There is No Blame, Only Shame

By the time this email flies through the tubes of the internet and gets flushed down into your computer, phone, web tv, or whatever device you use to upload Photography 139 content into your brain, the Super Bowl will probably be somewhere in the third quarter. You will probably be ready for a distraction.

However, I’m going to give you more than a distraction. I’m just going to go ahead and tell you that the final score of the Super Bowl is going to be 28-24. The San Francisco 49ers will win. Defense wins championships. Period.

I wish it wasn’t the case. I don’t have much rooting interest in the Super Bowl (or any NFL game) these days. I guess I’m slightly rooting for the Chiefs because I have family that are Chiefs fans. Frequent contributor to the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE, Michelle is also a Chiefs fan.

However, I have on friend that really stands out as a Chiefs fan. He is a former season ticket holder and he lives in Ballardville, Iowa. That is like a 3 hour drive to the Chiefs stadium. Whatever it’s called. When I asked him where he was going to watch the game, he replied:

“In a locked room, by myself.”

He would go on to talk about how he had been waiting 30 years for this moment.

I told him that I appreciated his passion. I pretty much always appreciate passion that isn’t derived from mental illness. Even though, you could certainly make the case that being an avid sports fan is a form of mental illness, I’m not going to make that argument. It strikes a little too close to home.

I told him that locked in a room by myself was exactly the same way that I watched the series finale of DOWNTON ABBEY.

Another friend on the same group text chimed in that it wasn’t fair to compare the Super Bowl to DOWNTON ABBEY. I reassured him that while American football is only popular in the United States and DOWNTON ABBEY was an international phenomenon, it is still fair. American football is still a pretty big deal. Not as a big of a deal as the Crawleys, but people still like it.

So, I’m rooting for the Chiefs right now. Despite the fact that their fans spit on America by blaspheming the national anthem. Despite the fact that many of the traditions that go on in that stadium crossed the “is that racist” border several miles back.

I hope I forgot to carry a one and the Chiefs don’t disappoint my friend that is locked in a room (hopefully not one with padded walls) right now. I don’t want him to go through the same disappointment I did when Tom Branson and Laura Edmunds didn’t hook up.

+++++++

Here are some pictures that didn’t make the cut for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme COUNTRY:


There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

There is No Blame, Only Shame

Hope you have gotten your WORK photo by now. Even if you haven’t, you probably have plenty of time to get a picture from where you WORK on Monday morning.

7 thoughts on “There is No Blame, Only Shame”

  1. I have been rewatching Downton, and am up to the last episode. I am pacing myself to savor it again.

    Poor Tom, forever now relegated to “wise brother.” It sucks that Mary has moved on several times, as even did Edith from Gregson. But Tom doesn’t get that chance.

  2. Did you watch the movie, because they set Tom up with a new love interest and all I can think is, but what about Laura Edmunds?!?!?

    And they didn’t even put her in the movie. Which is straight garbage!

    I know she was a pretty minor character in Season 6, but I still loved her.

    But the badly neutered Tom’s character. He started out as a badass and by the end of the series he had became a monarchist, even though he still had occasional lines of dialogue where he claimed otherwise, all his actions showed anarchist!

  3. The editor! I love her character – she’s a spitfire, she’s independent and intelligent. All of the things Lady Sybil was (and even more on display). She would have been a great mate for Tom, for the man as whom he began. I also agree, it’s just too bad that they turned him. I think it’s great he puts his daughter first – but he always puts EVERYONE first. They really just make him avuncular. He’s everyone’s sounding board, and almost nobody’s focus.

  4. But did you see the movie? Cause I don’t want to say what I think about his new love interest, until I know that you’ve seen the movie.

    He is probably the best person in the family, but he is also the character they develop the least as the season goes on. This is Tom. He likes cars. He started out poor, but we keep him around.

  5. I saw it in the theater, but way back on opening weekend, so my memory has purged some of it. I need to rewatch it, but wasn’t it the princess? Or someone royal?

    That’s entirely accurate – he likes Mary’s husband because he’s a driver. He is allowed around because of Sybie at first, and then they sorta love him. It’s just sort of exhausting. He gets his little niche, but no storylines that are worth anything.

  6. It started out that she was the servant of a cousin. But that wasn’t good enough. She was set to inherit all the money of the cousin, but traditionally all that money would’ve went to Lord Grantham because he was the closest relative.

    But then it was revealed that she was actually the illegitimate daughter of the cousin, so Maggie Smith stopped fighting the inheritance and then made it okay for Tom to hook up with her because the money would stay in the family and Tom would be rich.

    Parts of that story are interesting, but just seems convenient. Mary has the family money. Edith married a guy even richer than they are. Tom will hook up with an heiress.

    What is wrong with Tom hooking up with a working class girl! If not Laura Edmunds, maybe Gwen Dawson. I know she returns to the show later and is married, but I love Rose Leslie because she also played one of my favorite minor characters in GAME OF THRONES, Ygritte.

    The actress that plays Laura Edmunds (Antonia Bernath) hasn’t really done much of anything else. Looks like mostly video game voice work lately. Which is weird.

  7. That’s right! Yeah, the convenience didn’t make any sense, either. Somehow there was some random hidden cousin who they hadn’t considered when Downton was about to go under (before Lavinia’s family money saved it). But she shows up and is notable enough that Dowager has her sights on her while terminally ill, for… spite? IDK.

    I love Gwen and I love Rose, also. I do wish they’d had her become independently wealthy on her own rather than marrying into it, but that might have been too much to expect when she left before the war. I also liked that she brought Sybil alive for everyone when she returned later on, and was part of the big Thomas downfall (with him calling her out) that ended up leading to his redemption. I wish they would have brought her back for the movie, but they’d sort of sewn up that storyline.

    I would think video game voice work would be very, very dry. But I bet it’s lucrative…

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