Sunrise on 42 nd Street...

[shadowkat]

This is the view that greets me when I exit the subway terminal at 42nd Street and 5th Avenue on my way to Madison Avenue and 45th - to work. We used to work in Jamaica, but have since moved to Mad Avenue.



Life continues to skip and lurch.

Today's workplace conversations concerned the insane powerball lottery amount of 1.4 Billion. Which of course everyone is going out and buying tickets for. I'm in two lottery/powerball pools. One that will buy over 100 tickets. (37 people, $10 dollars each, $370 dollars worth of powerball tickets, which I think is at least 100 tickets. If we win, we split it 37 ways, with 22.3 million per person. I could retire on 22.3 million. Actually, I could comfortably retire on 5-10 million.) The other one is 12-13 people and we just all pay two dollars a week - so if we win that one, a heck of a lot more money involved. We were joking about the odds -- apparently there's a 1 in 292.5 million chance of winning. And while a slightly bigger chance of winning $7 or $100, it's still unlikely. Plus the state will take roughly half of the winnings, so as one co-worker stated, the State wins regardless. (That's why they do it - because of the amount of money the State gets out of the transaction.)

We also discussed Atlas Shrugged - which my Russian Co-worker (former Russian) recently read and enjoyed. (Well up to a point, he agreed that Rand got a tad preachy and the story sort of sails out of the proverbial window half way through. I suggested he try Anthem or Fountainhead, both have more story. If anyone would understand where Ayn Rand was coming from, he would. Rand came from Stalinist Russia in the 1930s and 40s. As Russian co-worker stated, "no one could own any property" and the environment was stifling creatively speaking. All the power and wealth was in the hands of a few. (No matter the economic system, humans can't get past their tendency to hold onto greed and power.) Except Rand went to the opposite extreme, which, ahem, is The Big Short, and the 2008 financial crisis, also the 1929 stock market crash - that ushered in a period of socialist reform and communist sympathy around the world. Go too far one way, the pendulum pops back the other way. Seeing the same response today. Finding a balance is the key, we're still struggling with that. Human beings are such extremists..

Watched another episode of The Expanse and I think they've changed a few things from the book. Granted it's been a while since I read the book, so my memory may be sketchy. But I don't remember Naomi being blamed by the Martians for the demise of the Canterbury.
Nor do I remember, Miller's partner being female, and his other, younger partner, getting killed off.
Also, the characters seemed older in the book, somehow.

The tv series is pretty but not compelling like the book was. I recommend, alas like so many things, reading the book and skipping the series. There's only a few sci-fi and fantasy book adaptations, very few, that I'd recommend the opposite. It's hard, I think to adapt science fiction and fantasy novels to the screen, not completely certain why. You'd think with all the advances in technology it would be easier. But too often story is sacrificed for pretty F/X.

Most of the really good adaptations were made prior to nifty special effects, which is sort of ironic.

It's sad, I haven't found a sci-fi series that holds my attention in forever. How was Sense8 and Man in the High Castle? Haven't tried either as of yet.

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

That's a great photo.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It was not easy to capture. Had to take it around pesky pedesterians.