lest i touch the sun

End of the Sopranos?

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:38:17 GMT

I'm not even looking to see how long it's been since I've posted here. The end of school and seeking of licensure simply left no time for Internet dallying. A client cancellation coupled with a desire to process a quick thought re: the end of the Sopranos brings me back for noone knows how long.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Stop reading if you don't want to know what happens in the last Sopranos ep.

Kelley had some grumblings about the end of the series that I think speak directly to what the writers were going for. A major premise of the show has always been that here is this family, barely distinguishable from any other family on the surface. They have dreams, desires and faults just like any other family. They just also happen to be in organized crime. Despite Tony's penchant for violence he and his family are still made out to be the protagonists. Even during the darkest of Tony's days, we are supposed to believe there is a reason. Whether it be to preserve the business, or because of the dysfunctional family he grew up in, or even to put an end to the life of someone constantly turning down the path of self-destruction, the aim always seem to be to promote empathy for Tony and his family. They're the ones we're rooting for to come out on top.

Until the end.

How many of you were, like I was, watching the last few minutes wondering when they were going to get "hit"? Would someone get them all? Would it just be AJ? Would Meadow escape the fate of the family because she was struggling to parallel park? Was it the guy in the hat that would get them? or the guy at the bar?

More importantly, how many were disappointed when (apparently) nothing happened? How many thought, "what??? that can't be it... someone has to die". How many were disappointed, even _angry_ that none of the beloved protagonists was so much as scratched at the end (even AJ escaped glorious anhialation at the hands of his own stupidity). And that's what the writer's were shooting for, I think. A display of how, even though these were your beloved characters, you still wanted to see harm come to one, some or all of them.

Of course, I could be completely overreaching. They may have, even more simply, just wanted to leave things open to the imagination (or more likely, a movie).

P.S. *Insert obligatory complaint about their handling of the psychotherapy back story; an integral part of the series brushed aside carelessly with a haphazard, inexplicable change in direction on the part of Tony's therapist (not to mention the awful, unrealistic depiction of the group of therapists at the dinner party the previous week). *

Extraordinary Machine

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:11:57 GMT

Aghh!! What did they do to this wonderful CD??

For those that don't know the backstory, Fiona Apple originally recorded this CD about 3 years ago. She was essentially told by Sony that they wouldn't release it because it wasn't radio friendly. Eventually, the entire CD was "leaked" and available on the Internet. While one would hope that the CD finally being released was a result of the incredible response the "leaked" version got, I have to wonder having now heard the "official" release.

Don't get me wrong. I still think it's a wonderful set of songs. But having heard the originals, I'm definitely left with the impression that Fiona and crew were instructed to "jazz it up a bit" if they wanted to get it released. What was a collection of sparse recordings that featured her voice and subtle musical and lyrical changes has now turned into a set of gadgets. Almost every song has had the bass drum kicked up and most of them have had some sort of catchy musical gimmick added.

Of course, it's pure speculation on my part that they were instructed to "polish" it. This may well be what Fiona had intended all along. And I'm quite sure there will be others who prefer the new to the old. I'm still glad I bought it since she deserves to have some income from this work. I'll mostly be listening to the "free" version myself.

Serenity

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 01:45:12 GMT

What a damned good movie.

I have trouble imagining any of the fans of the series being disappointed on the whole.

Apparently Only People of Color Loot

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:29:39 GMT

In case you're making a list of the many reasons why racism and socio-economic disparity continues to be pervasive in our society, be sure to add the news media (though I'd be shocked if you hadn't already).

Little did I know, until the AP educated me, that white people "find" bread and soda, while people of color "loot".

Linky
Linkie

Thanks to sonjaaa for passing this along.

p.s. yes, I know I haven't been updating here and I will get it caught up..maybe not for another three weeks.. but I will...

Extraordinary Machine to be Released!

