(no subject)

1. I've been scanning critics best of the decade lists and...I don't agree with any of them. And in most cases, I either didn't watch/read over half the things they listed nor feel the need to, or...am kind of paralyzed with not caring very much.
I don't know what that says exactly about me or the decade or my opinion of the current professional book/movie/television critics? Maybe just that taste varies?

It's sort of pointless debating taste. I mean people either like something or they don't. They don't often know why. It just is. Although it is possible to just be ambivalent, and neither like nor dislike something -- which frankly is 98% of the things listed. I am just ambivalent.

I do not understand the appeal of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. People act like no one has written like that before. Has no one read Patricia Highsmith? She was a much better writer -- whose books were made into better movies - "Strangers on a Train", "The Talented Mr. Ripley". Or Dauphne Du Maurie - "Cousin Rachel" or Shirley Jackson - who wrote "We've Always Lived in the Castle".

2. Chest cough is not abating and keeps coming and going. I'll go for a while with nothing, then it's back with a vengeance -- and no real warning. Also it is causing fatigue, loss of appetite (not a bad thing -- that's actually in the plus column), and a sense of ennui or not caring much about anything or irritability.

I'm debating whether or not I can go see a movie on Saturday. ( Read more... )

3. Hmmm...this is actually an interesting best of..book list:

The 50 Best Non-Fiction Books

I don't generally read nonfiction for pleasure -- mainly because I read non-fiction on the internet and at work -- which is approximately 80% of the time. So commute is fiction, before bed - fiction, and pleasure - fiction. For pleasure? I read whatever I please.

But, I have read a few of these...and I have either tried or own others. And there are others on this list that appear intriguing. Hence the sharing. I may actually try some of these. But I don't feel like copying the whole list here -- so you will have to jump to the link.

4. Work made me nuts again. Two teleconferences where people yelled at each other over the phone -- no wonder I have a headache.

Mother: We shouldn't talk for very long, it will make you cough more.
Me: I've been talking to people all day long and you're really the only one I wanted to talk to.
Mother (laughs)

5. Hmmm...for later reading.. Let's Go Colonize Titan

6. pseudo-political but not blood pressure inducing...
So you are a congresswoman - now what?

[Apparently it's more like VEEP than the WEST WING...which may explain why I could watch the West Wing and not VEEP?]

( Excerpt )

Impeachment Hearings..

Impeachment hearings...are going in the direction I've been thinking for some time.
I can't watch the damn things -- mainly because I'm at work during them, and I am furious at the Republicans who insist on making this political and divisive, when they should be acting as fact-finders and following a moral code.

All of this is incredibly ironic considering what happened with Clinton and the email scandal in 2016. I have to appreciate the irony - it demonstrates the Universe's wicked sense of humor.

Video Highlights of Fiona Hill and Holms testimony

Fiona Hill, the White House’s former top Europe and Russia expert, who had testified previously about her efforts to oppose the pressure campaign on Ukraine; and David Holmes, an official in the United States Embassy in Ukraine, who was a witness to a key phone call between President Trump and Gordon Sondland, his ambassador to the European Union.

What were the highlights?
( excerpt from the NEW YORK TIMES IMPEACHMENT BRIEFING NEWSLETTER )

I have a digital subscription to the NY Times, and get their daily news briefings in my email, and an impeachment briefing newsletter that gives me the gist of what happened and why. It's clear, straight-forward reporting, without all the emotional crap that you see on the broadcast channels. In short it is journalists reporting the news not marketing people.