Posts made by frimmel

Pepe backfisted him. That wasn’t just “one of those things that happen sometimes” like what happened to Dempsey. I call good on Mueller for taking the “dive.”

The headbutt was totally worthy of ejection especially on back of the punch.

That was a heck of game for the US. I scared the crap out of my cats cheering after that header to retake the lead. I certainly agree on US needing to keep possession more going forward. Lots of sloppy passing and just couldn’t keep the ball. But the strategy might be just to play D and look for opportunities in transition because they don’t have the skills forward. I really hope Altidore can come back.

Ghana is a good team. If Portugal and Germany are as good as billed I certainly see why that group was labeled “Group of Death.”

With that huge goal differential against Portugal at the moment the US has a shot at 1-1-1 especially if Germany doesn’t bother killing us. Lots of football yet to be played. US has to take care of business tonight any way you cut it. It is their best shot at three points.

The beatdown of Portugal by Germany is tremendous for the US. Especially since Portugal lose one of their best (their best player?) to the red card. Obviously they still have to play well and get a win against Ghana tonight but if Portugal is the mess they sound like they are getting at least a draw against them suddenly doesn’t seem so unrealistic. That result should only serve to also boast their confidence for the match tonight.

Of course it makes the match with Germany an utterly terrifying proposition if it weren’t already.

Looking forward to the USA game tonight.

Caught some very enjoyable matches over the weekend. A few of those guys lived up to the hype. Messi in particular.

So is the “Draw” for this event an actual random draw or is it based at all on some sort of rankings? Is there politics involved i.e. intentionally setting the US up to fail?

I was a bit put off with what initially felt like an out of nowhere sidetrack with the Ironborn in Book 4. But then they rolled out the horn to control the dragons and suddenly we have a looming confrontation and accompanying intrigues over who will be Master of the Dragons. I’m wagering on a sudden but inevitable betrayal from the priest sailing with Victarion Greyjoy. What I had thought was a detour and “why are we spending time on this?” is something I’m quite eager to learn the resolution of.

Unless done poorly I’m unsure how that wouldn’t be interesting TV. Especially since Dany is pretty popular. Victarion looming ever closer and hanging over everything she does would be an interesting theme for a season or just an arc of episodes.

You can’t have a red wedding every week.

They can’t just straight make book 4 the next season. More or less no Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Dany. I simply don’t see that happening. They more or less have to be doing some of books 4 and 4.5 in the same season and there is way too much for just a single season. Unless they just flat out drop some stuff which can’t help but force a pretty extensive divergence from the books.

@aequitas:

I almost forgot. We watched X-men DOFP last night, it was good. I liked it.

Yep. It is a top flight X-men film. Easily top 4. Well made film with limited “shaky-cam” and other such “modern” film-making tropes. It is a sequel to “First Class” but it is also more. If you’re not a X-man films fan you might not get much out of it but if you’ve seen even the turds it is worth the time. There are some pretty neat action sequences. You probably can skip the 3D and save a few bucks.

Please note, SPOILERS AHEAD.

The aforementioned scene when Drogon comes to the wedding festivities in the fighting pit. Weddings are never dull in A Song of Ice and Fire.

I thought Tyrion’s travels down the river through the ruined cities were neat.

The Night’s Watch trying to kill Jon Snow seems pretty much a “Holy Crap” moment.

Reek growing his balls back and escaping Winterfell.

Pretty much anything with a Bolton is full on creepy.

Brienne back from getting hung and getting hung in the first place.

As I said before the chief difficulty is after the last quarter of ASOS everything is going to seem tame. Perhaps you just have no patience.

I don’t think so on Dany’s half-dragon spawn. Mormont gave me the impression that it was best it died and was a bit relieved he didn’t have to kill it himself. Where is it if it lived? Who took it away? Why would Mormont participate in that?

My impression is the current season is just going to finish all of ASOS. So they’ll have taken two seasons with that book. If they then take books 4 and 4.5 into three seasons he should at least have book 5 out by time to turn that into a season. Making it four seasons might even be possible without dragging it down. (I don’t watch the show so I can’t really speak to the pacing and what they’re pulling from where at the moment.)

But it does seem like they’re going to overtake the novels. I think a bigger concern would be that Martin’s not going to live long enough to finish the books.

I tend to agree on the apples to oranges thing. The primary thing that A&A has always had going against it is its length of play. Any sort of strategy game that is played in 3 hours or under will seem superior to A&A if you’re burnt out on the slog any version of A&A (except D-Day, BOTB, GCNL) can become.

I like Memoir for a similar reason that I like Battlecry in that each scenario is a little history lesson.

But gameplay wise you’re not dealing at all with similar things except at fundamentals of strategy games stuff.

Wow. Totally disagree, Flashman.

I think the chief difficulty of books 4 and 4.5 is that they aren’t book 3. ASOS from the Red Wedding to the end is like a constant stream of “Holy Crap” moments. It’s tough to keep up with that. But I rather liked Jon and Tyrion’s story and couldn’t help but laugh at Dany making a mess of things in Mereen and the whole scene with Drogon in the fighting pit was kind of spectacular.

Totally disagree about Arya and Bran as dragonriders. Bran has more or less gone down the memory hole in my opinion. As to Arya maybe total disagreement is a strong phrasing but I don’t see any thing to indicate that’s in the realm of possibility (so far.) Maybe she ends up as one of Dany’s cup girls but I’m not seeing dragonrider in her future.

