This that and the other thing...

[shadowkat]

1. Over a hundred pages into new novel that I'm writing. Working title? "Not Another Valentine's Day". I'm basically subverting the contemporary romance trope that I've read. Flipping genders. The heroine is an African-American female veteran who dismantled bombs, the hero a night-club owner sex therapist specializing in BDSM. It's a second chance at love romance, except he doesn't know that she's his ex-fiancee who died in the war. I can't do the historical, because I don't like to research and historicals require a lot of research. Okay maybe not, but if I were writing them they would require a lot of research.

I don't know if I'll finish it or it will be read by anyone. At this point, I just want to get the story out. The quickest route to writer's block is worrying about readership.

2. Accomplished a lot this weekend. Wrote a Word Press blog post on Gun Control. Filed my 2017 tax return (ugh, it gets worse and more complicated every year -- took five hours to do the thing and I used Turbo Tax), filled out my union health benefit reimbursement forms, robot vaccumed by apartment -- basically I turn the thing on and wander around my apartment after it, monitoring it's movements and moving stuff out of its way. Did laundry. Made up my bed clean. Worked on book. Went grocery shopping twice to three different stores, on foot. (So basically walked two miles with twenty pound weights). Also finished watching the Olympics, which is bloody frustrating to watch by the way, they do not make it easy on you. I hard to work hard to see the figure skating. Too hard from my perspective, so I gave up on the pairs and women's figure skating and just caught the ice dancing and the men's figure skating.

Tired. Tomorrow? Go back to work.

3. Television?

* Last episode of Nashville until they pick up again in June and show the final six episodes, was actually pretty good. Best episode this year to date. Better songs, and the plot made a little more sense, not a lot but there were some decent moments.

This final season is not well-written. Possibly the worst of the series to date, which admittedly is saying something.

Poor Avery. I feel so sorry for that character.

* Winter Olympics

The commentary is annoying. Also way too many commercials, and far too much jumping about. I got frustrated. It requires a lot of patience to watch the Olympics, or a desire to use it as background chatter -- which I admittedly did for the most part.


* Riverdale

Yep, Twin Peaks for the 14-20 set. Still from a cinematography angle -- quite fetching. Also the characters are interesting. Luke Perry has not aged well and is rarely seen. Neither has Madchen Amick for that matter.

Everything else is on hiatus. And I've admittedly been writing more than watching. Same for reading, haven't read for pleasure at all lately -- mainly writing.

4. Cousin is posting a heck of a lot of information on guns and gun control on Face Book (he's liberal and into being informed.)

So here they are for the mildly curious...

* National Constitution Center - the National Constitution Center which is "The first and only institution in America established by Congress to "disseminate information about the United States Constitution on a nonpartisan basis in order to increase the awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people."

* Examining the History of the Second Amendment via the National Constitution Center

This is the amendment that grants people the right to bear arms, and is at the center of the big gun control debate for well about 50 some years and change.

* A Non-Gun Owners Guide to Guns

* Who Can Own a Full Auto Machine Gun

He also was educating on the differences between bump-stock guns and non-bump stock.

Here's a thread:

Mother's Cousin: I've been looking at gun laws and I was surprised that you *can* own an automatic weapon (multiple bullets fired with one pull of the trigger). But their ownership is controlled by the National Firearms Act originally started in 1934. So there are a lot of regulations to own one. After 1986 the NFA barred normal citizens from buying newly manufactured automatic weapons which made the pre-1986 prices skyrocket. There are about 240,000 automatic weapons owned in the USA, and only 3 crimes since 1934 involved automatic weapons.

Uncle: There is an interesting correlary to this since 1986 or so you cannot buy or sell a fully automatic gun, ie a gun you pull and hold the trigger and it just fires repeatedly. You can have a gun that fires as fast as you can pull and release the trigger. Which can be very fast. Not knowing what people think the definition of an assult rife is, but what is sold as an assult rifle looks menacing but is still one shot per pull of the trigger, no matter what the size of the magazine is. Now the correlary you can modify a gun with what is called a bump stock. The bump stock is a mechanism in the butt of the gun that as the gun recoils from a shot rearms the gun and fires another shot, so effectively gets you close to full automatic action. Guns are not sold with the bump stock feature but there are numberous aftermarket refits out there easy enough for most people to modify their guns getting the effect of a full automatic. Obviously while available at the moment, the government is working hard to control this loop hole.

Gun enthusiast: believe it’s called a “bump stock” and they should be illegal to make or possess.

Friend of Cousin: I am confused by the statement that only 3 crimes have been committed by automatic weapons since 1934. Aren’t the shootings (FL, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas ...) all accomplished by automatic weapons?

Cousin: No. They were all semi-automatic. But in Las Vegas, the shooter used a 'bump stock' which turns the AR-15 almost automatic.

