May Day 10

Whether its a valid complaint or not.... i think its a bad look that botterill is in europe working a second job at the loser tournament instead of "focusing" on this team that is a heavy lift and obviously needs a lot of work. His co-gms are both unemployed. It looks worse that the coaching carousel is continually spinning. If edmonton lands tippett while he is gone, im going to have trouble not being angered by this. I guess when a stated goal is to "be in a position to be in games"... the bar is set low enough where there is plenty of room for error

Yeah. Meereen in in the last book is the worst part, with all the political machinations and people slowly travelling there. There were/are various plots i really wanted to see, but it seemed that 95% of the 2nd half of the last book was centered on meereen... and also castle black which was kind of at an impasse through much of the book. Other than that, all 5 books are dynamite imo. The books arent a difficult read at all. Grrm has a way of writing that takes a little adjustment (f.e. tyrion liked the contents of the letter not at all). But its a fairly easy road. Especially with familiarity with the general physics, map, politics, major characters, etc. The worst part, i would say is the in depth description of everything in every meal, as well as detailed descriptions of what people are wearing.... that paints a great picture though and sets tones.

Yes, they have drilled down way too deep. The baseball example is a good one. After being safe, a player's cleat bumps off the bag by a millimeter while the tag is being applied. I guess they can break their ankles. In this case, Im perfectly fine with the umpire making the call (whether it goes for or against my team). The Offside rule in hockey... the spirit of the rule is so a player doesnt go in before the puck to gain an advantage. It isnt an 'out of bounds line. IMO, over history it has been called way better than adequately. I never desired super slow-mo ultra zoomed in reviews to see a molecule of ice between a player's toe and the blue line (before a play that went behind the net, the defense gains control, cant clear it, and the team ends up setting up a play and scoring. The Offside rule only serves to remove goals and excitement by way of a technicality. It cannot add goals or offense. A linesman blows an offside call the other way, the offensive team cannot 'challenge' that to get their offensive rush back. It is looney tunes. Now there is momentum to reviewing 5 minute major penalties.... honestly, in my 35 years of watching hockey, I have never come close to desiring this.

One of the great things about the Red Wedding, especially in the books, is that it was kind of laid out there for us to figure out, and not a lot of people/anybody did. They laid out nuggets building up, right up to the strange/loud/crappy music gallery. Even after what happened to Ned Stark it came as a huge shock. In a matter of pages, he essentially snuffed out what we thought was the main revenge plot. Then you put it all together with Tywin's letters/certainty that Sansa would be the lord, the makeup of the Westerling family, the mistreatment of the Karstarks, etc... It was genius. That kind of thing sets an unfair bar though, and after that, everyone is just waiting for the writer(s) to knock your socks off and analyzing every little thing trying to guess the next 'twist'. This is what has poisoned the opinions of M Night Shyamalan's movies since the Sixth Sense. Everyone is expecting a major twist at the end and disappointed every time because they are let down (personally, I still like most of his movies)

Its a terrible rule. Whether it goes in favor of, or against the Sabres, I loathe it. It is the stupidest thing the NHL could do.

I was luke-warm on Gronborg anyways. The concept was interesting.... but IMO, this team is not in the position to take such a risk and dive in on a coach who is not experienced in the rigors of an NHL-length season. The next coach needs to somehow fix the reasons why this team has quit during the past 3 seasons, as well as provide sound schematics. To me, Tippett is perfect, as far as what is currently available, and honestly, I would choose him over Quenneville for this team.

fats is currently dealing with the canadian team in the euro tournament, so probably nothing will happen for awhile.

yeah, maybe she was out, but still on the hook for the trial, and in theory, we could still be on a path to the Sept of Baelor getting burnt.

The books havent gotten that far. Margaery is still imprisoned far as i recall (loras on burnt on dragonstone)

I would love holland and tippett to turn this ship around.

My kid is just getting into it for the most part. He just turned 6 and finished his 2nd year of hockey and starting his 3rd year of baseball. I would say we have not encountered anything rough as of yet (its coming I'm sure). We do hockey in a fairly skills-oriented, low drama organization though, at least at early age groups. We did spring hockey last year at a different place and witnessed a trashy family hooting and hollering when their kid would knock a smaller kid over, steal the puck, score, and do a celebration. My kid is doing spring hockey this year, and is at the high end of the age group. Had the first game last weekend, and he was too good, where the other kids were probably not having a good time. He wasn't passing and ended up scoring about 30 of the game's 35 or so goals. I was hiding my face in my hands. I had a long talk about passing and being a good 'role model', so we will see how this week goes. If its a disaster again, I might inquire with the coach on what we could do, or if we can move him to the higher age group.

Everyone hates Tyrion and Varys though and the common people would not follow them under any circumstances... let alone any of the remaining lords. Mind you, people hated Tyrion as hand and he is still wanted for Regicide and Patricide/Kinslaying. When he was Hand for Joffrey, the people despised him despite him protecting them from Joffrey's stupidity/cruelty and also saved them from being sacked. One of his last public appearance, he basically told everyone he wishes they were all dead. I also suspect that people of King's Landing will have had their fill of Lannisters ruling after this battle/war. Nobody likes or trusts Varys either.