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:50:30 GMT

Thanks to misfitmonkey for pointing out that Sony is finally releasing one of the best CDs of the last three years. Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine"

Flattened By a Truck

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 15:25:07 GMT

At least that's how I feel this morning. It's really amazing how a couple of inconsiderate, self-centered people can have such an impact on a large number of people; more importantly on a couple of girls ages 7 and 8 who had a chance to meet an idol taken away from them.

Kelley (copperbeech) tells the story better than I ever could.

Art, Physics and Metaphor All In One

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 01:15:14 GMT

Wow, so simple and yet....

If he gets stuck, just drag him around a bit...

Thanks to sonjaaa for pointing this one out.

WoW

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 17:48:53 GMT

As noted in her LJ, I've gotten copperbeech her own copy of WoW so now I have even more incentive to play. We can be found on the Uldum server, thrashing bad guys and whipping up potions.

HOT

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 14:36:15 GMT

Ok, I really need to update this more often, but summer school is currently officially kicking my ass. It hasn't helped that I've not been feeling well for the last week or so.

WoW is sucking up a good bit of the free time I've had. Other things have occupied the rest of the crevices of my mind.

In any case, it is incredibly HOT outside. It was about 10am when I opened the door to let Joshua out and was met with a burst of hot air almost like opening an oven. It's supposed to hit 104 today BEFORE the heat index is factored in. Crazy!

Update on "7 Words"

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:26:16 GMT

Gleaned from gikiski

Warnings for profanity and non-political correctness.

Reparation Therapy is Tragic and Unethical

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 02:52:16 GMT

Thank you misfitmonkey for bringing this particular case to my attention.

I'm not only saddened that this continues to go on, but that there are people in the Counseling community who openly support it.

Free Z

Do Something With Me

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:59:25 GMT

I almost never participate in these kinds of things. But this one, taken from miss jonesk1 intrigued me for some reason. Besides, I don't think I've updated my journal in ages.

"I want anyone and everyone who reads this to post in here something they'd LIKE to do with me SOMEDAY.

Then post this in your journal to find out what I want to do with you."

It's Amazing...

Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:50:38 GMT

...what happens when people, especially politicians, actually stop to think about the full ramifications of things.

It's even more amazing that, despite mounting evidence, noone is pursuing George W. Bush for lying in order to put us at war, an action which so obviously aided his supporters among other things.

Kudos to Rep. Jones for paying attention and being willing to change his mind rather than sticking to the party line.

That's Right

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 22:33:40 GMT

A freak of a misunderstood genius I am.. bwahahahahaha!!!

Your IQ Is 135

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius
Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius
Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Two Things for Geeks

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 16:44:23 GMT

One a a question; the other an item of interest.

First, as some of you know I started TUGA a few years back. I really would like to grow it more as a community resource, but I need a mangement tool that allows me to spend much less time maintaining the site. Currently the backend for events, stores and such is in Filemaker Pro. I have the skills to streamline it and make it do the things I want it to do, but not really the time. Basically I want stores to be able to edit their own event entries and information. Pie in the sky would allow things like most recent posts to appear on the front page as well (currently I'm using Blogger to do that manually). Needless to say, keeping up with all of this manually is a significant time drain on me and counterproductive to growing the community.

At one point I had someone volunteer to start building something in PHP, but he never finished. I realize there are probably tools out there in PHP to put together, but PHP is completely foreign to me. My web host is strong with things like ASP, but not so much with PHP. The hosting is free though, so I can't complain.

I'm open to any and all suggestions!!

Ah, and now for the story of interest. Please be careful how far you go to protect your virtual property......

The Endless

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 15:17:12 GMT

passed on by copperbeech

Which Member of the Endless Are You?

uh..yeah...

Beer Goggles

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 00:00:32 GMT

Is it as dangerous to be on the Internet while drunk as it is to be in, say, a bar? For example, I'm about to add some more extensions to Firefox...should I be concerned that I'm going to add some unsafe ones? Is this a time when I should have a friend handy to ensure that I don't make bad decisions?

This Is Only a Test

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 20:15:01 GMT

I finally found the time to move from Netscape to Thunderbird/Firefox. Added the "Deepest Sender" extension to Firefox which allows me to post to LJ. Giving it a try.

