Small Talk: Slaves To Gab

[David T. Cole]

The Small Talk topic is for:

• Introductions
• Off-topic chatter
• Having virtual tea with forum buddies
  

This is NOT a topic for actual show discussion. When you want to talk about the show:

1. Figure out the nature of the topic you want to talk about
2. Look for an existing topic that matches or fits
3. If there is NOT an existing topic that fits, CREATE ONE!
   

Examples of topics that populate show forums include (but by no means are limited to):

• Character topics
• Episode topics
• Season topics
• Spoiler topics
• Speculation topics
• In the Media topics
• Favourite X topics
• ...you get the idea
  

Happy trails beyond Small Talk!

[Snowblack]

*peeks aroung corner*  Is it safe? 

Hiya, fellow Unsullied!  Pull up a chair.  I'm loving the zoo theme in here, and the ability to speak freely even more!

[Glory]

This is awesome!

Hi all! I'm Glory and I've been following along with you all for a while. I have not joined the conversation until now because an evil person spoiled the red wedding for me. Let's just say, we don't talk much anymore.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hi! I'm not sure how much I'll post, but I'm excited to have the opportunity

[David T. Cole]

FYI, that's a stock Small Talk post above... I'm letting you decide whether or not to have a full topic spread.

[stillshimpy]

*crashes in*  Nice digs! *starts scattering personal items around lounge* Good to see everyone, hello, hello! *puts down half-dead fern *  Man, plants hate to move *sticks pile of single socks in search of a mate in corner *  I'm assuming the other one will eventually emerge from that void in the universe, it only makes sense, really! *flops down on comfy chair*

Hi, I'm stillshimpy.  I'm part of the recently relocated (and always verbose) TWoP Unsullied.  Here to share daft theories, the occasional mug of bitter tears and grog, because there must be grog.  If there is not grog, then chocolate will do in a pinch.  

Hey, by the by, after talking about grog-this and grog-that for three solid years over on TWoP I actually attempted to figure out how to make grog over the summer.  So...grog.  More fun as a word than a recipe.  I'm just saying. 

Nice to meet you, Snowblack.  Well to restore your faith in some bookwalkers, Glory, my brother-in-law, all 6'5" of him stood in my driveway a week before the Red Wedding and when I told him what the Unsullied were, he looked to the left for a moment, looked back and said, "Well, there's some stuff coming up." and left it at that.  No telling inflection, no goggle eyes.  Could have been remarking on the weather.  He kind of rocks. And smokes a lot of pot, which might explain his extreme restraint (he lives in Seattle so he's not breaking any big laws there). 

All hail David, thanks for the sweet pad :-) 

Edited April 11, 2014 by stillshimpy

[Epeolatrix]

Thank you so much for this! I have purposefully avoided the books, so being able to discuss the show as a show will be a happy thing for me.

[Monty]

Awesome.

Good luck, moderators. I've been there.

[Snowblack]

Hiya StillShimpy!  Is your avatar your pup?  She/he is so cute!

[stillshimpy]

*Points upwards*....Hey look guys...the reason we exist in the first place, to live on and be a pain in David's butt and all you fine people.

Our very own old god, who actually created the entire Unspoiled Speculation thread in the first place.  

Thank you, Monty aka TWoP Dietrich/Montykins.  

[David T. Cole]

Quick Q: Want to start an episode thread for Sunday. Episode titles ok to print or not?

[stillshimpy]

Yes, I think and episode thread would be great.  Thank you.  

I don't know the titles, but they should be fine.  I mean, unless they are something long the lines of "Joffrey dies at long freaking last!" or something super spoilerific. 

I don't ever worry about them, because they never mean anything to me until after I've seen the episode.  Like I'd have guessed that "Two Swords" was about a duel.  So....yeah, I think titles are fine.  

Yes, snowblack! That is my dog, she is a wonderful, wonderful girl and I had her professionally photographed....because I'm a little nuts about her and she's black, so it's impossible to get good pictures of her without really good equipment. 

Her name is Puddles, but it actually doesn't mean anything about peeing.  That's just the name she was on Petfinder under and we freaked out and adopted her, because no one in their right mind would adopt a dog named Puddles. (yes, I know what that implies, but at least my husband and I have each other, so the rest of the world is safe from us). 

