Station Eleven...among other things
May. 1st, 2022 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished Station Eleven on HBO Max. It surprised me. Or rather the last five episodes did. It's one of those series that takes a while to get into, and gets better as it goes along.
The story follows five characters that are loosely connected to each other during and after a pandemic. Two die in the pandemic, the rest, somehow survive.
Weirdly the pandemic bit didn't bother me. (Steven King, it's not). We get very little focus on it, and more on well the aftermath. Also, having lived through one and knowing a little about how viruses spread ...it didn't scare me at all. Clearly the writer doesn't have a background in viruology nor has she read up on the topic. (Viruses that explode and have incubation period like Ebola - don't really ever make it to the pandemic stage and are easier to contain. Why? You know who has it, and can isolate and quarantine far faster. Also it doesn't have time to infect that many people. Viruses that have an incubation stage and people survive, can infect a lot more people. Thus, you can't really wipe out the human race effectively with a virus.)
Also, like I said - not much focus on it. More on before and after. And the after is kind of mild take on post-apocalyptic world. While there is violence, there's not a lot of it. I expected a lot more. And most of it is off-screen. It's there, just no prevalent.
Most of the focus is on how to heal through art. Or the healing nature of art. And about grief and getting past it.
I was convinced that one character was going to die horribly, but instead he goes an entirely different route, and it's rather uplifting in a way.
Anyhow, I do recommend checking it out, if you can. It's actually interesting and somewhat innovative take on the genre. And more satisfying than most.
**
I think it's safe to say that I don't have COVID. No symptoms to speak of. I'll probably do the PCR test anyhow. I think I was about as exposed as I'd be going to the subway each day.
Mother keeps checking on me anyhow.
***
Entertainment Weekly is no longer being published as a "print" magazine. Instead of just cancelling my subscription - they sent me a tiny postcard informing me of it, and that they'd send me People magazine instead, until I called to cancel it.
I hate People magazine. I cannot possibly express how much I despise that magazine. It's pure celebrity gossip and promotion of celebrities that I do not care about or want to know about. But it does explain why I have gotten two issues, so far, that I've promptly thrown out without reading. Now, I'm getting a third. I called and cancelled, but apparently not fast enough to avoid getting the third issue. But at least I'm getting refunded $40. Also getting a $30 refund on my glasses, since they don't make the more expensive version of the lenses they'd talked me into ordering any longer.
I'm not shocked about Entertainment Weekly. It's print had gotten smaller, and most of its articles were available online free - long before they published it. Also it had moved from a weekly mag to a monthly one. It was just a matter of time. In other words the internet killed the magazine (along with so many others). The internet isn't killing books, it's killing magazines and newspapers.
**
Found out on Twitter last night that Kansas City Unanimously banned co-living rental units or made roommates illegal in Johnson County Kansas.
A city in Kansas has banned co-living, effectively making it illegal to have a group of unrelated roommates split the cost of rent in single-family residential zoning districts.
Shawnee, located in Johnson County, unanimously voted early last week to ban the living arrangement in an 8-0 vote by the City Council, The Kansas City Star reported.
As rental and housing prices have climbed across the country, people have turned to roommates to help balance the cost.
The Shawnee ordinance said a group of people is co-living if it includes at least four adults who are unrelated. Only one adult needs to be unrelated for the entire group to be classified as unrelated, according to the Kansas City Star.
"City Staff received input and concerns from residents and City Council members regarding a relatively new trend where single family homes are being purchased and converted into rental units with multiple individual tenants," a memorandum of the ordinance said.
"In this arrangement, individual tenants have leases of varying lengths, have separate secured access to their rooms, and often do not know or have relationships with the others who are also occupying the same single family dwelling," the memo continued, saying the rental arrangements are "not typical of common rental uses in single family districts that are occupied by family units."
Texted Bro to ask if he knew. His response: Whoa, that's messed up.
Me: My thoughts exactly. WTF? Right?
