The Amazing Spider-Man Movie Broke My Daughter

Posted: May 8, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Comics, Movie Review, Writing
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Over the weekend, I went to see the new Spider-Man movie (the second one featuring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker.)

My daughter, who hadn’t seen the first one, really wanted to see ASM2 because of the rumored X-Men: Days of Future Past tease in the movie’s end credits. (My not-yet-quite-a-teen daughter is a big Jennifer Lawrence fan.)

Keeping my fanboy glee hidden, I agreed.

“If you *really* want to see it, I guess I’ll go see this ‘Spidery Man‘ movie.”

Spoilery thoughts below. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the movie, don’t read my post.

The-Amazing-Spider-Man-2-Movie-2014-Poster

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April 2014 #MicroStory Collection

Posted: May 1, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Flash Fiction, Writing
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It’s May, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of April.

AprilMicro

As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 130 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)

Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. One day, science will catch up, and I’ll be thought of as a prophet, yo. (It could happen. Don’t pop my balloon.)

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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This Spammer Knows Quality

Posted: April 26, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Blogging
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Okay, like most people who blog, I get delighted when I get comments. I am rarely delighted however when a spam comment makes it through WordPress’ otherwise excellent spam filter. A few days ago, I was delighted.

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I Totally Look Like This When I’m Blogging, Just Ask My Wife.

My email let me know that my blog post Defending Magic in Game of Thrones had a comment waiting for moderation. Right on. It’s a great post! (I might be biased.) But I was unprepared for the effusive praise in the comment.

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What I’m (Re)Reading: Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

Posted: April 26, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Book Review, Opinion, Writing
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George RR Martin’s next installment in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, The Winds of Winter, won’t be out this year. Maybe it’ll be out next year. Maybe.

In the meantime, I felt the need to read some compelling fantasy that would be similar in many ways.

NinePrincesInAmber-TimWhite

There are tons of great fantasy books available and there is no end of lists of suggested reading while waiting for the next GRRM epic. Although I should be reading something new, I had a yen to re-read something something great, that I knew would hit the spot.

It was high time to re-read Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles.

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Pat’s Game of Thrones Blogs – Pre-Season Four Collection

Posted: April 15, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Uncategorized, Writing
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Season Four of Game of Thrones, HBO’s excellent adaptation of George RR Martin’s saga A Song of Ice and Fire, kicked off in the first week of April. I’m pretty excited. Stupidly excited.

game-of-thrones-season-4

People following my blog are aware that I’d published over a dozen Game of Thrones-related articles last year, and at the beginning of this year I set myself a challenge to crank out a GoT post every week in preparation for the new season.

Now that the new season has started, I’m taking a break from posting new articles (I’m too busy reading everyone’s reactions to the current episodes), but I wanted to package up links to my 2014 pre-season postings, like I did for my 2013 collection.

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Breaking Bad Season Five – We Just Finished the Series (Post 3 of 3)

Posted: April 13, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Breaking Bad, Opinion, TV
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This is my final post discussing our viewing of the end of Breaking Bad. Two posts ago, I had a recap of the last eight episodes of the season, and last post I discussed some topics more or less relevant to the final season. Now I’m going to express my final thoughts on the entire series. (I’ll be short. After all, I’ve already put out series of blog posts at the end of each season. How much more can I say?)

badthingsend

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Breaking Bad Season Five – We Just Finished the Series (Post 2 of 3)

Posted: April 13, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Breaking Bad, Opinion, TV
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Last post, I announced that my wife and I had just finished watching the final episodes of Breaking Bad. That previous post was a season recap that probably everyone skipped reading (not an unwise decision: either you’ve seen the show and don’t need the recap or you’ve not seen the show and SHOULDN’T read that recap)

This post will my observations on the final season. (Post 3 will be my observations on the entire series.)

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That Coffee Can’t be as Good as Gale Boetticher’s. That Stuff was the Bomb, Yo.

Season finales have a tough task in general. They have to wrap things up in a satisfying way, there’s a pressure to refer back to things that have happened over the years, besides resolving plot issues, there are emotional closures that need to be crafted, and the final episodes need to be surprising. It’s no fun if it’s too obvious or predictable what’s going to happen. But things can’t be too surprising. Things should make sense.

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Breaking Bad Season Five – We Just Finished the Series (Post 1 of 3)

Posted: April 13, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Breaking Bad, TV
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I’m going to be talking about the last eight episodes of Season Five Breaking Bad – the last eight episodes of the entire series. Breaking Bad is too great a television show to be spoiled, so if you’re not up to date:

  1. Don’t read anymore of these posts.
  2. Start watching Breaking Bad. It’s available on Netflix, bitch.

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Recently, my wife and I watched Felina, the final episode of AMC’s excellent drama Breaking Bad. We have different reactions springing from a common root emotion: she’s missing the show because (quite frankly) it was awesome, but I’m glad we’re done because (quite frankly) it was crazy intense. Also awesome.

I need to have some television downtime where my nerves aren’t all jangled and on edge. (Luckily, I’ve read all of the A Song of Ice and Fire books so this season of HBO’s Game of Thrones won’t sucker punch me the way the last episodes of Breaking Bad did. Probably.)

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And Now My (Season Four) Watch Begins…

Posted: April 4, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Writing
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Or it will in a few days, on Sunday April 6th. Season Four Game of Thrones!

3EyedCrow

Wanted to thank everyone who visited my blog and checked out my various Game of Thrones related posts. (Collections found here and here.)

I’m relieved that the season is about to start up, not only because I want to enjoy another ten hours of A Song of Ice and Fire adaptation, but I can ease off on writing about the show.

During Season Four, I won’t be posting any of my weekly Game of Thrones articles. I’ll be too busy:

  • watching YouTube reactions
  • reading recaps
  • listening to Game of Thrones podcasts

Starting in July, I’ll try to put out two posts a month related to Game of Thrones, and in 2015 I’ll repeat my challenge from this year and crank out a GoT post every week until Season Five starts up. Unless my math is way off, that’ll be 24 articles; coincidentally I have a list of 24 topics ready – it’s hard not to start working on them right now.

Best regards, and I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming season.

Photo courtesy of the greatest father in the Universe. There’s no need to debate this.

© Patrick Sponaugle 2014 Some Rights Reserved

The Targaryen Candidate

Posted: April 1, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Game of Thrones, Opinion, TV
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This post will be discussing plot points from the third season of HBO’s fantastic series Game of Thrones. If you are not caught up on the show and don’t want to be sullied by spoilers then stop reading. Go watch the show. Then come back. DO IT!

Dany-Happy

Vote For Me, Smallfolk! (That is, If I Grant You a Vote!)

 

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