This Entire Mission is a Serious Misallocation of Valuable Military Resources

"Sister Minister" or "Mister Sinister," which one?

The picture is the fight between Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen at the Trident. I was saving the picture for when I had awesome news about The Song of Ice and Fire to relate to you all (since I know you're all dying to read the next book in the series like I am), but I have lost patience. I wonder if A Dance with Dragons will ever be released, and if so, could it possibly be good enough to have been worth the ridiculous wait. I know, I know, I've heard all of the arguments before... "Get a life and go read something else. Let the man write." And I agree, in part. If no promised release date had ever been given (much less several) and he said (in effect), "It will be done when it's done, leave me be," then I wouldn't have room to complain. But it was supposed to have been basically done when A Feast for Crows was released, and was scheduled to come out within a year of that. That was in 2005.

So, yeah, the promise of "It'll be done by January!" Then "Well, by September." Then, "Well, by next Spring for sure." Then "Fall, definitely" and the times come and go, it gets a bit grueling. Then he complains in his blog about people being upset with him. Duh! Hello! We love your story and want to read the next (hopefully awesome) step forward, and you've not only taken forever, but you rarely mention it in your blog, choosing instead to go on and on about everything else under the sun... You've basically produced a half a book in the past decade... it's enough to make a person want to take up several paragraphs in his own blog complaining about it!

Again, if his approach was like Blizzard has with their games "It'll be done when it's done, go away," then that would be different. Blizzard's games have always taken forever to come out, but they've always been polished and awesome to the nth degree - so much so that any one of them is still played by legions of rabid fans, sometimes 10 or more years later. GRRM is similar in that his first three books are huge, but are eminently re-readable. The fourth one (Feast) was pretty mediocre, and really was only half a book... it got to be so huge, he split it in two, with Dance supposed to be the second half, released within a year.

I'm about done with my rant. It's a backwards compliment, really. He's a good writer, it's a great epic tale, I want more, period. Plus, I'm sick of complaining about my personal life, and I have been advised by a pair of trusted friends to stop doing so anyway, for reasons that still escape me. But I trust their judgment. If my venting here has offended any or all of you, I apologize. I shall do my best to swallow my angst and stick to the more vapid stuff that constitutes the majority of my posts every day.

Like Funny Pictures!

I don't know if that's legit or a photoshop job. I can't imagine someone being allowed to install that many electrical outlets, unless it was done without permits or city approval. Would just having that many outlets available raise your electric bill, or would they need to have things plugged into them to raise the bill, I wonder?

Shows you where my brains at. I can't just enjoy the simple humor of the picture, I have to analyze it to death.

Middle Daughter's birthday is Friday. She's having a few friends sleep over, and we'll be eating at a local Italian restaurant. She's turning 14, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, 14. She's my sweetie, I have awesome kids, all 3 of them.

No negative comments about my buzzed head yet, except for my 3 year old this morning, who said my head looked weird. I didn't do it, really, to get reactions from other people, though, so it's all good. As much as I'd like to be sometimes, I'm not really an exhibitionist. I think most people see it for what it is - a weak, desperate act of a dude that is breaking inside... but I shouldn't talk about that here, apparently. So I'll move on...

Nothing interesting today in history, sorry. I was going to play something with Tom Hanks in it, in honor of his birthday, but couldn't find anything interesting enough to post. He's a quality actor, that's for sure. Man, I love strong acting. Love it. Act with everything you got, that's what I say. Weak acting makes me mad; I feel cheated. Gimme someone that can say volumes with just his/her eyes. Someone whose whole person, head to toe, is acting. Gimme Denzel in Training Day. Gimme Heath in Dark Knight. Gimme Mel Gibson in Hamlet. Gimme Benicio in 21 Grams. Gimme anyone who steps into those shoes and makes them sing, makes them scream. Show me what you got, reach inside my chest, grab my heart, and give it a good squeeze. Remind me that I'm alive, that I'm a human.

You won't find one performance in 1,000 that will do that. Who's to blame? The writer? Director? The actor? The editor? A world-class actor can tell when the director is weak, and he/she will deliver weak-sauce performances for them, and move on. I've heard Nicholson admit as much. A strong director won't settle for crap from his actors. Yet you can have a strong director and class A actors, but if the script/dialog sucks, then there's a severe limitation. A gourmet chef can only do so much with bologna. Editing is just as important. When all of those cylinders are firing, it's a thing of beauty, regardless the subject matter. It doesn't happen often, that I've seen. Once a year, maybe? Less often? I don't claim to see every movie, so I can't say for sure. But my collection is small, that's for sure.

Which brings us back to Hanks. As much as I liked him in Private Ryan, I can't think of a role he's been in that I didn't have a healthy dose of "that's Tom Hanks" diluting the enjoyment. The suspension of disbelief is, for some reason, hindered whenever I see him. Don't get me wrong, I like watching him act, but I've never bought that he's any character... it's just Hanks acting. I don't know why. Same with Robin Williams. And many others. Not everyone, though. I'd post Denzel in the final scene in Training Day here if it wasn't loaded with profanity... awesome acting, fully absorbing.

Meh, anyway. Today is my day to ramble, I guess. Hopefully I'll level out to normal again here soon. Got some things to do. I promised yesterday I'd post those Bloom County comics, but I didn't. I'll go do it now and edit them in here. They're very funny.

Anyway, sorry about the dearth of movie quotes today. Whoever stumbles through here first will no doubt snap the two obvious ones up. Sorry.

Until tomorrow, remember, you do have a decision to make, because in about 10 seconds, this whole place is gonna be overrun with blue suits.