When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. Queen Elizabeth II decided to not even participate. YOU KNOW NOTHING, QUEEN ELIZABETH II.

The matriarch of House Britain visited the set of Game of Thrones with Prince Philip, and as you can see in the video below, she decides to not take a seat on the Iron Throne. Which is smart on one hand, because royals that do tend to have their heads go choppy. Also, she is 88 years old and she might have thought the monstrous chair was going to eat her.

 

But, wait. ZOOM AND ENHANCE!

That’s Lena Headey, who we have already established is Cersei Lannister in real life, quietly plotting to have the Queen killed in the most gruesome way possible. Run Queen Elizabeth. Use Prince Philip as your own personal Dontos and get out of Westeros. I hear Braavos is lovely this time of year. Or travel North? You’ll never walk again, Queen Elizabeth, but you will fly.

Bonus! Oh, Mopey Jon Snow, is there nothing that can make you not quite so mopey?

 

Despite whatever parallels you might see between the British Monarchy and that of the Seven Kingdoms, Queen Elizabeth II wants no part of it. As this photo clearly shows, the royal spurned an opportunity to sit on the Iron Throne while taking a tour of the Game of Thrones set in Belfast today. Maybe she declined because she didn’t want to offend the former GoT queen Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) lurking smilingly in the background? Or maybe because the Queen didn’t want to be jabbed by the sharp blades that the throne is made out of? Or maybe she just has some goddamn sense: Royals in Westeros don’t tend to rule for very long, whereas she's already reigned over England for 62 years and change, longer even than Jaehaerys I Targaryen, the Conciliator.

Update: Here's a video.

Read more posts by Lindsey Weber

Filed Under: tv ,game of thrones ,the iron throne ,queen elizabeth ,candy ,cersei lannister ,lena headey

Weather doesn't stop at the borders, but you would never know it by looking at an American weather forecast. Our friends north of the border are inundated with our forecasts, but rarely do they actually benefit from the information. Why do our weather maps stop at the border?

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Tale of monstrous sea beasts have been blowing in from the cold seas off the shores of Iceland for centuries and a small fjord town that still reports regular sightings has established a museum to the history of these mythical cryptids.

Using videos, displays, advanced multimedia, and an atmosphere of eerie mystery, Arnarfjörður's Skrímslasetrið museum delves into the history of Iceland's sea monsters using the oral histories of those that have encountered them. Visitors can listen to eyewitness accounts, or view displays and literature exploring the history of such monsters. There is even an interactive table where amateur monster hunters can explore a map of Iceland's coast, following pop-up stories of the monsters seen at various points.  

While reports of sea monsters greatly vary, there are four basic types that the museum says are endemic to the waters surrounding Iceland. Known as the the fjörulalli (Shore Laddie), the hafmaður (Sea Man), the skeljaskrímsli (Shell Monster) and the faxaskrímsli (Combed Monster/Sea Horse), each of the monsters have regularly reported characteristics that have made them identifiable at various sites around Iceland. Uniquely, Arnarfjördur claims to have seen sightings of all four over the years, making it a seeming hub of cryptozoological activity.

Despite having no concrete evidence of any unexplainable creatures lurking in the waters, the museum treats the collected accounts of sailors and other seamen as largely factual. The cultural importance of sea monster stories is so closely intertwined with the beliefs of local seamen that Skrímslasetrið could almost rightly be called a natural history museum.  

When Suzi LeVine took the oath of office on a Kindle, at the end of last month, she must have known that her swearing-in ceremony would attract more attention than what is usually given to the Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. LeVine was not the first American official to take the oath of office using an electronic device. In February, 2013, a group of firefighters from Atlantic City used a Bible app downloaded onto an iPad; at the beginning of this year, a Long Island county executive took his oath in the same way. LeVine swore on the Constitution rather than on the Bible, but more than this distinguishes her case from the other two. In each of the earlier ceremonies, the use of the iPad was impromptu: no one had remembered to bring along a printed copy of the Bible, and an iPad happened to be at hand. It did the job perfectly well, but it was still second choice.

...read more

When you watch television for work, many questions come up regarding your viewing habits. How do you watch so much? And don’t you get tired of watching? No, actually: I like television. And in my case, I have the benefit of multiple screens. There are plenty of shows that I watch on a swanky flat-screen TV with high-definition magic. There are others that I watch on a computer, either full-screen or popped out in the corner, so I can type while I watch. There are shows that I watch on my iPhone, too, lying in bed, with headphones on. This approach works nicely with Netflix, and for a Hulu catch-up on network shows that I’ve missed, and whenever I watch this way, in the darkness, I can hear the distant screams of cinephiles, which sweetens the experience all the more.

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This is pretty dehumanizing.

adrian825/adrian825

Talk about cold-blooded.

A research director for investment management firm AllianceBernstein died recently and all an article about his death could care about was what happened to the fund he oversaw.

