Not From The Desk of Rory McCann…

I just want you all to know that when you search the name Sandor Clegane on Amazon (USA store), this turns up in the search results.

A panini press. A grilled-sandwich squisher. A toastie-maker. And this was NOT the first one I saw in these exact search results. Third or fourth actually?

I wanna know what smartass at Amazon algorithmed this one. I wanna shake his hand.

Like, five of you are outraged right now. Look. Rory’s gonna laugh too. Don’t believe me? Show it to him.

I’m giggling just thinking about him giggling. This has totally made my night. (I’m up late, not up early.)

Happy March Equinox! Spring for probably most of you reading, fall for the Southern Hemisphere.

First up, a recent interview with Rory, just ’cause we all love to hear his voice:

He’s righter than he knows. It’s not just a matter of scenery or of the Scottish economy. If you know enough about Scotland, there is a whole treasury of Scotland references in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Or I dunno, Rory probably knows that. He’s not one to show off his brains, but he’s a smart fella. I once hoped to compile a list of ASOIAF/GOT Scotland references for another site I was keeping, but during my worst poverty I lost that domain. I have another one I can stick it on, though. It’d be fun.

Next up. I wanted to let you know that I’m moving this site’s domain name again. There’s a sale on with .com domains for new registrations at my current hosting service. This wasn’t a new registration but I still got half off. I thought, “fuck it,” you know? I will have three more domains after this to move and I’ll probably do that later this week if I don’t forget. But ANYWAY, there may be a blip in site availability as they switch over. Past experience tells me that if there is one, it won’t last long, but I’m going to warn you anyway ’cause I’m nice like that.

And obviously, at that point it’ll be paid up for the following year, too. So that’ll be out of the way and no more drama for a while. Yay!

I haven’t forgotten Rory, this site, or y’all. Some things are better in my life, some I wish I could change, and basically just the whole past three and a half years has taken the wind out of my sails, and my mother’s passing last December didn’t help. (I have gotten particularly useless, except for the odd jobs I do around here, ever since then. Didn’t feel hugely sad, just went numb and got stuck. Same thing really, I guess.) I am currently planning a way to redirect my energy and make sure I get more done. This time in NorCal was never meant to be a final stop, unless the universe suddenly makes it one. It’s a way station, and I need to be making plans to move on at some point. I know where I’m going. You probably do too. (Not Scotland. Unless they develop a digital-nomad visa?) I just can’t do it YET. Got work to do.

Also got work to do here. As I allocate my time, that’ll include time spent here. Looooong overdue. Massive apologies that this place has gone stagnant. (Sorry, Rory!) I need to consolidate some more material at the very LEAST.

Sorry for my long silence here. I’ve been neglecting a whole bunch of stuff I shouldn’t be, one item of which I’m actually getting paid for, and I’m fairly disgusted with myself but hopefully I’m coming out the other side of it and can get on with things.

I wanted to drop in and say something because I just got the news about Denzil Meyrick today.

If you’re going “what’s that got to do with Rory?” then you’re new to the fandom, right? Meyrick wrote/ was writing a series of crime novels about a character named Jim Daley, a police officer in Scotland, and in recent years had been working on bringing DCI Daley to television. He posted on Facebook wondering aloud who his fans would want to see in the role, and they put him onto Rory as a candidate. Last I heard there had been filming of the pilot episode but I’ve heard nothing beyond that. The way TV works, the creators will put together the pilot episode and then shop it around to various networks and maybe it’ll get picked up and maybe it won’t. Rory’s already featured in at least one TV series that didn’t get picked up. You may have seen the video of the ad for it on YouTube.

I don’t know if that will be the fate of the DCI Daley series. It could go either way, really, if the decision has not already been made; they could say, “Oh, Meyrick has passed away so let’s drop this because it won’t be the same without him,” or they could say, “Oh no, Meyrick has passed away so let’s make this happen in his honor.” We’ll just have to wait and see.