So we bought a steam cleaner and adopted the dog.  Turns out she's fully housetrained and practically part camel.  

Edited April 11, 2014 by stillshimpy

[90PercentGravity]

The default episode synopsis could probably be something like "Boobs and stuff."

[stillshimpy]

With a possibility of guts.  

It would be like a really weird weather report.  I like it! 

[Pallas]

This is amazing!  Less than a month ago, news of the Doom of TWoP.  Half a week ago -- snow still unmelted on our blankets, the smell of cold still urgent in our breath --  we feared we must herd ourselves back out into the night again.  Now this.  A sanctuary, where we might even touch noses.  Thank you David, thank you shimpy, thank you gods of the budding tree.  

[Lavignac]

A bookwalker's safe declaration of love for the Spitball Wall:

Like your White Cloaks, I have been watching your TWOP thread silently for years. There did not seem to be an appropriate way to communicate with the Unsullied over there, but in this specific thread of the "Habitat", I feel like it will appear safe.

The number of "views" in your old and new "Unspoiled Speculation" threads must tell the story: you realize by now there are hordes of bookwalkers who find your speculation to be an INCREDIBLE SPECTATOR-SPORT. Right or wrong, you're fascinating.

My main GOT home is WInteriscoming.net, and there are often comments over there praising the interest of your thread and discussing your speculation. You're loved. Some of your ideas are so funny, or so insightful because they show a fresh way of looking at characters and situations that we readers can't experience anymore.

Do go on: we insist!

Now back to an appropriate silence with my popcorn...

[David T. Cole]

Note: Moved messages from the Welcome thread to here in the interest of the welcome thread being as on point as possible.

[Snowblack]

StillShimpy, I love her!  I'm glad you gave her such a wonderful home.  Would you believe I have a goat who was named Puddles at birth?  She's been renamed Gracie, but she started out with the same humiliating moniker.  

Nice touching noses with you Pallas! 

Edited April 12, 2014 by Snowblack

[gingerella]

I wanted to pull this over from elsewhere because it's funny, at least to me, but I don't know where this type of convo should go so I'm putting it here for now...

 

Stumbler, how's about a show called "The Real Kings of the Seven Kingdoms", a new show by Bravhoteros.

I love it, great idea. If Syrio Forel comes back he could host. "And what do we say to the god of bad design? Not today!"

Oh dear, this could be an entire new thread! Ha, love the tag line.  Syrio could host a Westeros style version of Survivor, he's Westeros's answer to Jeff Probst.  "Survivor's ready....dance!"

Tyrion could star in a version of Little Imp, Big Kingdom: The exploits of the smallest big man in the Seven Kingdoms.

Littlefinger could be the new Million Dragons Matchmaker. He combs the Seven Kingdoms to match up his clients.  First up, the hottest Virgin of the North, Jon Snow, looking for his Mrs. Snow.

Sam the Wizard can host Castle Black Medium: summoning the spirits around unsuspecting people and freaking them out.

Many franchises related to the RH's: The Real Housewives of Winterfell, The Real Housewives of KL (Cersei, Sansa as Bethanny, etc.)

Tyrion could also do double duty as the Jeff Lewis of KL in Castle Therapy: the wacky hijinks of Tyrion trying to psychoanalyze the reasoning behind Joffrey's redesigning the throne room.

I'd also like to see some sort of Dr. Drew addiction show, starring Cersei and Jaime and their incest addiction.  Maybe we could do an entire series called Addiction Island: Incest Version, starring the Lannister siblings, Theon and sister, Robin and Mommy, I know I'm forgetting others....

As you can see, I could go on and on and on with this tangent...

 

[Pallas]

Puddles is adorable, shimpy: the puddles are her limpid eyes!  

I sort of had a goat too, Snowblack, a weanling who kept escaping over the fence of her farm plopped in the middle of suburbia, and wandering among the stress-and-prosperity-maddened homeowners in their SUV's.  I found where she'd been banished, discovered she was destined for a future as It in a rodeo, and found her a home on a farm out where farms and goats should be.  A few years later, finally, a horse of my own.

[quarks]

I just wanted to thank all concerned for creating and maintaining this space. It's incredibly entertaining - and not just because I am a Bookwalker :) And now, I shall return to lurking in the shadows, lest the White Cloaks slaughter my chattering presence, leaving stains in this Unsullied area. 

