show twice last week.  "We're talking some serious dragon money" - when Last Week Tonight bought 5 wax presidents from a closing Ohio Presidential museum.  Game of Thrones is one of the Main anchors that brings in subscribers (and pirates) to HBO, along with Real Time (which I watch, every time it's on), The Leftovers (which I couldn't care less about), and Ballers (which I can't give even 1/2 a sh*t about no matter how hard I try).  Westworld was a good series, and in my mind, Needed to STOP when it stopped.  There's Zero Need to continue with Samurai Westworld, Outer Space Westworld, or Ancient Roman Westworld...  but the bean counters and non-creatives at HBO apparently disagree with my perspective and want to keep raking in the cash from zombified viewers.

Another Danish actor steal jobs from good Americans & Brits

Now, why do I state that "geography doesn't matter"?  Well, the newly usurping & murderous Lord of the Iron Born Euron Greyjoy (putting the "Ew!" in "Euron") shows up with an armada of "1000 ships" at Kings Landing, in an attempt to gain favor with Queen Cersei (and ask for her hand in marriage... ew!!! I think I just tasted some of my own vomit), but his massive fleet somehow doesn't run into the even more massive fleets of Greyjoy deserters, Unsullied warriors, 2nd Sons (I'm actually a 2nd son myself, heh heh), and the Dothraki Horde - not to mention 3 massive and very hungry dragons that have been flying air cover for the invading fleet - that Daenerys Targaryen is leading to the island of Dragonstone.  Dragonstone, per the maps of Westeros, is near the eastern mouth of the long bay that eventually leads to Kings Landing.  The Iron Islands, Pyke, are on the Western side of Westeros, north of Casterly Rock.  THERE IS NO Northern Passage, as global warming has not yet melted the ice caps north of the Seven Kingdoms as it already has in Canada and Russia on this world in this age, where Polar Bear mothers now have to swim for more than a 100 miles with their newly born cubs to reach the pack ice, where upwards of 90% of the cubs are drowning, exhausted, as they used to only have to swim a mile or 2 at most.  At least I got to see a Polar Bear in the zoo when I was a kid, before they all become extinct.

But human driven climate change aside, Ewwww-Euron's 1000 ships would have had to sail Down around the Southern end of Westeros, past Dorne, and then northward UP the Narrow Sea, side-by-side or just ahead / just behind Daenerys's even bigger fleet was sailing through, with 3 circling and hungry dragons who would have obliterated the 1000 Greyjoy ships just as they torched the slavers ships in Slaver's Bay several seasons ago, until the slavers finally surrendered and Daenerys took their ships for her crossing of the Narrow Sea.  I've included a handy screen shot from the episode where Cersei is standing in the middle of a courtyard painted as the map of Westeros, for your reference, above.  Both fleets could no co-exist in the same Narrow Sea at the same timer even within a few days of each other, due to their MASSIVE sizes and the remarkably slow pace that sail driven sea travel has when flying just one or 2 sails, and not a massive array of studding sails, spanker sails, royal, sky, moonraker, and top sails as Only Euron's flag ship tried to set (with aerodynamic inaccuracies, sorry special effects folks who were concerned more with style than substance).  "That which is dead can never die" ... no..  how about "that which is dumb cannot get dumber", or "that which is repulsive cannot get even more repulsive".  So Euron's travel to and appear in Kings Landing was not logistically possible, unless he somehow teleported or owned a T.A.R.D.I.S. with enough capacity to move his entire fleet instantaneously without running into Daenerys's fleet.

Sure, "The Twins" where they Freys slaughtered and then got slaughtered themselves ("poison is a woman's weapon") apparently divides the northern part of the Seven Kingdoms from the southern part, perhaps for lack of any small boats that could traverse the water way southeast of "The Twins", I can understand that.  But the waterway that "The Twins" crosses Does Not extend all the way to the west coast of Westeros, so there's no way Euron and his massive fleet could have sailed down it.

Geography aside, the Season 7 premier was pretty good.  Several other poignant observations I made in retrospect are as follows:

1) what's scarier than a whole horde of decomposing white walkers who can't be killed with steel weapons?  A horde of decomposing white walkers who have in their ranks ancient Giants whom they've killed and then resurrected as blue eyed white walkers before the giant corpses could be burnt.  Undead zombie giants are Far More Lethal than undead foot soldiers or undead calvary.  An undead giant could lob a spear the size of a telephone pole with a big nasty pointy end, far into the air (like the height of "The Wall" as happened several seasons ago when the Wildling Free Folk attacked "The Wall" with Giants at their side)... and such a spear could impale one of the precious 3 dragons, perhaps killing it.  Then... the Night King resurrects the dead dragon as a undead dragon...  and it kills the other two remaining dragons.  That would be Game Over, for Game of Thrones.  

