Obviously, Martin is a slow writer. But the roles of the Others has nothing to do with his speed. HBO has been teasing the Others for years ... or flat-out building plots around them. In one of the early seasons, they ended an episode showing the White Walkers baptizing a baby into zombiehood. The disappearance of…

This is a great post, btw.

It’s pretty much impossible NOT to feature more of the Others, because the first 5 books have barely included the Others at all, let alone feature them.

Again, they have spent so little time in the books actually fighting Others. Other than Jon, Sam, Tormund and Mellissandra, there is no one in Westeros right now that cares about the Others at all. In the books, the Night’s King is a cursed Westerosi, not the leader of the undead born by the Children of the Forest.

Have we forgotten about the time Deadspin drew a dong on the Cubs mascot?

People forget: in the books, only six characters have actually encountered an Other (White Walker): Waymar Royce and the two members of his scouting party to open the books; and Samwell Tarly, Grenn and Paul of the Night’s Watch. Royce is killed by one and the lone survivor of his party is beheaded by Lord Eddard.…

I’ll take a bad ending over no ending

...and “interpreted” by a 23-year-old communications major making $37,000 a year whose last science class came when she was 17 and she got a C+ in it.

#EatArbys

I think Drew called it. There is a 99% chance a flak just dropped a product promotion into Drew’s Funbag. Unless Drew is in on it and he’s now taking sponsorship dollars from BIG SOCK...

I want to hear more about all of the owner collusion that’s going on in MLB!

Good point. Yes, I have gotten things like “Oh, yeah, I went to a few parties there.” ... also, references to the various football or basketball teams comes up occasionally, I guess. It’s just insane that people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for that now.

This. A million times, this. And beyond not really not learning anything useful in college for my career, I haven’t had an employer even ask about my education in an interview since I got my first job (I graduated more than 20 years ago). At best, college is used as lazy way to sort candidates by recruiters. “Well,…

all you’d have to do would be to send her to juco for a year or two with a tutor, keep building the brand

My guess is that the FBI can keep pulling on the thread and go toward a lot of these companies and find more illegal stuff.

Reclining theater seats are essential, but I’d actually make the argument that assigned seating is the best innovation to come to movie theaters.

Two things (I think): that’s why many of the people involved were either admissions officials OR coaches. 2) That’s where the false grades came in to play. If I’m understanding it all correctly, there are probably plenty of kids faking their SAT/ACT scores, but where this group was able to GUARANTEE admissions was…

On top of that, I noticed how many high school guidance counselors seemed to be the only ones cognizant of what was going out. Meanwhile, these guidance counselors -- the only people paying ethical attention to the situation -- were likely making less annually than 25% of a single bribe.

There’s a unique level of sadness when you’re bad at being a criminal.

Got it. Although, I don’t think you HAVE to have the new team comprise the same interpersonal dynamics as the current one, and they’d probably be better off allowing the characters and actors define that dynamic that try to shoehorn them in to previous archetypes. I think the bigger issue is the Marvel’s branding and…