This is How it Ends: Road Trip Journal Part III

I'm so drunk and tired.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Bust after bust after bust is, in short, every attempt to hunt down the machines. We had one lead, but as it turns out there is a big difference between Silverton, Idaho and Silver City, Idaho.As it turns out the place that we need to go to is nine hours in the opposite direction. As it turns out one is a residential area in the mountains and the other is a ghost town. And as it turns our our LEAD IS TOTALLY FUCKING FUCKED.

That's okay. At least I got some gravy biscuits out of the deal.

On that note: What's going on with Game of Thrones? As great as this season was and as great of an episode as "The Rains of Castemere" was, I can't help but feel that, well, that was an incredibly weird season finale. I mean, everyone is just left in this really weird place where things are about to happen, but we don't know what that is.

It feels like thirty minutes got cut out of the episode and we're just left to figure out what those thirty minutes were until the next season (which has been every season finale of that show).

You've got Jaime just kind of showing up, with no resolution to Brienne. You have Arya just doing a thing and then there's the next scene and that kind of goes on for every character. I could go on like this naming characters who don't have a real end to their story (Maybe Bran? Probably Sam?). There's no real importance religated to anyone, except Dany who we haven't seen for a whole episode and just has this episode title handed to her. Is that how you end and episode? Is that how you end a season?

It isn't a cliffhanger and it isn't catharsis. It's just stuff coming to a close, capped off by a credits sequence.That's pretty cool, I guess.

Meanwhile in the Bookiverse, you have one of ONE MILLION IMPORTANT EVENTS to end the season on and none of them go down. I understand why this is-- budget, time, pacing, artistic choice-- yet what they chose falls so far short of the mark, it's

Again: It isn't a climax, it's just an ending.

I'm sure season four will start strong, but I still have to wonder: What the fuck? Maybe it was because I was watching it stone cold sober in Mormon country with an internet connection that only allowed me to watch the episode two minutes at a time. This whole situation was not ideal.

That was our Tuesday. Tomorrow we'll be in Montana and then who knows. I keep getting told that things are going to really pick up in Montana and I think that might be the only time anyone ever said that of that state.

High Moment: Dad and I revisited one of the darkest, ugliest hotels we've ever been to which was the Blue Gum Motel. My dad upon seeing it re-christened it the "Blue Bum Motel." He even had a song that went along with it. Well, after fifteen years or so of traveling we have found a rival in Wallace, Idaho's Brook's Motel, which has all of the ambiance of a prison converted into a dorm room. I am not a tall man, but I can touch the ceiling just by reaching up my arms. As good as the internet connection might be, I can't help but feel that I accidentally got booked into a federal prison.I'm half expecting a Saudi to kick down our door and ask if we want hookah.

(We don't.)

Low Moment: We over stayed our welcome at a bar where we were the only customers. While talking to her and her chest tattoos we found out that she had four kids. The whole time this nineteen year old with an energy drink was hanging out the whole time, chewing on his sunglasses. He didn't know who Jackie Gleason was. Neither did the bartender. Then she let her hair down to look sexy.He was a carnie. Then we left. And now I weep.

Waldo Wisdom: "Everybody in Idaho has a big ass and wants to fuck."

Somewhere in the distance I can hear a drunk howling. He must have read my blog.

The Snackening: Road Trip Journal Part I

I want to talk to you kids about something important: The Squatch.

Where can I get this? Where did you get this? Why don't I have any now? Did you take my sweet Squatch?

Let's slow down, pilgrim, and see what their press release has to say:

Harvested from the flesh of free-range bigfoots and mixed with the finest of secret Oriental spices,  Link Jack's "Squatch" represents the next generation of meat stick products. Squatch Stick: Shove in your face.

Who could resist a sales pitch like that? It's like reading fine poetry.

Let me tell you, if you like chewing, I have a snack-like food product for you. Not only is it full of all sorts of spicy tastes, looking at the nutritional information you will also

We hit the 600 mile mark exactly upon entering the town of Scipion, which I think is named for a famous Roman battle that took place here. Upon checking into our hotel my dad and I were told that this was a dry town. Before we could bolt the desk clerk told us that he might have two beers in storage that he just had left over and gave them to us. And if this couldn't get any more Mormon, one of the signs on the desk had a hand-written addendum "Please" taped onto it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've a continental breakfast to polish off.

The Beastie Boys Appreciate the Finer Things

HOROVITZ: We picture ourselves as being in France, recording in mansions and castles with truffle dogs sniffing around outside. Really, though, we’re just schlepping on the train in New York. I am going to be an affineur one day and make cheese, though. I’m just throwing that out there, so when it happens you’ll have had the scoop on that.

DIAMOND: Adam took a course at Murray’s Cheese Shop in the West Village.

HOROVITZ: It was Cheese 101. It was this cheese class, and they teach about the cheeses, but they put out different wines and champagne and stuff, and then me and my wife just drank all the booze first. I don’t remember what happened after that, but it was good.

You heard it here first.

"All I See is Ketchup and Death"