Game of Thrones Season 2 Leaked

If you are a Game of Thrones fan it may interest you to know that season 2 has been leaked in great detail. According to Tor.com ”[n]otorious author George R. R. Martin has immediately taken credit for the leaked information becoming public.”  Tor also quotes “an unnamed HBO exec” as saying “Reading is for people who want to be confused. We never do it. Why should our viewers?”  Ah, April 1st.

(Most of my friends who are watching Game of Thrones had already read all the books published so far in the series before the HBO adaptation started, so I doubt they’re worried.)

Thus far I haven’t watched it.  Partly it’s that the trailers give me no reason to watch – generally they’re showing the characters.  This is great if you have read the books and know who you’re looking at. If you haven’t, well, why should I care, you know?

This is often my response to TV and movies, by the way.  Why should I care?  I will note I grew up in a house in the 70s and 80s where the TV was turned off on very rare occasions.  I am well experienced in the tropes of  cop shows, sitcoms, soap operas and action-adventure stories.  (To this day I can recall more of the General Hospital and Dallas plotlines than I would prefer.)  I hate procedurals, Law & Order most of all.  I am bored by many sitcoms. I find cop shows  are predictable and/or trying to hard to push my emotional buttons. (It’s not just a dead victim, it’s a dead victim who was a child molester and killed by a victim’s mother!  Etc.)  Then, if I do start to get into the story, the commercials kick me out of the narrative to shout about diets, cars, beer, sales, and other minutiae — often with a side of women-hating and self-loathing for the win.

I do like humor. I do like stories.  There’s a reason I bought Daria and Coupling on DVD.   I did go see The Hunger Games in the theater, even though I knew going in that the movie had a longer run time than it took to read the book.

There’s another factor, and that has to do with what do I want in my brain.

Sherlock Holmes: Listen: [gets up and points to his head] This is my harddrive, and it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful. Really useful. Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters! Do you see?

- Sherlock BBC, Episode 3: The Great Game

I have enough stress from real life.  I don’t need stress from entertainment. I don’t want Biggest Loser or Fat March or Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition or Hydroxycut commercials in my brain.  I don’t need to compare my body to “Hollywood normal”.   I also don’t claim to only be spending time on things that are perfect or useful.  I want my leisure time to be spent on things I enjoy and that help me relieve stress.  Sherlock makes me laugh.  Rosemary and Thyme is beautiful and I can’t always spot whodunit. More often, I curl up with something like Murder With Peacocks or The Adept or Murder Must Advertise or Discount Armageddon, and … I smile.

It’s just another new year’s eve

Hope you are warm, safe, and happy.

Happy Solstice

I’m in North America – Seattle, specifically. We currently get 8 hours of sun a day, and will for the next few weeks — but slowly we’ll start getting more.

This is The Christians & The Pagans, by Dar Williams.

Semi-Random Update

I am sitting naked on my couch, wrapped in an afghan.

“Breakfast” this morning was a banana, 2 butterflake rolls, and a glass of diet Pepsi.

My temp job is taking huge amounts of my time.  I will likely be working some today, for example.

More permanent positions may be added in my group. I have given my grandboss my resume.

The last few months I’ve been carpooling with friends.  This cuts the average commute time to 30-50% of the typical bus commute, but it also reduces how much walking I do.  I’ve been eating lunch out more just to get out of the building and walk.

I spent time with my father on Thanksgiving for the first time in years.  I took him to lunch at his favorite restaurant.  He was back at his care home in time for the big Thanksgiving dinner there. I had dinner at my place with members of our family-of-choice.

Before leaving to get Dad yesterday I realized the cotton no-underwire bra I’d put on would probably give me a bit of  ”4-boob syndrome” as the day went on.  At the time, I didn’t care, since I was going to be with Dad, and that type of  thing isn’t uncommon at the restaurant in question.  This also had me thinking about class.  After lunch it definitely was “4-boob” time, so I changed when I got home.

Dinner included: Turkey, stuffing with water chestnuts and cashews, green bean casserole, mashed yams, butterflake rolls, sparkling wine, coffee, hard cider, marionberry pie and pumpkin pie.  Most of this was cooked by the man of the house.  Yum.

Happy Thanksgiving

This year I offer a couple funny songs about Thanksgiving:

:)

Go Away Stalkers

Online harassers are being discussed again (or maybe it never stopped).

I don’t have a solution.

I do have a rockin’ dance track for it, though.

To quote the artist:

“Go Away God Boy” was written in roughly three hours, after a telephone call with my friend the poet Mia Nutick, also known as the Wicked Fairy Apologist.  Mia had had the misfortune to attract an online stalker on her BLOG.  While not uncommon for most of us, her situation had yet another layer of weirdness to it:  this particular stalker was convinced — and wanted Mia to be convinced, as well — that he was Jesus Christ.  The real thing.  Not just a zealous person wishing to convert others to Christianity.  No, no; he went way beyond that.  He was also apparently pretty rude, as the only reason Mia had ever acknowledged his presence, and thereby attracted his attention, was in defending her friends from his unprompted criticism.  In the course of our phone call, Mia related the short version of the sordid tale to me.  To conclude, she said, “I think that the issue is somewhat resolved now, but I’m still asking all of my friends to send as much ‘Go away God Boy’ energy in his direction as they can!”

Lyrics, downloads, and more are here.