"AllianceBernstein Research Director Dies" states the headline of a Morningstar article in the data and analysis company's Fund Times newsletter. The article gives the research director's name and age — Andrew Weiner, 45, for the record — but no other information about his death. Not the cause, not his years of service, not who he is survived by. Nothing.

Instead, the article launches into the fate of the fund. (See below.)

"Morningstar has put AllianceBernstein Discovery Value, previously rated Neutral, Under Review," notes the article. It then names the people now in charge of the fund, states its prior performance, and informs readers that AllianceBernstein is still in the process of determining whether the fund will require "additional resources."

In short, the article contains more information about the fund's performance than the death of its relatively young research director. Morningstar appears more concerned with what Weiner's death means for investors than, like, his family or basic human decency.

"This is a straightforward analyst brief to inform investors that Mr. Weiner passed away and what it means for fund shareholders," a Morningstar representative said.

A source at AllianceBernstein called Weiner's death a very tragic situation, adding that he had been with the company nearly 20 years and was quite a well-loved and respected person, universally.

Via news.morningstar.com

FX’s Tyrant, premiering Tuesday night, arrives with its grand narrative arc in place: Bassam “Barry” al-Fayeed (Adam Rayner), the second son of a Middle Eastern dictator, hesitantly returns home after 20 years in America and will, over the course of the series, become the tyrant of the show’s title. If Breaking Bad was the story of Mr. Chips becoming Scarface, Tyrant is the tale of a pediatrician who will become Hussein, or Mubarak, or Assad, or any other of the Middle Eastern despots to whom the show simultaneously alludes. In Tyrant, the antihero steps out onto the front page, and then, as front pages tend to do, lies a little flat.

The new and not necessarily improved Tavern on the Green.

Welcome to Platt Chat, the column where New York critic Adam Platt talks with Grub editor Alan Sytsma about the dining world's most pressing issues. This week: the delicate art of the no-star slam.

Alan Sytsma: You dropped a goose egg in your review this week, a critical move that readers tend to like under the right circumstances. In this case, it was Tavern on the Green. What, in your mind, warrants a moment when it's appropriate to call attention to a given restaurant's badness?

Adam Platt: Some critics — whether it's books movies or whatever — make a career out of hammering things, and others do it lightly. Personally, I don't look around for restaurants that deserve zero-star reviews, although there are plenty of them around. In the case of Tavern on the Green, I went there after it had been open for six weeks. The meal wasn't wonderful, and if it hadn't been so prominent a place, I might have gone back much later, or maybe just conveniently forgotten about it altogether. But Tavern on the Green is arguably the most famous, most profitable restaurant in the history of the city. As a critic, you can't ignore a restaurant like that.

Having heard the opinions of other people who ate there, and having unfortunately had some disappointing meals there myself, I think a person could make the case that your review actually kind of went easy on the place.

Chefs are always getting mad at me for being too tough on them. Often they fly into a rage over a particular review, even though I've said nice things about them in the past. The last zero-star review I gave, I think, was to Michael White's steakhouse, Costata. In the past I've praised his food to the skies, and I'm a great admirer of his cooking; I just didn't like that restaurant. He still took umbrage, which is fine, that's his right. But diners — the everyday people who go out on the town and shell out their own cash for this food — are always telling me that I'm too nice. At Tavern, the people I went with were actively agitating for a harsh review, and some of the comments they made while we were eating our dinner were way more more vicious than anything I said in print.

So it's not just that this restaurant is mediocre, it's that it doesn't deliver on a promise that's implied by the space or the price?

Tavern on the Green is such a unique property, and I think people just like being there. I think the new renovation is much more in tune with the times than the old kitschy version. It's stylish, but the food, in my view, doesn't really do it justice. Instead of doing a dog-and-pony imitation of "stylish" farm-to-table cooking, I think they might have been much better off with the usual garden-variety pasta dish, a decent steak, and maybe French fries instead of chic, though slightly stale, patatas bravas. I went for brunch, too. Brunch is a fat, slow pitch: It's simple to do it in a way that people find palatable. But we got served some leaden kind of omelette, the bacon was extravagantly greasy, and, like everything at the restaurant, absurdly overpriced. In the end, I think it came down to the prices, which are quite stratospheric. The entrees are 30, 40, even 50 bucks. That, combined with the mediocre quality of the food, I think pushed the restaurant into the valley of the goose eggs.

When you're at a restaurant for the second or third time and it's awful and you're mulling the idea of zero stars, do you think about the effect on the staff? After all, a bad movie review doesn't necessarily affect an actor's livelihood the way a negative restaurant review can impact a chef, who might lose his or her job.

