This that and the other thing...

[shadowkat]

1. Russian Doll was renewed for a second season. I know. Why. It worked very well as a one-off limited series.

2. Sandra Bullock, John Legend and Akiva Goldsmith are developing a "musical" television series based on Sandra Bullock's college years in the 1980s.

3. Hope for those of us who are terrified to drive --actual progress regarding self-driving car testing by Uber.

4. Batman texts Robin about setting up a Son's Day for his kid, just to ensure the kid gets him something for father's day

Hmmm...

There's a site called "Texts from Superheros"??

When did Batman have the time or the inclination or find someone crazy enough to have a kid with? Catwoman would abort it. I don't think Wonder Woman can and would definitely use birth control.

And...I probably shouldn't tell you this? But Batman's child raising philosophy reminds me a bit too much of my Uncle's. (Father's brother, who is just two years younger than he is -- father is oldest of eleven.) Which probably explains why neither son is really speaking to my Uncle at the moment. Note to Batman -- if you don't want Damian to disappear on you (although how anyone would manage that with Batman is beyond me -- then again my Uncle was in military intelligence and his kids managed it), be nicer.

5. Reading the Widows of Malabar Hill is reminding me of why I stopped reading mysteries a while back -- the plot doesn't quite work and I think I know who did it. The book is at its most interesting when it isn't trying to be a mystery novel.
Writing mysteries is a lot harder than it looks. Mystery plots are delicate things, not everyone can pull them off effectively.

BTW: Why are the publishers all using Jacqueline Whinsper's cover desin from the Maisie Dobbs mysteries for their own? Do they think we won't notice? Or do they think that fans of Maisie Dobbs will accidentally buy the books?

I've noticed it with the Sujata Massay -- "Perveen" Mysteries, the Maggi Hope Spy Mysteries, and now the Amory Ames mysteries. Can they not find something more distinctive and innovative? I did. My father did. It's not hard. Of course we're also artists and self-published, so there's that.

6. Ever since, Chidi told me with some embarrassment that he'd read Normal People, it's popping up on every summer reading book list. EW and the Washington Post.

Chidi: I'm embarrassed to tell you this..
Me: What?
Chidi: I read Normal People by Sally Rooney.
Me: Have no clue what that book is..never heard of it.
Chidi's eyes bug out. Seriously they do bug out. The man can go an impression of a Loony Tunes character without working that hard at it.
Chidi: You've never heard of it?
ME: No. Any good -- although since you are embarrassed about it..
Chidi (sheepish): no, I found it to be a lot of fun.
Me: Well considering what I read, romance novels, comic books and pretty much everything -- you do not need to be embarrassed with me. I don't care what people read. (Okay not entirely true -- if you are reading things by Bill O'Reilly and Trump, I may have to smack you, also Bret Easten Ellis, but other than that, we're good.)
Chidi laughs. I tell him about the latest book I'm reading.
Chidi: How do you find such obscure books to read?
ME: Smartbitches.com (I sort of say it in a whisper)
Chidi: Smart what??? (his eyes bug out again and he almost falls out of his chair)
Me: Smartbitches -- it does reviews and such..

Anywho after that, I kept seeing this book pop up. It doesn't look all that interesting to me, but what do I know?

With her second book, the Irish 28-year-old continues to be hailed as a voice of her generation. The addictive story about social hierarchies follows a popular athlete and a bookish pariah who start a secret relationship while in high school.

Okay. I've read this before. Can't remember the title. But I've definitely read this story multiple times...sort of reminds me of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin without Tam Lin.

Actually none of the books on these lists look at all appealing. They haven't for some time. Instead I grab the obscure off the beaten track books rec'd by Smart Bitches and DW correspondence list, and occasionally Good Reads. Cheaper, and usually more interesting. I don't know why this is...it just is.


7. Divided We Stand


Basically the Republican Controlled States like Alabama have swung to the far right and the Democrate controlled states like Illinois and New York are swinging to the far left.

Personally? I'm glad I'm in New York and not Alabama. Even though some of NY's law seem a bit deranged even to me.

On the plus side? Looks like NY is about to pass Rental Reform

The current rent regulations expire on Saturday. The new and strengthened rules would mark a turning point for the 2.4 million people who live in nearly one million rent-regulated apartments in New York City after a decades-long erosion of protections and the loss of tens of thousands of regulated apartments.

The legislation in Albany is far-reaching: While rent regulations are currently restricted largely to New York City and a few other localities, the new package would allow cities and towns statewide to fashion their own regulations, which are meant to keep apartments affordable by limiting rent increases.

It would also make the changes permanent — a major victory for tenant activists who have had to lobby Albany every few years when the old laws expired.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, said he would sign whatever package of rent bills the Legislature passed.

The imminent changes come as New York and other major cities are grappling with a shortage of affordable housing, prompting even Democratic presidential hopefuls to increasingly court renters as a new voting bloc.

New York has seen record numbers in homelessness statewide and skyrocketing rents that have acutely burdened low-income and older residents. “The Senate and the Assembly are taking a massive step in the right direction,” said Cea Weaver, the campaign coordinator of Housing Justice for All, a statewide coalition of tenants.

“We have a long way to go to reach a point where every tenant in New York is protected, but this is a big step forward to correct decades of injustice between tenants and landlords,” she added.

Real estate trade groups called the proposed legislation an existential threat to building owners. In hearings and through expensive ad campaigns, the groups warned that the changes could put small landlords out of business because they would be unable to increase rents to deal with escalating costs.

“This legislation fails to address the city’s housing crisis and will lead to disinvestment in the city’s private sector rental stock consigning hundreds of thousands of rent-regulated tenants to living in buildings that are likely to fall into disrepair,” Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, a coalition of four real estate groups, including the powerful Real Estate Board of New York, said in a statement.

