qwksndmonster

I stayed up until 5:30 am finishing the first season of Fargo and playing Dark Souls. Of course this is the morning our other caretaker falls off the face of the earth. Ughhh.

If I owned a hockey team I would lay in bed and watch cartoons all day because money.

Larsson and Reinhart are blowing me away lately. Foligno and Gionta are playing well, but Larsson is the heart and soul of that third line. He creates all the offense, and the defense is anchored around him. He's tough, and other teams hate him. He's the guy that we all thought Girgensons was last year (except Larsson is much stronger on his skates). I hope he can keep it up. Samson is turning into a beast. His physical play is worlds better than it was in October. Now he's regularly shrugging guys off and making plays. I thought he was better than Jack last night. Dan's gotta get him some time at pivot.

Eh, he was pretty heavy in the crease. Definitely not a checker or a well rounded player by any means, but he was tough.

That pass by O'Reilly on the Deslauriers goal was PRETTY. Kane rang a smart dump in around the boards, O'Reilly picked it up, spun, and shot an amazing pass over to Nic despite the puck being on edge. WOW. Samson and Eichel are so good, just styling on the Sens. There was one shift where I don't think anybody else touched the puck. They're both noticably stronger than they were earlier in the season as well. I thought Kane played a really nice game. His wheels buy him breakaways, but he'll never put them away like Eichel does. It's fine, though, because he tilts the ice in our favor every time he's on the ice. And he seems to be doing a lot better with letting the more talented players on his line work the puck.

CONSOLES ARE THE DEVIL!!! Dark Souls is still entertaining me. Just got Rickard's Rapier.

The last 2 episodes have been awesome. There's so many characters bouncing off one another: Chuck, Jimmy, Howard, Kim. And then Mike, Nacho, Tuco, Hector, Stacy. We had a brief moment of crossing the streams when Jimmy hummed the rocky theme to Mike. Hehehehe. There was a lot of payoff in this episode from the teaser of episode 2. That's the scene where Chuck starts the metronome and then tries to play piano, but keeps getting angry at himself when he screws up. I don't want to take screenshots right now, so here's a quick version: The first shot is of the metronome, and both sides are equally shown. Chuck brings out some piano sheet music and fondly thumbs over a name on the corner: Rebecca. (We know he was married from season 1 when he helped Jimmy with the Chicago Sunroof situation. He had a wedding ring on.) As Chuck messes up the first time, the camera move shows mostly only one side of the pendulum's arc. Then, as he screws up a second time the pendulum's arc is now totally obscured on one side. [Then Hamlin shows up, and tells him that Jimmy has a sweet gig with Davis & Main] It specifically comes up that the clients loved Jimmy. Chuck finished Hamlin's sentence when he was reporting how the Sandpiper residents responded. When Chuck sits back down the Metronome is looming out of focus in the foreground, and as Chuck stares at it the focus shifts from him to the metronome. Only one side of the arc is once again being shown. The final shot of the scene is this one: The massive unlit fireplace makes another appearance. When Jimmy was piecing together the shreds of paper from Sandpiper, he fell asleep next to the fireplace. When he woke up, Chuck had pieced the shreds together, and although Jimmy didn't know it, already stole the case. In Season 2 Episode 4 when Jimmy is taking care of Chuck, he lights the firelamp. Once Chuck falls asleep Jimmy turns it back off. Even that little fake distant flame doesn't stay lit for long. Anyways, the button of this scene: Chuck's personal struggles are resulting in his perception becoming warped and unbalanced. During season 1 and before when Jimmy was trying his best and struggling badly to become a legitimate lawyer, instead