Well, I don't think I have the power to close a restaurant, but you do think about it. The Tavern happens to have an open kitchen, so you can see the cooks laboring away. All of them, I'm sure, are trying as hard as they can to do a good job, and feeding 700 people isn't easy. I've never enjoyed writing negative reviews, but in the end, as a critic, your loyalty is to the customer, not the kitchen. Your job is to tell people how to spend their money in a town filled with expensive places to eat. At the same time, I try to follow that old journalistic adage, "You comfort the afflicted and you afflict the comfortable.” If I don't like a place on the first visit or two, I'll often not write about it. But like I said, Tavern on the Green is hard to ignore, and I'm sure the institution will survive this review. Who knows? They might even get good write-ups from other critics. If they don't, a zero-star review isn't the end of the world. In my experience, the best chefs and restaurateurs will use a bad review as a guide, and even as a way to improve.

Related: Tavern on the Green’s Revival Falls Flat

Read more posts by Adam Platt and Alan Sytsma

Filed Under: platt chat, tavern on the green

We’re in the midst of our week-long Vulture TV Awards, honoring the best things television had to offer in the past year. In addition to the awards selected by our staff writers, we also asked a few industry luminaries to weigh in on their favorites. David Milch wrote about a particularly iconic TV villain. Amy Sherman-Palladino discussed the dialogue of Sherlock. Up next: Damon Lindelof, the executive producer of HBO’s upcoming drama The Leftovers singles out a moment from House of Cards as his pick in the Best Plot Twist category.

[Warning: The rest of this article discusses major plot points from season two of House of Cards and season four of Game of Thrones. If you haven't yet watched those, come back later.]

WINNER: House of Cards — the threesome

I feel like I've already exhaustively commented in the pop-culture sphere about my love and adoration for the awesomeness of Breaking Bad. But that was not the direction I was leaning. I'm leaning toward House of Cards. I think there were two [twists] in House of Cards over the course of the season, and obviously there are spoiler alerts needed here. The one that made a lot more noise, at least in the culture sphere, was what happened in the premiere, in terms of Zoe being pushed under the subway tracks by Frank Underwood. And that's a high-quality twist. Very daring. I think the real boldness of it was not doing it in a finale, or sort of toward the end of the season, but doing it in the season premiere where it feels like the setup for the story is that you're going to get more of the same, and we're going to be exploring the relationship between these two characters, and then right out of the gate, the entire quote-unquote franchise of the show gets turned upside down, or crushed underneath a subway train, and that's really daring.

But for me, there was another moment of the season that had all the ingredients of an amazing twist. You start to see it about five minutes before it happens, and it feels inevitable, but there's also a part of your brain that's saying, They're not going to do this. It was when Agent Meechum, who has basically been handpicked by Frank Underwood to lead his security detail once he becomes the vice-president, decides to hang out with Mrs. Underwood, and they're spending time together in the privacy of the Underwood home, and everything is being calibrated toward They're about to have an affair now — Robin Wright and he are about to hook up. And then they completely and totally subvert that expectation. Meechum hurts himself, he cuts his hand, and she's sort of in the process of bandaging up his hand when Frank returns home. And there's a sort of stunning switch. I've never really seen anything like it on television, because by any other context, it is a Cinemax move — old-school Cinemax, not new classy Cinemax. This very strange threesome seems like it's about to happen. But the way that it was executed ...

It eventually leads to this kiss between the star of a very, very upscale television show — cable-quality, Netflix-quality, Emmy-prestige show — and another actor. And this, despite Frank not having really been presented as being a gay character, although certainly there were allusions in the first season to that, when he was in his college days. But really, that hadn't been mentioned before or since. And they did it in this way that I thought was completely bold: We're just going to do this! I just thought it was completely and totally bold, it was completely and totally fair, it was really interesting, and it felt like it was a payoff for the question I've been asking, which is, Why is Frank Underwood so interested in this Meechum guy? Why does he want him close? And the show was using language to say, Oh, what Frank Underwood does is, he sets people up to take falls, so he's basically going to screw this guy. But not literally! And the fact that they took it there, and that it became an emotional answer for why this guy is around? And then there was some ambiguity as to whether or not it was something that Mrs. Underwood was also involved in, although she certainly curated or brought these two together, and condoned it, because the next morning, she's asking Frank how he slept. So there is some sense that Frank and Meechum went off on their own, and she was no longer a participant in this scenario. But it happened, not just with her blessing, but I think with her pimpness. She facilitated this thing happening.

It felt like a very unconventional twist. It felt like, to me, that if this were not running on Netflix, if this was a thing that was airing on a Sunday night, and we had all watched it together, and if I were still on Twitter, that would have been the thing that everybody was just losing their brains over. But they handled it elegantly. I liked it. In the old days, I would have gone and solicited the opinions of many others to decide whether or not they liked it, or whether or not they thought it was a betrayal of the show, or completely and totally out there. It took the entire series up a level for me, that one move, and I think really good plot twists have a way of doing that. They suddenly make you go, This entire series has become more engaging to watch because of what they just did.

