KarmaTsunami

Four day weekend coming up. That's pretty aceic. Means today is my Wednesday.

Mad Men was brilliant again this week. It's incredibly annoying that there are only two more episodes this year.

Although, I feel like although Ginsberg has always been a bit off an oddball, they maybe went too far too fast with his total breakdown in the latest episode. That said, the shock of it was that you didn't see it coming so I suppose if that was their intention then good job. Lou can just fucking go though, what an absolute shit stain. Don turning up at that meeting and playing his hand was just brilliant. A flash of the old, supremely confident Don. 

 

I'm also expecting a proper Betty vs Sally throwdown. I'm torn on Betty, sometimes I feel pretty sympathetic towards her, but then she threatens to go and break her kid's arm and it just disappears in a flash of 'what the fuck'.

 

The show has been consistently brilliant this season. Fuck them for splitting the final season though. Just, fuck them.

Title of episode 8 is pretty spoilery.

'The Mountain and The Viper'. Kind of annoyed I have to wait through next week before we get to something that they've been building towards, but at the same time I'm looking forward to seeing what they end the season on because it's not that face-off if it's happening in two weeks time. Next week is 'Mockingbird' so Littlefinger, Sansa and crazy Lysa episode ahoy!

So, it's airing now so people watching it in the UK should be watching it. Not reading this.

The last 10 minutes were brilliant. Peter Dinklage, what a fucking actor. His face when Shae walked in broke my heart, and his 'confession' was just spine-chilling. Fuck, even Cersei looked uncomfortable. Also, watching Margaery's face as she realises exactly what she's getting into with the whole 'Game of Thrones'. 

In fact, it was so good it almost made me forgot the master-class in being a fucking psycho that Ramsay Snow put on at the beginning. That and Davos talking the Iron Bank into doing exactly what he wanted. Good stuff.

That's exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks!

So, I'm about done with Week 2, but if my aim is to run the Edinburgh Marathon next May then I'm looking at this as a rough guide:

Should be hitting 5k at the beginning of July, then aiming to be doing 10k by mid-August and hoping to hit half-marathon distance by December at least. I can lengthen any training program a little as I imagine doubling up from this point to marathon distance is tougher than getting up to half-marathon. Is this realistic enough?

I'm also looking to get a decent pedometer/watch/contraption so I can start increasing my distance on runs with some accuracy once I've hit 5k. Any recommendations? Also plan on treating myself to a new pair of running shoes. The ones I have are super comfortable, but I'm worried they're going to start falling apart as they were used for trail running for a few years before I inherited them. 

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet. Looks pretty good!

http://youtu.be/uPE2oBnzROY

yeh i do understand it's part of marvels universe but in captain america i thought the army and stark industries made captain america then he joined SHIELD later on at the end of the first movie. i have not yet seen Thor 2 i only just 2 weeks ago saw the first. but lady sith was in that then came into the TV show for one episode.

 

but i thought in captain america hydra had only a war with the US army which captain america was part of. it then did show at the end captain america waking up in a SHIELD facility where none of it was infiltrated in anyway. its hard to decide what ward is going to do, when he did what he did to fitz and simmons i really thought he wouldnt do it but then he did, also after seeing the end of the last episode with garret taking the new version of gh325 and plus being the first deathlok model will it be that easy for him to take out?

 

now remember May, Coulson and Sky got trapped under the barber shop by 3 men with the 3 swords that bring out anger and that, whats our expectations on that situation?

Have you only seen the first Captain America movie? If so maybe don't read below.

In Captain America: Winter Soldier the big reveal is that Hydra have infiltrated SHIELD. It's basically the main plot point. Even in the first movie there are SHIELD agents there - Peggy Carter is one of the earliest SHIELD agents. Plus, they've been infiltrating SHIELD since the beginning, so although it's not obvious at the end of Captain America, the fact is that Hydra have always been there and Winter Soldier was basically their 'coming out' party, having infiltrated SHIELD and parts of the US Government at top levels.

