Y2/D326 - Sunny but Cold

Mother: Do you have ice?
Me: No. It's cold but no ice.
Mother : Your brother said he had a sheet of ice over everything.
Me: He's upstate. It stopped raining here when it was still in the upper thirties, and went upstate.

Well, I've finished S4 of The Expanse - or "Cibola Burn" - the second book of the Expanse novels. It's mainly about a bunch of Belters (people who were born and raised on the asteroid belt in space) attempting to colonize a planet beyond the Gate (created during S3) which allowed the Earth and Mars galaxy to expand into other galaxies.
( spoilers )

I could attempt to explain the rest, but it's all rather convoluted. I'm enjoying the heck out of it - though - for a couple of reasons: 1) diverse casting, 2) strong and diverse female roles (rarity in science fiction), none of which are male eye candy, 3) problem solving with science, 4) realistic.

Now, I'm on to S5. There's six seasons in total. All are adapted from a series of books.

Also watched more episodes of New Amsterdam - I'm now 12 episodes behind. So progress. Also All Creatures Great & Small and This is Us.
I liked the Expanse better.

**

We've now passed 900,000 deaths by COVID-19 in the US. Not that anyone cares, but I figured I'd mention it. Read up on the Beijing Olympic Protocols and oh my god.

( NY Times Reporter's Account of the Beijing Olympics in a Pandemic )

And..

* A study in California found that people who consistently wore high-quality masks indoors were significantly less likely to test positive than people who said they never wore masks in such places. [ Yep, I've been wearing KN95 and KF94's for a while now and am virus free.]

*A Pennsylvania doctor accused of prescribing ivermectin for Covid-19 was fired.

* Conservative state legislators in Missouri obstructed the confirmation of a top health official — a Republican who opposes mask and vaccine mandates but spoke approvingly of the Covid vaccine. [ I've decided anyone who is a Republican definitely failed logic in school, and doesn't have the common sense god gave a blind bat.)

*After thousands of truckers arrived in Ottawa last weekend to protest vaccine mandates, the amount of virus in the city’s wastewater jumped, following weeks of a steady decline, The Ottawa Citizen reports.[that's become a problem - the Canadians on Twitter have been discussing it for weeks now. Midnight Jane luckily is staying home and not going in to work - since her hospital is under lockdown - the protests are in front of it.]

*The U.S. economy added 467,000 jobs in January despite a Covid surge. [Interesting side effect of 900,000 folks dying of COVID - jobs open up and we have a labor shortage as opposed to unemployment.]

* The C.D.C. added wastewater data to its Covid-19 tracker. [Apparently the virus is shed in feces. Which is why people were afraid of flushing toilets early on - now you can't get it from flushing the toilet.]

* Pandemic-era tests could help efforts to eliminate hepatitis C. [ So, we won't get rid of COVID, but, we could get rid of hepatitis C.]

* Greece will ease its travel restrictions for vaccinated European citizens on Monday.
**

Didn't too to much today. Straightened a few things up. Cleaned tub. Made corn bread. Watched television. Talked to mother. Played on Twitter. Played Wordl. Went grocery shopping in frigid temperatures.

Social media/fandom pet peeve of the day:

"What about ism". In response to a critique of a character, politician, idea, etc - answering "what about such and such or so and so" - effectively derailing or hijacking the discussion to make it about what you want to talk about and not the original topic at hand. I've 0 tolerance for this tactic. It annoys me to no end.

Dreading the work week that lies ahead ..

Here's a picture.