Sentential Links #251

The road to 500 of these posts continues!

:: Can I just say that I'm really surprised and impressed that the world of A Song of Ice and Fire fans seemed to collectively, unconsciously decide not to spoil [spoiler excised] for the viewing audience who hadn't read the book? (I have a friend at work who watched the series, and talked a lot with me about it. He hadn't read the books, so he had no idea what was coming; that will be ending, though, because while he's not a reader, his wife is, and she's plowing through the series right now. I was careful not to spoil things for him, although he would ask things like "Does Daenerys's brother stick around a long time?", which I vaguely answered, "His exit comes sooner than you might expect." But I have to bite my tongue at other times, such as when he speculates on which characters are obviously going to be around for the length of the entire story. And speaking of Game of Thrones, I haven't watched more than the first episode yet, mainly because...well, there are scenes where people act so horribly that I'm not sure that I want to see them acted out. I found it hard enough reading about Cersei's framing of Sansa's direwolf, and I had a very hard time reading the scene where Joffrey has his servant beat Sansa. Seeing those scenes onscreen might prove...difficult for me. I've got them downloaded, so we'll see.)

:: I will miss Dunn's wild behavior, but can not feel sorry for someone who didn't care about his own life's worth. (I have to admit to feeling little sympathy for Ryan Dunn, myself. I don't even care if he was drinking -- operating any kind of motor vehicle at speeds the likes of which Dunn was at the time of his crash is a staggeringly unsafe thing to do, and the main blessing I can find here is that he only killed himself and whatever idiot was dumb enough to ride with him. Had there been other cars on the road at the same time, he could have killed them, too. I'm reminded of a couple of recent local accidents here -- one, a year or two ago, on one of the rural roads, involved some kid who loved driving his car really fast on those two-lane roads. He, too, joked with friends that he'd probably die at the wheel of his beloved car...which he did. With three other kids in the car with him.

Another was a motorcycle accident on Interstate 290 in Amherst, NY. That's one of Buffalo's northern suburbs. The Wife has told me that she'd be driving home on that road from work at around 10:30 pm, when she'd suddenly be passed by a gang of folks riding crotch-rocket motorcycles are ridiculous speeds. They'd be going so fast that she didn't even know they were there until they passed her. Well, a couple weeks ago, one of those groups was whipping along at over 100 mph when one of them lost control of his bike and wiped out. He and his passenger skidded across the pavement, right underneath a semi truck. The passenger somehow managed to not get run over; the bike driver wasn't so lucky. No alcohol there; just a moron who liked going fast.)

:: It’s very common to see familiar things in random patterns. We see faces in clouds, Jesus in a tortilla, and smiley faces everywhere.

:: Can we define science fiction and fantasy so as to clearly separate them? (That is, of course, the ultimate question. I think the answer is No, but I've been wrong before!)

That's all for this week. More next week!