Y2/298 - Too Cold
Jan. 8th, 2022 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat
I thought about taking a walk today but too blasted cold. I consider 25 degrees F too cold. I'm admittedly a wimp who spent Christmas in 70-80 degree weather.
My Optimum upgrade arrived in the mail today. But I can't figure out how to install it - since it didn't come with certain items, and I do not have a cable wall outlet, I have a cable splinter. So I called Optimum and complained, wrangling a tech service call from them. Then they proceeded to call me three times after they set it up - to see if I would cancel it. No, I told them, I'm not cancelling - you sent me equipment I can't install myself. And you failed to tell me what was required prior to my request for the upgrade. This is on you. I think they will charge me $80 for the service call tomorrow - between 2-5pm. Because they like to make you wait three hours to see if they will arrive.
If it doesn't work - I'm switching to Verizon.
The box is sitting on my other armchair, aka dumping ground, waiting for use.
**
Mother has decided - the hell with this latest outbreak - and is going to church tomorrow morning and out to brunch with her friends. (She's going to wear a mask except while eating, and try to sit apart from folks. Also not singing in the choir.)
Meanwhile my church has gone full live-streaming again. But hey, I travel to and from the office two - three times a week, have a guy upgrading my cable/internet service tomorrow, get groceries, do laundry, etc.
Are we all just learning to live with COVID? I'm trying to decide if I can get up the courage to see Spiderman and/or West Side Story in movie theaters? Probably not - even though my cough has lessened.
Last night, I had a nightmare that I was back at school (UMKC of all places), and I forgot my mask. I was wondering stairwells etc, trying to get away from folks in dorms, because I didn't have a mask. It was horrible. Kind of haunts me for some reason or other.
**
Binge watched the rest of S4 Yellowstone. Also, got some back story on the writer/director of the series - Taylor Sheridan. He was an actor, and actually has a role in Yellowstone. He played in Sons of Anarchy, and various other things, small roles mostly. And finally realized he wasn't going to get anywhere as an actor - so decided to become a writer/director so he could call the shots. And chose to write what he knew - he's a cowboy who worked as a cowboy in Texas and Montana. So he writes about that - and as he put it, if you don't know it - you fall into cliches.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with the whole write what you know - hyper-realism crap. It tends to be dark, and if you aren't careful, whiny. I do not want to write about my life - because of those traps. I like to make up stuff and stories flow out of my head. Also, I've read broadly enough by now that I know 90% of writers make crap up. Most writers have imaginations. The ones who have to write what they know are kind of limited in that department. As Ursula Le Quinn stated once, she made everything up. She researched it and made it up. She never sailed in her life, knew nothing about it. She just researched it and wrote about it. Elmore Leonard hired a research assistant who traveled about and sent him stuff.
Not everyone writes what they know. Le Quinn said that she didn't, what would be the fun in that? And scoffed at those who swore they did, 'those liars', she said.
Actors and writers are very good liars, just saying.
Yellowstone is what I like to call a "modern western" - which tend to be rather dark. Larry McMurty kind of started the whole trend with Horseman, Pass By aka Hud. (Power of the Dog kind of reminded me of it, but creepier ending and no rape.) Most of the Westerns post the 1970s tend to be dark, gritty, and noirish or anti-hero tales. I like them - because they are nostalgic to me, I watched them with my parents as a kid, and my grandmother. Also I studied the genre in college - and broke down how the films were shot, the archetypes, and narratives. But they aren't for everyone, or the faint at heart - they tend to be violent, not politically correct, and gritty. Similar to the cop genre, and a lot of the science fiction genre, actually, which took the place of the Western in the 1980s.
Yellowstone - I watch mainly for the lead female character portrayed by Kathleen O'Reilly, who plays her like a sleek bobcat or lynx. She's tough, crafty, sneaky, and a wonderfully complex anti-hero. I adore her.
Also, watched the eighth episode of Yellowjackets. I'm hooked. The last three episodes were the best. Also the characters are wonderfully complex - in places. I particularly like Melanie Lansky's Shania, and Taissa. Their friendship builds slowly through the series. Taissa is a strong, smart, black lesbian, running for State Senate in New Jersey. But like Shania, she's still suffering from severe PTSD. Those two are the most interesting. Juliette Lewis' Natalie and Christina Ricci's Misty are rather cartoonish in middle age - I prefer the teen versions who have more angles.