RUNNER-UP: Game of Thrones — Littlefinger’s reveal

Game of Thrones certainly did that in its first season. It was like, This is a pretty cool show, I like dragons, the actors are really cool, I'm into this. But then the moment that Ned Stark gets his head cut off, you suddenly go, If they're going to do that, I can never, ever miss an episode of this show. I think that some shows — and certainly Lost was one of those shows — particularly when you're doing twenty-plus episodes a year, those sort of twists become your bread-and-butter. There's almost an expectation that you have to provide one an episode, or a cliffhanger. And then there are shows like Scandal — which I love, by the way — where that's what the show is about. The show is about, Is there anything we will not do? So once that becomes an expectation that when you walk into the restaurant, you are going to be served up a plate full of twists, it becomes a slightly different animal.

The harder show to find is the one that doesn't seem to have twists built into its narrative cycle, and then when they do, it's a great twist because it's one you don't anticipate. We all went to see The Sixth Sense, and we were treated to what was a very effective horror movie, with no sense whatsoever that we were watching a movie built on a twist. And it was successful in both arenas. Subsequent M. Night Shyamalan movies have been a victim of needing to continue to propagate that idea, so you would watch them differently. You'd be like, I'm not accepting the fact that these people just sort of live in a village like Amish people. There's got to be something happening below the surface here. I would certainly have the expectation that there will be twists in [Shyamalan's forthcoming TV series] Wayward Pines. And then will we be disappointed if it doesn't have those twists?

I love the way Game of Thrones executes those twists. For some reason — and this is just me being completely and totally precious about the idea of a twist — it's that area where it can't just be about a character's unexpected and sudden death. By definition, a twist is a move in a direction or the presentation of a connection between characters that completely and totally subverts your feelings about the show, or the world in which the show is taking place. There are exciting things that happen on shows like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad that are very plot-drived. But neither one of them engages in what I would call an active misdirect.

For example, Breaking Bad had a scene in the first half of their final season where they showed Walt walking out of a restaurant and opening up his trunk and revealing that the gun was in there. And a twist would be that the final season is calibrated around a series of incidents that don't lead to him using that gun in the way that we traditionally would think that he was going to, as opposed to the inevitable connections of the lines. Breaking Bad was not a show that was built around shocking twists. It was more the super-impactful moments that were highly memorable, akin to Krysten Ritter choking to death on her own puke and Walt standing over her and letting it happen, or Walt begging for Hank to not be executed and failing. I guess those traditionally qualify as twists, because when you tuned in that night, you didn't think that that character was going to be leaving forever. But I put the shocking death of beloved characters or not-so-beloved characters, like in Joffrey's case, in a slightly different category than twists.

Littlefinger is the kind of twist I love, because it's more of a reveal, right? The moment that Ser Dontos comes and grabs Sansa, in the moment that Joffrey is choking, we know that he is employed by the person who is responsible for that poisoning. So the real twist, I think, is more a matter not of Littlefinger killing Joffrey; it's that Littlefinger has basically been the mastermind all along, and manipulated Lysa Arryn to essentially to suck Ned and Catelyn into this complicit plot, having poisoned her own husband, and framing the Lannisters for such. That is a hell of a twist, no doubt.

I had to stop reading at the third book because I started to feel a little bit douchey about watching the show. I found myself being one of those guys who was like, "Oh, wait until you see what happens next!" I found myself wanting to be one of those guys who didn't know what was going to happen next. But I love me my Lord Baelish.

Read more posts by Damon Lindelof

Filed Under: vulture tv awards ,tv ,damon lindelof ,house of cards ,and the winner is... ,game of thrones ,plot twists

This times four.

Brooklyn Running Co. and Williamsburg Pizza will host the #NYCPizzaMile next Wednesday, June 25, at 8 p.m. in McCarren Park. Think the Beer Mile, where athletes are also required polish off a beer at every quarter mile, except in this case it's a slice of hot pizza. (Unlucky runners who throw up before finishing the race must run a "penalty lap.") Perhaps because it's probably going to be 110 degrees next Wednesday and this all seems a little inadvisable, the race is free to enter. The winner gets a $30 Brooklyn Running Co. gift card and free pizza pie, so there's that.

Read more posts by Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm

Filed Under: carbo-loading, pizza, pizza mile, williamsburg pizza

In an attempt to counter his influence in Pakistan, the CIA once made a heat-sensitive action figure of Osama bin Laden that morphed into a demon. The goal was to scare children and their parents away from al-Qaeda.

