Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind helping with quotes. But I don't know what good I'd be if I've only read six books while everyone else is done with TOM and working their way through the umpteenth re-read.

Chapter 53 (Bran VI): Robb is maturing a great deal. He's about to make his first major decisions as the acting Lord of Winterfell. The banners are called, and it doesn't seem like many of the bannermen are willing to take a fifteen-year-old boy seriously as their commander. Going by the numbers Luwin has told Bran, Robb has a sizable army built up. Rickon, being a young kid, is highly impressionable, and isn't taking everyone he loves and holds dear leaving all that well. He hasn't seen either of his parents or his sisters in nearly a year, and hasn't seen Jon is just as long. I'd caught a fe

That's very attractive, Senexx! Nicely done! It inspires me to get some reading done this weekend.

Congrats Akealon!

Congrats Ithi!

Well, if they are interesting but not interested, I would wind up facing a restraining order... or several. And given the number of times I've pushed you into the moat, why do you assume that I'm on your side?

Okay, so Ned has stumbled quite badly. Now we get to see the ramifications to this upon the other members of his family. Chapter 50 (Arya IV): Syrio is a crafty devil, isn't he? Giving away where he is going to strike verbally, and then lying on the last hit. He is teaching Arya to trust what she sees, and not fall for a deception. I thought it went nicely with Meryn and the Lannister guards saying Ned has sent for Arya, but Syrio sees through it and realizes it's a trick. Nice parallel. Then he kills five men single-handedly with just a wooden stick. Badass. If he had a sword, Meryn would

I saw that; they renewed the show after only one episode had aired. I've been wondering how they intend to approach books 4 and 5, given the north/south split in the written narrative that I've heard about. (I tend to avoid spoilers, but I have gathered these two books are split geographically.) If they adapt it straight up, that means making much of the cast take one of those two seasons off, including prominent actors for each of those two books. I'm guessing that if the show lasts that long, they will unify the two books and adapt them chronologically regardless of where stuff happens.

I meant strip, Fnorrllyporrlly. As in take off cloths to see what ya' hiding. Wilson is missing and that is not something to joke about. Wilson CAN'T be missing. Better lose the Dragon to the Shadow than to lose Wilson. There's only two sorts of folk I show what I'm hiding: doctors and interested women. And if I do so in here, I'd trip over the PG13 sign. As for Wilson being missing, Jack Bauer can play Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun and win every time.(Just wait till I enter the "album cover avatar" phase that I seem to go through on just about every forum I've ever been on

I had been thinking of blogging the rest of the series, I already bough ACOK at a Borders in Baltimore airport while on a layover on Sunday. I'm saving it for my next trip out of town when I have to travel to a cousin's wedding. Right now I'm in the Bean half of the Enderverse.

Tossing the Amrylin into the water must take some guts.

All right, so now I start playing catch up. Having completed the first book, I have a good deal of blogging to do. Chapter 47 (Eddard XIII): Robert is back from his hunt, and things don't look good. He is pretty badly wounded. But he got the board, and orders them to serve it at his funeral feast. Robert knows he won't survive. But in the end, he finally recognizes his mistakes, and admits he has been a bad king. Too little, too late. Robert dictates his will and names Ned as Joffrey's regent. Ned doesn't have the heart to tell Robert the truth. So then we find out that the Lannisters seem

I am honored to choose the path of the Aes Sedai!

When it comes to DVD, I fully intend to watch it. I've had it saved on Netflix for several weeks now, so it will be added to my queue whenever it gets released.

Well, I've been a bit lax in keeping the AGoT stuff going. Preparation for a weekend vacation has taken a good deal of my time when I wasn't reading, and over the last few days I've done a lot of reading in airports and on planes. I haven't had much time to get online to continue posting my impressions. I actually finished the book yesterday afternoon, and bought A Clash of Kings today. I don't think I will be reading it for a few weeks, though. I'm planning to set it aside for my next trip out of town, in July. I still intend to post what I've thought of the story, though. Another part of the

I didn't notice .

One of my favorite words is Quastch, German for nonsense, malarkey, bollocks, etc. It just sounds phonetically cool somehow.

Happy anniversary!

Maybe so... his internal monologue doesn't even mention Jaime till he verbally lets Cersei know he has the secret figured out, and the bit where he realizes it isn't his POV. When we do get to see his logic here, all we are told is what he has from the lineage book and Robert's bastard children, that tells him Robert isn't the father. A glimpse into his reasoning here would have been cool.

I think they keep schools closed if we have six inches. Sometimes for less. And we do have pre-emptive school closings sometimes up here, but only if the forecast is really horrid. Sometimes there are exceptions. The infamous Blizzard of '77 had my hometown being the only community around keeping its schools open. A majority of the parents kept their kids home anyway.

While I know that Dallas is not near Houston where you are, Moon, I laughed quite heavily when Dallas put down sand instead of salt to deal with the snow during Super Bowl week this year. Sand won't melt anything, and the news reports I saw made it sound like it did nothing to help the road problems the storm caused. That had to be the stupidest idea they could have had.

OMG! WATER IS WET????!!! WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ALL THIS TIME?

I'll be sure to keep myself hydrated, then.

So do I, Moon. I'll be spending next weekend in Galveston, and plan on bringing some sunscreen. I gather Texas is going through an ultra-drought right now with lots of sun.

I have a few more chapters under my belt. Things seem to be heating up. Chapter 43 (Eddard XI): Gregor Clegane is certainly an unpleasant person, isn't he? I'm with Ned on this, the Mountain is undoubtedly acting on orders from Tywin in conducting these raids, but even so, the henchman is no less evil than his Lord. I bet that Gregor actually enjoyed himself. I'm also with Ned in figuring Tywin is hoping to incite some sort of Tully retaliation, which would actually make the Tullys look like the instigators. So now Ned sends a hundred men commanded by Beric to give Gregor the king's brand