Archive for October, 2013

Zombies, Quasi-Zombies, and Happy Halloween

Posted: October 31, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Opinion
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It’s Halloween and why not have a post about shambling, walking corpses that feed on the living? Or angry, adrenaline’d infected that attack the healthy? Or things that kind of fall into that category of scary? Zombies and quasi-Zombies.

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Recently on Facebook, one of my friends commented that they were so bored with zombies, that zombies weren’t interesting. I understand there’s a certain amount of Zombie Saturation Syndrome going on right now, but I think stories featuring elements of the relentless, indefatigable, cannibalistic undead aren’t necessarily played out.

And since I enjoy talking about zombies, I thought I’d put finger to keyboard and do just that.

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Season One Breaking Bad – We Just Finished It! (Part 3)

Posted: October 26, 2013 by patricksponaugle in TV
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Two posts ago I explained that my wife and I had just started watching Breaking Bad, and we’d recently finished Season One. I gave a quick recap of the season. In the following post, I talked about Walter White and his family. And Jesse, yo. Now I’d like to cover a series of topics in this final installment of my Breaking Bad Season One observations.

And then I can start working on my Breaking Bad Season Two observations.

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Season One Breaking Bad – We Just Finished It! (Part 2)

Posted: October 26, 2013 by patricksponaugle in TV
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Last post, I explained that my wife and I had just started watching Breaking Bad, and we’d recently finished Season One. I gave a quick recap of the season, and now I’d like to talk more in-depth about the major characters.

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Season One Breaking Bad – We Just Finished It! (Part 1)

Posted: October 26, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Breaking Bad, TV
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Seriously, I’m embarrassed to have never watched this show when it was being broadcast. What can I say? My wife Lisa and I are sometimes behind the times when it comes to watching great television.

But at least we are now getting caught up on what has been advertised to me as one of the greatest television shows of all time: Breaking Bad.

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I’ve had a plethora of friends giving me grief for not watching it, so… this month we started watching, we’ve finished Season One, and I can now express BrBa observations and feel part of the Breaking Bad community. And feel totally late to the party.

I’m going to spoil Season One during this post and because I haven’t been living under a rock, I’ve heard about some things that happen in the following seasons. People have been pretty responsible and I’ve not been heavily spoiled, but I know some details of future events. I might be mistaken about what I think I know, please don’t correct me.

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Shut Up, Sit Down, and Eat

Posted: October 22, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Diary, Uncategorized
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(AKA My Recent Weekend in New York. (The City. (In Case You Didn’t Know.)))

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This weekend, my wife and I visited New York, largely to see an off-Broadway play. A very funny play. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

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Starting Breaking Bad

Posted: October 13, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Breaking Bad, TV
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Pantsless Walter White, Discarded Respirator, and Phosgene Gas from the RV. An amazing and compelling introduction to the show.

Yes, it’s 2013, and Breaking Bad started in 2008, but my wife and I are finally starting to watch this acclaimed television show.

I won’t say much about it right this moment, we’re only 4 episodes in, but I’ll write a recap and express some thoughts once we get past the first season.

It’s a show my wife and I had been wanting to watch, largely because of the insane attention being brought on the show as the second half of the season was about to air. There were a lot of my social media friends really wanting me to get caught up and see the final episodes of the show live, but it wasn’t going to happen (for reasons I’ll touch on during my season one recap… whenever we finish the season.)

I do know some things about the show, which is too bad in some ways, but it’s the way it is. I’m trying to avoid spoilers as much as I can, not that I’ll be offended, but it’ll give me a chance to really be wrong as I make stupid predictions or totally misread someone’s character. We’ll see how that goes.

The episodes we’ve seen have been great, but they’ve been pretty rough. I don’t mean rough as in unpolished, but hard in some ways to get through, personally. I’ll explain more later.

The image of Bryan Cranston is obviously from AMC’s Breaking Bad.

I make no claim to any of the artwork obviously, but I do make some claim to the text of this posting. So there.

© Patrick Sponaugle 2013 Some Rights Reserved

Closing Arguments In Defense of Jon Snow (Finally!)