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America's least favorite fast-food chain set up a stunt that must have sounded good at the time: They put out a casting call for a new Vegas show called Hunger in the Night, inviting hopefuls to come and audition for the horror-themed musical. (No, it's not a show about McDonald's terrifying Happy Meal mascot.) The casting call was fake, and it only existed so the chain could get footage of people acting like zombies for a web ad designed to remind people that Mickey D's is open 24 hours. "People are, like, please I need this role," points out one presumed hopeful. But nope! That release form you signed just gives McDonald's permission to use your likeness in its marketing material — probably not the role most people would have signed up for, given the choice.

McDonald's Punks Vegas Locals with Fake Zombie Auditions [Review Journal]
Related: Watch Real Kids React to McDonald’s Terrifying New Mascot

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: the chain gang, ads, hoaxes, las vegas, mcdonald's, minimum wage, video feed

  The Imperial Apartments on Bedford Avenue were built in 1892. Photo: Jim Henderson There’s no doubt that Crown Heights is one of Brooklyn’s most rapidly changing neighborhoods. It seems like every week we hear about a new restaurant, bar or shop that’s opening in the area, and the variety of row houses and expansive pre-war apartment buildings, as well as convenient access to several train lines, are drawing new residents in droves.  Once called Crow Hill, Crown Heights is bordered by Bed-Stuy to the north, where Atlantic Avenue forms the boundary between the two neighborhoods. To the south, Empire Boulevard separates the neighborhood from Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and East Flatbush. Prospect Park and Washington Avenue (though some argue that Franklin Avenue is actually the boundary) form the western border, shared with Prospect Heights. And to the east, of East New York and Ralph Avenues lies Brownsville. While Eastern Parkway is the main transit hub for… Read More

Authorities in southern China have thrown a bone to an angry public and put the annual Yulin Dog Eating Festival on a somewhat tighter leash.

Game of Thrones’ fourth season was full of poisonings, multiple eviscerations, a head turning into lasagna, child-elves, weird old dudes creeping on teens, sexual violence, strangulation, and weirder, older dudes hanging out in the roots of a tree. It was the show’s best campaign yet. Here are your Game of Thrones Season 4 awards.

Most Improved Baker of Animal-Themed Carbohydrates: Hot Pie

By far the easiest Season 4 award category. This is what you want to see from a young, former wastrel just starting his career in the baking trade. Hot Pie didn’t take the break between seasons for granted; he went to work on his craft, and it’s paid off. By any conceivable metric, this year marked a vast improvement in Hot Pie’s ability to produce bread in the form of a wolf. There’s the shape itself, which in Season 3 resembled, I don’t know, a horseshoe crab? One of those caps with the fake dreadlocks coming out of it? By Season 4, we have a recognizable member of family Canidae. Most impressive is the detail work: the crosshatched fur, the sawtooth muzzle, the raised hackles on the back — all great strides forward from the lumpy, acne-scarred nightmare-biscuit of last year.

Best Display of a Positive Emotion: Jon Snow Smiling

As the battle of the Wall raged around him, Jon Snow turned from the body of the Thenn he had just killed with a blacksmith’s hammer, only to discover that his Wildling bae Ygritte, like some lethal ginger Cupid, had an arrow aimed right at his heart. The North is a tough place to grow up. Sometimes, all a young Northern bastard has to look forward to is joining the Night’s Watch, killing his sworn brother to go undercover with some Wildlings, and maybe — if he’s really lucky — managing to break his vow of lifelong celibacy in the dank depths of a cave on some animal skins laid beside a geothermal pool that probably smelled like sulfur and rotten eggs. Reminded of that momentary wisp of happiness, stolen in a desolate winter wasteland, Jon Snow smiled for only the third time in the entire series. And then an arrow burst out of Ygritte’s chest.

Best Usage of Child Labor: Olly the Elevator Orphan

The most mysterious thing about the world of Game of Thrones isn’t the dragons, or the blood-magic smoke-baby assassins, or the mystical elves, or even the unpredictable, yearslong length of the seasons. It’s this: How the hell does a grizzled rabble composed of blue-ball virgins and hardened criminals have a working elevator capable of being run by a single child? I guess it’s not important. What is important is that young Olly, fresh off seeing his whole village cut down by rampaging Wildlings, managed to find a place for himself. Also, he killed Jon Snow’s girlfriend. Top floor, gents! Rapists, murderers, virgins, and a heck of a view!

Best Use of Samuel Beckett: Random Dying Guy

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss met while studying Irish literature at Trinity College in Dublin; Weiss did his thesis on Finnegans Wake, and Benioff’s was about Samuel Beckett. Years later, the two would bring George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga to HBO, where it is currently the network’s biggest hit since The Sopranos. And, really, what better vehicle for Beckett’s absurdist musing on the meaninglessness of life could there be than a borderline nihilistic world where your favorite characters die for no good reason? In this scene from Episode 7, “Mockingbird,” Arya and the Hound come across a man expiring from a wound to the stomach, a common enough sight in war-racked Westeros. But this dying man was played by the noted Irish stage actor Barry McGovern, and his dialogue was lifted straight from Waiting for Godot.