One thing’s for sure: the news doesn’t say (as far as I’ve seen) what took Meyrick from us, but he didn’t see it coming. His recent Facebook posts indicate he expected to have a full year. There will be one more DCI Daley novel coming out this summer, apparently, for instance. All I can think is it was one of those things that tends to take us middle-aged people off when we least expect it. I always say that from ages forty to sixty we’re really running a deadly gauntlet and if we can make it to sixty we’ll be okay for a while yet. I am sorry for Denzil’s family, friends, and fans that that was not the case for him.

Oh hey, everyone! Happy New Year.

While I’d be lying if I said I was wall-to-wall busy, at least in a way that would have kept me from updating here, I have definitely been very distracted. Things got financially hairy there for a while. They may still yet again, but for now I’ve reached a weird little harbor: I’ve got a new odd job that may keep me for a while, and I’ve got a one-off gig for a friend that I’ve already been paid half for and when I get done, I’ll get the other half. That’s going to be my backup-slash-emergency fund. The odd job will be good for day-to-day financials, of which I have very few at this point, and also for adding to my savings. So I’m not panicking like I was. If you’ve never had money woes, you can’t really appreciate how much of your brainspace they can take up. I hate it. Hopefully I just went through my final year of things being That Bad. We’ll see.

We’ve just seen the U.S. debut of The Damned. Well. I haven’t seen it. The way things have been going, I’ll likely wait ’til it’s on DVD; there’s a movie theater in town, but it’s a bit farther than I would want to walk. If I already had a bicycle, that would be one thing; I can now afford the occasional movie excursion. The bicycle is coming. I just haven’t figured out how I’m going to make that happen yet. I have a few options, all with their unique pros and cons. But after I get it, I can start thinking about functioning a bit more normally as far as going out and doing stuff.

I’m certainly not going to wait until I’ve got a guy to do things with. There’s a vaguely possible candidate but, true to my general pattern of unavailable men, he’s in Canada so I can count on maybe seeing him once or twice a year unless we start dating, and even then it wouldn’t be often. I can at least look seriously at getting a passport now — the first time I met him in person, a passport might as well have been on the moon for me, so my change in fortunes affects that too. But this is counting my chickens before they hatch. I’ve seen signs that he’s interested? But he’s a weirdo, in a different way than I am a weirdo, so it’s hard to tell for sure. I do not say that to disparage. I mean, Rory’s a weirdo, and we all love him for that. Nothing wrong with being a weirdo. In general. But meanwhile, I’ve gone to movies by myself before. Restaurants too. It didn’t kill me. There’s also a library in town and I’ll be hitting that too.

I could even, hypothetically, restore my Rory collection and add to it. I probably will. I still have his autographed photo and some DVDs and that Entertainment Weekly edition with him and Thor on the cover. Also that miniature Hound helmet and the enamel pin. I’d like to snag the Game of Thrones box set again. I might do that for myself as a birthday present, since that’s coming up next Friday. (Fifty-one. Kind of anticlimactic.)

Hope you are all doing well. I see my visitor count hasn’t dropped any, and it’s nice to see that you still stop by. I’m not going to make any promises about upcoming updates, but that’s at least a thing I want to do, if that counts at all.

In case three of you have not seen this yet. Sound on:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rory McCann (@bigmanrorymccann)

I suspect there is a female-type person aboard in one clip, but of course I cannot tell who it is (even if it were his wife, I can’t confirm or deny that as I have no idea what she looks like, though the possibility of it being his sister is not off the table because now I think of it, Sally-Gay’s hair looked a lot like that during the filming of Season 8), and of course that’s not going to stop the wild speculation from fangirls generally. I get it. Just don’t expect any final answers, because those would have to come from the big man himself and y’all know by now he’s no blabbermouth.

He sort of used to be. He used to be more open about his life, but I can’t help thinking that backfired on him at some point and he has since wised up. It’s kind of a shame because he seems like a really interesting person, but if people were giving him shit because they knew stuff and they could find him — well, y’all know what they say about rotten apples and barrels.

Anyway. Enjoy.

