Day #8 of the 30 Day Television Show Challenge

This is day 8 of the 30 Day Television Show Challenge.

Prompt is..A non-musical Television show with a soundtrack that you loved or enjoyed.

Hmm..

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I loved the above soundtrack enough that I downloaded it and play it on my iphone.

Day 4 of the 30 Days of Halloween Challenge

This is Day 4 of the 30 Days of Halloween Challenge.

The prompt is Best or worst film or television adaptation of a vampire novel.

I'm going with a television series that improved on the books..which weren't that good. I read most of the novel series - so feel I can actually make that assessment, and I saw the complete series, which admittedly went bonkers at the end..and off the rails, but so did the books.

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Corona Virus Diaries...back on pause again, well sort of..

At noon, the Mayor announced he was putting the areas surrounding my neighborhood back on "pause" aka lock down again. I'm to the east and north of the ones in Brooklyn and South West of the ones in Queens. I'm not at all surprised - all of these neighborhoods are conservative and have a high percentage of orthodox Jews who do not believe the mandatory mask rule, social distancing guidelines, and hand washing protocol applies to them. I don't know why this is..exactly. Mass Stupidity? The Universe has decided to kill them? I don't know. The maskless wonders continue to bewilder me.

The closures would impact roughly half a million people in the following zip codes: 11691 (Edgemere/Far Rockaway), 11219 (Borough Park), 11223 (Gravesend/Homecrest), 11230 (Midwood), 11204 (Bensonhurt/Mapleton), 11210 (Flatlands/Midwood), 11229 (Gerritsen Beach/Homecrest/Sheepshead Bay), 11415 (Kew Gardens), 11367 (Kew Gardens Hills/Pomonok).

In addition, the Doofus is ailing and has apparently has a severe case of COVID, reminiscent of Boris in Britain. [I'm praying this doesn't follow the same story thread as Britain. I don't think it will - our issues are kind of different from Britain's. The Brexit vote is not the same thing as the US Presidential Election. The Brits didn't exactly vote for Boris, they voted for his party's platform and Brexit. Here, they'd be voting for Trump or Biden. No one really pays attention to the party platforms, no matter what the party's would like you to believe. Also, I'm bloody tired of the US copying the Brits - I'd much rather copy New Zealand or maybe Canada for a change. Britain is crazy - actually its become a toss-up on which country is crazier and headed for collapse.]

All of this resulted in...my apartment complex FINALLY getting its shit together and putting up the following notice on the front door:



They also are threatening to turn the power off in the building, although it's not exactly clear when.



Me: I don't know what to do. Do I take the day off? Do I go into work?
Mother: Well you don't know if the power is going to be off, or when. Kind of silly to take the day off or stress yourself by going into work. Just claim technical difficulties and play it by ear. After all - you've had it happen at work.
Me: True. And Jay said that's what she did - claim technical difficulties.
Mother: You do like to worry about minutia.
Me: What am I supposed to worry about? This is something I can do something about.
Mother: true - if you worried about the forest, you'd get overwhelmed and go insane.
Me: Exactly.

One of the house's in my neighborhood has gotten insanely creative about Halloween decorations. Just saying. I think they may win the award for most innovative Halloween decorations.





I talked Wales after mother. Or between telephone calls with mother. Turns out mother was right about Wales - she's lonlier than I am. Stopped socializing with the people she'd been socializing with - nothing in common.
And broke up with the former drug dealer/anarchist who is supporting the idiot in the white house - because he wants an end to the lockdown and to go back to his life. And thinks COVID is a scam.

He also refuses to wear a mask.

I told Wales - I'd have broken up with him on the refusal to wear a mask situation and on account of the fact that I'm immune compromised. That would have been the deal-breaker, right there. He was visiting her and interacting with her - and not wearing a mask, knowing full well that she's in a high risk category.

Wales has also done the exact opposite of what I did. She couldn't handle working at home - and is working full time at the office. I know a few people at my workplace who went this route. Wales can't handle not being around people and interacting with her co-workers. My co-workers were driving blood pressure through the roof, along with the commute, and the feeling that I was not safe.

I'm weird - I actually work better alone, with earphones on. People distract me. And I like having a window to stare out of. Wales prefers the workplace.
She also doesn't have as good a work set up at home, so there's that.

So I'm taking a 10% reduction in pay to work remotely, and went out of my way to get special accommodation - while Wales asked to work full time in the office and got accommodation for that. Something is off about this.

I told Wales about my brother. She's not speaking to her family, they are Trump supporters and have gotten into political fights.

Wales: I really want to get away.
Me: ME too, but my brother's barn just doesn't sound that appealing. It's not heated and it has an outdoor shower, which he likes..
Wales: No, I would agree that's not appealing. Although he sounds happy, he's like a bloody magnet - people actually visit his barn?
Me: Yep. Astonishing, I know.
Wales: He's always been that way - I feel like I've done everything wrong.
Me: Tell me about it. My mother regales me with stories about him - I've nicknamed him super brother. Also I'm getting a lot of comic mileage out of people visiting his barn. So there's that.

My sense of humor is keeping me sane during this. It's a kind of ironic, absurdist sense of humor.

After conversation, I wandered about Greenwood Cemetery again. I've been advised that the testing center near me is only a mile and a half away, that I've walked that and more around the Cemetery. But the Cemetery is safer. There's no maskless bikers or joggers for one thing, and security guards.

I'm trying hard to keep my blood pressure down.

Fall comes to Greenwood Cemetery. There were a lot more people than usual wandering about the cemetery, including cars. But it is open until 6pm on weekends, so I may go in around 4pm and walk until 6 next weekend.



