Day #340 - Battling the Feb Uglies..plus yet another snowstorm

Although the snowstorm (pretty while it lasted) turned to rain around 3 pm, and appears to be clearing at the moment. The sun actually came out and is kind of filtering it's light through the clouds, which is sort of pretty in a way.

This is not my favorite time of year. I always fall into a depression somewhere between February 14 and March 15. Then I'm fine. With the damn, pandemic - it's worse.

So to fend it off - been doing various things - today? I posted pictures of all the things I found in my photos which I'm grateful for on Facebook.



[I'm grateful for beaches. This one was taken in Hilton Head.)

I don't think anyone noticed - they are too busy whinging about other things - apparently I'm not the only one who hits the wall this time of year?

On the funny side, a friend posted this... PLEASE STOP MAKING SEXULLY SUGGESTIVE SNOW SCULPTURES AT CITY HALL! We have camera footage of the persons involved and the police will be investigating.

Hee Hee. It's a satire page, so not actual. But still worth a chockle.

Also grateful for this - which I may print off and frame.
( photo of something I'm grateful for )

While typing this I keep nodding off and jerking awake. I also lit up my little Christmas Tree in my window to cheer myself up.



Brother, according to mother, was able to social distance with a friend this weekend. On Sunday, they met a friend outside, and had barbeque. It was a friend from Hawaii who was in town to see her daughter (at the University) - she's from Hawaii. I was mildly envious, but mostly just happy for him. (Bro is a tad more social than I am - while it's normal for me not to go out to eat and see folks rarely, it's not normal for him.

You'd think I should be living in the boondocks and he would be living in the city, but alas, no.

My mother felt the need to inform me that my former junior high school had been demolished and turned into a retirement center, and the elementary school and been torn down and completely rebuilt. Someone has money. The spent a lot on a new gymnasium first.
( gratitude picture of two people I'm grateful for )

I felt sorry for the Whedon Studies Association - so posted a link to the article about how they could continue analyzing and teaching the art, frak Whedon. They were quite pleased with me. I also told them that it is important to teach these works of art and how to analyze them, outside of the creator. Since a lot of people have not been taught to do that. I was taught how to do it with far worse content - I was taught to do it with Westerns among other things.



The above picture is of my UU church, which I have a love/hate relationship with.

New York vs. The Coronavirus

New York opened up the largest vaccination center in the State in Brooklyn. It's nowhere near me - it's near the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens on the opposite side of Prospect Park - in Crown Heights. Currently it is for anyone in Crown Heights, East Flatbush, East NY, Prospect Lefferts, Bedford Stuyvesant, Besonhurst, and I think Midwood. So I'm not eligible for it yet anyhow.

[Hence the reason I took my agency's invite and am going to the agency only site in Downtown Brooklyn.]

The Governor is trying to convince people to take the vaccine.

Governor: Look, I get why you are hesitant. The Black Community has been mistreated by the scientific community in the past - but there are black scientists who are in favor of this vaccine. My mother took it. She's in the over 65 club. And now, I'm not giving out her age. I'm 63, it would be biologically impossible for her not to be at least 65 - even though she doesn't look it.

Also I get why you don't trust the Trump Administration who approved it. I don't either. But we vetted it - that's why I had the NY Department of Health test it.

This is a safe vaccine. And it is how we win this war. Please take it!

Poor Governor. This pandemic has aged him.
( Photo of someone I'm grateful for )

Oh it's kind of a pretty skyline - a pink and white...like the sun is shining behind the clouds and making them glow pink.

I'll end this post with one last thing to be grateful for...

(no subject)

1. ( And once again people are bashing Woody Allen films because of Allen's own nasty actions... )

As an aside?

Ricky Gervais recently nailed twitter -

Gervais on Twitter

2. This article is an interesting read - The True Story Behind the Zack Snyder Cut - its interesting from a pure film-making perspective. Depicting how something can go blatantly wrong - when the distributors and financiers lose faith in the artist's vision at the last possible minute.
( excerpts )

( toxic fandom - excerpt from the article )

[As an aside? The comics and daytime soap opera fandoms are notoriously crazy. Actually all fandoms have crazy people. But the superhero comic fandom and sci-fantasy fandom are notorious. There's a reason I've stayed away from them.]

( the artist now has carte blanche to do whatever he likes without answering to anyone )

Interesting take on how art was gutted, then the original artist gets to fix it and show his vision without any studio edits or input.

Although, I am suspicious of how much of Fisher's allegations against Whedon were true - due to the fact that Fisher was heavily invested in Snyder's version. As was Gail Gadot and others. They loved Snyder apparently.