 

Also, there's only one Berserker staff. It was split in three for one SHIELD episode then put back together. There's one Berserker there and the rest I think are just centipede-super soldiers. I reckon May will get a hold of the staff and wipe the floor with everyone. OR Skye will, and we'll see her 084-ness come to the fore.

Reading 'Americanah' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it's absolutely brilliant. 

yeh ward never really worked out, Tripp is great with the team and him and Simmons are seeming to get very close. I never thought they'd introduce hydra to agents of SHIELD and just keep it In captain America.

My predictions of how it's going to end

I think sky will kill ward then fury will come back and they will live happily ever after.

But with Agents of SHIELD being part of the same Marvel universe, there's no way that Hydra infiltrating SHIELD in the films wouldn't have had an impact on the show. It's bonkers to think otherwise. The stuff from the movies has in some way filtered through to the show, such as Lady Sif showing up to catch Lorelei after the mass break-out in Thor 2.

Have you ever looked at joining a JogScotland group?  They have runs all over the country and are aimed at getting people involved in running from complete beginners to intermediate level.  Our club runs a group i parallel with our weekly club training and it gets a good crowd of new runners some of whom are now making the switch over to our normal club training and races.  I know there's a few other groups in Aberdeen, Stonehaven and the rest of the shire.

 

http://www.jogscotland.org.uk/

I think once I've hit the half-hour/5k then I'll definitely look into that. Onto Week 2 this evening! Hopefully it's not dinging down.

Chuffed with that! Also quite looking forward to the Agent Carter series that's been picked up by ABC as well.

I think it picked up after Thor to be honest.

I can't see Ward coming back from it. I did think it might have been a play to get Garrett and the people above him, but after the origin story story, the only way I can see that working is if Fury planted him all that time ago, which I doubt. As for Skye, we know she's a 084 before, it's just what species. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some connection to the next Avengers film, which will flow over to the next series.

I suppose so. The Lady Sif episode was pretty great.

I really hope they don't. The origin story was really well done and it pretty much cemented that although Ward isn't on Garrett's level of Hydra badassery, he's still never been SHIELD. Besides which, they have Agent Triplett in the now filling Ward's vacant 'Specialist' slot in the team and he has more chemistry with everyone than Ward ever managed.

anyone caught up with marvels agents of S.H.I.E.L.D? im on episode 21 so far and its really been great

 

someone tell me how to do spoilers

Agents of SHIELD has gotten really good in the episodes since The Winter Soldier was in cinemas. By the way, I'm watching at American episode speed so if you are only watching on E4 then don't read the following.

I REALLY hope there isn't some shitty redemption arc for Ward, especially after the most recent episode. There's a lot of debate over whether or not it was him that was about to gun down the dog using the long-range rifle, but I think it was. He was a shitty character but looking at those old episodes knowing what we know now, it makes sense. The look on Fitz and Simmons faces when they realise he's actually going to do what he does is just heartbreaking. PLUS ENOUGH WITH THE VAGUENESS ABOUT SKYE. I want answers.

But yes, it's gone from being something I might watch to something I actively look forward to watching on Wednesdays now. Shame next week is the season finale! Hopefully it gets renewed, and all the signs are pointing towards that. 

Mad Men continues to be very good. 

I've been watching Vikings, which is really enjoyable. When I was at school I was really into Norse myths and legends and it's quite cool that the show manages to blend the Gods and legendary figures with more realistic representations of viking society. About done with Season 1.

Probably my fourth go at re-attempting the Couch to 5k and for the first time I did all three of the Week 1 runs so feeling pretty pleased. If I get through Week 2 I'll be on to a good thing. By the beginning of July I should be able to start upping my distance when I go out on the Sunday. 

On topic though, more episodes would be good but I think it would probably up the exposition quotient by a fair bit. There's still LOADS of characters to be introduced so maybe by bullet-pointing the action it makes it easier for the more causal audience member to keep track of what's going on?