To Catch a Predator Creeper Award: Littlefinger

As a former Master of Coin and semi-current notorious pimp on the lam, Littlefinger has known, in the biblical sense, many women in his (probably) four-plus decades of life. One of them was teenage Lady Sansa’s aunt, Lysa. But the heart (or whatever) wants what the heart wants, and what Littlefinger wanted was Lysa’s sister — and Sansa’s mother — the late Catelyn Stark. That wasn’t to be, and hopefully this won’t be, either.

Best Overwrought Norwegian Black-Metal Name for a Person, Place, or Thing: King Joffrey’s Valyrian Steel Sword “Widow’s Wail”

“This machine makes widows.”

Life in Westeros is nasty, brutish, and short. No time for subtlety or subtext here; unless you name your sword or castle something prohibitively dangerous-sounding, people in these streets will try to test you. That’s why King Joff had the right idea for once when he named his fresh-forged Valyrian steel sword Widow’s Wail.

Best Facially Disfigured Person: Shireen

Princess Shireen, daughter of King Stannis and Queen Selyse, can always be counted on to speak truth to power. When Melisandre starts in with that Lord of Light nonsense about how wonderful a blessing it is to give people to the flames, Princess Shireen is having none of it. “People scream when they give birth. Afterwards, they are filled with joy,” says Melisandre. Maybe you can snooker Queen Selyse and her room full of stillborn-baby jars with that trash, but not Shireen, who shoots back: “But afterwards they aren’t ash and bone.” Tell ’em, Princess. And she taught Davos to read, which led to him discovering the Night’s Watch’s desperate call for aid, which led to Stannis saving the world. Or at least delaying the reckoning. Reading: It’s fundamental.

Best Moment of Human Kindness: Ygritte Not Killing Gilly and Baby Sam

The bar for being a sympathetic Game of Thrones character is pretty low. Murder, incest, child maiming, sexual depravity, mass crucifixions — none of those things necessarily disqualify a person from being labeled a “good guy” and holding a place of warmth in our blackened hearts. Ygritte had already liquidated at least one village, and was in the process of exterminating the residents of Mole’s Town, when she discovered Gilly and Baby Sam huddled in an alcove behind some drapes and spared their lives. It was then, as blood literally rained down from the ceiling, that we understood the meaning of kindness.

Best Walk of Shame: Dirtbag Daario Naharis

“Shit was so cash, Jorah.”

The ladies love a bad boy. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. They love a bad boy who will bring them a bag of heads when it’s not even their birthday; who’ll swim a mile out to a deserted island to pick them flowers [eye roll]; who will, somehow, break into their private chambers (which are ostensibly guarded by 10,000 killer eunuchs and a legendary knight) just to give them those flowers and, oh, my pants just fell off, forgive me, my queen. Here’s Dirtbag Daario, smelling like sex funk and just pulling on his blouse, running into Ser Jorah the Andal of Friendzone Island.

Best Reaction to Prince Oberyn’s Head Being Popped Like a Ripe Zit: Tyrion Lannister

“So, that happened.”

Oberyn snatched defeat from the lower intestine of victory, and Tyrion’s face says it all.

Sometimes the city's old trains are brought out of retirement so that we may ride them once again, for nostalgia. Most of the time you just have to happen upon them by chance, but a few times a year a special, ticketed ride is offered. The next one of those is coming up on July 12th (at 11 a.m.), for the Coney Island Nostalgia Ride. [ more › ]

Tom Mylan and crew finally opened the long-awaited, counter-serve spinoff to their acclaimed, whole animal butcher shop, offering “the same high-quality, local sourcing and bad ideas as the original Meat Hook… only in sandwich form.” So are Meat Hook’s sandwiches the greatest thing since sliced bread? And are they every bit as off-the-wall as previously promised—and depending on your enthusiasm for “gross vegetarian” options—anticipated? We spoke with chef Gil Calderon about the various components that go into each of his mind-bending creations (because trust us, you’d have to be some sort of super taster in order to identify them all), as well as the complex thought processes that went into each.

The Sandwich: Italian Hero

 The Inspiration: It’s a NYC classic. We wanted a sandwich that was like eating two pieces of bread dragged through Di Palo’s Fine Foods store. And, we were producing all of these fantastic deli items at the butcher shop already. Pepperoni, olive loaf, soppressata. Add to that some creamy mozzarella, marinated artichokes, cipollini onions and tomatoes. Plus some finely shredded iceberg lettuce (a must), thinly sliced red onion and a pickled pepper mix that includes some secret peppers a fellow from Portland makes using his mother’s secret recipe. All in all, it’s a sandwich that tastes better the longer it sits.