“This legislation will not create a single new affordable housing unit, improve the vacancy rate or improve enforcement against the few dishonest landlords who tend to dominate the headlines,” the statement added. “It is now up to the governor to reject this deal in favor of responsible rent reform that protects tenants, property owners, building contractors and our communities.”

The agreement on Tuesday underscored the rising power of the progressive wing in Albany. Many of the lawmakers who fueled the Democratic takeover of the Senate last year pledged to decline contributions from real estate interests and ran on promises to take on the industry by passing legislation supported by tenant groups.

Landlords and developers, accustomed to ready access to Albany insiders, were shut out of meetings and vilified at rallies.
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“None of these historic new tenant protections would be possible without the fact that New York finally has a united Democratic Legislature,” the legislative leaders said in their statement.

As Saturday’s deadline loomed, tempers and tensions had risen. Last week, hundreds of activists flooded the State Capitol, staging a rowdy demonstration and leading to dozens of arrests.

Anxiety over the deadline, and fighting among some Democrats, seemed to heighten the intensity surrounding the rent negotiations. On Tuesday, lawmakers and staff members huddled into the evening as they hashed out the final details on the legislation.

Left uncertain was the involvement of Mr. Cuomo, an outsize figure in any negotiations in the capital, who won a third term in November.

Tenant activists had urged the Democratic majorities in the Senate and the Assembly to shut out Mr. Cuomo, who has received millions of dollars in real estate campaign contributions. Though legislative leaders did not explicitly agree, Tuesday’s package was the product of two-way negotiations, according to a person familiar with the talks.

Mr. Cuomo, at a news conference before the deal was announced, had dismissed the idea that he needed to be involved.

“There is no negotiation. I will sign the best bill they can pass,” he said.

He did not immediately comment after the Legislature’s deal.

Encouraged by the Democratic takeover, a statewide coalition of tenants had been pressuring lawmakers for months to pass nine bills collectively known as “universal rent control.”

The deal reached on Tuesday included several of those proposals or modified versions of them.

Lawmakers agreed to abolish so-called vacancy decontrol, a provision that allows landlords to lift apartments out of regulation when their rents pass a certain threshold. The rule has led to the deregulation of more than 155,000 units since it was enacted in the 1990s.

They also agreed to repeal the so-called vacancy bonus, which allows landlords to raise rents by up to 20 percent whenever a tenant moves out of a rent-stabilized apartment.

And they pledged to rein in provisions that allow landlords to raise the rents of rent-regulated apartments when they renovate units or fix up buildings — perhaps the most hotly debated proposal of the package.

Housing advocates have long argued that building owners routinely abuse those provisions, inflating construction costs to jack up rents and push out tenants.

But Mr. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said they supported revising the provisions, not repealing them, because they provide incentives for landlords to keep buildings in livable conditions. The real estate industry has argued the same.

To combat abuse, the state would be required to inspect and audit a portion of buildingwide improvements.

Additional changes would make permanent discounts on rents known as “preferential rents,” preventing landlords from sharply increasing those rents when a regulated tenant renews a lease. [THIS MEANS I NO LONGER HAVE TO FRET ABOUT MY RENT BEING INCREASED FROM $100-$1500 WHENEVER IT COMES UP FOR RENEWAL! I have a preferential lease..and my discounted rent is about $1000 below the market rent on the contract. Doing happy dance. Yes! Yes!]

Only one component of the tenant activists’ platform was notably absent: a “good cause” eviction bill that would have made it considerably harder for landlords to evict tenants in most market-rate apartments statewide.

But the Legislature did agree to limit security deposits on apartments statewide to one month’s rent and to provide tenants in eviction proceedings with more time to hire a lawyer, address lease violations and pay overdue rent.

The legislation would also make it a punishable misdemeanor for landlords to evict tenants by illegally locking them out or through force.

YAY. Take that, you evil greedy real estate developer. Hah.

The downside is that it might mean an end to needed building renovations. NY has weird rent laws. The whole preferential lease bit is a major loophole around the requirements of the tax abatement rules for 6 or more unit apartments. Very happy about this turn of events.

BTW -- buying a house in NYC is impossible. I can't afford it and I make a good salary and have quite a bit in savings.

8. And Marvel has now made me weirdly obsessive over the Scott Summers and Emma Frost relationship...I blame issue #19 of Un-Canny X-men, where it is revealed that Emma is more or less responsible for all of Scott's actions in 16 of the last 18 issues, and also manipulated Wolverine. Wolverine just figured it out. And Emma's motives are rather sketchy.

Making this even more intriguing is that Scott prior to dying, had been rather manipulative and strategic and ruthless in his plotting, but then died, and when he came back -- got all the memories of his younger self who had time traveled to the future and saw first hand, the results of his older self's decision-making and actions. Resurrected Scott has some serious regrets and is trying to redeem himself and do better -- but fracking Emma has screwed it all up. Not to mention, he most likely remembers the crazy stuff she got up to when he was dead, and his younger self was fighting her. Add to this -- he's lost all his friends and most of his found family. And...he was in love with her, he trusted her, and they were a couple for years.

Oh, the drama.

And actually that relationship tracks. In soap operas, the character's emotional arc and relationships make sense, the plot just doesn't. So I hand wave that.

Comments

[dar_vidder]

Ooh, yay for self-driving cars! I really hope this takes off in a big way in the near future!

[shadowkat]

Exactly! I have hopes that they will iron out all the kinks, have a really safe and affordable self-driving vehicle on the market by the time I retire and want to leave NYC in about ten to twelve years. I think a 10-12 year time frame is totally doable.