I can’t wait to see if Margaery totally set-up Cersei with asking Pycelle for moon tea. Total amateur move unless she wanted Cersei to think (whether she was or not) she was banging around on Tommen. I don’t think for a second she couldn’t get it on the quiet from the serving girls.

So yep, Jermo count me in on the “Grand Tyrell Conspiracy” more or less.

I’m on board with the Lyanna/Rhaegar as Jon’s parents as well. I actually went looking for the wiki/forums you linked to see if I was some sort of crazy for thinking that.

I’d thought from the first book that Ned was not Jon’s father and the Ashara Dayne as Jon’s mother by Ned was just too obviously a red herring.

I’ve only read the novels proper and have not read any of the Dunk and Egg or even the available preview chapters for “Winds of Winter.” I was pushing hard to stay ahead of spoilers via the HBO shows since November (books 2 through 4.5) and I’m on a bit of a break. There is also a lot to digest. I’m glad I got to read them all in fairly rapid succession.

Stuff like always saying Jon looks like Arya who looks like Lyanna would sort of get lost if I’d been following on the as they are published path.

My big but really kind of little question is Littlefinger and Sansa related. Is Littlefinger really “creeping” on Sansa with the kissing or is that some sort of magic or prophecy? Like a milder form of the Crone/Cersei foretelling.

@Jermofoot:

Wondering has anyone picked up on the books or show?  Wouldn’t mind to discuss it.

I have read all 5 books long ago (probably within 2 months of posting this topic originally), and as of today am current on the show.   I don’t watch much TV but it seems one of the top programs out there right now.

I have now read all of the books and watched only the first season of the show.

So from here on out my posts will have SPOILERS. I will not bother to indicate this. You have been warned.

So the big one… who is Jon Snow’s mother? Is Ned really Jon Snow’s father?

“The reason truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction is obliged to make sense.” – Mark Twain (I think.)

****  SPOILERS FOR GODZILLA *********

The thing at the end with toting the Nuke through a torn up San Fran was pretty stupid even by monster movie standards. There is no way to pry that thing open?

But who cares? There was a great monster fight going on.

Other than that any complaints about holes in the plot are just you not participating or trying to find a reason to bash the movie or make yourself look “sophisticated” or all of the prior. There are 300ft monsters who eat radiation tearing up San Francisco. Shouldn’t you be surprised if someone isn’t making what might normally be odd decisions? Things aren’t normal.

This one pretty starkly points out how bad the '98 (Broderick) one is. Even with its faults the new version is not the pile of suck that is the mess Emmerich foisted on us.

I think Ken is just one of the more easily recognized Japanese actors. But he does seem to get all of the more high profile roles.

I know I sounded “down” on the film and it would be fair to say I was a little disappointed. There is some very cool stuff in there but I can’t shake the feeling that they “missed.” Maybe it was just the stupid shaky-cam style they kept going to for what seemed no other reason than the previous few minutes weren’t shaky-cam. That whole technique has more than run its course with me.

Saw “Godzilla” last night. Didn’t suck. Anytime a monster is on screen it is pretty cool. Cranston is cool. The rest is kind of “meh.” The third act kind of rocks and the one stupidity of the script doesn’t drag it down to much. There are some cool things in it but on the whole they didn’t add up to a cool movie. Better than “Pacific Rim” though. YMMV.

@LHoffman:

@frimmel:

JJ stole one of the worst sequences from the Star Wars prequels for Trek (09) but I keep coming across those who vehemently hate the prequels but love the lens flared mess of JJ Trek.

Which scene are you referencing?

Heroes (or Hero) get chased by monster, while running from said monster it is eaten by a bigger monster. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon leaving the Gungan city/Kirk stranded on the ice planet.

@frimmel:

Everyone will be so excited to see Han shoot first (mark it down, at some point Han will shoot before the other guy gets a chance) they’ll be willing to overlook the other mediocrity he’ll shovel at us.

That is the sad part about commercialized franchises which thrive on the memory of the past. Put in enough tributes, easter eggs or character throwbacks and it will appease the masses. Discerning minds who want something new, innovative, respectful and true to the original will see through the bones thrown, but for the rest it will be a laugh and a feel good romp down memory lane and they’ll just throw money at it.

One of the reasons I loved “Rise of The Planet of The Apes” is the fan sevice they threw in felt organic. There wasn’t belabored set-up so they could do the fan service. I’d also point to “Skyfall” as having gotten it right in the fan service regard.

@ossel:

I’m not really sure about JJ, not a huge classic Trek fan, so I enjoyed the 09 version for what it was but I can understand how some people would be upset ("Hey, you know everything that happened in the old show?? TIME WARP!!).

Trek '09 is a bad movie utterly aside and independent of it being bad Trek. Some of the bad Trek counts as both (Spock/Uhura relationship for instance. Bad Trek/Bad Writing knowing nothing about Trek) but you can still put that aside and the film is a mess. They seemed to use familiarity with Trek as a crutch to prop up tension only to yank it away as a sort of gotcha/this isn’t one of those “boring” Trek movies.

Oh… totally starting to agree on Lindeloff (although in his slight defense it seems “Prometheus” was already a considerable mess.) Glad he is (so far) in a galaxy far far away from the Ep VII script. Although see firing the writer of “Toy Story 3” for another in the list of unenthused about the movie.