What's worse than one white walker Giant? Three white walker Giants!

2) if you were not watching with closed captioning on (as we do in our house, with hearing impaired viewers  and for clarity), you would not know that the massively gray scaled hand that tried to reach out to Samwell Tarly was indeed the hand of Jorah Mormont (former Lord of Bear Island, then reluctant slave trader to keep his wife comfortable and provide "the lifestyle to which she was accustomed", then kidnapper of Tyrion and rebuked suitor of Daenerys).  Seems that Jorah made his way to Old Town to seek a cure for grayscale from the Maesters, but Westerosian medicine still didn't have a cure for that ailment.

3) if you've stolen the keys to the forbidden & locked up Maester reference library, and you have only a few seconds to lift an ancient book from the bizarrely chained shelves (was Old Town seismically active?), make sure you pick The Exact Tome that has the history of the Last Winter in it, that shows Precisely where a whole mountain of Dragon Glass is on the island of Dragonstone (at the mouth of the bay that leads right to Kings Landing)... it just seems rather far fetched to me, as I am old enough to remember going to the library Before there was a searchable internet, and you had to use the card catalogue, or the headache inducing microfiche, and you spent hours and hours searching to find just one or two gems that you could include in a bibliography.  There was no Google, Yahoo, Bing, Lycos,  Ask Jeeves, AltaVista, Infoseek, or Webcrawler back when I was in school.  If you wanted to find a book in a library, you had to search for it, long and hard, and hope you got lucky and it wasn't checked out when you finally located it.  Samwell Tarly grabs it The First Pick, while under pressure of being discovered a few seconds later by the next Maester who walks in.  Sure... let's keep suspending disbelief.

Voted most likely to be killed by White Walkers by his Free Folk High School

This should be a good season.  Let the white walkers come... depose the angry Cersei who has no allies (let Arya do it, gleefully)... make a bunch of weapons out of Dragonstone's Dragon Glass cache... wipe out the Greyjoys from the surface of the sea and have their octopus god devour their rotting remains... let the alternative lifestyle Dorne and Greyjoy girls enjoy themselves together... sacrifice the Free Folk & their leader Tormund Giantsbane to the white walker hordes just as corporate America does to the middle class without blinking an eye... have Brienne take out The Mountain as she took out his little brother and then she and Jaime can get together... let Samwell Tarly save the day with his book-learnin... and let Jon Snow get it on with his 1/2 sister Daenerys once the Starks and Daenerys armies band together to fight the White Walker horde.  I can't care about Baelish, Bran, Sansa, Qyburn, Podrick, man-bun Thoros or one eyed Beric very much at all.  Sure, Martin can kill off most of the main characters and elevate any of these lesser roles if he wants to... but... that would hurt the franchise at this point, and HBO wants to keep making money.  Please just let it be one or two more seasons... and not 4 or 5 more, or it'll go on far too long as the books have.

Trump Family's Arrested Development

Dr Desert Flower and I have been catching up on old seasons of Arrested Development on Netflix while her shoulder (post-surgery) and my left elbow (compressed bursa) recover and heal.  With the recent Russian emails that have been revealed that clearly show collusion between the Trump family during the presidential campaign in July of 2016, and the Russian governments and government surrogates, DDF and I came to the revelation that the Trump family and the Bluth family are remarkably analogous.  If you're a fan of Arrested Development, read on, you may enjoy this post and could possibly provide comments to make it even better.  If you're no fan of Arrested Development, or have never watched the show, I recommend reading no further, as this post will probably just seem byzantine, trivial, and over-extended in its comparison.

From left to right: Buster, Maeby, George Michael, Lucille, George Sr, Lindsey, Tobias, and G.O.B. (pronounced "Jobe")

The characters in Arrested Development and their Trump analogues are as follows:

George Sr = 45 Himself; enriching his family by buying cheap desert acreage that the federal government will build a wall upon, running a fake university, repeatedly bankrupting the family business, a chronic philanderer who cannot keep it in his pants, throughout his whole life, multiple shady business associates.  George Sr is Far More Intelligent, conniving, devious, wily, and successful than 45 in myriad ways... but as the head of the family, there's similarities. (a 70% match)

Lucille = Ivanka; looking out for herself and her own financial gain, sleeps with George Sr, hyper-focused on appearances, is cut-throat and evil to the core. (a 80% match)

G.O.B. = Donald Jr; oldest son, incompetent, buffoonish, clueless, talentless, sycophantic son who ardently longs for his distant father's approval, full of hubris, arrogant douche bag without the intelligence or talent to back up such arrogance, causes the family intense pain, embarrassment, and catastrophic failure, repeatedly. (a 98% match... G.O.B. is much funnier, and less of a douche)

