Category: Television

The Stand: No Spoilers (Mostly)

I started watching episode six of the new mini series version of The Stand. I have to say something publicly and it won’t include any story spoilers, but it will give an opinion on one aspect of the production that may color your ideas a bit. Probably not, but maybe.

You’ve been warned:

Get out now if you want to remain 100% uninformed.

………

Okay, here it goes: Ezra Miller needs to retire. This is hands down the worst performance ever. Ever. He needs to be punished for this. He needs to go to his room without any supper and never come back again.

I’ve seen him in exactly two scenes and that’s enough to make the entire series suddenly feel unwatchable. Dude is that bad.

Dream or Nightmare

I had a dream that we went on vacation to some unnamed beach hotel. The cast of the show The Flash was there. I was trying to impress them by telling them I was in a cover band and we played a Genesis song. They were polite, but they were also not impressed.

Was it a dream or was it a nightmare?

You decide.

HGTV

We just binged an entire season of the HGTV show Brother Vs Brother. The show where these two twins buy huge houses and do renovation competitions. We weren’t planning it. We definitely didn’t mean to do it. It just happened.

They bought two century old houses for 2+ million dollars each and then sold them for 5.5+ million dollars each. I think I’m in the wrong business. Totally.

Crazy Friday

I’m 94 minutes away from a long weekend. There is talk of watching Hot Fuzz tonight. I need this work day to end now. It’s been wacky from the word go. Uncle! That’s me crying uncle for the day. Enough. Here, I’ll do it again, Uncle!

I have a research project to do this weekend. There is talk of a Roomba. Do I want to open the door to the oncoming robot apocalypse in order to keep my floors clean? The answer is probably yes, but it’s expensive.

This is also our last weekend with Bellana before she goes back to school. We must make it a good one, Roomba not withstanding.

WandaVision is out. The list of Marvel Cinematic Universe things I have not seen is now up to one movie and two TV episodes. WandaVision will be covered this weekend. Thor II… someday.

The Boston Bruins are 1-0 on the season. A perfect 56-0 is literally in our grasp. No it isn’t, but statement like this after one game are pretty obligatory.

Trump is still impeached, again. Trump’s term ends in five day.

88 minutes until the weekend. I need a vacation. I need a Covid-19-free vacation.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 70

This isn’t so much a stir crazy moment as it is a monthly check in. Consider it more like The State of the Lock Down.

Yesterday marked 10 months since the last time I was at my desk in Waltham. Ten. 10. 10 months. Unbelievable. So much for two or three weeks. I keep writing that same thing every month, but it’s true. Harry is half way through his senior year in high school. Bellana is a couple of weeks away from staring her fourth semester in college. Jen and I are still plugging away at working from home. Life inside the house is still going well. Life outside of the house is crashing and burning in spectacularly horrifying fashion. Jen just told me that Massachusetts is sending National Guard troops to Washington, DC. 2021 is a nightmare and it’s only two weeks old.

We binge watched The Queens Gambit and it was every bit as riveting as you’ve heard. The first Disney+ Marvel series, WandaVision, premiers tomorrow. I just read they are releasing two episodes, which means I probably won’t be caught up before work in the morning. Wonder Woman ’84 was probably not as bad as most people are saying, but it wasn’t very good. I’ve seen Pedro Pascal in three roles now. He was outstanding in Game of Thrones. He is perfect in The Mandalorian. He was horrendously awful in Wonder Woman. What the hell happened? As for Diana, wishing for her lost love? The goddess who hangs everything on some man? I don’t buy it. It’s clear what she would have wished for. She would have wished to be able to go home. Whatever. Bellana and I started watching The Stand. My favorite book by my favorite author (arguably, it’s either him or Clive Barker) has been turned into a television series and… we’re a few weeks behind now, but it’s not that good. Cobra Kai season three is out there but we haven’t started it yet. Bellana’s not interested so we’re holding off until she goes back to school at which time Jen and Harry and I will likely binge the whole season in a day.

Our Christmas decorations are down and put away. Everything except the lights outside. We had originally agreed to leave those up until inauguration day. Now we’re joining up with a little movement one of our local hospitals is pushing to leave them on for the month of January in honor of those risking their lives to fight Covid-19. Absolutely. We are on board.

One of our cars has it’s check engine light on. I am assuming it’s something to do with air leaking into the gas line, but messing with the gas cap hasn’t helped. It’s low on gas right now so hopefully it will resolve when I fill it again. Unfortunately the car also has an expired inspection sticker and I just don’t want to risk exposure for it. The other car doesn’t expire for a couple of months. That one had tire pressure warnings so I did go to a gas station to top them off. I didn’t run into anyone. It was safe.

Obligatory thank yous to folks on the ground from amazon and grubhub and instacart. You’re all helping to keep my family safe and I will never stop appreciating it.

Jen and I are still lighting candles in every room in the house for no reason at all. Amazon just delivered a big box of fresh supplies. We’ll be telecommuting by candle light for a while longer.

I’m really tired of all of this crap. The upside is that we’re about a week away from having an actual government Covid-19 response plan. It’s probably too late, but maybe it will straighten out the bullshit we’re seeing with vaccine distribution so far. Fingers crossed.

Mostly, fingers crossed that this ends soon.

The Worst Part of Telecommuting

Telecommuting is pretty great. You get to work from home. It’s nice. Covid-19 has put us onto a nine-months-and-counting telecommuting streak, but it’s cool. No traffic. Jeans and sneakers. Able to have dinner with my family every night. Sweet.

There’s only one downside. I’m dealing with it right now.

My wife is on the other side of the house getting caught up on The Mandalorian. She’s down to the last couple of episodes in season one.

The downside of telecommuting is I can hear the TV in the distance but I can’t sit and watch it with her.

I would really like to go watch it with her. I cannot though. I must work. This is the way. Damn it.

No Spoilers

The downside of watching the finale of season 2 of The Mandalorian right after I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, is that no one else has seen it and I can’t talk about it. Normally I would listen to a recap podcast or five and I can’t even do that. I beat them all to the punch.

I need to share my fanboy happiness with other people and no one around has seen it. It’s like some new form of torture!

This has been a brutally long week for some reason. Well, the last two days at least. Just loooooong. We’re going out to look at Christmas lights tomorrow. Fully masked up, with armor plated windows on the car. The ‘rona’s gonna need a tank to get at us, and that’s how it should be. The city actually released a map of quality light viewing locations. We’re going to pick a few off tonight. Wish me luck, both with the light displays and not spoiling Mando.