(no subject)

1. Sent my lease renewal by certified mail today - the rental agency moved from Great Neck to Garden City (moving up in the world - Garden City is nice). Rent went up by about 5% or $96 for a two year lease, after not going up much at all for five years. This year everything went up in cost.

But, still affordable, also in a way ironic. My rent is now what it would have been way back in 2014, if I'd taken any number of apartments instead of this one. And if I'd taken those apartments, I'd probably be paying about a $1K more or living farther out and less nice digs.

Viola Davis is right about one thing in her bio - hunting an apartment in NYC is impossible and will bring you to your knees, unless of course you have a lot of money and connections. You are competing against so many people and it is not a level playing field.

2. I'm no longer enjoying the Viola Davis autobio "Finding Me" - she kind of falls into the trap an old creative writing prof warned me about. People tend to write themselves one of two ways - either as the greatest person ever, or the worst person ever. They either whine or brag or talk about how great they are or how bad off they are.

Viola is doing fine until she begins to become successful. Her husband is a magical gift from god. (He's not, she met him on a job and called him up a month later, they started dating, then moved in together and finally after a few years of living together they got married. I'm thinking he must have been divorced, because he had kids and grandkids, which she throws out there but doesn't really explain. It's mainly - "oh he was exactly what I asked for and God handed him to me, after I did this that and the other thing." I wanted to smack her.

Actually my difficulty with the book? Is I liked the actress more prior to listening to it. Now, she's coming across as a touch entitled and full of herself. Same thing happened with Michelle Obama, Mathew Perry, Michael Caine, Carrie Fisher, Prince Harry and Kathleen Turner.

It's not easy to write a book about yourself without coming across as a touch of an insecure asshole.

3. Besides sending back my lease renewal - I managed to finally complete a water color that I was working on. I have three more in this series to go, before I jump to another topic.



This one took a while, about two weeks. Mainly because I'm getting burned out on the paintings, I think? Been doing them since roughly February. Have about twenty-five so far. I may switch to something else soon - or another medium.

4. Watched two movies today:

Still - the Michael J. Fox documentary on Apple TV. It's good. Fox is disarming, and self-deprecating to a fault. The appeal of the man is that he doesn't come across as entitled, whiny, or full of himself at all. And never really has. He owns his mistakes, and doesn't ask for any pity nor does he play the victim.

He also is rather humble about both his career and his disease. ( Read more... )

The other one was Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Theives - starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriquez, and Hugh Grant. Also Rene Page from Bridgerton. [ETA: Streaming for free on Amazon (or with your subscription at any rate - I didn't pay anything for it).]

It's surprisingly good for a movie based on a board game. Hilarious in places, and charmingly fun. The writers make the wise choice of making fun of the story, but in a good way, without falling into annoying parody or satire. There's some nice one-liners, most are delivered by Pine. Pine is charming in his role and likable. There's no annoying romances. Michelle Rodgriquez play's Pine's partner in crime, and they are more like brother/sister than lovers. Hugh Grant plays one of the villains and is charming in it - he does a great job of playing villains.

It has action. Uses CGI in a way that actually works and doesn't overwhelm the viewer, and funny lines. One of the better action flicks I've seen this year. Liked it a lot better than the two Marvel films that I saw recently.

5. Final accomplishment? Sleep. I managed to sleep at least 8 hours. So go me. I'm less irritable when I get sleep.

(no subject)

1. Well THIS is oddly validating.

Apparently I was right in my general assessment that A03's legal team and management are idiotic assholes. And copying and pasting my stuff from Ao3 to my other sites, is a good idea.

For the folks looking for another site to put fanworks? SquidgeWorld works. And their only rules are: don't be a dick, don't put anything written by AI, and don't be racist or exploitative about children - basically don't be a bigoted dick.

As an aside? On Twitter - I saw someone ask what they can call Dick Van Dyke besides Dick - since their tweets regarding Dick Van Dyke were getting flagged due to the use of the word Dick. (The actor had a gig on Days of Our Lives and Soap Twitter was tweeting about him and getting flagged for it.)

LOL!

Tweet: What do we call (picture of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins) him? We're getting flagged for using his name.

Poster: Chimney Sweep?

ME: Is this Dick Van Dyke? How about Richard? Or Van Dyke? LOL!

Social media and the internet...are they worth the trouble? Maybe my brother is right to stay off of it and just work in his vegetable garden.

2. Finished Shadow and Bone S2- it's a mixed bag. Every story arc but the Alina/Mal and Kirigian one was interesting. Mal is incredibly boring - and a bit of cipher. He tells Alina that he didn't have much point beyond being her Firebird, and I'm thinking, yup, that's true. Also tracker and dumb solider.

Nicolai was also incredibly boring. And he shouldn't have been.

But the Crows are fascinating, as are some of the Grishna.

I want more of Kaz Brekkar (that actor is compelling), Jesper (ditto), Nina, and Inej. I liked that dynamic.

There's a lot here to continue a series - but I don't trust Netflix to do it. It's kind of unpredictable and finicky.

Moral? Don't count on things run by other people, whose taste varies from yours.

Anyhow, I do recommend Shadow and Bone. The first two seasons work as a fairly tight compact series that resolves all its main conflict, and wraps up most if not all of the subplots. And opening up new storylines. Certainly leaves a lot for fanfic - if it doesn't continue as a series. Also gives me an incentive for reading the books.

The ships are interesting and it has several, including a lesbian and a homosexual couple, although they aren't the leads, we do get a homosexual love scene. We also get plenty of angst between Kaz and Inej. I'd write fanfic about Kaz and Inej. Kaz interests me. And the actor they cast in the role is insanely compelling. I want to see him in other things. He has these huge emotive eyes and sharp features.

3. Citadel

Is also interesting - I'm about three to four episodes into it. Watching it slowly, because in order to see what's going on - I have to watch when it is dark and lights are out. (It's similar to Shadow and Bone in that respect).

The leads are pretty. And it's your run of the mill spy thriller, with plenty of twists and turns. Reminds me a little of Robert Ludlum's spy thrillers. I liked Ludlum.