[Snowblack]

Pallas, is there any better karma than saving a helpless little goatling from the rodeo?  The only place worse is the dragon larder. 

[stillshimpy]

Stormblack, do you realize that makes you married in certain Circles?   ;-)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that.  That or a lot of married people are going to unnecessary and startling extremes when just a rubbing of noses would suffice.  And probably prevent any overpopulation problems, if not the spread of the common cold. 

Thanks for the dog validation, guys.  We truly love her, if the entire "I had her portrait taken" thing didn't give that part away.  I suspect it did.  That or I'm nuts, but I think you all probably had a decided opinion on that matter in a particular direction as it was ;-) 

I am in favor of goats and just animals in general.  My husband wanted a goat when we moved here (I'm being serious, I've no idea what put the notion in his head) but where we live we could have up to two horses, but goats are disallowed.  This confused me until all the goat shrieking-in-place-of-lyrics videos hit the internet.  Then it made a lot more sense  So I'm in favor of goats and earplugs.  

Edited April 12, 2014 by stillshimpy

[90PercentGravity]

So, I stumbled onto this app that is suppose to block spoilers for your favorite shows: http://www.unspoiler.tv/

I don't know how it works, because it is for chrome and I switched to FireFox or privacy reasons. If anyone is using chrome, it might be worth checking out. The developer specifically created it to avoid GoT spoilers.

[abcfsk]

Yes, I think and episode thread would be great.  Thank you.  

I don't know the titles, but they should be fine.  I mean, unless they are something long the lines of "Joffrey dies at long freaking last!" or something super spoilerific. 

Noted by several others but this is just too funny in retrospect.

Nice to see you all here, feels like our army is expanding, soon no one can spoil and innocent soul without fearing the most dreadful of consequences. 

[stillshimpy]

Yeah, we are expanding, it would seem. Be careful guys, remember not to take candy from strangers and all that.

Noted by several others but this is just too funny in retrospect.

Right? That must have been my "broken clock" moment for the year, but that was positively surreal as hell, particularly since we'd gotten SUPER SPICY Thai food for dinner.

"Wow, those chili flakes either just made me hallucinate...or I finally got something right...by complete freaking accident, which is how that always works for me in this show."

Pretty hilarious though.

[David T. Cole]

Default topic prefix for this area is now "Unsullied Rules."

[marcee]

Hi, my name is Marcee.

<hi Marcee>

I am an Unsullied. I have not read the books. I do not watch the previews. It has been about 30 days since I read my last (spoiler-free) article about Game of Thrones. I promise to remain virtuous and keep my fellow posters in the warm, soft confines of the dark and unknown.

Please consider my oath taken.

[stillshimpy]

Hey Marcee, welcome to the Spitball Wall, grab some grog and have a seat :-) 

[stillshimpy]

Well that was really nice of them, thank you, Sullied member.  

Heh, it is a bit like "Oh Bookwalkers who have screwed with us, I will miss you least of all" tour at times, but it is also funny to look back.  I just cracked my own butt up reading what I wrote after The Slaughter of Starks, also known as "That time the show nearly made me cancel HBO, because why the hell am I paying to do this to myself?!?"  

[stillshimpy]

Apropos of nothing, other than "say, if you happen to be feeling bummed out because of the world, the show, the people in the world, the people in the show, or because your boss is jerk (this last being the most common reason for being bummed out), because  the grog barrel is empty...because it's hailing. I have help:  

 

Magic Cake.  Right?  You all just thought, "what makes it magic"?   Not what you might think.  Unless you live in Colorado or Washington State, in which case, you could probably magic this on up, but I don't and didn't.  Not that I'm from the "Just say no" school of thought on that particular one, but it has been a long time since I said ...

 

Wait, where was I?  Cake! 

 

A link to the recipe, which I made for the first time last week.  For my husband's birthday.  Can't recommend it enough.  

[unworried well]

Not on here much anymore, popped in to say hi.
So...hi! *Waves to all!*
I was 3eyedpigeon but, unlike Grey Worm, I didn't keep my Unsullied name. Well, I should just go back into lurkdom now!
Bye guys!

