Raithe

My father got invited to a week in France and he just left, so I get the house to myself for awhile. Started taking apart mom's old medical bed since dad kept putting it off. Got halfway through the job and suddenly all the sockets change size to tools I don't have in this toolkit. Of course now I have to find a ratchet set, but... Well, my dad has car tools, DIY tools, garden tools, clock and watch repair tools, lathes and a few other sets of stuff scattered around and locked up throughout his room, the garage and the shed and I can't find anything....

"It felt like @realDonaldTrump read the TelePrompTer message condemning hate groups like a hostage forced to read a statement by his captors."

Things to remember:

"Next week on Game of Thrones...."

Key thing here, no-one really knows Arya is a murdering psycopath with the ability to shapeshift. As far as everyone's concerned she's the youngest Stark daughter with nothing memorable attached to her. She disapeared from King's Landing those years ago and turned up again. Sure, her sparring match with Brienne caught Littelfinger and Sansa's attention, but who else is aware of that? I'm curious as to when news about House Frey will turn up and peoples reactions to that and what Arya might say about it. I mean, with the amount and speed of ravens carrying messages so far, but not one comment about the Frey's slaughter?

So for the completely random and from nowhere, this mild amusement and quirk of an eyebrow: Blockchain - Information about a Bitcoin transaction That's somebody sending $160 million in Bitcoin over the internet. Transactions costs were 0.00016201 BTC ($0.7).

I did hear someone say that in many ways Dunkirk comes across more like a natural disaster film rather than a war film.

TRUMP: I like white people. WHITE HOUSE: Of course this includes people of all colors.

2016: "Ugh, no one needs Indiana Jones 5." 2017: "Sure, I'll watch a 70-year-old Harrison Ford punch a Nazi into a propeller."

"America - They really need to pick a torch...."

Congratulations, and may you beat the odds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHLRj1LaPiQ

Also to be fair, Maisie Williams is naturally right-handed, so you have to give her props for developing her left hand over the years playing Arya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6JIGyEEUT0

Wasn't that a fully grown and trained for decades Water Dancer? The issue of believability with Arya vs Brienne is more that she doesn't have the physical strength to compare. It doesn't matter if you have the reflexes and skill to put your blade in the way in the right angle to deflect an incoming blow.. if that blow is ridiculously strong and heavy compared to what you can handle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epxdxcy6dYs Also for the random interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE2wcBeyNdk

It's that awkward balance. Her being fluid and deft and graceful being able to dodge and sidestep the blows, that's believable. Her opponent having trouble hitting her, again believable because all of her opponents have been of almost equal size to her, so suddenly trying to hit someone half their height will throw her off somewhat. The quick snap attacks with Needle to Brienne's hand or knee, believable enough when you have contrasting styles of knight hack-and-slash versus agile fencing. What wasn't believable was the blocking moments. Even if she was deflecting the blows more than blocking, that size / weight / strength mismatch would have beaten her down more. You needed more of the kicks that knocked her on her ass. For the devil's advocate, I suppose you could also posit that Brienne wouldn't have been attacking with full strength during the first half of that sparring match, because she's a trained swordswoman teaching a much younger, not fully grown lady she's sworn to, and you don't leap in at full strength combat when you don't know how good your trainee actually is.

Depending on the cruise serivce, there can be a lot or nothing. The classic cruises can be formal evenings at dinner, slow and lazing out on deck. Hobby and craft studious run in some sections by day, the ship's library, quite often a small casino. Various clubs, bars - which range from quiet drinking places to music and dancing. Most usually have a theatre and cinema aboard with regularly scheduled performances of all sorts. Hell, I've seen one that ran a murder mystery weekend troupe over the cruise length. Although the last decade or so has seen a vast increase in the "wild club party at sea" type of cruises. So you might be stuck on one of those if you weren't paying attention.

Alias was kind of worth it for the ending, but it did have a lot of ups and downs on the way (and was incredibly, incredibly silly in its own way). There were a few interesting character arcs was actually quite well done , quite possibly due to Ron Rifkin's portrayal over the years. But yes, to continue : was an unusual direction to take at the time.

If you have an Amazon Kindle (or the app) and have signed up for Kindle Unlimited you can read this one for free: It has a "Planescape" thing going. I'm not a big fan of fantasy writing because with a few notable exceptions it's so unoriginal. This one does not really buck that trend but it's better than most I've tried to choke down. And it is free, so there's that. Sometimes there is a joy to a fun cliche / stereotype full story. That's one of the useful things about Kindle Unlimited, there might be a lot of garbage to wade through but there can be some gems found. Although I'll admit, I do have a bit of a weakness for some of those "cheesily bad / mary sue-ish" stories that are both badly written but have a few interesting ideas.

A U.S. Navy destroyer stops four Mexicans rowing towards Texas. The Captain gets on the megaphone and shouts, “Ahoy, small craft. Where are you headed?” One of the Mexicans puts down his oar, stands up, and shouts, “Gringo, we are invading the United States of America to reclaim the territory taken by the USA during the 1800s.” The entire crew on the destroyer doubles over in laughter. The Captain finally catches his breath, gets back on the megaphone and asks, “Just the four of you?” The same Mexican stands up again and shouts, "No senor, we are the last four. The other 21 million are already there."