Y2/298 - Too Cold

I thought about taking a walk today but too blasted cold. I consider 25 degrees F too cold. I'm admittedly a wimp who spent Christmas in 70-80 degree weather.

My Optimum upgrade arrived in the mail today. But I can't figure out how to install it - since it didn't come with certain items, and I do not have a cable wall outlet, I have a cable splinter. So I called Optimum and complained, wrangling a tech service call from them. Then they proceeded to call me three times after they set it up - to see if I would cancel it. No, I told them, I'm not cancelling - you sent me equipment I can't install myself. And you failed to tell me what was required prior to my request for the upgrade. This is on you. I think they will charge me $80 for the service call tomorrow - between 2-5pm. Because they like to make you wait three hours to see if they will arrive.

If it doesn't work - I'm switching to Verizon.

The box is sitting on my other armchair, aka dumping ground, waiting for use.

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Mother has decided - the hell with this latest outbreak - and is going to church tomorrow morning and out to brunch with her friends. (She's going to wear a mask except while eating, and try to sit apart from folks. Also not singing in the choir.)

Meanwhile my church has gone full live-streaming again. But hey, I travel to and from the office two - three times a week, have a guy upgrading my cable/internet service tomorrow, get groceries, do laundry, etc.

Are we all just learning to live with COVID? I'm trying to decide if I can get up the courage to see Spiderman and/or West Side Story in movie theaters? Probably not - even though my cough has lessened.

Last night, I had a nightmare that I was back at school (UMKC of all places), and I forgot my mask. I was wondering stairwells etc, trying to get away from folks in dorms, because I didn't have a mask. It was horrible. Kind of haunts me for some reason or other.

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Binge watched the rest of S4 Yellowstone. Also, got some back story on the writer/director of the series - Taylor Sheridan. He was an actor, and actually has a role in Yellowstone. He played in Sons of Anarchy, and various other things, small roles mostly. And finally realized he wasn't going to get anywhere as an actor - so decided to become a writer/director so he could call the shots. And chose to write what he knew - he's a cowboy who worked as a cowboy in Texas and Montana. So he writes about that - and as he put it, if you don't know it - you fall into cliches.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the whole write what you know - hyper-realism crap. ( Read more... )

Yellowstone is what I like to call a "modern western" - which tend to be rather dark. ( Read more... )

Also, watched the eighth episode of Yellowjackets. I'm hooked. ( Read more... )

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Another thing I wanted to comment on that I saw online - was about fantasy novels and Wheel of Time. I can't find where it came from - except it was on Twitter. The comment was basically that fantasy wasn't all about men up until Wheel of Time novels, that there were a lot of novels by female writers and male writers with female heroines.

This is true.

Wheel of Time is also one of those series that is way overrated due to its political correctness (it has a diverse cast and LGBTA romances), but has issues in well all the other areas such as character development, pacing, world-building, and plotting. One reviewer felt it was a better adaptation of the source material than the Witcher. ( Read more... )

See, this is why I refuse to be a television media critic/writer for onzines. I would end up writing crappy and meaningless articles like the one's I just quoted, and that add zip to our world. I can write that crap for free.

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I'm taking a break from the news. Someone on Twitter coined the term PTTD, Post-Traumatic Trump Disorder. Fitting. Particularly since he's still alive and refuses to go away. And as a result the dumb media can't quite ignore him.

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