 

The Sandwich: Hot Chicken

The Inspiration: We took a trip to Nashville recently. Before leaving, we made it a point to stop and have some authentic Hot Chicken. And if you stop for Hot Chicken you definitely stop. Everything. Mouth-searing goodness.  We brought this idea back: hot sauce-brined chicken thighs dredged in flour, fried, then tossed in schmaltz fortified with dried chiles. We made bread and butter pickles with just celery and onion and a “Polynesian Sauce” that’s inspired by the first recipes I found on the internet for Pad Thai sauce, back in the late 90s. There you have it. Anything else on that sandwich and it would be obscene.

 

The Sandwich: Pastrami

The Inspiration: We make a house pastrami that has been a labor of love since I met Tom in 2007. Trial and error and a lot of disappointing pastramis later, one of our butchers, Madeleine, finally perfected the house recipe. Brined for 10 hours, rubbed for 2, smoked for 3 and steamed for 12. This item will be available on an irregular basis. The sandwich includes our fermented slaw that has pureed kimchi folded into it, as well as American cheese and a dressing that has mayo, ketchup, fish sauce, sesame oil and charred onion. It’s a take on some late nights we’ve had in K-Town, crushing Hites and eating a large, steaming pot of budae jjigae.

The Sandwich: Roast Beef

The Inspiration: We own a butcher store. We love beef. We love simplicity. The idea was to marry a great, rare roast beef with a crunchy potato. Potato chips, a no-brainer. But what if we made a fried potato that was a little more robust, but not a french fry, that would sog after sitting in a sandwich? So we grate Idaho potato and fry hash browns every day. Then add fresh horseradish cream with lots of scallions and black pepper, as well as sharp cheddar and fried red onions for the “why not” factor. Done.

The Sandwich: Sausage

The Inspiration: We will have a rotating selection of sausages available. This week it’s our house Mexican chorizo. It comes with refried beans cooked with chorizo oil and ground avocado leaf, as well as melted cheese, avocado cream, pickled jalapeños, red onion and chilaquiles made from Nixtamal chips and salsa verde that are cooked together and then dehydrated.

The Sandwich: Roast Pork

The Inspiration: I have a good friend from Piedmont who served me vitello tonnato this past Christmas. I loved the simplicity of it, and realized that you don’t see surf ‘n’ turf around here much. Especially not in sandwich form. When customers are looking for veal, we naturally steer them towards pork cuts. We really love the pork we get. The rest of the sandwich was just riffing on “nonna” touches, like wine-soaked golden raisins, shaved fennel, chili oil and bitter escarole greens.

495 Lorimer Street, Williamsburg 718-302-HOOK

 

 

 

 

 

ALWAYS negotiate your starting salary . Plus, more stuff no one actually teaches you in college.

DO: Negotiate your starting salary, even if you're afraid.

Most people don't negotiate, both because of fear and because no one teaches you how to negotiate in the first place. A report by Salary.com showed that 18% of job seekers never negotiate their salaries, 44% negotiate occasionally, and only 37% of prospective employees will always become an active participant in determining their salary. Many recent grads, so grateful to land a job in today's sluggish economy, accept their first salary offer without question because they're nervous. But if you don't ask, you're leaving money on the table! Think of all the Chipotle that could buy (and, you know, rent).

This is especially important for women, who statistically negotiate their starting salaries less often than men do. A recent Pew study found that in 2012, hourly earnings for younger women aged 25 to 34 were 93% of what men earned, compared with a national average of 77%.

Here are some tips from Forbes on how to negotiate a salary early in your career. Remember: NOW is the time to get your money, because as every employee will testify, it's harder to bump up your salary once you're in your position and have to try to do it incrementally with raises and promotions.

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DON'T: Text or Gchat on your personal account while you're on the clock, if you can help it.

This varies company by company, and some office workers dread the thought of getting through the day without IMing friends who are just as miserable at their desks. But even if your company is A-OK with you indulging in some personal Gchatting, you have to admit: It's pretty darn distracting. And if you work for a stodgier organization, it can be hard to completely tear yourself away from your iPhone and instant message sidebar during business hours, but David Lewis, CEO of Operations Inc., recommends doing everything you can to suppress that urge. "Personal matters are for before 8 and after 6," he says. "You're there to work."

But...what if you sneak your phone into the bathroom stall? (Not that you would ever do such a thing.) Lewis says that's also a distraction. "Doing so in the bathroom stall is not disconnecting."

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DO: Learn how to network, even if you think you have no connections.

I mean, what new graduate really slides out of college or grad school with a bustling Rolodex? (Or whatever the 2014 version of that is.) But even if networking terrifies you, and you feel like you have no contacts or connections, you can still work it like everyone else. To start with, writes Terri Tierney Clark at the New Careerist, you "know" every single alumnus from your university in your prospective industry. Email them! Go out of your comfort zone and message them on Facebook or LinkedIn. You can also reach out to any contacts from previous internships, or friends of friends of friends; don't be embarrassed about hitting up family connections, either. The worst that can happen? They don't return your emails. And you can live with that.