of guiding and helping along the way, Chuck operated from a distance and held on to his deep jealousy. It's kind of absurd how neither brother realizes how jealous Chuck is of Jimmy. In the season 1 episode 9 blow up, Chuck's attacks were all very personal. "You're not a real Lawyer!" "Slippin' Jimmy I can handle, but Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree is like a money with a machine gun." I don't think Chuck can handle Slippin' Jimmy, at all. Jimmy broke some rules, but he really was trying so damn hard to be a lawyer like his big brother. Chuck wasn't proud of him for getting his degree while working in the mail room, and he wasn't proud of him for busting his ass doing public defender work for little to no reward. All Chuck could ever see was his charming little brother slipping into the career that is at the very heart of his pride and prestige. Chuck's electricity issue is intrinsically tied to the mistrust of his little brother. Chucks lack of self awareness when it comes to his jealousy and duplicity. I think it's just another small piece of Chuck's sibling rivalry. His tone with Jimmy is very similar to the parent of a long time addict. Jesse's parents were pretty universally hated by the Breaking Bad fandom, but they were acting on years and years of being let down by Jesse after giving him all the trust and love in the world. Chuck tries to be fatherly toward Jimmy not because he loves him, but because their father had a blind spot. Chuck very much made it his duty to take Jimmy to task. I think what's a lot more interesting about Chuck's story of Jimmy stealing money is when he tells it. Kim asks him about her job and Chuck tells a story to throw a shade on Jimmy. Kim tolerates it because her job is so important to her, but the looks she gives Chuck are ice. Jimmy appears to be absolutely correct that Chuck's conduct at work it very personally driven. Chuck doesn't even conceal it here, just tries to save a little face with "I'm on your side Howard's a dick" at the end. I don't think Kim takes the story unsalted, but she knows that it could be true. I think that all this does is give Kim a little more perspective into how much Chuck has with Jimmy over the years. She was great in this episode: still cares about Jimmy, but she's digging herself out. As an aside, what exactly is the relationship between Hamlin and Chuck? Chuck definitely seems to have the power, but Hamlin isn't above asserting his own power over his subordinates. Hamlin was almost glad to tell Chuck about Jimmy working for Davis and Main in the metronome scene. Hamlin kept saying "Wish you could come back! But really no pressure no pressure." I think it's pretty clear from this exchange that Hamlin prefers not having Chuck around. There's definitely something we don't know going on between these two. A couple more things about the Metronome scene: I love the piece that Chuck plays. It's a beautiful minor melody that gets interrupted by these almost offensively major chord pairs. I take the song as an expression of all the emotions and pain inside and the annoyance and frustration of having to put on airs to hide it. That definitely rings true when Hamlin shows up and pretends to like Chuck and Chuck pretends to fondly think about how everyone loves his brother. Chuck is the kind of guy that gets angry at himself when attempting to express his emotions through music. You can see from his scene with Rebecca that their life was sophisticated and exquisite, but Chuck was unable to handle the emotions of playing her piece himself. I think the music sounded bad in Chuck's ears, despite how well he played. Even his beloved wife was much more charmed by his brother than him. I think the thing going through Chuck's head when he's staring at the metronome in the last shot of the teaser is: I'm just the beat. Jimmy's the melody. I also like Clifford Main's musicality contrasting so starkly with Chuck's. Cliff plays the blues to unwind. Chuck plays classical and gets mad.

