Friday, January 24

Today I am grateful for:

More nice weather. Only about -5 C.

The furnace guys were here, doing more work downstairs.

Getting to town. There were some late Christmas cards in the mail. For whatever reason, I have a couple of friends that I send cards to every year, and have for the last ten years now, and I think they do that thing where they send a card when they get mine. It's nice to hear from them.

We went to the thrift store, and I found a really nice shirt that was new with tags, and some books.

My sweetie and I got more groceries. I always appreciate having the means to get food.

Then, we came home and watched the first three episodes of the finals season of Game of Thrones. We don't get cable, so we finally broke down and bought the season on DVD. I have to say, the last season so far just feels really rushed, because it's JUST FREAKIN' TIME to wrap it up. If George R. had finished the last book, no doubt this would have had a much more developed feeling to it. As it is, it's just like, "Whelp, gotta wrap up, so big wars, big dragons, um..what else....all the main characters get to have a final scene that feels like they're saying good bye, and then they die, generally as fulfilled and redeemed people so that it feels okay that they're dead". It's still really good, but it has a sort of corny feel to it, because literally it does feel like each of the characters shows up one more time, gets some kind of reward or redemption that summarizes their role, and they die. It's managing to not even feel scary that there's a giant war with the White Walkers, because you know full well they aren't going to win. Right now, Jon Snow is in love with Daenerys, and I don't feel anything, because it happened quickly, there was no development of it, and you accept it as a plot point that feels totally superficial. Far too much is happening and feels just like it was thrown in there to tie up a loose end. They're jamming what should have taken about three seasons into just this one. I guess they had no choice, but there it is.

That said, I'll miss this show. The first seasons before they ran out of source material was some of the absolute best stuff I've ever watched. The most amazing characters and plot you'll ever find.