"...all good things..."

As I get older I find one of the things that annoys me more than anything is waiting for things. I seem to spend more time waiting for a thing, or at least thinking about waiting for a thing, than experiencing it. And it does get tiring, as often the waiting of a thing can just build things up in your mind and make it overwhelming; especially if it's waiting for something bad to happen. 

Even when you look at what should be relatively inconsequential things like waiting for a new episode of a TV show (The Walking Dead, I am looking at you*), or the next issue of a comic (see previous brackets). I guess, though, it does build up anticipation as I just know that if someone were to wave a magic wand, and the remaining eight episodes of the current season of The Walking Dead were to arrive on my hard drive by magic, I'd splurge through the whole lot in one, joyous, emotional, heart breaking, shocking, six hour session...

But then the wait for the next season would be even greater, and the impact of the cliffhangers lessened a little by their instant resolutions. 'Cos half the appeal of a good cliffhanger is spending some time working out how they're going to get out of that or what the impact of a twist will be on a plot. 

I guess it needs time to brew in the mind. 

So, maybe waiting isn't too bad...

...but then what if a double decker bus crashes in to me tomorrow...? 

Oh, I dunno... 

* - also see Game of Thrones. The TV show for which they have just released a 15 second trailer advertising the screening of a full length (however long that might be) trailer for the fourth season. A trailer for a trailer? Strewth!

"...we were quoted out of context..."

I guess that's one of the problems with writing the header to a post before you finish it. 'Cos the header's meant to at least slightly relate to what's actually in the post, and had I had a little more time I'd have gone on to talk about Sherlock, and the whole quote would have made a lot more sense. 

But, I never got around to it...

So. Other things that were good about last year in the telly;

Game of Thrones; I decided, on the spur of the moment, after having heard there was a massive outcry at the massive twist in season 3 episode 9 that I'd check out the whole show, and manage to miss the spoiler. Which, somehow, I managed to do. I splurged through 30 episodes in less than three weeks, and it was great. The agony of waiting for the next season to start is really twisting my melon. 

I found myself loving the show. It's violent, rude, and absolutely filthy, but compelling viewing. Loads of wonderful characters, and a propensity for killing them off that probably exceeds The Walking Dead (lets face it; Rick's never gonna die. At least not until the very end). I'm finding that of the characters the ones I like best are Tyrion, Baelish (oh, so slimy!), and Daenerys; although I do wish she'd hurry up and cross the Narrow Sea. Unlike the Walking Dead, though, I've not read the source material as the TV show is a much closer adapatation (within the usual lmitations) than The Walking Dead is. 

The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls; the leaking of three JD Salinger short stories was, to say the least, somewhat of surprise. Bowling Balls was the most surprising of the three, seeing as the only known copy is at a uni library in the states and security around it is tight. You can go in and read it, but they never allow copies. Maybe someone used hi-tech methods? Hidden camera, perhaps? 

Anyhow, it was a very interesting story to read, consisting of what's essentially a rough draft of some of the characters from Catcher in the Rye. Although whereas other rough version Catcher stories (I'm Crazy, and Slight Rebellion off Madison) are, essentially, early edits of Catcher chapters. the story here is not. Well, barring some references to things also referenced in Catcher such as Kenneth's/Allie's death. This one's not even narrated by Holden, rather by Vincent/DB. I don't think too much can be read in to the story, as in terms of Caulfield canon (it's not just Dr Who that yaps on about that) the canon is Catcher, and nothing else. Well, until the purported book of Caulfield short stories comes out... yes, me too; I'll believe it when I see it. Bowling Balls should only really be seen as a work in progress. For one thing, unlike the other two, it was never published. But, it is a fascinating insight to the progression of the work done in advance of Catcher.

Now, can we get some actual proper published Salinger stuff; the stuff he'd been working on since 1965. 

And, please, we're in the 21st century now; Catcher in the Rye on Kindle now, please! :)

More tomorrow, hopefully...! 

"...this is the voice of fate..."

I guess I've been lax. I look at the last time I posted here, and really it's not good enough. I keep on thinking of things to post, but never quite get around to it. If only Google or Apple or one of these TV tech types could do a thing where you think words and they appear on your blog. You'd need some kind of code word to start it off, and another to end it, otherwise every single thought you had would appear on your blog. In a way that might be quite interesting, but I suspect that if every thought a person had were to work its way in to a blog it would make for very odd reading. 

So, I have to stick with typing up this stuff. At least a post a week from now on, I think... 

As it's New Year's Day, tradition dictates I should do a look back at things I liked and disliked in 2013;

As the last post, spoilers are encoded using rot13; got to rot13.com to decipher. They're not just random letters! :)

Likes;

The Walking Dead; both the TV show and the comic. The later of which I read every single issue of this past year, all 118 issues. What I like is that the TV show, although based on the comic, takes the basics of the comics and does its own thing, so that (for example) in the comics during his big attack on the prison The Governor pubcf bss Glerrfr'f urnq; whereas in the tv show it's Urefpury jub fhssref gur fnzr sngr. There were two episodes that really stood out for me, Clear; the episode where Rick, Glenn, and Michonne head off on a mission on their own. It's really just them (plus one other character) for the duration and it's a really powerful episode. 

The other one was the mid-season cliffhanger episode, which was an episode with events in it that many people thought would have been in the season 3 finale. It's one of those episodes that changes the direction of the entire show, and provides closure to one of its most memorable characters. Well, two of the show's most memorable characters. I also loved that the final shot of the episode was exactly the same as the last panel of issue 48.

Like I say, the comics give a flavour to what's coming, and 3 key comic characters are m,aking their debut in the back half of the season. And I'm *really* hoping there'll be an episode called "Fear The Hunters"... I'm also hoping at some point we'll get to see Negan (and Lucille!) in the TV show... but I suspect, as he doesn't make his debut until issue #100, we'll be talking, at the very earliest, a debut for him at the end of season 5 (or even the mid season cliffhanger of season 6)... Question is, will his debut have as much... impact? :)

South Park; a mixed season this year. The goth/emo episode was almost as bad as a towelie episodes, and the Game of Thrones/PS4/XBox trio of episodes was dragged out by at least one episode too many (though the final payoff joke at the end was inspired!). But, this season did have one of it's very finest episodes yet. And it was surprising...

One of the main criteria for a South Park episode is generally how offensive Cartman is during the episode. Or, how offensive the episode is as a whole, leaving you saying "I can't believe they did that!" (see also; Boyle, Frankie.). However, the last episode of the season, called "The Hobbit" had almost no Cartman in it. and had very little in it that could cause offence. There's a girl in the cheerleading squad called Lisa Berger, who lacks elan and style and is thought of as fat and ugly. Through a series of events, a picture of her is Photoshopped to make her look more attractive, and all of a sudden because of this altered image, she is suddenly popular. Then, all the other girls get pictures photoshopped, and they are all popular. Despite their actual appearances being exactly the same as before; only Wendy resists.

The whole theme of the thing is handled so very well indeed; the manipulation of images to create an artificial impression that people cannot live up to. The boys here are shown as very shallow indeed, only liking the girls once they have their altered pictures being more drawn to the pictures than the real girls. Wendy is ostracised for not following the pack. And, I tell you the final scene of the episode is just heartbreaking. When the episode ended I was dumbstruck. I was expecting some final gag, some final thing to lift the mood at the end, but no... quite wonderful indeed. 

And, looking at the clock (I said clock), it's getting late, so I'll do more of this tomorrow.