Gotham – Not the Same Bat-Time, Not the Same Bat-Channel

Posted: September 27, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Opinion, TV
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Early this week, FOX television aired Gotham, a show exploring the formative years of Bruce Wayne (aka The Batman) by focusing largely on young Detective Jim Gordon, who comes face to face with the city’s established and highly organized criminal elements, the larval-stage villains who will one day battle the iconic Caped Crusader, and the corruption and cross-purposes of his colleagues in the Gotham PD.

Although I think the premiere was generally accepted as either likable or having potential, it has drawn a measure of criticism, and I don’t see why I’m any less qualified to express my opinions.

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Sam the Slayer, Sam the Player

Posted: September 23, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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This post will include spoilery information from the first four seasons of Game of Thrones. So there.

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Being Spoiled About When That Thing Happened to That Person at That Place During That Event was the Worst!

Recently, George RR Martin, the author of the source material for HBO’s Game of Thrones, admitted who his favorite character was. It’s Tyrion Lannister.

Although this isn’t a surprising admission, if I had been asked previously who GRRM’s favorite character might be, my guess would have been for Samwell Tarly.

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What I’m Reading Now: A Metric Ton of Comics

Posted: September 14, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Comics
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Okay, maybe not a literal ton (or tonne, since I did say “metric”) – but I do have a large backlog of comics to get through.

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Medieval History 101: Robb and Joffrey

Posted: September 10, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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This article will contain spoilers for the first four seasons of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Spoilers! Just go watch the show or read the books if you haven’t.

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Game of Thrones generates a tremendous amount of attention from fans who recap the episodes, analyze its faithfulness as an adaptation, follow casting and production information, and basically keep the show relevant during the off-season.

It’s also easy to find articles of a more academic bent, where experts talk about Westeros’ unusual weather patterns, or how it’s possible to have wine when grapes need specific seasonal changes, or how representative the society on the show is in regards to Europe’s medieval period.

I thought it might be interesting to have a series of posts focusing on elements of the show from the perspective of a student of medieval history.

To be clear: I’m not talking about the perspective of an academic with a degree in Medieval History. I’m talking about a college student hoping to pass a hypothetical medieval history course, which for some reason was studying A Song of Ice and Fire. Possibly because the Medieval History department needed to bump up student enrollment numbers or something. Just go with it.

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What’s in My Search Archive? (Year 1)

Posted: September 9, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Blogging, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones
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I recently celebrated my first year of blogging, and had a post identifying top 10 posts for my bloggoversary. During the year, one of the blogs I follow had a post with weird search terms that had hit on her blog.

I loved reading that post, and it made me occasionally eyeball what search-strings are intersecting with my content.

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Since my blog is predominantly Game of Thrones related, the searches that I could see* were almost all Game of Thrones-related.

But there were a fair amount of Breaking Bad-related hits. Fair enough. I have done long recaps and observations on all 5 seasons of BrBa.

Sadly, I didn’t have as many as I’d hoped-for stand-out weird searches that had made a hit on my blog postings, but there were themes and frequently asked questions that I think are pretty cool to look at. And so I shall.

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Time to Admit I’m a Blogger

Posted: September 6, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Blogging, Game of Thrones
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Hey, it’s been over a year since I started blogging. Since there was such a low barrier to entry for tossing words on a website for the Internet to eyeball, I was hesitant to call myself a “blogger”, but I’ve been doing this for about a year and have over 100 blog postings (counting both my blogs), so I might as well commit to the term.

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Chi Chi the Pug and Peanut the Puggle are Celebrating my Blogging Anniversary by Passing Out on Me.

Blog of Thrones

I hadn’t originally expected this blog to be so Game of Thrones focused (or I might have named it more relevantly or something from the beginning) but that’s just the way things turned out once I started defending the allegedly bad decisions of the characters.

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August 2014 #MicroStory Collection

Posted: September 3, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Flash Fiction, Writing
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It’s September, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of August.

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I was super-unproductive in August, at least in regards to writing Flash Fiction, only tweeting out 4 of them.

I also failed to notice that the prevous month marked my year anniversary of doing this exercise, when I tweeted my 169th MicroStory.

As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 129 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)

Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. When I remember to do so.

For really great #MicroStory action, please follow @MicroSFF, the Twitter account that inspired me to participate in this minimalist writing exercise. That feed puts out great science fiction and fantasy MicroStories all the time.

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Regarding Renly Baratheon

Posted: August 27, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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This post will be referencing plot points throughout the four seasons of HBO’s Game of Thrones. If you’re not caught up, shame on you! It’s the most pirated show in the universe!

But I shouldn’t be slack-shaming. Should you need to get caught up, please do so and come back.

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Being King is Awesome!

My work colleagues are great; the office is a Game of Thrones-friendly environment. Many of us have read the books and nearly everyone’s watching the show.

When I started blogging about Game of Thrones last year, I didn’t necessarily expect my teammates to follow my blog but they have been, since it gives them more Game of Thrones things to talk about (and the opportunity to make fun of my grammar and bizarre typos and run-on sentences and Fnord.)

Most of my early posts were “In Defense of … ” articles, where I’d try to rationalize or defend one of the major character’s bad decisions. After a few of those articles were on the blog, one of my colleagues asked me when I’d go on the offensive and not defend someone, but take them to task.

That time is now.

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Scoring My True Blood Predictions

Posted: August 25, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Opinion, TV
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After seven seasons, HBO’s southern supernatural series ceased. (I’ll ease up on the alliteration, I promise.)

(Spoilers for Season Seven follow…)

True Blood Season 7 Episode 2

Prudently Investigating by Daylight.

My friends over at Geek Girl Soup had asked some of their associates (including me!) for thoughts and predictions about the final season of True Blood. I cobbled together twenty one predictions and posted them before the season. Boldly. Now it’s time to see how I did.

Spoiler alert: I cheat and use creative math. Each question could score 5 points.

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What I’m Reading: Murder At Avedon Hill

Posted: August 21, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Book Review, Game of Thrones, Podcasts
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(Spoiler Warning: this post might be a bit of a downer, but I hope to keep it upbeat. You’ll understand.)

Around 9:41 p.m. last night (that would be Wednesday, August 20 2014 for you benighted souls without calendars) Amazon.com emailed me to let me know that my copy of Murder at Avedon Hill, by P.G. Holyfield, had shipped. Awesome.

MaAH

Roughly one hundred minutes later at 11:20 p.m., the author, P.G. Holyfield, died. (Look, I did say this might be a bummer.)

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