So somewhere along the line, Kansas City became fascist. Or the Kansas side did?
**
Also making my way through Julia - two episodes left, which should be airing this week. (I think there are two.) It's better than expected.
Although David Hyde Pierce's portrayal of Childs is kind of grating. A little too Niles Crane for my liking. Sarah Lancaster is, however, terrific as are the rest of the cast.
I'm thinking of watching The Batman tonight. I don't really want to buy any more food - have enough, and thinking a salad for tomorrow with nuts should be enough. Defrost the chicken, or just have quiche. I made a quiche. It's a light quiche. Half n Half (in lieu of cream), three eggs, cheddar and parmesene cheese (I'd run low on cheddar), spinach, and bacon. The cheddar was white, and it was lighter than some of the brands.
[As you can see, I can cook and am rather good at it. I just don't like appliances - or recipes - and can't figure out crock pots or insta pots (although I have both - so there's really no excuse). But it's not helped by the fact that I can't eat rice, most grains, gravies, and don't like stews. There's not a lot I can make in it - where I remove all of that.
They are still fighting over a specific character taking up too much air time on Soap Twitter. They all look like idiots. I want to smack them. I kind of tried too - but it's Twitter, they ignored me. They just can't seem to ignore one another. And on twitter? People fight by posting individual tweets at each other on the timeline. Or they retweet. It's like this huge battle of the marketing/promotional people.
Took some time to work on revising my novel, but I find it hard to revise when I'm on the computer revising and editing stuff at work. Lazy weekend for the most part.
The story follows five characters that are loosely connected to each other during and after a pandemic. Two die in the pandemic, the rest, somehow survive.
Weirdly the pandemic bit didn't bother me. (Steven King, it's not). We get very little focus on it, and more on well the aftermath. Also, having lived through one and knowing a little about how viruses spread ...it didn't scare me at all. Clearly the writer doesn't have a background in viruology nor has she read up on the topic. (Viruses that explode and have incubation period like Ebola - don't really ever make it to the pandemic stage and are easier to contain. Why? You know who has it, and can isolate and quarantine far faster. Also it doesn't have time to infect that many people. Viruses that have an incubation stage and people survive, can infect a lot more people. Thus, you can't really wipe out the human race effectively with a virus.)
Also, like I said - not much focus on it. More on before and after. And the after is kind of mild take on post-apocalyptic world. While there is violence, there's not a lot of it. I expected a lot more. And most of it is off-screen. It's there, just no prevalent.
Most of the focus is on how to heal through art. Or the healing nature of art. And about grief and getting past it.
I was convinced that one character was going to die horribly, but instead he goes an entirely different route, and it's rather uplifting in a way.
Anyhow, I do recommend checking it out, if you can. It's actually interesting and somewhat innovative take on the genre. And more satisfying than most.
**
I think it's safe to say that I don't have COVID. No symptoms to speak of. I'll probably do the PCR test anyhow. I think I was about as exposed as I'd be going to the subway each day.
Mother keeps checking on me anyhow.
***
Entertainment Weekly is no longer being published as a "print" magazine. Instead of just cancelling my subscription - they sent me a tiny postcard informing me of it, and that they'd send me People magazine instead, until I called to cancel it.
I hate People magazine. I cannot possibly express how much I despise that magazine. It's pure celebrity gossip and promotion of celebrities that I do not care about or want to know about. But it does explain why I have gotten two issues, so far, that I've promptly thrown out without reading. Now, I'm getting a third. I called and cancelled, but apparently not fast enough to avoid getting the third issue. But at least I'm getting refunded $40. Also getting a $30 refund on my glasses, since they don't make the more expensive version of the lenses they'd talked me into ordering any longer.
I'm not shocked about Entertainment Weekly. It's print had gotten smaller, and most of its articles were available online free - long before they published it. Also it had moved from a weekly mag to a monthly one. It was just a matter of time. In other words the internet killed the magazine (along with so many others). The internet isn't killing books, it's killing magazines and newspapers.