If you're not the "gregarious" type, sometimes the best way to leap that hurdle is to tell yourself, Well, I'm going to be gregarious [when I'm at this conference][for the next 10 minutes of sending emails] or [after this presentation, and introduce myself to the speaker]. Fake it until you, you know.

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DON'T: Spill personal details to Mandy the PR girl just because she sits next to you.

When you're a young person at an office filled with lots of young people, it can be tempting to cross the friend–colleague line and talk to your co-workers just like you would your pals at a bar. But even if you just went through a heart-wrenching breakup AND you just got in a fight with your mom AND you're stressed because you just bounced a check, it might be best to save the cathartic chat for your BFF.

"Leave your life at home," says Stefany Fattor, director of Career Services at Fordham University. "Yes, I know that girl in marketing is such a good listener. But it’s not the time or place."

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The airline announced it will cut services to Venezuela over unpaid debts. There are signs Venezuela is taking steps to prevent more airlines and foreign companies from doing the same.

Are the foot soldiers of gentrification also poisoning Brooklyn's jury pools in favor of the police and against the common man? By the tone of this Post report you'd think Scruff McGruff and The See Something Say Somethings headlined the Northside Festival this weekend. [ more › ]

There are basically two types of drivers: those who get worked up about people driving slowly in the left lane, and those who do it all the time and have no idea they're upsetting everyone else.

In case you're in the second group, some background: every state has some sort of law that discourages people from traveling in the left lane on multi-lane roads and highways. It's not that you're never allowed in the left lane, just that you should only use it when necessary, for passing, then get back over.

That's because even if you're driving fast, there's always someone going faster. If you promptly get back over after passing, that car will be able to pass you, allowing everyone on the road to get to their destinations as quickly as possible. If you don't, it'll inevitably lead to buildups of traffic and likely raise the chance of accidents.

The system works best when people aren't hogging the left lane. That's one reason why National Motorists Association has declared June Lane Courtesy Month in an effort to to raise awareness about the importance of getting out of the left lane.

State laws restrict driving in the left lane

Every state has some law on the books restricting use of the left lane. In 29 states (shown in yellow), the law says any car that's moving slower than the "normal speed of traffic" should be in the right lane — so even if it's going at the speed limit, a car that's not moving as fast as the other cars around shouldn't be in the left. Georgia has increased the penalty for violating this law to a misdemeanor.

In 11 states (shown in green), the laws are even stricter — specifically saying the left lane is only for turning or passing. Most of the remaining states say cars need to get over if they're blocking traffic that wants to pass, or if they're traveling more slowly than the speed limit.

Police are cracking down on left lane drivers

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Traditionally, these laws have seldom been enforced, and were often just used as a legal excuse for police to pull people over for unrelated reasons.

Recently, though, police in several states — including Washington, Texas, and Ohio — have increasingly been issuing tickets to people they spot traveling slowly in the left.

It impedes traffic and probably makes everyone less safe

There's a certain rationale for these laws and enforcement campaigns. When drivers travel in the left lane, it makes the road more congested and probably more dangerous for all parties involved.

Research shows that many traffic jams result from a surprisingly small number of slow cars obstructing traffic, with their effects rippling outward. A small buildup of cars that can't pass because someone is driving slowly in the left — right next to another car traveling slowly in the right — is the exact type of scenario that can start this cascade of traffic.

Now, some people counter that as long as they're going the speed limit, they don't have to move over — and by slowing down would-be speeders, they're making the roads safer.

Apart from the fact that in 44 states, simply going the speed limit doesn't permit drivers to travel in the left lane, this argument doesn't make a lot of sense based on research into how accidents occur.

Unfortunately, there isn't much research on the effect of impeding people from passing in the left lane specifically. But there is evidence that slowing down and changing lanes is more dangerous than speeding.

Lanes changes account for about four percent of all car accidents in the US, and perhaps as much as ten percent of accidents on highways. Meanwhile, research has generally shown that the strongest predictor of an accident isn't speeding, but variance from the average speed of traffic — and a car going five miles per hour slower than the surrounding traffic has a greater chance of causing an accident than one going five miles per hour faster than it.

If relatively slow drivers are scattered among the right and left lanes, faster drivers have to repeatedly slow down and weave back and forth, changing lanes many times to pass all of them. If the slower drivers are all driving in the right lane, a faster driver can pass several at a time, then get back into the right, cutting down on the total number of lane changes and eliminating the slow downs.

There's even some evidence that this is why accident and fatality rates are so much lower on the German autobahn, compared to US interstates, even though speed limits are higher (or in some places nonexistent) in Germany. Lane discipline is much more strictly maintained there, allowing drivers to travel more safely at faster speeds.

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