Also the article feels a bit like a love letter to Synder, and I'm always skeptical of that. (I've seen a lot Synder's films...almost all of them, so can personally attest to the violence. And I've seen Whedon's Justice League - which I found jarring but not quite as horrible as the article indicates. I'm skeptical of the article here and there. I see marketing hands behind it.)

That's actually my difficulty with a lot of celebrity gossip and back-stage gossip - it's hard to know what is true. So much of the entertainment industry is carefully packaged. With marketing hands in every pot. Spin-doctoring things.

3. [I'm annoyed with the neighbor who lives across the hall from me. He never wears a mask, no one visiting him does. And he slams his door, shaking the entire building. I think he's divorced with a kid - since I only see him and occasionally his kid. It's a tiny apartment, I can't imagine more than two in it, if that. I can't wait for him to move - no one stays in that apartment for very long.]

4. Boredom Economy.

And some groups of people are more likely to experience boredom than others. People who live alone, for instance, are more likely to be bored, said Daniel Hamermesh, an economist at Barnard College who has studied loneliness during the pandemic lockdowns.

“The real burden’s going to be on people who are single, who are by themselves,” he said. “The boredom-loneliness nexus has got to be pretty close, I would think.”

I danced to Fiona Apple's Relay again today, which I find insanely comforting.

Read recently that a lot of the celebrity gossip and interest in the gossip is falling by the wayside. It'd mostly due to the pandemic. People don't want to watch wealthy folks be bored on the internet. Or do podcasts from their luxurious homes. I can't find the article though - but it detailed how the sing-a-long lead by Gail Gadot completely backfired (I never saw it) but it was apparently a bunch of celebrities who can't sing - singing Imagine.
And how the divorce/separation of Kim Kardashian and Kayne West sparked no interest whatsoever. (My twitter page was more interested in Woody Allen and Texas.)

5. Per the Governor's email tonight on the Corona Virus..

Thanks to the hard work of all New Yorkers, our infection rate is now the lowest we've seen in three months, and accordingly, we are now in a position to reopen more recreational activities across the state. Movie theaters in New York City, along with any other areas of the state where they have been closed, are permitted to reopen March 5 at 25 percent capacity, with no more than 50 people per screen at a time. Other safety protocols, including assigned seating and social distancing, will be in place. We must continue to collectively work hard to ensure our numbers keep going in the right direction, which will allow us to safely reopen as much as possible as safely as possible.

Well that is interesting, considering the last time I saw a movie in a movie theater was Emma on March 7. It's also the weekend before my birthday. I don't know if I could sit through a movie in a movie theater right now without fidgeting. I'm having issues re-entering my workplace.

*. ( By the numbers - we're still at 4.3%, with 6,146 cases, but hey the deaths got down to 89...so progress. )

* ( the numbers on the vaccine...we've vaccinated roughly 2.2 million with first dose, and 1.1 million second dose - which is..less than 1% of the NY population, but hey progress! )

* ( my zip code is not listed, but hey they are trying to vaccinate everyone in Brooklyn...I'm not sure what it means exactly that my zip code isn't listed. I live in diverse neighborhood. )

* ( that's what you get for going after the Governor on the nursing homes, more rules and regulations on when you can visit them )

*( all the people holding off for their big weddings can now have up to 150 people present...why you'd want that many or more than that is beyond me..but than I don't understand wanting more than 20 or 30 people )

How humanity has decided to handle this pandemic is fascinating and at times mind-boggling.

6.Not to be outdone by New York, England has chosen to lift its lock down restrictions slowly..

( Read more... )

7. ( Meanwhile a grocery store chain is saving Texans, even while authorities continue to answer for their stupidity )

8. ( And Nasa released new videos from Mars, whil Hayley Arceneaux, 29, cancer survivor, Physician Assistant at St. Jude's Childrens Research Hospital will be one of the four people on a SpaceX rocket to circle earth later this year )

We're definitely stuck in a Philip K Dick novel. Albeit possibly not as grim?

9. ( An animated flying cat with a Pop-Tart body sold for almost $600,000. )

10. ( okay, this pairing I'd never have guessed...Former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen are co-hosting podcasts...entitled Renegades Born in the USA )

Remember when everyone hated Springsteen in the late 80s/90s for alleged domestic violence against his then-wife, and for appearing to support Regan?
Just me then. See? Some people can revitalize their image.

[Edited multiple times - because I suck at coding and my eyes are starting to blur - had to switch reading glasses.]