[stillshimpy]

Hi 3eyedWell! :D  

[WhiteStumbler]

Had the experience of watching with a group of friends on Sunday, and it was very cool. Mrs. Stumbler is not a fan, so I have watched all prior episodes alone. Watching with a group was much different. Hearing reactions, gasps, laughter - it was fun! And all the discussion after was great (don't worry, they all told me they hadn't read any books / seen any DVD extras - they even voted not to watch the Next Week On w/o my asking!).

 

So I was wondering; how does everyone else watch A Show?

[stillshimpy]

How fun, White Stumbler!  I watch with my husband, every week.  My equally squeamish, equally Unsullied (even more so, I'd say, as he only talk about the show with me) husband, so that when anything bad is going down, we basically both have a hand up to our faces and are staring at each other down the couch.  

 

"Is it safe to look?"  

 

"I don't know....NO! NO! It's not safe to look!"  

 

We basically take turns doing that a lot :-)  But it is so much fun to have someone to watch with when anything big goes down.  Like when Joffrey died we were both dead silent and my husband chimed in with "Is he really dead?"  "I don't know, I'm afraid to move, just in case...."  then there was the "Holy shit! Holy shit! They just killed Joffrey! Let the joyous celebrations BEGIN!"  

 

Big contrast to the whole Frey Wedding deal , which had much less of an "Huzzah! Ironically!" vibe to it. 

 

Are you going to get to watch with a group again? 

Edited May 6, 2014 by stillshimpy

[gingerella]

I watch alone, late at night, and I always have my iPad or newspaper to hold up and block my eyes from seeing the gore and shit, and I watch grasping the remote like it was a death grip because when things get gross I mute and block...

 

ETA: Mr. gingerella always ALWAYS seems to walk through the room during the most gruesome moments, like when Dany ate that horse heart, and he just shakes his head and mutters, "I can't believe you watch this shit...don't complain to me when you can't sleep tonight..."

Edited May 6, 2014 by gingerella

[90PercentGravity]

I've tried watching with my mom, but I just can't deal with it. She wants to talk and speculate during the show and drives me crazy. I like to watch in silence. Oohs and aahs and laughing wouldn't bother me, but talking distracts me.

[RadiantAerynSun]

Sadly I have had to watch it an hour or 2 late the last 2-3 weeks as I'm often not getting home til 10-10:30 pm on Sundays. So obviously I wind up watching it alone on HBOGo much of the time. I have to turn off my computer, Facebook, etc. after 9pm as I don't want to accidentally see someone's spoilery post! GAH. So glad I do this, because the episode where Joff was off'd, a FB friend actually posted "yay King Joffrey is dead!" right up on her FB feed. Like, no warning even? Not even just a vague "yay! GoT made me happy today!" Ugh, people have no respect.

 

I kinda worry I would be a "talker" if I watched it live with a group though. When I re-watch with people I always want to discuss or comment. And the one time I watched Walking Dead with some people I was a talker... I definitely prefer to watch it with no distractions, so I don't miss a line. (of course, I watch it 2 or 3 times the same week after that, in case I missed something.)

[WhiteStumbler]

Are you going to get to watch with a group again? 

At some point, for sure. I want to use it sparingly, of course, so that Mrs. WS doesn't think of herself as a GoT Widow as I drive across town to watch and discuss a show she refers to as "Medieval Boobs and Incest". I have tried convincing her that there is more to A Show than that, but it falls on deaf ears.

 

Maybe I will "call the banners" for the Usually Epic #9? Or the finale? Probably one of the two. At the halfway point now! These seasons go by toooo damn fast.

[Pallas]

Hello 3-Eyed, you are missed!  

 

I watch by myself, "taping," followed by Mad Men (for a little cognitive dissonance).  Then here to the board, usually, not re-watching until sometime later in the week. I know the ep's available on GO at once and On Demand by the time I would be looking for it anyway, but the "taping" assures me it is there to be seen, if there's something that must be revisited at once.  Joffrey's death comes to mind.  

 

I have bookreader friends without HBO with whom I eventually made a pact: my HBO GO log-in info for their continued, somewhat baffled silence.  Works like a charm.  Sorceror in a box, kinda. 

[Snowblack]

I watch alone in a dark room, and then I usually watch the replay an hour or so later.  I don't know any other GoT fans except my brother, who lives almost an hour away.  I have some online buddies, and we've done some rewatches later in the week where we all start the episode at the same time and comment together on an audio chat.  It's fun, and I need to do it more.

