Category: Generic

To Rebel Moon Or Not

To Rebel Moon Part 2 or not to Rebel Moon Part 2? That is the question that vexes me so.

Actually, it doesn’t vex me at all.

I watched the first Rebel Moon movie. I forget what it was called. It was a whole movie where effectively nothing happened. It was the first half of a heist movie. You know, the part where the heist gang leader puts together the heist team? Then in the second half of the movie everything actually happens. That is what I assume is going to happen in Rebel Moon Part 2. In Part 1 they put together the team and didn’t advance the plot even the tiniest of tiny bits. In part 2? All plot, all the time.

But do I want to watch it? Probably. Do I want to watch it tonight? Probably not. The bigger question is this… because nothing happens in Part 1, I have absolutely no memory of anything that transpired in it. Due to that, do I have to watch Part 1 again before I watch Part 2? When I watched Part 1 I told myself that I would watch it again when Part 2 came out. Do I want to put myself through that though? Should I? Should I just go in cold and hope the who’s who just comes back to me?

So many questions. Too many questions. Too many questions for what is likely to be a shitty movie, at least.

I’ll let you know.

Brain Drop

Daily writing prompt
Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
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The first thing that comes to my mind? What if it is completely uninteresting? Worse, what if nothing comes to mind? What if my brain is entirely empty? Oh no! That doesn’t leave us with much to discuss. This might be pretty weak as a writing prompt, eh?

Fortunately for me and my tiny old person brain, there was a thought that came to mind as I read the prompt. Unfortunately for you, my readers and only friends* it is nothing interesting. Just before I sat down at my desk and brought up wordpress.com, I had finished my daily exercise. 46 minutes of running (jogging, pronounced “yogging” with a soft J**) in place. The thought that was going through my head at that very moment was…

Holy crap my legs are dead. 46 minutes of jogging (yogging) in place is tough to pull off.

That is it. That was the first thing that came into my sad little brain. I wish it could have been something more interesting and exciting and intellectually stimulating but alas, no. My sincere apologies, friends.

*This is not a movie quote. It’s a paraphrase of a movie quote. A Clockwork Orange. In my teens and early 20’s it was a huge movie for me. When I was a little older I had a friend who had dealt with some bad things when she was young and it changed my perspective on the movie. It was triggering for her, though we didn’t use that term back then, and I saw it in a new light. Once I met Jen and Bellana I suddenly understood her problem with it and felt like even more of a fucking idiot for not having seen it before. The movie includes A LOT of violence against women and girls and now that I had a woman and a girl who were more important to me than anything else in the entire universe I understood that I could never watch that movie again. Now the movie is triggering for me too, in a different way but still pretty painful. Never again. Never ever. I still find myself quoting a few lines now and then because they are so completely burned into my brain, and the language created for the story is pretty unique and amazing. The treatment of the women in the story though… yikes. What the fuck was I thinking when I was a kid? How could I have been so blind and selfish? Never again.

**This is also a paraphrase of a movie quote. Anchorman. This one is something I can watch over and over again. Yeah there is a lot of misogyny in the story, but it literally exists to show how stupid men were toward women back in the 70’s. I mean, 60% of the time it’s accurate every time.

I Just Sat On a Cat

The title of the post. That’s the post. I just sat on a cat.

I got out of the shower (sorry to put that image in your poor innocent heads, really… honestly… gross… sorry) and went to the bedroom to get dressed. Robin the cat followed me and jumped up on my dresser to get some attention. I gave her a little attention, then sat on the bed to put my socks on…

…and I sat on Lily. I didn’t see her there. She did the thing she sometimes does where she burrowed under the blanket. I hadn’t made the bed yet so the blanket was all lumped up so I didn’t see that there was someone underneath and I sat on the cat.

She’s fine. I apologized a lot…

…but I sat on a cat.

Ouch town, population you, Miss Lily. I’m really sorry.

Nothing

Daily writing prompt
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
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Yeah, I gots nuttin’ for this one.

Ah, lemme think on this a little… I’m sure I can come up with something stupid to add to the discussion… When we were wrapping up the planning stage of the great kitchen remodel project we were in Home Depot and had to ask a staff member for help with something. He was unable to answer our question but, positively speaking, none of us caught COVID-19. That counts, right?

One more shining example for you. I was in the check out line at the grocery store, Market Basket in Salem, NH, the same branch my brilliant kids worked at when they were in high school, and the kid ringing up my stuff said she liked my jacket. That was positive, wasn’t it? Even better, the jacket was a xmas gift my wife had given me so I got to go home and tell her about it so that she would know that some kid at the store admired her taste in jacket purchases. Call that bonus positivity!

I think that’s going to have to do it for today’s question. I generally don’t talk to strangers. Yeah, it’s an introvert thing but it’s also a lesson my parents taught me when I was really little and I learned it super well.

Happy Thursday, my positive readers and only friends.

Growth

Daily writing prompt
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
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You want one? How about I give you two? Maybe even two and a half? I’m crazy like that. Also, the stuff that I give you today also happen to be things that I’ve written about in daily prompts very recently so… yeah. Repetition is good for growth and shit. I don’t know, whatever.

First, we travel back in time to the 20th century. The early 1990’s saw a certain tall red head dropping out of college. A dumb ass move, for sure, but at the time it was the only move that made sense to me. A job followed, then a year in a tech school, followed by a failure to get a job in that field, followed by a crap job in a warehouse. That’s when we get to the point of the decision that helped me learn and grow. I was making like $8.00/hour working in a retail chain’s warehouse as the guy in charge of customer returns and I just got fed up and decided to give college another try. This time I wouldn’t be a music major, this time I would take classes that might actually lead to a job someday. Going back to school was the big decision, but a secondary decision was to rig my classes so that I started from as close to the lowest level math subject that my new school would allow me to take. My primary hang up the first time through college was my shitty math skills, and the second time around I was going to major in a study that leaned heavily on math. I put myself into the lowest level course I could and basically started from scratch. It totally paid off. By the time I was through the mathematical pipeline I was acing high level courses and it felt great.