Just to keep this from being the most boring post ever, if you've read this far, reply with a comment noting the most exciting thing you've done or that's happened to you in the last 3 days. :)

Another Brick in the Path of Censorship

Mon, 30 May 2005 16:05:57 GMT

I remember a time when MTV was at least PARTLY about the music and free expression. I remember when they would go ahead and air Madonna's latest controversial video, for example, regardless of what everyone thought. Granted, they were doing it for the exposure and the money so they weren't exactly pure intentions.

I realize it's been a very long time since they were even remotely about the music, but now they are joining the throngs so afraid that they begin to censor

Cuz, after all, rock and roll has never been about politics, or rebellion or speaking out or any of that stuff....

Religious Persecution Alive and Well

Sun, 29 May 2005 13:02:49 GMT

No parents, you may not expose your child to any religion you wish....

Unbelievable.

Actually, sadly, it's all too believable....

I Want To Go To the Dark Side!!!!

Sun, 08 May 2005 19:44:09 GMT

So, do these Dark Chocolate M&Ms really truly exist??? I've found the weenie "join the light side, Jedi M&Ms" in several places, but NOONE has the evil, wicked, mean and nasty DARK SIDE M&Ms and I want them NOW!!!!!!

grrrrr

How Is This Not All About Publicity?

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 17:38:55 GMT

They acknowledge that at least part of it was publicity, but how is it not all so? It's not like someone suddenly handed them the whereabouts of 10,000 bad guys one day. They had to know where these people were ahead of time in order to coordinate such a thing. Which means they purposely left known criminals out there so that they could reap positive publicity ??????

Politically Correct Wackiness

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 02:23:57 GMT

Arkansas nixes offensive pink jerseys

So Arkansas (the university of) has this tradition of making players wear pink jerseys when they are caught not practicing hard enough. The idea, of course, being to point them out and embarrass them.. thereby motivating them. I'll avoid talking about the issues with such tactics in general. My main beef is why they decided to stop. Don't get me wrong; it's a well intentioned reason. They didn't want to offend Breast Cancer survivors. Now I realize that the fight for the cure of breast cancer has taken pink as it's color. Pink ribbons are worn and such. But they don't OWN the color pink. Not to mention, the pink triangle as a sign of the GLBT community was around long before. I didn't hear the coach express a desire to not offend the queer community.

Even all this is secondary to my main point. Why the hell couldn't they just stop doing it because it's a ridiculous gender stereotype?

Every Once in a While

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 22:06:41 GMT

someone manages to make a good commercial.

What a Rush!

Sat, 02 Apr 2005 15:51:16 GMT

If you care nothing for poker, this post will likely not interest you much

It was time for one of my brother's semi-regular sessions of Texas Hold 'Em and I was jazzed since I hadn't gotten to play in almost a month. The last time I played the cards had been incredibly unkind so I was hopeful to get to actually play this time. The way things started off, however, I wasn't sure that was going to happen. I was able to buy a couple of pots in the early rounds, but the two hands I took to showdowns I got hurt on. In one, we both had three queens and I had the weaker kicker. In the other, my opponent had a higher end of the same straight I did. While I wasn't really close to busted at that point, I was next to last in chip count and it sure didn't seem that things were going to go my way. I folded hand after hand, not even having something worthy of buying blinds when I was on the button. I joked with the guys that I was waiting to get my cards until later.

Fortunately, patience often does pay off.

Jump ahead an hour and a half or so and two players are gone; we're down to five. I've already surprised myself by not being out early. I'm not last in the chip count, but I'm pretty sure I'm in fourth. The two top dogs have around 5000 and 4000. Two of us are around 2000 or so with the short stack being about 1200.