Talked to mother afterwards. Father appears to be doing better and is being released on Friday of next week. Mother can't wait to have him home, but is fretting over what to do with the 24/7 home health care worker. She just needs them to lift my father and move him, nothing else. Shame there isn't a robot we can use for that.

I told Wales that the center won't let my brother in to help but will let the home health care worker - she didn't understand that at all. I kind of do - you can ensure the home health care worker takes precautions, a family member, not so much. And they aren't just protecting my mother and father, but everyone else.

I leave you with another photo of Greenwood on a lovely fall day. I got some time by myself walking - which helped.

(no subject)

1. Well, turns out that I was wrong - I do live in one of the 20 hot spot or cluster zip codes. It has a 2.5% -3% infection rate.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today updated New Yorkers on the state's progress during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the top 20 ZIP codes in areas that have seen recent outbreaks - Brooklyn, Queens and Rockland and Orange Counties - 5,392 tests were conducted, yielding 261 positives or a 4.8 percent positivity rate. In the remainder of the state, 104,937 tests were conducted yielding 961 positives or a 0.91 percent positivity rate.

"Local governments have not done an effective job of enforcement in these hot spot ZIP codes. The State will be doing aggressive enforcement starting tomorrow," Governor Cuomo said. "As we saw with bars and restaurants, when the State initiated enforcement actions compliance greatly increased. However, the State cannot take over effective enforcement for every jurisdiction and if a local jurisdiction cannot or will not perform effective enforcement of violating entities, notify the State and we will close all business activity in the hot spots where the local governments cannot do compliance.

"I'm concerned about the lack of testing in the schools," Governor Cuomo continued. "If the localities do not do testing immediately in the schools in those areas, the State will close them immediately. We all want schools to reopen IF they can reopen safely. I have assured the parents of this State that I would not send my child to a school that I didn't know was safe. Without testing we can't assure parents and teachers of the safety of that school."

The governor also announced that New York State will deploy personnel to directly enforce state guidance within the hot spot ZIP codes. Enforcement has already begun and will increase this week. The new effort is modelled on the State Liquor Authority and State Police Task Force that has been enforcing state guidance at bars and restaurants in New York City and on Long Island. Local businesses that violate the law can be subject to fines and closures.

New York State continues to track clusters with a particular focus on areas where there are hot spot, cluster situations. Within the top 20 ZIP codes in counties with recent outbreaks - Brooklyn, Queens and Rockland and Orange Counties - the average rate of positive tests is 4.8 percent. The rate of positive tests for the remainder of New York State, not counting these 20 ZIP codes, is 0.91 percent. These 20 ZIP codes contained 21 percent of all positive cases in New York State yesterday, but represent only 6.7 percent of the state's population.

Areas in hot spot communities, predominantly in Brooklyn, Queens and Rockland and Orange Counties, will continue to be subject of focused testing efforts including access to rapid testing machines. The top 20 ZIP codes for highest positivity over the past seven days in these counties is available...see link:

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-updates-new-yorkers-states-progress-during-covid-19-pandemic-40

Lovely. Stupid people who refuse to wear masks. Also been seeing more ambulances and hearing more lately.

2. Watched Enola Holmes - the casting of Sherlock Holmes felt a bit off, Henry Caville just doesn't work as Sherlock. The whole point of Sherlock is that people underestimate him. He doesn't have presence. Although Mycroft Holmes worked for me - Sam Claflin playing the plain, annoying brother was interesting.

Otherwise it was entertaining - and it's political. Very political. Which is okay, I agreed with it - but I'm trying to avoid anything that gets me keyed up. I wanted to kill Finola Hughes halfway through - however that's reasonably resolved - so no issues, also not done with violence.

Interesting cast. There's Finola Hughes, Milly Bobby Brown, Sam Claflin, Henry Caville, Helena Bonhem Carter, and Lestrade is played by POC, as is another female character. Very diverse or more so than usual. Also the dual mysteries were kind of fun. There's a very pretty boy cast as Enola's love interest.

3. Teen Wolf - I'm on S3 now. S2 was a lot better than S1. The series still follows a bit too closely for its own good some well-established tropes. To the point in which it's almost cliche. We have the best friend, who is nerdy, snarky, comic relief, a virgin (which they make a big deal of - seriously these kids are sixteen), and he's not physically strong, and is the brains or detects things. Then we have the star-crossed lovers, aka Romeo and Juliette. She's from a family that hunts werewolves, he's a werewolf. And she has a friend who is popular and has lots of sex.

I'm beginning to wonder if writers can come up with characters who do not fall into these teen cliche stereotypes. Vamp Diaries was slightly better because it kind of circumvented the teen stereotypes. Buffy had the stereotypes and tropes, but subverted them - by having Buffy be the lead, and her best friend being gay, also she was the hunter, the boyfriends were the monsters. Most of the shows in this genre do the opposite.

All of that said? It's entertaining and funny in places. Also the male leads are rather fun. It lacks in the female lead department. Bianca Lawson is in it - and she's...well, reminding me of why I rarely see her in anything.
Allison is kind of growing on me now that they've broken her and Scott up.
Lydia, I'm curious about and the actress is better than I thought. They need some better ones in there, it's still a wee bit too male heavy.

It has some intriguing mysteries or monsters of the week - which are more three to four part arcs that lead to a bigger arc. Much better in the plot - mystery arc department than either Vamp Diaries or Buffy were. Buffy and Vamp Diaries were better at character arcs than mystery arcs. Teen Wolf has better mysteries.

Anyhow, it's good escapist fare. I don't have any romantic ships though. And I can't say I'm shipping any characters at the moment...although I do like all the characters, I like them equally.