I’m sure you’ve heard of Game of Thrones by now, considering there have been ads during baseball games, basketball games, and plenty of other television shows not featuring professional athletes. Going only by the commercials, one would think it’s possibly Lord of the Rings with sex thrown in, especially since Sean Bean stars in both. It’s closer to a re-imagined medieval political drama. I’ve heard The Sopranos + LOTR, but I really don’t get where the hell these people got The Sopranos from this series. I definitely think The Wire, Deadwood, and Rome would be better comparisons, considering the ensemble casts and power struggles — not that I’m qualified, considering I’ve never seen The Sopranos. But I don’t think I’m wrong when I assume the show focused greatly on Tony.

While Sean Bean is undoubtedly the central character of A Game of Thrones (the extra “A” means I’m talking about the book), there are way too many other important and powerful characters, signified by each chapter featuring one of eight narrative viewpoints. Not to mention that Sean Bean is as close to a traditional hero as you’ll see on TV nowadays, what with his old-fashioned honor and loyalty. Yeah ok, he has a bastard son, but it’s not like he’s a emotionless vigilante serial killer of other serial killers, an angry U.S. Marshal who likes to shoot people whenever he can, or a sarcastic animated secret agent who has an unhealthy relationship with his mother. Bean’s Eddard Stark is the character that gives some sort of noble center to the treacherous goings-on in the world of Westeros, the fictional continent where A Song of Ice and Fire takes place (that’s the name of the entire book series).

I had been hearing about the book series for a few years due to the nerd-filled places I frequent on the internet, but I never got around to reading the first book until last month. I figured I needed to prepare for the TV series premiere, even though I don’t subscribe to HBO. My plan was to possibly milk three free months out of FiOS like my parents seem to do once a year, and with the Optimum Online $69.95 triple-pack offer that came in the mail today, I might have my leverage. I won’t even need to lie!

I’d recommend everyone to read the books before watching the series, but that’s just my stock advice when it comes to these types of things. Reading before watching might be particularly helpful with A Game of Thrones, though, as it is lengthy and filled with so many characters and details that it’ll undoubtedly be tough to keep up if you jump right into the show. The book doesn’t have spectacular prose, and the world is misogynistic, but I’m not sure George R.R. Martin is. He might paint some female characters in a terrible light and describe some rough sex, but the ending of the book does feature the climax of a young woman finally coming into her own. Man, that sounded so wrong.

Anyway, the book is just what it sounds like — a struggle for the throne of Westeros. Of course, it’s only the beginning of an still-unfinished seven-part series, but many of the arcs are wrapped up while also laying the framework for the bigger battles that undoubtedly come in later books. There are betrayals and murders and twists and beheadings, but not all that much magic or supernatural forces if that’s what you’re worried about. Although, there is plenty of talk of dragons since they at one point actually existed in this alternate medieval world (if you’re a Japanophile, imagine them as mechs or gundams). And if you watched the following preview, you probably thought LOTR + zombies, instead of The Sopranos. So I would just like to drive the point home that this is basically Rome set in a Christopher Nolan-esque “grounded” fantasy world.

Then there’s Portal 2. By now you undoubtedly heard of how the cake in the original was a lie, but the puzzle-solving done in the first-person was what set Portal apart from just most games of the past few years. It was a short ride, but a shockingly inventive and entertaining one. After only an hour with its sequel, I’ve already experience much of the same, even if the puzzles so far are extremely simple to a veteran of the original. The same dry, but playful sense of humor pervades each game and the graphics are crisp on even middling PCs such as mine, due to the Source engine being immensely scalable, and most of the action taking place within fairly plain enclosed areas — testing chambers that have the aesthetic of a laboratory playground.

There’s not much of a point in me going on about Portal or its sequel at this point. You should have already played the first, and if you haven’t, ask someone who pre-ordered Portal 2 for a Steam copy. I’m off to play with my portal gun.

My excuse is that I don’t own HBO myself. Maybe subconsciously I don’t want you to enjoy something I can’t.

Yes, this post is so damn pointless after the fact, but I felt the need to dedicate a post to what is guaranteed to be the new television series of the year. Or at least even with Archer.

In case you don’t know, The Pacific is the spiritual successor to Band of Brothers, what with the same guys behind it, and it also being set in World War II. You might have guessed that it does not cover the European theater, though. No, this is about Marines killing lots of Japs –three Marine badasses in particular. I thought about paying for HBO for however long it was necessary to watch the series, but then I saw the package was 26 bucks a month; perhaps there are cheaper packages, but that sight alone was enough to make me wait until the Blu-ray. To watch it legally, at least.

The Star Ledger

The seventh season of David’s improvised HBO comedy, which returns on Sept. 20, will be centered around the TV version of David finally agreeing to do a reunion of the defining ’90s sitcom. All four “Seinfeld” castmembers — Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards — will play themselves in multiple episodes, and the season finale will feature extensive snippets of the show-within-the-show.

Larry David loves this shit. He already had Jerry and George making “a show about nothing” within Seinfeld. I’d say he’s running out of ideas, but all he ever did was take real-life occurrences and possibilities and run with them anyway. This doesn’t really affect my anticipation of the new season of Curb, as I would’ve been all over it even if the overarching plot was Larry David trying to become a porn star. And this post is ruined. I’m sorry.

I made a post about this upcoming mini-series a long time ago, but now there is finally a (terrible quality) trailer for it. I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s ripped from Australian television. Sure, the footage isn’t much, and is basically a variation of the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, but I guess that shit went down over in the Pacific theater as well — every single time they had to take an island. And there are a lot of islands over there.

There is no reason not to start getting excited about this. It should air within the next 12 months, it’s by the same guys that made Band of Brothers, and apparently the soldiers it centers around were total badasses. HBO won’t allow this to be anything less than phenomenal.

Best Buy is having its (bi?)annual 50% off HBO DVD sets sale. I put the question mark because I only seem to notice the deal around Christmas every year. I hear they do it biannually, though. And since Amazon is pretty much the greatest commercial entity ever created, they are matching Best Buy’s sale with almost every set. That means you can buy The Wire Complete Series for 90 bucks almost any which way you prefer. Other awesome deals that I highly recommend, going by their Amazon prices:

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Seasons 1-6): $15.99 each
Rome (Seasons 1 & 2): $29.99 each
Band of Brothers (Blu-ray): $37.49

Of course, there’s The Sopranos, Entourage, Deadwood, etc. I actually haven’t seen Rome, but I’m not buying it because I’m crossing for my fingers for a Blu-ray release. Gratuitous gore and nudity in HD? Yes, please.