Comments

[cactuswatcher]

The commentary is annoying. Also way too many commercials, and far too much jumping about.

Considering most of the action occurred over night and could have been edited, it was awful coverage. We in the west were getting some live coverage that must have come in after midnight back east. NBC wanted it to go like the summer Olympics when there is just too much to show on one channel, but it didn't work that way. They stuffed things on 'cable' channels just to make money not because there was any need. I think if I were a sponsor I'd tell them to drop dead next time. Nobody wants to watch so many commercials.

Hearing one athlete's sad story is one thing. The personal features on the athletes were out of all reason this time. Nobody wants to hear about the umptieth (fill-in-the-sport) athlete's grandmother who died years ago and upset who's-it's training schedule for a week or so.

And as you said the commentary was generally bad. Johnny Weir? 'Hey, I wear more makeup than Tara Lupinski! Let's show that off for a while every day instead of more figure skaters.' Did we really need two analysts for those figure skating events, anyway?

I suspect that all those trick skiing and trick snowboarding events that have crept into the winter Olympics recently are just a way to give a few more medals to Americans, so more Americans will watch, and the variations on the same old skiing slalom are to get more Europeans to watch. 'Ooh, look! He grabbed his skis!' 'Ooh, look! Another drop-out world class athlete is doing the same trick we saw the last few days running, but on green skis instead of a purple snowboard!' 'Oh, this time, what's-her-name is sure to win another medal in the sort of long, but not too long, super, midget, giant, curvy, mostly straight, slalom.' I admit I like to watch a boring sport like bobsledding more than trick skiing. (It's not much less dangerous and for anybody who has been on a sled it's a little bit nostalgic.)

Next Winter Olympics: quadrathalon on ice, combining speed skating, ice dancing, boxing and rifle shooting all in one event.

[shadowkat]

LOL!

I had to look up Johnny Weir, since I had no idea who he was or why he was a commentator. He didn't add much of anything, nor did Tara Lipinisky, who looked odd -- as if she'd had plastic surgery or something. Actually they both looked odd -- as if someone had done something to their faces? Found it distracting. The ice dancing commentators weren't bad. Although why they felt the need to comment during the gala or most of the sport, I've no clue. Due to the requirement that everyone do a quad and/or spin -- most of the performances began to look alike after a while. The only interesting ones were by the Japanese , Canadians and French.

The bobsled was interesting for a bit. I tried the aerial skiing, but spent too much time wondering why they were doing it. Seemed dangerous and rather pointless. Sledding I can understand, trick skiing? But I'm admittedly not a fan of skiing. I prefer the summer Olympics to the winter in some respects. So too do the networks apparently. Not surprised. More events, more coverage.

I agree, they did not need all those interviews or back-stories, or to repeat them endlessly. And the commercial interruptions...ugh. It was shown from 8pm to 5am in the morning on the East Coast. And I noticed that the broadcasts after 11PM, were actually just repeats of the 8PM telecast. Why?

Is it just me or are the telecasts of the Olympics getting progressively worse instead of better?

[cactuswatcher]

Tara Lupinsky looked a little odd to me as well. I chalked it up to the fact Weir was wearing heavier makeup and frillier costumes, and kept acting mischievous with a silly grin, drawing attention to himself on camera. Neither she nor the main skating announcer were smiling as much as usual. I got the feeling that Lupinsky and Weir are friends, but she wasn't exactly comfortable with his on-camera behavior. So her face was always a little strained, wondering whether she should lean in and quietly growl, "Calm down, Johnny!" in his ear. He wasn't such a distraction once he was just talking, off camera, but as you say neither of them added a lot to the coverage.

Just after 11PM your time, the black guy who was hosting the overall coverage would say the East coast and Midwest had gone to local news, and those of us in the West were going to live coverage. He even said on one of the last few nights, going to live events was more fun. I doubt there were enough events to have live coverage all night long, especially with the hockey games all off the broadcast channel.

Back many years ago ABC did the Olympics and the coverage was better because they covered many of the events during their regular seasons on the show "Wide World of Sports." The announcers were more familiar with the sports and the athletes. The people putting the video together knew more about the sports, so the audience could see why and where some athletes were doing better or worse. ABC was paying far less for the games (even in today's dollars) so there weren't as many commercials to get back the money they paid for the broadcast rights. Yeah, it's worse now.

[shadowkat]

Also, you didn't have to hunt for the events. Such as the hockey games -- I couldn't find them, so gave up, wasn't interested enough. And missed part of the figuring skating for the same reasons. Too much focus on down-hill skiing, speed skating trials, and snowboarding, which is rather boring unless you do it.

I think Weir was overly made-up for the event, so that was part of the problem. He's a commentator, they aren't supposed to be noticeable. I did however appreciate the diversity in broadcast journalists -- a positive change from before.