Winter is Coming

After watching the first season of Game of Thrones over the weekend, I caved in and picked up the first book.  It's safe to say that I'm hooked.  I finished reading A Game of Thrones at lunch and am hard at work composing the review in my head.  Even after watching the first season of the show, it still gripped me pretty hard.

It reminded me more of Pillars of the Earth more than a typical doorstop fantasy novel.  I read an interview where GRRM said he was a big fan of historical fiction.  That's what Game of Thrones felt like.  Only the history was fictitious.

Martin thanks Roger Zelazny in the acknowledgments.  I already knew he and Zelazny were close.  Now I'm wondering if the machinations in Game of Thrones were in any way inspired by the ones of the family in Amber.

Another reason I entitled this post Winter is Coming?  It's supposed to be 8 degrees tonight!

Oh, and I almost forgot.  I saw the hawk again today so I'm bringing my camera to work with me tomorrow.

The Hawk

I was taking a post-lunch stroll around the parking lot when I saw something near the base of one of the light poles around the perimeter.  I thought it was trash at first.  It wasn't.

It was a downed hawk!  I inched closer and closer, all the while wishing I had my camera with me.  I got about ten feet away and the hawk looked me right in the eye.  For a few seconds, we just looked at one another.  I turned and walked away, remembering the scene in the Gunslinger where Roland uses the hawk David to shred Cort's face.  I looked over my shoulder and watched the hawk fly to a nearby low-hanging tree branch.

Has it already been a fortnight?

Wow, two weeks goes by fast.

So around two weeks ago, I came down with a cold and took some Sudafed.  Apparently, this was not a great idea.  My nose got really dried out and I had a gusher nosebleed last Monday morning that took ten minutes to stop.

Tuesday saw three or four more gushers, which led to me going home from work early.  I had another gusher at my girlfriend's house that evening, which led to a trip to the urgent care.  Long story short, I'm sleeping with a humidifier next to my bed and periodically putting vaseline inside my nostrils to keep my nose moist.

Not much else going on except that Brittany and I watched season 1 of The Game of Thrones over the weekend.  It was awesome and now I'm wanting to read the books.

I've got some pictures I want to post when I get the time.

Another Damn Monday

My lovely ladyfriend was out of town for the weekend so I had a lot of time by myself.  Here's what I "accomplished.":

1. Read the last 300 pages of Pillars of the Earth.  My favorable review is getting a lot of votes on Goodreads but so is my friend Amanda's hate-filled review of it that I linked to.
2. Fixed my girlfriend's problematic door and fed her cats
3. Edged into the number 6 of all time spot on Goodreads by four votes.  I have a feeling the Huntress and I are going to be trading that spot a few times before all the shouting is over.
4. Found Looking for Rachel Wallace at a used bookstore when I had to kill some time.  My dremmel was deader than shit when I needed it to fix the door so I needed something to read.
5. Read the first 120 pages of Looking for Rachel Wallace while I was waiting for my dremmel to charge.
6. Watched almost an entire season of Justified.  I have only the final episode of Justified season 3 left.
7. Threw a roast in the crock pot before Sunday's events started so Britt and I would have something to eat for dinner.
8. Visited my nephew and those two people he lives with.  Jack's a shade over 11 months and cuter than a box of kittens.  He can walk about ten feet by himself and enjoys having his six teeth brushed.  He'll probably be able to walk unassisted by the time his birthday rolls around next month.

I did a lot of relaxing but I was really glad when Brittany got home last night.  So were her cats.  I stayed at her house a little too late watching Dexter but it was worth it.  I'll take out my lack of sleep on my co-workers.  FYI, the roast turned out very well.

Today marks the sixth working day in a row that I've worked out before work.  My belly button doesn't seem so cavernous and the workouts have already become noticeably easier.  I probably should have weighed myself at the start as a way of tracking progress.

Interesting search terms that have brought people to my blog recently:

• I  could pee on that
• Squirrel with a beard
• All females have an inner bimbo
• beard progress pictures
• trucker fags in denial
• orange soda

Day 4

It's Thursday and I've lifted weights every morning this week.  So far, all I notice is being more awake when I leave for work and being hungrier than usual all damn day.  Still, it does feel good to have already worked out when I get home from work and don't feel like doing much.

Bullets went into the mail yesterday around lunch time, several minutes before I ate a delicious Philly Cheese Steak at Scotti's Deli, thereby nullifying the week's workouts so far.

I'm closing in on the 600 page mark of Pillars of the Earth.  It's all downhill from here.  Lots of rape in the 1100's.

2013: The Story So Far

1. Looks like I'm going through with my plan to work out before work.  I got up twenty minutes early this morning and lifted weights.  It was rough but I should adjust after a few days of this.
2. I'm sending out a hard copy of Bullets Don't Blink in the next day or so.  Wish me luck!
3. It's supposed to be freakishly warm this weekend so I'm planning on one or more hiking expeditions.
4. My girlfriend gave me Pillars of the Earth to read.  It's pretty good so far but I've been falling asleep too early to do some serious stretches of reading on it as of yet.