queenanne

Yeah, anybody ever seen Jill working on a car? Or exhibiting enthusiasm about any sort of hand-eye fine motor coordination based work... anyone? Any embroidery, knitting, DIY furniture skills, small appliance tinkering, etc.? I grant the violin involves some of this.

I feel like the reason we don't know anything about dragon behavior is because GRRM hasn't defined the rules of dragons (not inviting book talk, just speculating), and the showrunners are afraid of treading on his toes and making something up out of whole cloth. I mean... what do you do, when you're encountered with a totally previously thought extinct species of reptiles (?) as big as castles? Nobody knows what to do with them. Everyone figures things out as they go along. Maybe it would have been a good career path for someone like Sam; or at least Sam discovers some book on the care and feeding of dragons; but if there's nobody alive who can tell us what they do and are, and the first key to Dany's specialness is "Mother of Dragons"; then how does Dany stay special, if someone else has rival equivalent, or even superior, knowledge about dragons, KWIM? I'm thinking, specifically about stuff like my rare books class, which said that when reenactors tried to recreate the experience of the "scriptorium", they discovered that the one thing nobody could find, was written instructions on how to make a quill pen. The assumed reason for not having any such thing, is that it was something that the Maester types did multiple times a week easily as breathing, because your goose feather writing point dulled so quickly. Nobody perceived the appearance of the fountain pen, so nobody imagined a world where people wouldn't be making quill pens all day long and thus know everything to know about it. Also, while I'm on the subject, what about the Library of Alexandria? Nobody knows a damn thing about that nowadays, and the reason for that is because - it's extinct! Personally, I've always envisioned dragons as horses with better eyesight and have been content with that, though then again that's just my own fertile imagination plus a dash of Naomi Novik, lol.

Catching up on a batch of episodes... I think the thing that bothered me most about the black piece of pasta going to Ivy was the fact that it was clearly jiggered, because of the overwhelming odds against anyone in fact picking out the black piece of pasta when delving in sight unseen. Am I the only person in the universe who's never seen coconut cream pie made with chocolate pudding? Is this a West Coast thing? The way Christina described it made me think she thought it was the default; but I literally never have seen it with anything other than vanilla, so found it odd that Christina would speak like this is the standard.

I think that is a terrific analogy for the storyline, perhaps the best one we've seen so far.

I’m pretty sure that even narrower, she added in the people of King’s Landing, so there is that. Once pressed, IMO Dany showed us that her attitude towards ruling was “hey, you cannot make omelets without cracking a few eggs... or a few thousand innocent people here and there...”, so that was what exiled her from fitness to rule.

Yeah, I too thought Bran was a terrible choice because his visions seemed like they would be envisioned on a par with choosing a ruler with epilepsy (not trying to be ableist, but in ‘the olden days’ I am fairly sure that stopped some old-ass European monarch), so I find it hard to believe the same crew who flinched at democracy would go all-in for Bran. also a little bit surprised and ticked off they went for having Arya and Gendry totally ignore each other. That’s just weird. Everything else, maybe they weren’t my ideal choices but I can see the logic and aren’t throwing shoes at my TV over it . Well, that and a nice post surgery OxyContin.

Yes, but still and all... there is "the moment". It's like the baby-step moment to killing innocent civilians. It's the "what will Dany do when there isn't a Hand there to advise her, saying 'no, my Queen, hideous idea! Horrible idea! Worst idea yet!" Plus, most of the other exemplars unalloyedly needed killing, IMO. Ramsey was an irredeemable psycho sadist. Littlefinger was skeezy from jump and the only thing that ever saved any Stark or individuals Stark-associated, was his obsession with Catelyn; I don't count that as anything less than self-interest. Even Varys I thought was a sleaze until he discovered the truth about Jon's parentage; and I thought for certain he was going to cover that up by any means possible, so after I realized how much I had grown to like him I was okay with him being killed. Dany killed thousands of people who were pleading for their lives and never wanted to fight in the first place; and another thousands of soldiers who surrendered and were also de facto begging for their lives. Jon tried valiantly to hold back the tide and couldn't, which I feel will probably have something to do in future with increasing the ease which he will break with Dany (no spoilers just logic), because whatever else we can say we were meant to learn from the death of Jaime and Cersei, it was clearly, in the end, an "Incest is bad and not something we should glorify; mmmkay?" moment.

