Year 2- Day 136 - Sleepy Sunday

It was overcast most of the day, and I watched a lot of cartoons. After flirting with three or four different shows, decided to stick with She-Rah, and Voltron. [Sailor Moon was grating and a wee bit too girly for my tastes. Also very dated.]

Speaking of dated, I tried to watch "Something to Talk About" - an old Julia Roberts, Robert Duval flick, which I'd seen in the movie theater way back in the early 1990s, only to remember why I didn't like the movie that much. I'd forgotten most of it.

Also tried HACKS again - but I don't like the characters. Bro says the ending delivers, but you have to get through the first couple of episodes. And White Lotus, same, plus my brother's right, it's a biting satire about the Hawaiian Tourist Industry, and I'll pass. Satire tends to annoy me generally speaking. I'm not a huge fan of parody and satire.

Flitted about a little bit on social media. Discussed narcissism with a fan on a fan board. She's a conservative nurse, and I don't think she understands narcissism. We were discussing it in relation to characters on a soap opera. Which yes, that's kind of trivially amusing in of itself.
Serials or soap operas are kind of fun in that the audience rarely agrees on the story lines, characters, relationships, etc. And tends to split into factions.

This is a picture of flowers, if you do not see flowers - there is something wrong with your DW friends list feed and you may want to look into that or not as the case may be. Don't ask me about it - there's nothing I can do.



Church is still doing Zoom services, which I keep jumping out of - too social justice laden. And I'm burned out on the media and social justice. I'll probably give to the ACLU again, and National Conservatory, etc. But I am tired of self-righteous preaching.

Bro sent me his go-to oatmeal granola recipe, except he uses olive oil instead of coconut oil, and more seeds and nuts than oats. Also maple syrup over other sugars. I may do it, but I'd have to buy seeds, nuts, and molasses.

The problem with 98% of recipes is gathering together all the ingredients, well that and having the correct appliances.

Mother is hanging in there. Not much to say on that front. We were discussing how neither of us could abide Mel Gibson after he did Brave Heart, and all that stuff came out about him. There's the pre-Brave Heart Mel and the Post Brave Heart Mel. Also, how both our hearts bleed for the transgender. That's hard - to be born in a body that is a different gender than your soul and energy and mind. And be discriminated against on top of that. Also, I don't believe in binary systems in the natural world. We aren't binary. Nothing is. The problem we have is - is most of us have not figured that out yet. What can I say? Some folks are very dense. You kind of have to smack them a few times upside the head for them to get it.

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COVID

Apparently Florida is now the national epicenter of the pandemic. This comes as a surprise to no one. It's dumb state. It's always been a dumb state. I don't know why - I'm guessing too much sun, and too hot and humid?

It's hard to care any longer. My family members are fine - they got vaccinated and are staying indoors and being safe. They aren't idiots. Thankfully.

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Tomorrow back in the office - only day back, since I'm taking the other one off for a doctor's appointment.

Decided to delete what I'm working on, you don't want or need to know. Have been corresponding per email with a woman I went to London with way back in 1986 or 87, can't remember which. She asked me what my hobbies or things I did in my spare time were, also if I loved my job and how important it was to love one's job. I kind of hate it when people ask me this - I draw a blank, and well I love aspects of my job. These past two years, I'm not sure anyone in Crazy Org has "loved" their job.

As for hobbies...most of them are kind of personal things. Like blogging on the internet, taking photos and posting on the internet. Writing books. Taking walks. Interacting on fan boards - analyzing characters. Stuff like that. Not things I necessarily want to broadly talk about it with folks.

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Leaving you with a statue. Note it is a statue of a boy, naked, in Greenwood Cemetery, praying towards the heavens.

Television...redux

1. Finished watching The Mandalorian - S2 - which ended well, much like S1, it had its slow bits. What worked was that it tied everything up in just two seasons. And the last two-three episodes were satisfying.

Well worth it for the last three episodes. Also favorite characters were Fenc (Ming Na-Weng) and Boba Fett - so smart doing a spin-off starring them entitled The Book of Boba Fett.

Also found the Jedi - Akosha, played by Rosaria Dawson, interesting.

Gianocarlo Esponsito is very good at playing villains, better than most. He reigns it in, which is the best approach. Also he got across fear well in the last episode when well...( spoilers )

Star Wars is an interesting verse - because there's so much the films did not cover - which they can play with.

2. Voltron - the reboot of Voltron is actually pretty good. They fixed a bunch of problematic issues in the previous renditions, which included "Battle of the Planets" aka "G-Force" and then "Voltron", which aired in the late 70s and early 80s. The original was a touch chauvinistic, and very militaristic. I tried the original recently and cringed. A lot of stuff that aired in the 20th century does not date well.

The new version, has changed things a bit. The team is working for Atlean Princess to defend the Universe against invaders, as opposed to the Japanese military or Earth military. Also, the leader is female, with a team leader who is LGBTA, and a team member who we think is male, but actually a young woman pretending to be male. It also has them working to work together.

It's not as violent, militaristic, or macho as previous versions.

The animation also is slightly better.

3. She-Rah - made it to S4. While the animation improves with time, it still is rather basic and kind of flat. More cartoony than animated. I could draw it - and I prefer a more realistic less flat style. However it is better than most. And I like it better than the anime style of Blood of Zeus, which goes too far in the other direction. It kind of falls somewhere between The Masters of the Universe - Revelation and Steven Universe (I don't like Steven Universe animation at all, although that's a step above most cartoons.). I don't like "cartoon", prefer "animation", and they are two very different art forms.

I have more respect for animation, and understand what it entails. Cartoons are kind of easy.

That said, She-Rah is better written than Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe, and a touch more subversive. It reminds me a little of Avatar (although Avatar is animation and She-Rah is cartoon).

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Regarding movies - I think I'm more interested in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings than Black Widow. (I like watching martial arts, and the story interests me more since I'm less familiar with it and the character.)

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Decided to try the Olympics after The Mandalorian - I've not been watching them. I don't really care one way or another. Mother has though. What's interesting is how they are doing the mask protocols and the audience ratio. The stands are almost entirely empty. Almost all te track and field for the US seem to be POC, which is interesting. Usually it's more white folks.

I like track and field, swimming, diving, gymnastics and that's about it - events.

Mother was watching fencing - apparently mother took fencing in college at one point. I would have liked to see the skate boarding and surfing that were added this year - but missed them.

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Fandoms continue to bewilder me in what they like and dislike in television shows. Tastes vary so much, and are never consistent, and often make no sense. I'm always bewildered by what others like. We're so different and how we view or perceive the world varies so much.

I restrained myself from telling one woman who used the word communism the way I might use fascism, that she most likely meant "fascists" since communism is an economic system, not a political one. ( Read more... )