Buster = Barron; Overly attached to his mother, immature, youngest son (a 60% match)

Tobias = Eric; goof, no-value-added (a 40% match, since Tobias is a flawed character we know, and Eric is just a rich frat boy douche who hunts endangered species like Elephants in Africa)

Lindsey = Tiffany; adopted, clueless, left out of the picture (a 40% match)

Michael = Jared; boyish, has some clues but not enough, son-of-a-formerly-rich-father-who's-gone-to-jail, In WAY Over His Head, doomed to failure (an 80% match)

Maeby = 45's grand children we don't know about yet ( < 50% match)

{Late addition}
Kitty (George Sr's mentally unstable secretary) = Kellyanne Conway; both mentally tenuous, extremely dangerous, and both have "the crazy" in their eyes, but Kellyanne weaves lies much more effectively.)  (a 90% match)

{Late addition}
Ann = Sarah Huckabee Sanders; both come from narrow minded fundamentalist families, though Ann is far sweeter and more attractive than her press-secretary-wanna-bee-mean-girl-who-wants-your-lunch-money Huckabee Sanders.  Both have a mean streak inside them (Ann going off with Steve Holt... Sarah being herself)  {Thanks Jen H for these observations and suggestions!}

Stan Sitwell = Hillary Rodham Clinton, with hair; consistently the foil against the 45 administration, consistently has tried to defeat them but has not been successful in vanquishing them.

George Michael = ?  No equivalent in the 45 administration observed, yet... but stay tuned

Barry Zuckerkorn (played by Henry Winkler, the Bluth family lawyer) = Marc E. Kasowitz; incompetent, shady, does what he's told badly. (a 85% match)

Pence, Spicer, Massive-Foreheaded Stephen Miller, Christie, Gingrich, and Bannon don't have direct Arrested Development analogues that I can think of... at this time.

All readers' comments and suggestions are welcome.  This post will be updated as 2017 progresses and new information is revealed.  DDF and I thought it was pretty funny that there's so many similarities.

Charcuterie Week

The Discovery Channel has "Shark Week" each year.  But why doesn't the Food Network have Charcuterie Week?

Charcuterie is delicious.  Charcuterie can be found in many of the best restaurants in the US.  Charcuterie has never eaten a surfer, or clogged a fishing net that was not intended to catch a shark.  One does not need a submerged reinforced steel cage to enjoy charcuterie safely.

I did a internet search for "Charcuterie Week" and found a link on FoodRepublic that mentioned "Charcuterie Week" in San Antonio in 2016.  But it did not mention a trade mark or copy write, anywhere in the article.

I think it should be a thing.

To Catch A Predator...

Is it just me, or does overtime the announcers say "the Predators" I think of Bill Hader on SNL, when he parodied the "To Catch a Predator" MSNBC series...  "ohhhhhhhhh"

It makes ir impossible to imagine a saber toothed tiger as a "predator" when Bill Vader played the host so well.

Go Penguins.  Sorry Nashville.  You'l get another chance in the future.

PUSA Lump Cover

This has been out for 10 months..  and I just heard it today.  Too damn funny!


This is really quite genius!  =)

DDF and I saw The Presidents of the United States back in Indianapolis in the mid 90s, at The Egyptian Room...  awesome show.

Don't Eat People Food!

At Zion National Park last month, Dr Desert Flower pointed out this sign on the shuttle bus that takes people up and down the canyon.  Very funny, and remarkably accurate!

When I see common squirrels at the Carlsbad beach here in California, they're also chubby, puffy, not-lean mammals, addicted to hand-outs from humans.  Fed by tourists, they live high on the junk-food-chain.

First Dragon & Castle of 2016

After work yesterday, I headed down to Ponto State Beach here in lovely Carlsbad, with my shovels,  cooler, sun screen, hat, water shoes, and sand castle moulds.

After 2 hours, I had the 3 foot high by 5 foot wide castle done.  After another 2 hours, I was progressing well on the dragon when most of my elementary school fans had to leave with their families.  After about 3 hours (5 hours into the building) I had the dragon about finished.

It lived (I think) until near high tide at 11pm, so 5 hours to build, and another 5 hours of presence before being taken away by the tide.

A wet strand of kelp made a nice touch for the fire that the dragon was breathing.  A very small plastic shovel made for nice fingernails for the dragon.  Altogether, it turned out pretty well, I believe.

I doubt it'll be my last. Come visit, bring your small children, and we can make more of them = )

When I was getting ready to leave, 3 siblings (ages 5 to 9) asked if they could play in the 3 foot deep hole I'd dug, which had water in the bottom of it (as the tide was Just starting to come in). "We want to make a hot tub" they pleaded.  "Go ask your parents" I told them...  I didn't was 3 foot tall kids to get trapped in a caved in 3 foot deep hole.  When I had loaded up my car with my tools, I went up to the bluffs above the beach and found the dragon and castle were still standing, with kids in "the hot tub" beside it.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs...