P.S. I wouldn’t have done any better with that pillow shot. Except the ball would have STAYED ON the pillow as it sailed into the water. I’m talented like that.

I know all you fangirls have seen the trailer just dropped for The Damned, right? Probably got screenshots too.

Well, in case you didn’t get screenshots, here ya go.

And JUST IN CASE you have not seen the trailer:

Smart PR people, making sure Rory’s face was in the thumbnail.

It always amuses me to see him in something horror. We’ve talked about that before: he hates watching horror films. He’ll hide his face for the jump scares and probably the grody stuff. I’m the same way. Like, I love The Walking Dead, but I have to be crocheting or knitting as I’m watching it, that way I have an excuse to look down at strategic moments. So I get it, but it’s still funny to me. It is of course never the same experience being the actor and being the audience. Remember Rory talking about the scene in Game of Thrones with the zombie bear but all he saw was like a tennis ball and a green screen? Yeah. Never as scary to film it. So that’s why.

Well, and this was made in Iceland. Note to entertainment industry: If you want Rory in your project, film it in Iceland. You’re welcome. That’ll be eleventy billion dollars plz.

Just kidding.

No I’m not.

BUT, it looks like it will be a really good flick AND it is coming out the month of my birthday. I am so stoked. I live in a smallish town now, but it has a movie theater. WATCH me get my ass over there and see it. Might be matinee on opening day but god dawg it… Same goes for Gladiator II this next month if I can at all help it.

Hoping I can help it.

EXCITEMENT

Ahem. As you were. Sorry I ran a little late with this but you know what I always say: I chronicle. I do not scoop. It’s not even on purpose. It’s just me setting low expectations so I am less of a disappointment. I’m sneaky like that. You’re welcome.

Oh, how exciting! Rory got another voice job! If you were watching that DNA thing with Ancestry.com in the UK tonight, you heard him.

Just TYPICAL, though: this probably isn’t anything I’ll ever find on DVD. Dammit, big man… [shakes fist]

Nah, I’m playin’. (Okay, a little.) Always good to have a bit more of Rory’s voice out there in the world…

First off, wow, someone visited here from Marion, Ohio! I normally don’t talk about my visitor counter, though it’s never been a secret, because I don’t want to freak people out. I can’t see your name or address, I just see where in the world (city, state/province, country) you’re visiting from. I noticed Marion particularly because when I was homeless last year that’s where my rehousing caseworker with the Salvation Army kept trying to relocate me. I’ve even been there once to view an apartment. There’s a memorial in that town for former president Warren G. Harding — bet this is the first some of you have ever heard of him. I passed it on my left driving south on U.S. Highway 23 while I was there. Anyway. End of completely off-topic blather.

I also see someone hit here from Ayr. Howdy! Doubt it was the big man, but I like to think it could have been.

Okay. Just a few notes:

1. If you have a Google Alert set for Rory you may have noticed the obit. NO, Oor Rory is not dead. This was another Rory McCann born three years before the big man and it looks like he lived in England as well. Don’t SCARE me like that, Google. Jesus.

2. There has been a recent auction of Game of Thrones stuff. Mainly costumes and personal props such as Jon Snow’s Longclaw sword (awwww! I loved that thing!). But they also auctioned off one of Rory’s costumes. I don’t know which, but I know I did a search on this page and a couple things of his came up. Feel free to click around. And explore. And cry ’cause you can’t afford a single stitch of any of it. SOB.

(That link won’t stay good forever, I’d imagine. Better look while you can.)

3. If you like reaction videos, this is one-half of an adorable couple young enough to be my kids (well… not both at the same time… their surname’s not Targaryen) who typically do reactions to music videos and movies. It’s a lot of fun, or I think it is; it’s almost as good as knowing young people in person who I can introduce to everything I like. But anyway, Amber is currently watching our favorite series, and it is a real treat watching her experience all this for the first time. So if you like that sort of thing, enjoy.

Okay. Got schtuff to do and am hungry. Talk at ya later.