[stillshimpy]

Oh brother, my own son is now a Bookwalker! He's in Colorado, but had called to wish me a happy Mother's day and when I asked him what he was up to on a rare day off from work....apparently reading the fourth book.  So I got to explain to my 23-year-old son that I'm Unsullied (and had to pause to let him laugh that out for a while "Okay, so that's not something I feel like my mom should be, just saying!" ) and then I got to tell him the Oath.  Cue more laughter especially at the "But a hat is okay, if needed" part. 

 

Luckily, we still have all manner of things to talk about, but my son is a full blown Bookwalker. 

[Snowblack]

Betrayal by ones own kin!  Say it isn't so, Shimpy!

 

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day to all the moms here.  My four legged kids didn't get me anything, but they're cute enough to earn instant forgiveness. :)

[Pallas]

Echoing snowblack's  Mother's Day good wishes!  

 

My tribe of animals warmed my heart today as well.  My horse was so sated with a flawless day of sun and grass, that after dinner, he ignored his hay and dozed in his stall with his head on my shoulder, one hoof cocked, his Vulcan ears relaxed into upended gourds, his lower lip quivering, his eye half-closed but fastened on me as I murmured to him.  All we needed was Charlotte over our heads, spinning out SOME RACEHORSE.  Instead, all throughout the barn, tucked into corners of every stall, in nests made of hay and twigs and horses' winter coats, the sparrow chicks are hatched and peeping.  

[Snowblack]

The wait for the episode is KILLING ME.  I can't take it anymore.  We need a chat or something while we wait.  Just 48 loooooong minutes!

[abelard]

Oh I'm going to answer the "how do you watch GoT" question above.  GoT is the first show in many years that mr. abelard and I routinely watch with friends.  When Must See TV was on in the 90s (and I was single and it was pre-mr. abelard), I used to get together with friends to watch Friends, Seinfeld, ER, that whole line-up on Thursdays.  Then when I got together with mr. abelard in the late 90s, I'd go to his place and he, his roommate, roommate's weird/crazy gf, and I would watch the Sunday HBO line-up: SATC and Sopranos.

 

That feels like many years ago, so it is kind of nice to be SO excited about a TV show that we are watching with our downstairs neighbors.  Sometimes other people come, too (tonight, neighbor dude's parents will be there).  I feel like it's not just that we're so excited about GoT, more excited than we've probably been since The Sopranos - it's that OTHER people are so super excited, too!!!  And the downstairs neighbors are waayyyy not bookwalkers, they are totally Unsullied also, so we sometimes go out to Happy Hour drinks and speculate together about what will happen.  (Like an in-person Unsullied Habitat!!)  So far, nothing we have guessed has been right, though our collective spec (begun by mr. abelard) that this season may be the end of Tywin Lannister may yet come to pass.  

[Snowblack]

StillShimpy, I picked up my dog at the groomer yesterday, and I swear your black beauty was there, waiting for a ride home.  Are you sure you don't live in New Mexico? ;)

[stillshimpy]

I live in Missouri at present, Snowblack :-)  But I'm glad that Pud's spirit animal clearly gets around! Canine Astral Projection, Perhaps?  

 

In all seriousness, Puddles is actually from New Mexico.  We were her second home by the time she was nine months old.  The first people adopted her from a shelter in New Mexico. They were unable to keep her for a variety of reasons and we adopted her from Fairplay, CO.  But she was initially found abandoned, in New Mexico, in a box in a field, with her litter-mates.  So who knows, maybe you saw one of her littermates.  

 

What sort of dog do you have?  

[Snowblack]

Wouldn't that be amazing?  I have several dogs, but the one at the groomers yesterday is a black German Shepherd.  She has awful environmental allergies, so she gets a lot of baths.  And she's the biggest wimp of all the dogs there!

 

Anyone else care to share about their furry friends?

[unworried well]

I have a Siberian Husky. We watch TV together:-)

[DemosthenesKey]

I've always been a cat person (insert stereotype of Evilness here), but our family's lost so many cats over the years that we decided to just not have any more... Immediately, of course, we find a stray cat meowling at our back door, and we feed it because wook at the widdle kitty. But we're definitely not naming it!

So yeah, now we've had Cat-Cat (it eventually grew too old to be called Kitty-Kitty anymore) for two years... But if we ever get another I'm naming it Ser Pounce.