Well yeah. If I want to swim, I cant in our basement. I also do not own a sauna, but don't really desire that. I understand if a club offers something you feel like you need/want. Some people just like to go. For me, I just want a workout. Home workouts with a 'follow the leader' type of deal with a trainer using mostly gravity and body weight.... set to a timer to work quickly and efficiently, are much better than a beginner or even someone who is moderately versed on gym equipment.... doing "chest day" and spending 25 minutes on an elliptical. Most of the workouts are based on Core-Strength, and that is something most amateur gym-goers do not develop. The most important ingredient is DIET anyways. The exercise part is just showing up and actuating your muscles. Jumping down into the basement and flipping on a 25-30 min video to me breaks down the whole barrier of driving to and from a place, trying to analyze when it is 'crowded', etc. Especially with spouses who work full time and 2 very young kids. Just cant carve out 1-2 hours a day. I have a basement gym. Had it set up when it was unfinished... but had the basement finished with a half-open gym room with a pullup bar, mounted TV in the corner, adjustable dumbbells (with the dial), adjustable bench, and semi-professional lockable flooring. Have a shelf with all sorts of other items like weighted gloves, resistance bands, DVDs, etc... That, and going for a job gives me everything I could ever need.

yeah, the story went a long way with Jaime.... like 5-6 seasons worth, and unlikely to just cast all the development away due to cold feet.

So this is people whose legacy is inflated due to their young-ish death? Cobain is an interesting one for this. I'm a Nirvana fan, but I am not sure they would be capable of aging well and lasting as they were, and Cobain would have soon outgrown his live persona, lots of angst, screaming, etc. Maybe if the MTV Unplugged performance was an indication that Cobain as an artist could have matured and re-invented himself on the way? IMO, Nirvana was probably not going to be long for this world anyways, and Cobain would need to branch out, either solo, or with a new group. I think Tupac was also inflated a bit from his demise. Out of his contemporaries, he didn't really do it for me.

If you have any space at all, I would suggest home workouts. They will give you a much better workout than you would get at a gym on your own, much cheaper, and saves loads of time. Beachbody has a good app, with workouts for everyone. You can get a great workout in like 25 minutes/day. I believe they have a trial period as well. And no, Im not a 'coach' or anything like that.

nothing is worse than having to listen to somebody talk about their golf game

Dany's "turn" also perturbs me a bit, but waiting to see it play out to see. The rest of the story focuses on establishing she is on a plane with Rheagar, who by all accounts was a fairly righteous dude. She was getting her eye poked by the sons of the harpy on a daily basis for years, showed all the restraint in the world, and even locked her dragons (children) up. 80% Of her character arc is freeing and trying to defend slaves. This character, built over 7 seasons is not a character who will willingly torch thousands of innocents. Im hoping that as an audience, we are being steered one way, and Dany will throw a curveball and fool everyone Next week, daario nahaaris is going to magically fly in, just in time on another dragon, born by eggs laid by drogon or somebody

I realize that Sansa seems to be thinking clearly now (other than he seemingly unfounded distrust and dislike of Dany, as well as her clinging to the idea of the "North". The undue tension Sansa has been creating with Dany is a primary driver of the upcoming conflict. If Sansa was more supportive and backed Jon from the getgo, things would most likely have been easier. But my issue is the sudden 'pivot' of Sansa being a naive "I like songs" girl who is abused and constantly getting manipulated, to this tough ruler who wears black suits with hoops and chains ornamenting them was kind of hasty and convenient. I don't mind her if she ends up as lord of winterfell/warden of the north because she is the Stark with the best claim (considering Bran recognizes he isnt in fact Bran). To see her end up at the very top of the heap as ruler of Westeros at the end would be lame (IMO)

In the interest of moving the story along (we dont need any more of the world-building from all the earlier travels), Im cool with transporting However, attaching a tangible stopwatch, such as cersei's pregnancy throws the timeline out of being plausible. She should have a toddler running around the battlements.

That wasn't that 'smart' though. If she had told Snow up front about it, like she should have, he would have probably said "hell yes, tell them to come, do it yesterday".... and probably formed a different battle plan that could have saved 1000s of lives.

I really hope Sansa doesn't end up as the "last man standing" and hold all the power at the end. She is probably my least favorite "main" character throughout the books and the show. Her whole transition from "I like songs" to some sort of ruler was hastily done, was forced and doesn't make a lot of sense. When Arya says that Sansa is the smartest person she knows or something, I was like "wut?". Like what smart thing has she done or concocted in the entire series? She is crafted as one of the "dumbest" characters who has trained only to be a "Lady" as intently as Arya has trained to fight/kill. I know she has 'been through a lot", and got a few lessons on being a sneak from Littlefinger, but I think its lazy to suggest she is suddenly a stone-cold ruler at this point.

It seems like they are telegraphing Jon/Aegon''s demise a bit too much, which makes me think him prevailing might be a/the big surprise. Basically going down an identical path as Ned (choosing unbending honor instead of survival/power/love), booting his direwolf, "final-seeming" goodbyes to Tormund and Sam, heading south to King's landing as a Stark.

After a few days to think on this, and speaking to someone who has used this for games down south (very useful when travelling to a game), im willing to give it a try. The folding red wagon things is a good idea

The white walkers in the last few seasons remind me of the crew of jackass wearing the old man faces.