That's when it happened. It was like a switch was flipped somewhere and it became "my turn to get the cards". First up, some Dynomite! JJ in the hole. Brad, a strong player and second in command at this point bets ahead of me. The blinds are 75/150 at this point. Everyone else has folded before him, and Brian folds after him. We're heads up. I know there are several hands he could have that could put me in big trouble. But I also know that if he's trying to scare us off, this is a great chance to double up and take over his spot. I don't bother testing the waters, I go all in. I don't recall him hesitating at all in calling, so I figured I'm through. I'm completely surprised and relieved when he flips over a pair of 7s. I end up having to sweat all the cards, but nothing hits for either of us. I've just become a strong contender.

I don't think we went completely around the table before the next hand I played. I was in the big blind and had Jesse James (45) suited. Not too many people had been allowed to limp in all night, so I figured I would be folding them. But when Brian only raised something close to the minimum (175) I followed my gut. It told me to play them. Who knows, I might pull the flush, or a straight and if not, I've got a nice juicy stack of chips now so it's not a big loss. I called, and once again it was Brad, Brian and me in the hand.

The flop comes..... 6 7 8

Holy crap! The motherlode.

This is one of those strange situations where you're really hoping your opponents have paired face cards in the hole. But I'm worried. It's entirely possible that one of them has a 9 giving them an open ended straight draw that would beat me. It's happened once tonight already. I'm most worried about Brian since he is in the small blind. But he raised so surely he's got something big. I decide it's time to chase them away. Better to scare them off and take what's in the pot now than to risk getting outdrawn. I'm all in.

They BOTH call.

I figure I'm either beaten at this point or in a 50/50 situation. One of them must have a flush draw. Or maybe they paired the board and are looking for a full house. Or worse yet, one of them is sitting on 9 10 and I'm drawing dead. Fortunately I had them both covered, so if I lose, I'm still in the game, just back to the bottom of the chip count. And if I hold out, I win all of their chips. They flip over and it's actually Brad that I have to worry about. He has 7 9 suited. He's got three spades so he could hit runner runner, but worse than that, a 10 or a 5 gives him the higher straight. Brian cringes at my 45 because he's holding AA. He knows he's in big trouble.

Time to sweat it.. the cards fall........... Kd ... sweet.... 3c.. ROCK!! I've just knocked two players out, more than doubled up and taken the chip lead (barely). All this only a few minutes after being next to last in chip count. What a freakin' ride!

Now we we're down to three. I've got the chip lead by about 500. We spin our wheels for about three hands. Then it got crazy again.

I get dealt cowboys and start to ponder how I'm going to turn this into chips. Should I slow play it and hope they get just enough on the flop to make them pay me off, but not enough to beat me? I never really get a chance to consider that. Bill's in the small blind and he calls. Chad, in the big blind, makes a modest raise. I know that he really likes to raise pocket pairs, and the only hands that scare me right now are AA or AK. So, I reraise him another 300. Bill walks away. Chad, with his huge stack of 5300 chips, only a couple hundred behind me, without hesitation goes all in. Now Chad will play aggressive and he's also not afraid to bluff, but I've got to seriously consider whether he's got those Aces or big slick now. This is pretty much the ballgame right here. While thinking I slowly count out my chips to match his and find that I would have about 400 left if I lost. Whoever won this hand would be able to bully the remaining opponent(s) quickly out of the game (Bill only had about 900 left at this point). At this point, I have no clue when this rush of cards might end, and there are so few hands that scare me off of my Kings that I may never get a better shot at taking Chad down. He's putting it all out there in one hand, why not take my shot? "So, what this means," I said to delay a bit more, " is that if I call you and lose, I'm pretty much the short stack." This got a couple of laughs and comments, and right as the chatter died down, I emphatically said, "I call, let's play some poker!".

He flips... he's got a pair of 10s!!!! Sweetness! He's either got to get a 10 (with me getting nothing) or a miracle straight draw. I'm a heavy favorite, but I've still got to sweat the cards. I don't remember them exactly, but it was something like: 3 7 5 4 2 Nothing higher than a 7 fell!! The 10600 (out of the 12000 that started the game) was mine!

Wow, what a rush! From there it was just a matter of draining Bill's remaining chips before he could hit cards that let him double up a couple of times. Sign me up for more games like that!