I had the same experience. The Dragonbone Chair was plodding, but the final two books flew past. On the whole, I liked the series. Like a lot of fantasy, it's pretty derivative, but it has some decent characters and an inventive mythology.

lord knows, if there’s one thing CA definitely has in surplus, it’s space in the jails.

No Phillip J. Fry or Leela? Those seem more iconic than Jared Padalecki from Supernatural.

I am a little befuddled at the multiple island trips suggested. I understand taking a ferry from Helsinki to Estonia (you’d either have to backtrack for days, drive through Russia, or skip Finland), but do you really need to add a ferry to Malta or Ibiza to a really long driving trip? I’m sure they’re both…

The island gets 66 inches of rain a year with over 250 rainy days a year. Record high is 76 and record low is 40. I think the island probably does not require any irrigation.

Having slept in an awful lot of tents during torrential Midwestern downpours, in environments where it was hard to find a level, dry campsite, you've missed a pretty important situation. In a place with heavy clay soils, water doesn't sink into the ground easily while camping. Even if your tent fly is…

Utah has the fastest internet in the country? Hmm. What a mystery.

In very small communities, the concepts of social shame and interdependency address many of these concerns. Your renters, for instance, don’t take care of their home because there are thousands of other landlords in your community and similar communities. In a small, isolated community, someone who trashed a house…

How would an island of 300 people generate the 3-4 different competitive entities in each relevant industry to maintain a free and competitive market? You could easily believe that a free market is a good idea, while acknowledging that it entails certain prerequisites this island could not meet.

In highly remote areas, running diesel generators is a hideously expensive option. Green tech that would not be cost effective on the main power grid can be very cost affordable in that context. Green power options have been widely explored by remote Alaskan villages to reduce their diesel payments.

I went straight from Last Man on Earth to Bob's Burgers Sunday night, and I said, "why isn't Kristen in just everything?"

Is there a way to ask him to reformulate what he's feeling? Maybe he is weighing whether he wants to make a big deal out of his concerns, or otherwise mulling things over. Ask him if it would be easier to say something like, "I have something on my mind, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to express it/trying…

What superfoods can I eat that help with my reading comprehension?

What we need is a systemic revision of national food policy that currently makes certain nutrition-free foods cheap while making nutritious food comparatively expensive. Our long-term corn subsidies have made corn syrup and meats extraordinarily cheap.

[files petition for National Justice and Gin day]

The Daily Show as an entity was much more a fart jokes & celebrity send-up program before Jon. It took him a while after his takeover to make it the primarily politics oriented program that it is now.

Tom Haverford: Oh my God, Jerry? When you check your email, you go to AltaVista and type "please go to yahoo.com"?

Ah've been talking at the University of Houston since long before ah got paid to talk at the University of Houston.

evil doppelganger? that's a pretty good staple for plot devices.

Couldn't you produce essentially the same effects with large conventional weapons (without the radioactivity side effect)? People regularly use conventional explosives to take care of well head fires. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well_…