**
Found out on Twitter last night that Kansas City Unanimously banned co-living rental units or made roommates illegal in Johnson County Kansas.
A city in Kansas has banned co-living, effectively making it illegal to have a group of unrelated roommates split the cost of rent in single-family residential zoning districts.
Shawnee, located in Johnson County, unanimously voted early last week to ban the living arrangement in an 8-0 vote by the City Council, The Kansas City Star reported.
As rental and housing prices have climbed across the country, people have turned to roommates to help balance the cost.
The Shawnee ordinance said a group of people is co-living if it includes at least four adults who are unrelated. Only one adult needs to be unrelated for the entire group to be classified as unrelated, according to the Kansas City Star.
"City Staff received input and concerns from residents and City Council members regarding a relatively new trend where single family homes are being purchased and converted into rental units with multiple individual tenants," a memorandum of the ordinance said.
"In this arrangement, individual tenants have leases of varying lengths, have separate secured access to their rooms, and often do not know or have relationships with the others who are also occupying the same single family dwelling," the memo continued, saying the rental arrangements are "not typical of common rental uses in single family districts that are occupied by family units."
Texted Bro to ask if he knew. His response: Whoa, that's messed up.
Me: My thoughts exactly. WTF? Right?
So somewhere along the line, Kansas City became fascist. Or the Kansas side did?
**
Also making my way through Julia - two episodes left, which should be airing this week. (I think there are two.) It's better than expected.
Although David Hyde Pierce's portrayal of Childs is kind of grating. A little too Niles Crane for my liking. Sarah Lancaster is, however, terrific as are the rest of the cast.
I'm thinking of watching The Batman tonight. I don't really want to buy any more food - have enough, and thinking a salad for tomorrow with nuts should be enough. Defrost the chicken, or just have quiche. I made a quiche. It's a light quiche. Half n Half (in lieu of cream), three eggs, cheddar and parmesene cheese (I'd run low on cheddar), spinach, and bacon. The cheddar was white, and it was lighter than some of the brands.
[As you can see, I can cook and am rather good at it. I just don't like appliances - or recipes - and can't figure out crock pots or insta pots (although I have both - so there's really no excuse). But it's not helped by the fact that I can't eat rice, most grains, gravies, and don't like stews. There's not a lot I can make in it - where I remove all of that.
They are still fighting over a specific character taking up too much air time on Soap Twitter. They all look like idiots. I want to smack them. I kind of tried too - but it's Twitter, they ignored me. They just can't seem to ignore one another. And on twitter? People fight by posting individual tweets at each other on the timeline. Or they retweet. It's like this huge battle of the marketing/promotional people.
Took some time to work on revising my novel, but I find it hard to revise when I'm on the computer revising and editing stuff at work. Lazy weekend for the most part.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-02 01:15 am (UTC)It sounds like Shawnee wants to keep out immigrants... I wish I could say I'd never heard of such a thing as not allowing roommates, but I seem to recall that happening long ago in a suburban town near where I lived in St. Louis County. That town council was a bunk of jerks in more ways than one. I remember the upper floor burned in a house that had been built long before the town was there. The lower floor was okay. The city refused to give the family the permits to repair the upper floor, because they wanted to turn the area into an industrial park...
no subject
Date: 2022-05-04 02:29 am (UTC)It sounds like they have gone batshit crazy?
And you heard of it before? Okay that proves that mid-westerners are insane. We barely got out in time.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-04 12:19 am (UTC)That is too bad about EW though like you said, not surprising. And I think the only time I've read People is when I am waiting at the hairdresser with nothing else to do, so I get why you are not a fan. Not a lot of substance there.
Wow, what a weird law.
Only one adult needs to be unrelated for the entire group to be classified as unrelated,
And seems like they're really taking into extremes.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-04 02:25 am (UTC)I told my mother about it (we used to live in Johnson County way back in the 20th Century), and she was appalled.