As the liberal journalists (tautology? yes) start to decide that the Olympics weren't an utter failure, my sympathies go out to those poor souls that Putin's going to punish for making his country look bad. And to everyone else who's suffered under his boot. And the whole thing in Kiev.
Meanwhile, a properly respected right-leaning/wing commentator has gone and compared Ted Cruz to Hitler. Er. Okay, to be fair, he also compared Obama to Hitler in the same post (which does not get a link, because nothing that invokes Godwin's Law gets a link, it's a new rule, I made it up and will likely forget it tomorrow, oh look at me, I'm Justice Kennedy).
Winter is over(ish) and yet Winter is Coming what with Season Four of Game of Thrones now thoroughly peeking its head somewhere over the horizon. Two trailers are out - well, a giant mostly harmless behind-the-scenes docu and a right proper trailer - and I can't help shake the feeling that this is going to be the last great season partly because all the "good" scenes take place in it, but also because, um, the flashy actiony bits are basically gone after this and its down to politicking, which means they won't be running up much of a blood budget which means they'll be boosting their booby budget and so on. (Science fact: the last bit of gratuitous nudity that was remotely tangential to the plot was when Margaery got her boobs out to show us all exactly how gay Renly really was. That was in early Season 2.) As for my expectations, they aren't particularly high. What I've seen of the Purple Wedding from the docu looks like a stupid picnic, Margaery Tyrell (who's going to be one of the few reasons to keep watching once the dust settles) has almost nothing to do this season (although boy howdy they found things for her to do last time around, and these things didn't involve her parading around nekkid, Daenerys*), Bran Stark is pretty much out of things to do as well, which means they'll be making things up to shoehorn him into every episode (kill me now), and while everyone else's least-favorite casting choice bites it this year, my least favorite gets to be the centerpiece of his biggest plotline yet. I. Can. Hardly. Wait.
*It occurs to me that Sansa's actress is going to be legal right around the time the show hits the "Harry the Heir" plotline. Yeesh.
Am I supposed to be excited about the Red Viper? I'm supposed to be excited about the Red Viper. I'm not excited about the Red Viper. By introducing him one episode before the Purple Wedding rather than half a book before it, it's going to be far more obvious that he's been shoehorned in there to try to help [redacted - spoiler] out of a case of [redacted - defamatory]. Meanwhile Jaime's going to be dicking around in King's Landing doing frak-all for nine episodes before royally screwing his family over in the tenth. Hooray. Oh, and Brienne might get to do something. Whether it will be interesting or not is too early to tell.
Really, the way the show could really make my day would be to have the Queen of Thorns tell Margaery that she and Joffrey will "have all the time in the world," because then they'd at least acknowledge that they've gone and committed the greatest casting gag in history. Beyond that I don't have particularly high hopes. This is what happens when you try to stretch 300 pages of novel out over 10 hours. Oh, yes, more Theon torture porn, great. Actually, since I still hate the bastard (talking about Theon here, not Ramsay Bolton, no siree), don't think I'll mind so long as they learn not to make it gratuitous this time 'round. Whatever Asha's doing I hope a) she gets a lot of screen time and b) she doesn't succeed, because let Theon rot, that's why. Fortunately there is, as always, one side to root for (and really only one side to root for given who's going to be a corpse by the end of the season and how truly useless Daenerys is):
Io9's got a thing over there about what the most defining sci-fi work of the 21st Century is. Well, I know what it is, I just haven't published it yet. We're barely a tenth of the way through the 21st Century, you goofballs. Imagine asking that question vis a vis the 20th in 1913. They hadn't had Metropolis yet, let alone Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, The Terminator, or Back to the Future. Anyway, back to the 21st Century. I ruled out my favorite film of all time because the fact that it's science-fiction is the main plot twist and I went with Moon instead. Then I realized that I'd misread the question. The work that most defines science fiction in the 21st century is the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: overblown and soulless.
Parting thought: saw a trailer for Farscape: The Movie, though they're calling it Guardians of the Galaxy for some reason. Looks pretty cool. Did not recognize Amy Pond at all.
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