I'm reading a book about gravity...it's pretty heavy.

That place looks fabulous.  Let us know what you thought.

Just to go back to this: Veeraswamy was pretty good, but I can honestly say it wasn't memorable. The bill came to nearly 4 figures too, so you'd think I'd be more impressed. However, last night we went to Amaya which is another restaurant owned by the people of Veeraswamy. The food there was absolutely incredible and all served in a Indian tapas way. The bill was again nearly 4 figures, but I do feel it was a unique experience in all ways and that is worth more than money. I think that's something one says when they're older ...

The general public are not the target for the current crop of "Republican" politicians, their core (if not only) audience is the large body of Americans that are fed up with "progressive leftism"; the same body of people that truly and deeply believe any and all conspiracy theories, and don't care for democracy because it lets the woke-left dominate thinking through the deep state and subversion of the media. And for those people she absolutely definitely is leader material. As far as they are concerned, she has the courage to do things that are unpopular with the pinko-commie-fags, and the strength of character to stand by her beliefs. I find it odd that the same constituency that supported and fuelled McCarthy currently prefer Russian leaders to elected American ones.

These "Republicans" are betting the farm on that core audience outnumbering the rest in a count, so that they can permanently subvert democracy in their favour.

I agree with you except on the last point.  The genius of the modern GOP is that they are a minority party that has managed to prevail against the will of the majority of voters by taking advantage of spurious redistricting that splits Democratic leaning districts in ways that favor GOP candidates, and also there's the train wreck of the Electoral College.  A majority of Americans would never have suffered a first Trump administration, let alone the threat of a second one.  I can't explain South Dakota and Noem's electoral success.  Maybe the water has been polluted via too many agricultural chemicals and the brains of the populace have been affected to vote against their own interests.

In GoT (the tv series), there were characters that I did care about.  Not here.  amazon prime is capable of producing good series.  I'm watching The Legend of El Cid, which is not bad and the main actor, (El Cid) Jaime Lorente has sufficient range that you care if his character survives all the plots against him (he plays a genial doofus in Casa de Papel).  There's kind of heavy handed character development (bad guys about as subtle as Snidley Whiplash) but you care.  I think that perhaps the problem with WoT is that there's too many moving parts, too many characters, so it just doesn't hang together, despite great costumes, really first rate CGI and probably actors who can act but just have bad scripts.  Because it's generally kind of lame, I tend to watch it when I have nothing better to do.  So the continuity is a problem. 

I've only seen the first Dune movie, which was camp and kind of embarrassing.  I'm sure the more recent ones are more beautiful and compelling.  But, if I remember from the book the main guy who figures out how to ride the spice worms ends up saving people and then becoming an oppressor?  Right?  I'm still kind of pissed at the degeneration of GoT in the final season where people just got personality transplants to become new characters and behave in ways that beggared belief, and ended up like some kind of summer camp meeting.  So that's another WTF candidate.

I think that a good series needs either a good source, or a good team of makers (or both, but I'm not sure that has ever occurred). And a defined ending*.

I think the primary problem with WoT is that it was written without real characters: most of the participants are cyphers designed to further the story in various ways. This makes bad TV.

GoT (or ASOIAF) is different: GRRM writes characters that are interesting, but it is dangerous to care about them, as he has a habit of killing them off. It makes for good TV, because they do stuff, and despite yourself you do care. Where GRRM stopped writing, the suits were clueless.

Dune 2 is way better than Dune 1, but between them they only cover the introduction to the Dune saga: In the first book (2 movies) the kid wins, but in the next book he becomes the monster: in the rest of the saga the author attempts (with limited success) to show how the "continual evil emperor cycle" is broken.

* this is the bit that rendered several potentially great shows into rubbish (Lost, Heroes, even X-Files - amongst thousands of others. Great ideas, great starts, sagging middles and no ending)

Yeah.  She's super tone deaf.  I watched her in an interview with some CNN reporter and she seemed like someone who really loved makeup and enjoyed avoiding answering tough questions.  She's also super loyal to Trump, despite any questions about his potential conviction on any number of indictments.

I think "I hated that dog" is going to sink her.  Nobody in their right mind who is an animal lover (and that's about 90% of Americans) would think shooting a wayward puppy in a gravel pit is the appropriate solution to an adolescent dog who could have benefitted from the right training for a different owner.  I think that it reveals more about the owner than the puppy.

So putting her second in line to having access to the nuclear codes would be kind of a bad decision.  I can foresee the thought processes that stem from her solution to that dog:
Having troubles with North Korea?  Nuke 'em. 
Putin getting out of hand?  Nuke him.  But in that scenario, the gravel pit is planet Earth and the rest of us will have to suffer the consequences.  She sure isn't leader material.