I kind of split the difference - I think Dany thought that's the kind of expression a Khaleesi should wear. I don't think she was delighted by Viserys's being drowned in molten metal; I thought EC both micro-flinched and showed Dany thinking "Oh no, what have I gotten myself into now?", because she still thought that giving a "girly type response" would have signaled weakness to a Khal. This, to me, doesn't mean she wasn't worried that Khal Drogo might turn around and do the same thing to her. It's only later that she figured out he was in fact smitten with her, and that's why he took out Viserys. She was too unsure of her current footing, and too alone, to allow herself to show any emotion.

Agreed, and I think that this may even be a primary reason why I have no problem with believing a recharacterized Dany, I think partly because until this season, all my watching took place on season-ender DVDs, where as a completist, I was steeped in all those pretty little "behind-the-scenes" animated sketchlets outlining sections of Westeros history. If anyone hasn't seen them, please take my word for it that one of their hallmarks was famously including alternate points-of-view voiceovers discussing the same situation from the point of view of two different characters. In these, you had best believe that Robert had an entirely different characterization and story about the Kingslayer than the Kingslayer himself did (maybe not exact examples); and that the Targaeryens had an entirely different POV of Lyanna-and-Rhaegar than did Robert and/or Tyrion (which also helped me figure out earlier than the actual reveal that Jon Snow was their child). Thus I think I'm desensitized to any such showrunners' airings of "history's view of things depends upon whoever survives to do the telling".

I don't believe it's possible to take character moments out of context and order and come to the same conclusion that one would, by watching everything in sequence. The "hero edit" can very well also be a mislead. The question isn't really "do people then think it's possible Dany was evil all along", the question is, "Did Dany show more than once that she had the capacity to be evil or capricious, if she chose a different path?" It's not like we can say "Targaryens trending towards the unhinged as a whole entity in general" isn't foreshadowed. It's also not like an audience member who is viewing, can only believe the character's opinion of themselves. Of course Dany believes she's right. What's the quote - "everyone believes they're the hero of their own story"? It's not like characters haven't secondhand told us that they have qualms along the way in respect of Dany's fitness to lead - more than one character, I'm pretty sure although I'm blanking on names, has wondered aloud in prior seasons whether or not Dany was being arrogant and peremptory sweeping across Westeros conquering as she goes. Some of them other than Varys, IIRC, have also wondered aloud if they were betting on the wrong horse; and not just because of self-interest. Nobody would follow Dany secondhand for multiple seasons as a point of view character if they thought she was evil. She probably isn't 100% one way or the other even now, as we still have 90-some (120? I wouldn't put it past these guys) minutes of storytelling to go.

Does she really not understand why Jon doesn't want to be amorous with her, though? If I recall correctly, she was silently seething and ready to stick a dagger in Viserys' eye over the issue in S1; which is why she almost had to fall in love with a family member this time around, when one waltzed into her life all unknown like Oedipus. I also think it will be super interesting after the fact to go back and have a rewatch of the series, and discover how many of our reactions to Dany's actions and behaviors have changed now that we know what she's capable of. Would she get less of the benefit of the doubt, or would actions and reactions that originally were termed "gray", now look closer to unalloyed black?

I think it's supposed to be a nurture-not-nature argument. Jon could have been a Viserys, except he was raised humbly amongst the Starks.

I grant these are valid points about Dany's choices being bad and/or evil - I spent the entire last half of the episode saying "Oh, that is how Jon gets the Iron Throne - Dany is Walter White!", but the "After the Episode" segment, convinced me that our showrunners are either delusional or projecting or worse, because they did nothing but justify Dany's behavior; while I'm simultaneously thinking "Guess they've settled that insanity coin toss, then!" I think some other choices were pretty bad as well, and arose because they were wedded to a certain outcome long ago - if the past two seasons weren't about Jaime growing into a good person, I don't know what they were; though on the bright side, if Brienne loses Jaime then Aria probably returns to Gendry - and while I understand that it's important for Aria to retain some humanity and that Sandor was probably correct in his judgment, Aria still deserved to get Cersei as a "kill". I can see why all these things are more dramatically interesting. But Dany, I'm not cool with, and I can't imagine myself ever getting cool with. They rang the bells. They surrendered. And they died. In multiples. Dany put every one of her allies in a horrible place, where they were required to make horrible choices. I just don't find myself seeing any upside to that. It's basic military code 101. The opposition surrendered. Dany plowed on as if they never had. I would even have been cool with her continuing on to incinerate Cersei, though of course that would have been ridiculously boring as a story and over in 30 seconds so I can understand why they didn't do that; but I don't see any good excuse for overriding a surrender other than bad temper and insanity, especially when Tyrion was begging for it from jump.