The second growth worthy decision happened on May 20, 2008. Jen and I were in the little postage stamp sized back yard at the duplex we were renting, cooking dinner on our gas grill. I reached a point where I just couldn’t stand waiting anymore and I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She said yes. Best. Decision. Ever. That lead to me learning how to be a husband, learning how to be a better human, learning how to be an adult, learning how to be a step father, learning how to be really happy, and basically learning how to be me at my best. Like I said, best decision ever.

The extra bonus decision is the choice to pursue weight loss surgery. I don’t know how much actual learning and growing have come from it. That’s probably a question for future Rob to ponder. It’s been two years (almost) but I will need more time to pass before I can pin down exactly what the differences are, apart from the number on the scale of course. That and the sizes on my clothes.

So there you go, folks. Two plus answers to the question of the day. No surprises here. Hope you all have a good Wednesday, unless you are reading this at some point in the future, in which case here’s hoping you’re having a good whatever weekday it happens to be on your timeline. Good day.

Keep Out

Daily writing prompt
What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
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Is there a place in the world that I don’t want to visit? I guess so, but even those places I would give a try if the opportunity arose.

For example: I don’t like cold weather. Therefore my desire to visit the Arctic or the Antarctic is exceptionally low. Low enough to effectively be zero. However, if someone said to me, I need you to go to the North Pole and do something interesting… I’d go. Yeah, I would go. Same with the top of Mt Everest. I don’t want to go, but if the opportunity came up I would.

Where are some others… the rural American south? Yeah. No thanks. Big cities in the south.. yeah, let’s go. Outside of the big cities? Naw, I’ll pass.

Most of the mid-western US? I’ll pass. They don’t call ’em fly over states for nothing. I guess my attraction to big cities would bring me to agree to go to any big city on Earth. Name a big city on any continent and I’ll give it a try. Name a jungle with no civilization where there’s a good chance some big animal will eat me? Yeah, let’s give that one a miss.

So that sums it up, I guess. There are places I would choose to avoid, but if someone made an offer to bring me to one of those places? I’d probably go. I guess from a travelin’ perspective (how’s that for a future album title?) I am pretty easy to please. I’ll go pretty much anywhere.

Positive Stuff

Daily writing prompt
Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
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I have a ton of meetings today so writing time is going to be hard to come by. In that case, this one is going to be short and sweet and probably sillier than it should be.

Want to hear something positive that a family member has done for me recently? As in over the last two days?

I mention gastric bypass surgery on this blog all the time, and how one of the restrictions is never having sugar again. If I eat more than a little sugar I’ll get sick for hours and I would like to avoid that forever if I can. I am therefore a sugar free red head for life.

On Saturday, my beloved bride Jen did something nice for me straight out of the blue. Is it nice or positive? You can be the judge, but for me it was both. Super nice, and super positive. Positivity to the maximum.

She baked me a sugar free cake. A sugar free chocolate cake with sugar free white frosting, to be precise. How sweet is that (pun intended, even if it is artificial)? She baked it Saturday night, frosted it Sunday morning, and then I had a small piece on Sunday evening when I got home from band practice. It was delicious. It was the sweetest thing (again, pun artificially intended). Like I said, positivity to the utmost extent.

Thank you, sweetie. Thank you so much. I love you.

Here is another quick example of positivity. First, when Jen and I started dating in 2007 her two kids, six year old Bellana and four year old Harry, accepted me. That might be the best example of positivity that has ever happened. Furthermore, when Jen and I got married in 2009 they accepted me into their family officially. Again, can you think of anything more positive than that? I love them both so much, and I am eternally grateful for their kindness across all of the days I have been a part of their lives, but especially for those two moments of exceptional positivity. Thank you both. I love you.

One more. In honor of my father’s birthday, here’s one from my parents. They worked together to conceive me, birth me (yes, my mother did all of the work in that regard), and raise me to be someone who isn’t a total asshole… though I guess the jury is still out on that one. Thanks, mom and dad. I love you both.

Okay, that was a little longer than I thought it would be. Back to work, meetings boy!

The Border Cafe

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite restaurant?
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My favorite restaurant doesn’t exist anymore. The franchise does but my favorite location does not. It was The Border Cafe in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. I am not sure if I remember the timeline right or not. They had a fire in the kitchen and had to close down. Then during the pandemic (I think) they gave up the effort and shut down for good. There is still a branch in Burlington, MA which was the one I had been going to almost exclusively for years even though I preferred Cambridge, and I think there is still one in Saugus, MA too. There were a couple in New Jersey somewhere with the same menu and decor but a different name.

We started going back when I was in my early 20’s. Harvard Square is generally THE place to be, and The Border Cafe had the best food and the best vibe. Their buffalo chicken sauce is to die for, really. Unfortunately, Cambridge is kind of a pain to drive to if you don’t live in metro Boston, so when the Burlington branch opened (much, much closer to home and really easy to get to) we sort of planted our flag there. It was never as good, but it was definitely good enough.

When Jen and I started dating we took the kids there. Neither of them liked it, and little four year old Harry actually felt sick afterwards. Jen and I still went pretty often but never with the kids. Also, we haven’t been there since the Pandemic. Four years. Now, having written this, I am kinda jonesing for their boneless buffalo chicken.