The mystery is also intriguing. It kind of slowly falls together as we get more and more information. But is it enough to watch and keep Showtime? Eh,no. I'll cancel after the 16th.
**
Another thing I wanted to comment on that I saw online - was about fantasy novels and Wheel of Time. I can't find where it came from - except it was on Twitter. The comment was basically that fantasy wasn't all about men up until Wheel of Time novels, that there were a lot of novels by female writers and male writers with female heroines.
This is true.
Wheel of Time is also one of those series that is way overrated due to its political correctness (it has a diverse cast and LGBTA romances), but has issues in well all the other areas such as character development, pacing, world-building, and plotting. One reviewer felt it was a better adaptation of the source material than the Witcher. (First off? Having not read either and having no plans to ever do so, I don't care. My guess is most haven't? And in regards to WoT, those who read the books like it better than those who didn't, while the audience for The Witcher doesn't appear to care?)
I'm not sure it's a fair comparison in any event - since Wheel of Time is based on a series of books, and the Witcher is based on various translations of short stories, novellas, and video games, some of which are hard to find, and it is loosely based because the stories are out of order and the continuity is kind of lost. Of course they changed a lot, kind of had too. Also, The Witcher unlike WoT is dated, and has a lot of items that do not stand up well or come across well now. I remember reading way back when they did S1 that they had to change the bulk of it because the source material was a bit problematic. I've not see S2 yet. I liked S1 of the Witcher better than S1 of WoT, which I found difficult to get into and rather boring in places. Rosemund Pike is an icy actress who is difficult to care about regardless of what she is in, apparently. And no one else was all that much better. They all were rather stiff. While the folks in The Witcher were having fun, and the dialogue snapped and was witty. I couldn't wait to see each episode. (Note - I do not watch television for sermons or to have my liberal values affirmed, I can go to church for that. WoT is rather preachy in places, and often not in a good way, and it's dialogue is stilted and boring. While the Witcher had snappy dialogue in S1, and wasn't preachy at all and trusted the audience a bit more, with an interesting narrative structure. Again it was fun, WoT felt like watching something for school.)
Anyhow, it's kind of like comparing Game of Thrones adaptation to Lord of the Rings. Jackson had completed and detailed source material, Game of Thrones writers had an unfinished serial, and the details were far from perfect. GRR Martin is not a Tolkien.
See, this is why I refuse to be a television media critic/writer for onzines. I would end up writing crappy and meaningless articles like the one's I just quoted, and that add zip to our world. I can write that crap for free.
***
I'm taking a break from the news. Someone on Twitter coined the term PTTD, Post-Traumatic Trump Disorder. Fitting. Particularly since he's still alive and refuses to go away. And as a result the dumb media can't quite ignore him.
**
Random photo...
no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-10 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-10 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 04:14 pm (UTC)It's not like LOTR, or WoT for that matter.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 02:48 pm (UTC)Now I'll probably have nightmares about forgetting my mask, too! I have lots of nightmares set in high school, though I'm always older than high school age in them. I remember having dreams about being in school at Mizzou, but not nightmares. The nightmares set in Columbia, MO are always about driving around trying to find a place to park or coming out of an event wandering around trying to find where I parked. The kicker is I never had a car when I was in college!
Naturally, we would have nightmares about things we didn't need!
no subject
Date: 2022-01-10 06:14 pm (UTC)The going back to school nightmare is the common not feeling prepared. Although here - I think it was just in my head due to my niece going back to school, a book I'm reading, and the occasional day dream of going back and majoring in something else...my subconsicious is kind of telling me why that would not work out the way I want it too. (I didn't like school that much the first go around.)
It is odd how we dream about things we need now - but in a college setting, when we didn't need them - though.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-10 01:20 am (UTC)25 degrees is plenty cold if there is any wind going. In looking at the forecast this week I see one day suitable for walking and it's less due to temperature than due to wind.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-10 06:15 pm (UTC)