Oh no, Jana as the SAHD is the Martha of this equation. IMO he's skipping her because he never thinks about her marrying with any seriousness, because she's fulfilling her family role as far as he is concerned.

I feel pretty sure that what Derick is thinking of, is that "kids in school can't work"; then it all makes sense! I mean, he's never worked when he's been in school, that we've been able to tell. He's probably used to being criticized by Cathy and others for not getting an after-school job in high school and younger, and spent years saying "I'm in class so much it's LIKE a job, Mom. Gimme a break!" My imagination of Jill as legal paper editor: Derick: (reads paragraph) Does that sound good, honey? Jill: (thinking of gummy bears) Totally, babe!

So much wrong... this assumes everyone is going to get married. Maybe God is steering you not to marry drug addicts, etc., even while you're in sinful rebellion. Maybe you miss out on "the one God has for you" and you spend the rest of your life single, which could potentially suck, but it's not "getting married to a drug addict".

IMO, the outside of that building veritably screams modern church. Not too convinced about the innards, but the outside is all church to me, including the big windows.

He doesn't yet know what it's like for them not to meet a milestone, basically. Firstly he's no teacher himself; secondly, they probably don't socialize with many young parents who are thinking about their kids' education as education, when starting with colors, sharing, and counting from 1-10. Maybe Dan and Deena's kids will be public schooled, at which point Derick will suddenly realize in alarm that Izzy's younger cousin has just shown him up at improper fractions, etc. Also, it's possible the Dillard/Byrum family is used to being quoted the party line about "homeschoolers in general", not the Duggars' "special" way of doing things, and aren't thinking about the difference. I feel pretty sure that even the most radical of homeschooling advice permits to hire tutors, etc., for kids to handle areas that the parent-teacher may not be particularly good at; but it makes perfect sense that the Duggars didn't do it well or like that at all, because JB & M are lazy. In fact, considering the size of their family, Boob and M. have even managed to pretty much cancel out one of the major touted benefits of homeschooling, namely - the 1:1 teacher/student class ratio. Even 1:6 would have been an improvement upon the eventual 1:16 ratio, and multiple choice workbooks on a computer screen.

Also fun to throw into a fireplace - the citrus oil makes a pretty wee flare.

Yeah, in that case it gets tough, because without you knowing in what state the company (Western Ridge Financial) has been formed/created, you can't really find it unless you can find a breadcrumb trail stating so in the state's corporation search engine. I looked in California's equivalent database, and that particular name is now expired (hasn't seen action since 2015); and although a different business can snag a name for any entity after a certain amount of time elapses without its being reactivated, nobody has done so in California. Also, the "registered agent" for the defunct California Western Ridge Financial was Legalzoom, which indicates somebody doing it out of their home office who needed to be talked through the process step-by-step, and who couldn't afford to or didn't want to pay a lawyer. The other most likely state for companies to be formed, Delaware, has no record of such a company name; and unfortunately there's no such thing as a multi-state search, since state governments aren't centralized. If a devoted person wanted to search every state database individually they could go for it; but I don't quite have the vim to do that even in my office for a salary, sorry (lol).

Yeah, that above information just indicates the mailing address Anna gave on the company formation documents, IMO (source: I form corporations for a living, basically, and have for many years now). I say "IMO" because I'm not precisely sure where that particular address came from, because it's not listed under the company's name search record: https://www.sos.arkansas.gov/corps/search_all.php There is, however, a "registered agent" (read: faceless conglomerate firm) on the record of Anna's LLC, who is responsible for accepting lawsuit documents if the company is ever sued (a mere statutory requirement; everyone is asked to name one if they are forming any type of business entity in the U.S. states and territories). I agree with @Zella that the DaVinci gang, whoever they are, are functioning as a proxy address so that people don't know Anna's real address, just like UPS, the USPS, Mailboxes Etc., and so forth, provide for a fee.

An individual by that name is tied to a Fundy WV camp (not saying which one for privacy's sake). I'm assuming Tim formerly worked there or similar.

I believe Walmart was running a special discount for your first grocery pickups for a while. Don't know if they still are, but it's cropped up as a 10% reward on one of my credit cards, and $10 off $50 for a different card. However, if my mother saw Jill trying to use the boys as an excuse, she'd say that the boys had not been properly schooled on how to behave in a grocery store, so there's that. She's in fact very proud of it: "I could take you children anywhere, because you sat quietly in the cart and never begged for anything. You always took "no" for an answer."

The latest $5 donation comes from donor "We’ll help you get away. You don’t have to grift like this."

Activated charcoal is also the main ingredient in many anti-hangover pills; you know, those types designed to take while you are drinking and not after.