I was thinking about Jon's death because of this thread and it still makes absolutely no sense in the show, and has no punch other than "this is the finale and that guy you like is dead." Hardhome happened, it was great, but it had no political effect on the wall. The black brothers are made up of a bunch of thieves, murderers, and rapists who on the most part believe they're at the wall because it's a penal colony. Jeor Mormont seemed to know the ancient purpose of the Night's Watch and brought his men up north to deal with the wildlings, but also to try and find Benjen Stark and find out more information about their true enemy. Once Jon, his black brothers, and the wildlings got back from Hardhome it should have been a Renaissance of sorts for the Night's Watch: We know our true purpose, and many of our brothers were there to see it with their own eyes. The others are here. The White Walkers. The ice demons that most thought were just a legend. They're coming back to bring the long night that never ends. Instead of any of this happening, we default to the most boring reason for Jon Snow to die. The Night's Watch apparently can't abide joining up with the wildlings to fight a greater evil. Alliser Thorne didn't learn anything from fighting with Jon and being named first ranger, he's just a dick that hates Jon Snow. Jon Snow didn't underestimate the needs of his men, he didn't blunder or make a hard decision that led to his death, he died because a bunch of old men have no reasoning skills whatsoever. How compelling.

Actually caught most of this one. Kane looked pretty smooth with O'Reilly. Maybe he really is learning to play with more attention to detail. I don't know, and I suspect I won't until next season. I just think Larsson and Kane would be a great pairing. Samson and Eichel are good together, but I can't abide having Samson at wing at this point. This season is (now) about development, how about we see some of that science that Bylsma is supposedly always doing with our lines? I blame Bylsma for O'Reilly getting burned in overtime. 22 minutes in his first game back? Not relying on Larsson who's been an absolute beast lately? Tsk tsk. I still don't know how Gionta and Girgensons were unable to open up and get the tap in behind Scrivens in OT. And Bogosian's attempt to stop the accross pass in OT was pretty brutal. Deslauriers played an OK game. He had another pretty sick tip from the high slot. I am still shocked that Scrivens gloved it down. What a save. That second goal Lehner gave up was super unlucky (tip off Gionta). Nice game from him otherwise. I missed when he apparently flipped his lid.

I've been playing at least 4/5 times a week lately. It's really helped me survive this terrible excuse for a winter. My brother was trying to mimic Eichel's skating style during warm ups and it just looked like he was prancing around frolicking.

Slacker!!!!! Where's our free words?! WC, what a keeper <3

Fascination! I obviously like being snobby. Also, here and there we get a Hardhome and a Valyrian poetry slam.

Actually, campy implies fun. There's no way the creators of this show are going to let it be fun.

Oh man this show is so bad. I'm looking forward to it being a buncha campy slock instead of being a slow form assassination of every single character arc. I also hope they throw some bright colors on the screen as well, and maybe get a B camera crew that knows which end of the camera makes movies come out.

Sabres pls

What a fun game. Reinhart played very well. I felt bad for him a couple times when he was drifting wide open in space and Kane was jamming the puck into the goalie's pads from beneath the goal line. Jack played awesome. That shot was a thing of beauty. That power play started with Jack trying to blast the high shots into the net and then finally settling in and effortlessly drifting backwards and wristing the puck by Samson and into the net. Larsson, Foligno, and Gionta all played great. It's awesome to see Larsson's offense return. He learned a lot this year and I think is finally rounding out his game. I still think Foligno's a 4th liner who has flashes.

I think McDavid possessed the puck better this game, but Eichel wasn't that far behind. And we need snipers. That doesn't mean we don't need Kane.

I've been playing Dark Souls lately. So hard, but so fun. This is how I wanted the combat to work when I tried and failed to get into Skyrim.

After last week, he's still straight up doing whatever he wants. He convinced everyone in the room except for the two people that know him best. And why didn't he ask Clifford about the commercial? Was he afraid of rejection or just preferred to go out on limb?

I thought Bogosian made a terrible mistake in the first 20 seconds, then made up for it with OK 2nd pairing play the rest of the game. Larsson is starting to find his groove, looks super smooth in the o-zone. Kane is maddening. So is Bylsma. Jack played well, tough game for him trying to play with Kane. Samson is a slick mother . That was a softie by Lehner in OT, but good god is McDavid something else. Our AHL line getting pinned at the end of the 1st was brutal to watch. Also kind of pretty, from the Oilers' point of view. What was Bylsma doing?

This'll be a neat game. Adam Pardy and Zack Kassian are around, that's kinda weird. Adam Cracknell, who I developed a man-crush for when he played in the playoffs for the Blues, might be playing. 7 or 8 or however many 1st overall picks will be playing for Edmonton. And they'll get their clavicles dominated by Jack Eichman.

I haven't read anything in this thread about the long term benefits of keeping McGinn. I empathize with Weave that this is yet another lost season, but having McGinn around for the last ~20 games isn't going to tip the scales toward entertaining hockey for me. Jaime McGinn is a 2nd-3rd line tweener with good offensive instincts who gives his all. He's not a great 2 way player or anything, but I get the sense that he was a valuable veteran presence this year. The young guys need to see that you can be an effective professional without being a crazy in one way or another (Kane, Lehner, O'Reilly). He was an expiring contract. Expiring contracts get traded. If he can't get his payday in UFA I'm sure the Sabres'll be in the mix to sign him (just like they would be if they hadn't traded him).

Kane with Eichel and Samson. Does Bylsma even watch the games or just cobble together random lines and hope for the best?

Larsson was awesome. He looked very smooth on offense, and his line was rarely in the d-zone. Kane, Eichel, and Samson were all not very good. Lehner was solid as a rock.

They got absurdly popular and weren't anywhere near talented or interesting enough to survive overexposure. Does anybody want to listen to Time of Your Life, Wake Me Up When September Ends, or Boulevard of Broken Dreams ever again? Ughh his voice is so annoying.