Went to Makati Med armed with my healthcard to have my ears checked, thinking they were the culprit for my vertigo. The ENT doctor said my eardrums were clean. I had a hearing exam (pure tone audiometry and PTA with speech, similar to the one I had last year), and the results came and my hearing was fine. So I guess the diagnosis is still BPPV. He handed me a brochure with information about vertigo and how to deal with it (see above photo), and instructed me to keep taking Serc as long as I was “symptomatic” and avoid salty and spicy food.

Crap. I thought I had ear blockage of some sort and the doctor could make my vertigo magically disappear. Oh well. At least my ears are okay.

That night Jaykie and I watched the first two episodes of Justified. I’ll be sure to follow this. I didn’t know it was based on an Elmore Leonard story! Have a read:

“Fire in the Hole” by Elmore Leonard

*

Oh, on Monday night Jaykie dropped by work to pick me up. We had dinner at Mom & Tina‘s before we went to his condo to watch the season finale of Game of Thrones.

Sniff. No more Game of Thrones. I don’t know how long viewers had to wait for Season 2.

I have reviewed all four books (so far) of A Song of Ice and Fire series, but I haven’t reviewed the TV adaptation. I only have this to say: it’s good TV. Good production values, rich scenic detail, spot-on casting.

(Cut for possible spoilers.)

I enjoyed the scenes and lines in the show that were not in the books but were added as a sort of shorthand or bridge between scenes to make the series more cohesive. Examples were the Littlefinger and Varys confrontations, that painfully honest dialogue between King Robert and Cersei, and Eddard Stark’s “War is easier than daughters”, which made me laugh out loud. (I’d like that on a shirt.)

I also loved the way they introduced Lady Lysa and Robin (also named Robert in the book) and Tywin Lannister (just here skinning a deer yo). I was confused/surprised by the Renly-Loras thing they had going on, but the dialogue in that scene was needed to introduce Renly’s motivations for Season 2, so okay.

Tyrion was awesome in the books and was awesome in the adaptation, so that was great success on the part of the actor (Peter Dinklage! So awesomely talented!) and the filmmakers.

Some reviewers complain about too much exposition, but come on, that’s several hundred pages of prose and layer upon layer of intrigue that the GoT team has to cram into (only!) ten episodes.

The departures from the book were so small they were almost negligible, and that made me happy.

Also: I have never skipped the opening credits. Never. You should see it for yourself.

Photos from Dacouchtomato and Art of the Title.