Posted: October 7, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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Abstract: Often, I hear complaints about Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell. I previously wrote responses to various common complaints, and now I wrap it all up in a bow.

This is the sixth part in a series examining alleged negative aspects of Jon Snow, the acknowledged illegitimate son of Lord Eddard “One Does Not Simply Play the Game of Thrones” Stark. This was all explained five posts ago. Should you not want to read the whole thing, I’ll summarize: I’m a fan of Jon Snow, and I’m concluding my defense of his character with a general character defense. Oh, the symmetry!

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To recap, Jon Snow has been accused of being boring (or his storyline is boring), he’s an emo whiny dummy, he’s indecisive, and he’s a bad boyfriend.

Well, yeah. I guess. I mean, I don’t agree. Daenerys has some boring storylines (WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS!), Theon is way more whiny, he’s no more indecisive than anyone else, and as a virgin who has his first sexual experience with a threatening scary barbarian, I think there’s no way he could avoid being a bad boyfriend.

But I’ve already fought those battles. Time for two more tactics, and I’ll even call upon my classical education to bring it home.

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In Defense of Whiny Jon “Emo” Snow

Posted: October 7, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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Abstract: Often, I hear a complaint about Jon Snow that basically says he’s a big emo whiner. I take some issue with that, and the following is an angst-ridden gloomy complaint about such complaints. Heavy Sigh.

This is the fifth part in a series examining alleged negative aspects of Jon Snow, the acknowledged illegitimate son of Lord Eddard “Winter is Coming, We’re All Going to Die” Stark. This was all explained four posts ago. Should you not want to read the whole thing, I’ll summarize: I’m a fan of Jon Snow, and I feel it necessary to respond to criticism of the bastard of Winterfell. Hasn’t Jon suffered enough emotional trauma just from his mommy-issues? Must the Internet be so mean to him?

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Okay. When I’m listening to Game of Thrones recap podcasts, when the topic of discussion turns north, there’s usually one podcaster on each podcast that goes on about that Emo-Motherf***er Jon Snow. Usually followed by an exasperated “I can’t take any more of his whining!”

Okay, I get that. The bastard of Winterfell has been known to complain and whine. I won’t deny that. I’m ready to convict him right now.

Let’s hit some of the angst-ridden events that a certain someone has whined about or had angsty-face about.

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In Defense of Bad Boyfriend Jon Snow

Posted: October 7, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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Abstract: Some have observed that Jon Snow really done Ygritte the Wildling wrong. I’m not saying Jon is innocent, but there are extenuating circumstances that should be acknowledged before Jon is sentenced to being feathered some more. (Feathered as in getting shot full of arrows, yo.)

This is the fourth part in a series examining alleged negative aspects of Jon Snow, the acknowledged illegitimate son of Lord Eddard “Women Can Get You Into Trouble” Stark. This was all explained three posts ago. Should you not want to read the whole thing, I’ll summarize: I’m a fan of Jon Snow, and I feel it necessary to respond to criticism of the bastard of Winterfell. Wasn’t it bad enough that the only girl willing to give Jon the time of day was totally on the enemy side?

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You’ll know one thing, Jon Snow. You’ll know I’m right pissed, you bastard!

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Ah, Ygritte. The girl with the fire-kissed hair. It’s hard to imagine Jon Snow abandoning her like he did. But he did. And it’s something to account for.

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In Defense of Indecisive Jon Snow

Posted: October 7, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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Abstract: Some people like to complain that Jon Snow is a flip-flopping indecisive simpleton. Really? I take issue with that. Decisively!

This is the third part in a series examining alleged negative aspects of Jon Snow, the acknowledged illegitimate son of Lord Eddard “Neddie” Stark. This was all explained two posts ago. Should you not want to read the whole thing, I’ll summarize: I’m a fan of Jon Snow, and I feel it necessary to respond to criticism of the bastard of Winterfell. Wasn’t it bad enough for Jon to have status lower on the Winterfell Totem Pole than Theon Greyjoy? Theon!

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Flopping the Flips

This is a bit of a complicated topic, since it is less about the character of Jon Snow, and more about two other things: is the show executing Jon’s story effectively, and are the viewers paying attention. Or as much attention as they should be.

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