PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

I imagine the cost of living is pretty high, but they don't have any State tax llRC.

 

I love The Sopranos! This is absolutely no secret...

I was not even ten years old when the series debuted on HBO in January 1999, and obviously my parents did not allow me to watch it with them. Considering that my parents let me play Grand Theft Auto for the first time in 2003, and let me watch R-rated movies for the first time that same year, I was probably "old enough" for the Sopranos by the time the 5th season came out in 2004. However, my parents said that I had missed too much of the series and "wouldn't get it". I complied.

Right before the series concluded in 2007, A&E started airing censored reruns; By "censored", I mean that the women were fully clothed in scenes where you could see their boobs in the original HBO version, and all uses of the F-word had been replaced with similar but more socially acceptable words. These were not hastily bleeped out either; It was clear that David Chase and the producers expected the series to be aired in reruns after it officially ended, and they didn't want some young kid to be exposed to a bunch of profane mobsters and nude strippers, so they obviously shot profane versions for HBO and the non-profane version for future airing. Other swear words, including "shit", were not edited out, presumably because A&E aired the reruns late enough at night that the FCC didn't care.

 

The very first episode I saw was "Whitecaps", the season four finale where Carmela finally becomes fed up Tony's infidelity and kicks him out of the house. The episode is called "Whitecaps" because before Tony and Carmela separate, Tony plans to buy a house down the shore (in cash, no less; Must be nice to a rich mob boss), and the house is called Whitecaps. A secondary plot of the episode is that the guy selling the shore house is an attorney who knows Tony is a mobster, and initially refuses to let him back out of the deal when his marriage goes bad; Tony enlists his cronies anchor his (Tony's) yacht outside the lawyer's house and blast Dean Martin on the stereo system until the lawyer caves (which he does).

 

So in the summer of 2007, we were living at my Grandma's house in Bethlehem while we waited for our new house to be built, and A&E was one of the channels I watched regularly at the time. A&E would air clips from the various episodes, and one of these clips drew me to watch the episode that night; The specific clip that drew me was Tony talking to an attractive blonde woman on crutches.

I had never watched a whole episode of The Sopranos in my entire life at that point, but I'd seen enough bits and pieces of them over the years to know that Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) was a milfy blonde woman; I assumed that this woman on crutches was Carmela and immediately asked my mom if there was an episode where Tony's wife had gotten a leg injury at some point. She could not recall....

I was 18 years old at the time, and I happened to have the house to myself on the night A&E aired Whitecaps for the first time, so I plopped down in front of Grammy's then-new 42" plasma TV and put it on A&E; Turns out the blond woman on crutches was not Carmela, but rather a one-legged Russian nurse who'd cared for Tony's Uncle Junior, and who he'd had sex with at least one (Tony loved his Eastern European woman). The main plot of Whitecaps is that another of Tony's former mistresses drunk-dials his house; The drunk woman is the cousin of the amputee woman, and blabs to Carmela over the phone that Tony slept with her cousin...

Carmela promptly loses it, and pretty much kicks Tony out of the house. I forget exactly how the blonde woman because an amputee (I believe she had an illness as child while growing up in Russia). I watched Whitecaps and immediately became hooked on the series! A&E had just started airing the Sopranos reruns at that point, so they were still in the process of airing episodes that had NEVER been seen outside of HBO; At some point in 2007 or 2008, they hadn't gotten all of the later season five and season six episodes, so they reverted to the first season. This is how I was able to watch the series from the very beginning; Season six was abruptly put on hiatus after star James Gandolfini was injured in a crash on his Vespa, and delayed by about a year. Season six ended with episode twelve in June 2006 and picked up with episode thirteen in April 2007; I believe I saw Whitecaps for the very first time in July or August 2007.

For some reason, they stopped airing the episodes in order after episode twelve of season six in the middle of 2008, and it took months before they started airing the later season six episodes; I became so impatient that I actually bought the second half of season six on iTunes. I eventually ended up buying the complete series on iTunes in late 2008 or early 2009, and rewatching it again in all of its uncensored, nude stripper, profanity-laced glory. This was right around the time I started hanging out at The Coffeehouse, and it was no uncommon for a couple of the adult staffers to watch it with me on my laptop.

I most recently rewatched the entire series over the course of last summer, and plan on rewatching it again beginning today. The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel starring James Gandolfini's teenage son as a young Tony Soprano and Vera Farmiga as Tony's mother, is scheduled for release this September! You bet your ass I'm gonna see it!

 

For many years, I was on the fence about whether Tony was killed at the very end of the series finale; After reading a few articles, I firmly believe that Tony’s life of crime finally caught up with him and that he got “whacked” in front of his family while indulging in the best onion rings in New Jersey.

 

After what happened to Kobe Bryant and his daughter, I don’t think I want to get on a chopper unless my life depends on it!

 

@ColoradoTJ
@Pinay
@4x4Runner

Any of you ever watch The Sopranos?

 

I'm rewatching it in preparation for the prequel film that's coming out in September! Did you like it?

 

This is the Generator I bought after that ice storm.

 

You didn't know?

It's called The Many Saints of Newark, scheduled for release on September 25th, I believe...

James Gandolfini's son Michael will be playing a young Tony. Vera Farmiga (from Bates Motel and the most recent Godzilla) will be playing Livia Soprano. I can't wait!

 

I've watched a few episodes...

 

Did you like it?

 

Oooh, gonna have to catch up in preparation!

 

My parents have HBO and I have all but one of the episodes on iTunes; Almost halfway through season one right now!

 

I didn’t know Honeywell made generators. Can that run your central A/C and heat?

 

Thats quite a bit of catching up Charlie!

 

As of right now I just rigged it up that I can plug the furnace in, will eventually add a transfer switch and would think I could possibly do the AC at that point. It has 7500 running watts and I believe 9500-10,000 start up watts.

 

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I found out that James Gandolfini died!