I saw this sign online this morning, and it made me laugh:

Natural Coconut Simplicity

Many of my close friends and family know that for the last year+ I have been grappling with extremely dry skin that was flaking off in ridiculous amounts, leaving a "trail of Joe" in rooms, in cars, on chairs, on couches, just about everywhere I'd go.  While my loved ones would tell me not to worry about it, and that it "wasn't that bad", leaving a cloud of (what I thought was) dead skin anywhere that I stayed for any length of time, it was hard to not get very grossed out by the flaking and "snow" my arms and back and face were shedding, constantly.  A close look in the mirror, and all I could see was hundreds of "hang nails" all over my fore-head, cheeks, ears, earlobes, chin, neck and arms.  "How can any human shed so much skin?" - I'd ask myself, frequently.

Turns out, it wasn't skin, for the most part at least.  It was dried moisturizer that had gone from liquid to solid and then was being shed by my skin as it tried to breathe beneath the rapidly drying hypoallergenic coating.  My dermatologist had recommended I use Vanicream lotion, so I did, by the tub - $16 a tub, about once a week - a white paste that was rather oily and sticky.  Vanicream makes a "Lite" lotion, in a pump bottle, that is less thick, less oily, and leaves less residue.  Only thing is... the flaking persisted.  And the flaking was still gross.

Concentrated Epsom Salt baths (3 lbs in about10 inches of water), every 3 or 4 days, soaking for 30 minutes in the luke-warm water (not warm, just tepid, so as not to aggrevate my skin further) helped to ex-foliate and "slough off" the flakes.  And the 30 minute soaks were / are a nice form of meditation to slow heart rate, breathing, and lower blood pressure.  So it had secondary health benefits as well...  but there had to be a better way.

Turns out, my mother-in-law had a better solution all along.  Coconut Oil.  She'd been trying it for some time and kept telling Dr Desert Flower I should use it for my flaking.  On Monday, I switched over from slathering myself in Vanicream, to dipping my fingers into the Trader Joe's virgin, organic, $5 a jar coconut oil, pulling out the hard white paste which instantly begins to melt with body temperature, and put it on my face and arms.  Fantastic!  It feels soothing.  It smells awesome.  It is completely natural.  It calms urticaria (welted up, hives).  It doesn't stain clothing.  And it doesn't generate even 1/10th as much flaking.  Yes, some skin still sloughs off, in a very small amount.  The Vanicream cream was horribly flake causing.  The Vanicream lite, about 1/2 or 1/3rd as much "white snow" generating.  The coconut oil...  less than 10% as much as the Vanicream lite.

Look at the ingredients...  and then work backwards as to what is causing the white flaking.  It's not dead skin.  It's dried lotion... as I was going through crazy amounts of moisturizer every day.  And the Vanicream required re-application several times an hour.  That's several times an hour in my office.  Several times an hour while driving for 3 days to South Carolina.  Several times an hour while flying back from South Carolina to California.  Now, I am applying a very small amount of pure coconut oil to my face and arms about once every 3 or 4 hours.  I have the pleasant fragrance of coconut instead of the medicinal scent of moisturizer (even though it is all hypoallergenic) wafting up to my nostrils.  The coconut oil doesn't seem to block my pores so my face doesn't over-heat and dry out as it did with the moisturizer.  The coconut oil also has antibacterial properties that have helped my irritated, red, dry, cracked eye lids to heal up and stop being so unpleasant.  The coconut oil leaves no paste or dried residue on the skin, that would (inevitably) cause more itching, which would then (in turn) cause more redness, more scratching, more release of histamines and a continuation of the vicious & destructive cycle.

Additionally, the Saturated Fatty Acids (SFAs) that make up 85% of the coconut oil are far better for humans than the poly-unsaturated-fatty-acids that are in some nuts and margarine and most cooking oils.  Not only will I continue applying it to my skin, but I will be cooking with it, and ingesting it as well.

Natural remedies, when proven over centuries, and when not allergic, are typically far better than industrialized, artificial, expensive, patented and mass-marketed commercial solutions.  Stevia is FAR BETTER for humans than Nutrasweet, Sweet-n-low, Equal, or the laboratory created "Truvia" which is really just a pointless recreation of what already grows naturally, stevia rebaudiana.  Coconut oil, I now see the same way.  Far better than aisles and aisles of moisturizers and creams that Target and the local pharmacies all carry.  And much cheaper, much more pleasant, less annoying.

One of my favorite Coconut References...  from Zombieland...   "It's not the taste, it's the consistency!"