WARNING - VERY MINOR BOOK CHAT IN RESPONSE TO CAPTAIN AMERICA

Problem is, the way the books are written is that each chapter is a different character's POV, so some of the more in-depth stuff would be quite tricky to portray on-screen. I think it's why they're shortening character arcs (Sansa doesn't get to the Vale that quickly, for example) and introducing non-book events like Bran's brief kidnapping and the wee fight at Craster's between the Watch and the Mutineers.

It was for Enigma Marketing. Can't get away for an interview tomorrow at 9.15am (with the Managing Director??) as it's too short notice for my current work. A couple days would have been fine, but not less than 24 hrs. Told the woman, she said she'd get in touch if there were any time changes.

Did some Googling. They're own by the Cobra Group? I'm not overly upset if they don't phone me back because their "Sales and Marketing" job with no prior experience is probably door to door. 

Have a call back from Simply Recruit today at 12pm for a Sales and Customer Service role I applied for. Their website seems a bit....underdone? http://www.simply-recruit.co.uk/

Just wonder if anyone's heard of them as I can't find much on-line which isn't a great sign in itself.

It was a good episode, but in places it felt too much like a 'setting up for next week' episode. Especially with Danaerys and Cersei/Tywin/Oberyn. I want more scenes with Margaery and Cersei though, watching them tread on eggshells whilst trying to play each other is brilliant. 

Interesting that they revealed the full-scale of Littlefinger's scheming last night. It did seem quite rushed though, it was a Red Wedding moment for me when I read it and it just didn't have the same impact last night. 

Lysa Arryn is a fucking terrible person. Absolutely horrible. That is some commitment from Petyr/Aiden Gillen in their scenes together.

Of course, A+++ to all scenes involving Arya and The Hound, but also Brienne and Pod. I hope for good things for Pod, he's such a decent wee guy. 

Oh, and thank fuck Brandor snapped that cunt Locke's neck. I was getting a bit anxious about how that would play out. Poor Hodor though Glad all those rapist bastards got their comeuppance too. Especially Karl (no matter how brilliant his portrayal was).Great revenge stab from one of Craster's ex-wives then a sword right through his mouth. Magic.

This is all really helpful as I'm trying to get out of my current office job and into another office job that pays better and doesn't involve working with academics/in an academic-support environment.

 

Question for those of you who look at CVs - would having my PhD on there put you off/make me seem over-qualified? I've applied for a heap of jobs, tailoring my covering letters to each one and even gone into a couple of agencies (AAA and Thorpe & Molloy) with no joy and a heap of rejections.[/quote

It really depends on what you want to do, AAA and Thorpe are good enough agencies but not really specialists. I'm happy to have a look at your CV and see if we can help if you want?

 

That would be great, thanks! I'll PM you for details.

 

Honestly, I'm not really sure what I want to end up doing so I'm sort of open to most things. The majority of my experience lies in either administrative based roles or retail. 

This is all really helpful as I'm trying to get out of my current office job and into another office job that pays better and doesn't involve working with academics/in an academic-support environment.

Question for those of you who look at CVs - would having my PhD on there put you off/make me seem over-qualified? I've applied for a heap of jobs, tailoring my covering letters to each one and even gone into a couple of agencies (AAA and Thorpe & Molloy) with no joy and a heap of rejections.

I'm not just gutted, I actually get just a little bit angry when I think about it. That is silly, but there really is no reason for it. With Breaking bad it at least lead to 3 extra episodes overall and it worked with plot. Mad Men is getting one extra episode and at this point it's hard to see how or why there'd be a clear plot division in the two parts. 

 

 

Agreed completely about Don and Sally. Their scenes together in the second episode were top notch telly.

 

On the last episode 

 

I really didn't expect Don to get back into the company so soon but I'm happy he did. It will be very interesting now with those conditions he agreed to.

 

It was really well done. I was almost convinced he was going to tell them to fuck off, but it's even better that he didn't. I don't know how he'll work with Lou, but surely Peggy will come around to him being back since she clearly fucking hates Lou. I fucking hate Lou. Lou can fuck off. 

 

As to Episode 2 - I loved that Joan did what Cooper asked whilst giving Dawn a huge promotion at the same time.