My fat eats cellphones

I lost my phone.  I thought  it was next to me on the couch.  Or maybe in the couch.  The couch doesn’t have separate cushions, but there is an opening in the fabric in the back near the support that my cell loves to dive for and it’s difficult to get out of…..  Anyway.  I couldn’t find my phone.

So the man of the house tried to call my phone.

Silence.

Tried again.  Still silence.

Had it fallen out of my pocket on the way home from work?  No, I’d texted a friend earlier.   I stood up to move the couch and … my phone falls off my lap to the floor. We hadn’t heard it because it was insulated between my corduroy-covered belly and thigh.

(Yes, we laughed.)

Office Breakfast

The man of the house had picked up a variety pack of instant oatmeal for a trip.  We didn’t eat it then.  Monday I brought it into the office with me.

2 packets in a coffee cup + hot water = hot breakfast.   I don’t eat it every day, but when I was too rushed to eat at home it’s a nice option.

Usually with instant oatmeal I only get my favorite flavors, and even then, they’re often too strong.  Since I have a variety pack I’m mixing flavors – today was raisin & spice with maple & brown sugar.  I generally don’t like those flavors alone, but together they were fine.

Spoonful of oatmeal

Friday Fun

Here’s something to make you smile Friday, courtesy of Beth Ditto:

What are looking forward to this weekend? If it’s not your weekend, what are you looking forward to when you get there?

Quick Question

About adding apple slices to Happy Meals (and reducing the size of fries):

Also, for those who are over age 12: Is there any toy which would entice you to buy a Happy Meal for yourself?

Want to cool off?

Come to Seattle.

Seriously.

It’s been 80F or above (26C) for 78 minutes since June 1.  Eighteen hours and 48 minutes above 75F.   Some folks are fine with this, others want more warmth, but compared to the rest of the US we’re nice and cool.

So come on over.  Don’t forget the umbrella.  And a sweater.

Independence Day

For those in the US, my favorite “freedom” song, Garth Brooks’ “We Shall Be Free“.

….and a different turn on the idea of “Independence Day” by Bruce Springsteen.  (The song begins about 3 minutes in.)

Hope you all have a good day, wherever you are ;)

Keep your powder dry

Avoiding friction: Men like it too! :)

Music Monday: Tanglewood Tree

…featuring New York Times Bestselling author Seanan McGuire (blonde) with Vixy (redhead) & Tony (guitar), Betsy Tinney (cello) and Amy McNally (violin).  Recorded at a bookstore event for Seanan’s first novel Rosemary and Rue.

(Music starts about 30 seconds in.  A studio recording of  Tanglewood Tree with many of the same performers is also on Seanan’s latest CD.  Song lyrics and chords are here. Late Eclipses is Seanan’s first book to hit the New York Times list.)

Happy Music

It may not seem like a day for it, but today I want something to perk me up and make me smile.  Today, that’s Tom Smith.

(Click the song title to go to a page with the lyrics.)

Tom’s a self-employed musician who mostly sells music at sci fi conventions, which is to say, he’s broke. If you like the music, feel free to buy some – plenty of downloads for sale at http://tomsmith.bandcamp.com/ (most albums for $8US)  plus CDs at Tom Smith Online.

(More music posts here.)

Correlation Humor

Headline:   Passport ownership prevents diabetes.   Do YOU have a passport?    Don’t forget to drink coffee! :)

 

(More seriously: Poverty is associated with diabetes.  Most fat people don’t get diabetes. Thin people can develop diabetes.  Oh, and Kelly Bliss notes that yellow teeth doesn’t cause lung cancer.)

What’s the fattest country in the world?

Well, one question is, who cares?   Okay, we know the media cares, and legislators, and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign.

Dr Samantha Thomas recently posted about some myths popular in the Australian press, including that Australia is the “fattest country”.  (Hint: it isn’t.)   She also linked to some statistics, ranking countries by the percent of the female adult population that is officially obese (BMI > 30).   Oddly enough, to those who read the American media, the US isn’t at the top of the list either.  It’s not even in the top ten.

1. Papua New Guinea  79.5%
2. Tonga 70.3%
3. Samoa 63.0%
4. Nauru 60.5%
5. Nicaragua 48.0 %
6. Cook Islands  n/a (men’s is 40.6%, used to rank it here)
7. Egypt 46.6%
8. Niue 46.0%
9. Qatar 45.3%
10. French Polynesia 44.3%

Re-sorting the list by the percentage of men who are officially obese does put the US in the top ten, but not by much:

1. Papua New Guinea 74.8%
2. Nauru 55.7%
3. Tonga 46.6%
4. Cook Islands 40.6%
5. French Polynesia 36.3%
6. Lebanon 36.3%
7. Qatar 34.6%
8. Samoa 32.9%
9. USA 32.2%
10. Panama 27.9%

…and if I use the original list’s methodology of sorting on the opposite sex if only one sex’s data is available, Nicaragua is 3rd,  Eygpt is 5th, and US bumps to 11th.

The US has a greater overall population than these other countries, which affects absolute numbers – but not prevalence.

It’s also interesting how many countries have large discrepancies between men and women’s prevalences.   South Africa, for example, has a prevalence of 8.8% for men and 27.4% for women.   US is a bit of an oddball in that the men’s and women’s prevalences are very close to each other.   There are a few where the men’s prevalence is above the women’s, and those are mostly differences below 5%, with Malta and Greece being the outliers.

I certainly don’t consider this world-shaking, but it is interesting to have data instead of myths.