One indoor critter:
Another indoor critter:
Interesting outdoor critter. A grey squirrel with a white tail? Is this some sort of squirrel mutant, x-men type critter?
Critters
Musical Morning
I got up super early this morning. I wasn’t planning on it, but I was up and at ’em a little before 5:00am. Yikes!
That let me get all of my exercise in, eat breakfast, water all of the plants, do a couple of little things to help Jen get ready for her in-the-office day, finish my normal morning routine, go to the grocery store and get dinner for tonight, and put vocals on two songs… all before punching into work at 8:45.
Wow… it’s been a long day. I need a nap. Doubly so, thanks to the crummy night’s sleep last night. Damn.
The current music recording project is Quarantine Tunes Volume 8. Four songs underway. One ready to mix, two ready for lead guitars, and one ready for rhythm guitars. How do you like that?
Direction
GPS. Get it?? Damn, am I funny! WOOHOO!
I don’t know what gives me direction in life. Does anyone? Does anyone have any direction or are we all just flailing away, blind and clueless? Are the people who claim to have direction just deluded and chasing fairy tales around through life? It seems that way to me.
I guess, like everything else in my universe, what direction I get comes from my family. Jen and the kids. Where they go, I follow. When they need, I try to get. Simple as that. I probably take direction from work too, but is that life or just profession? Is there a difference?
I can say for sure that I do not take direction from the stars or the calendar or any fairy tales. I am as clear on that as clear can be. It makes me sad that I know that a significant portion of the responses to this daily prompt are going to say exactly that. That is pretty depressing to me. Is such a reaction in some part a source of direction? No, I don’t think so.
I’m more and more on team flailing away blind and clueless here. What’s a red head to do, you know?
Hockey Panic
I’ve written about this before, probably a few times, but I’m doing it again so there…
Is it like this in other regions of the world? I live near Boston, Massachusetts in the good ol’ U.S.of A. Folks in Boston take their professional sports teams seriously. Very seriously. Ridiculously seriously. We’re kinda nuts. It’s the same across all of the major sports. Red Sox fans are nuts about their baseball team. Patriots fans are nuts about their football team. Celtics fans are nuts about their basketball team. Bruins fans are nuts about their hockey team. Revolution fans… are there any Revolution fans? Is pro soccer even a thing?
When I say we’re nuts about our teams, I don’t mean that in a positive way. I mean that in a clinical, potentially dangerous, bordering on mental illness kind of way. We’re insane. Our entire well being is often tied directly to our favorite team. For example, a few days ago the Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in game four of their first round, best of seven playoff series. For those of us who are out of control with the craziness kinds of Bruins fans, that win put us on top of the world. Nothing could ever go wrong. Life is good. Life is grand. Go Bruins, the sun shines upon us favorably, world without end, amen. Last night, however, the Bruins lost to the Maple Leafs in game five of the series. That resulted in a spiraling depression that can never be undone. Life is unbearable. Life is intolerable. Nothing will ever go right for us again. the world is ending and we should just put it out of its misery and get it overwith.
My question, again, is… are sports fans in other cities this freakin’ insane? Are fans in other parts of the world inclined to tie their mental health and sense of well being to their sports teams in such a way that the tiniest of victories result in unimaginable bliss and any loss results in crippling depression?
I ask because after last night’s Bruins overtime loss to the Maple Leafs, the depression is pretty crippling and life doesn’t seem terribly worth living. That could all change in an instant if the Bruins win game six tomorrow. If they lose again though… there will likely be a long parade of Bruins fans lining up on the Tobin Bridge, just preparing themselves for the possibility of a game seven loss which would lead to most of them hurling themselves off of the largest bridge in Massachusetts (the previously mentioned Tobin Bridge) to escape the pain and suffering caused by yet another Bruins choke.
Are all sports fans this insane, or is it just a greater Boston area flavor of insanity? Inquiring minds need to know. I’m guessing people all over the globe are nuts like this, but Bostonians are just a little more nuttier. We could be, at least.
Do I have to say it? Do I have to add a #sarcasm to this?
Suddenly Best Friends
This morning they were chasing each other around like maniacs, each trying desperately to kick the other’s ass.
Now?
In unrelated news, I mentioned earlier that I finished Star Wars: The Bad Batch this morning. Last night I finished Penny Dreadful. The night before I finished Snowpiercer. I’m halfway through season eight of The X-Files. Last night I started season two of Extraordinary. New episodes of Star Trek Discovery come out on Thursdays so there will be a new one tomorrow. I started watching Baby Reindeer on Netflix because I heard it was excellent. I’m halfway through and I think it’s good… maybe? It’s really tough to watch though. By design, I think. I also started re-watching The Last of Us and speaking of tough to watch. It is fantastic but gut wrenching even on the second view.
I feel like I am running out of shows to obsess over. Star Wars: Tales of the Empire comes out on Saturday. The new season of Doctor Who kicks off one week later. Maybe I should get back to Torchwood and Pennyworth again. I don’t know why I stopped watching those shows, but it has been a while. I guess I’ll just have to poke around Netflix and Hulu and find a couple more shows. This is the golden age of television, after all.
Clicky
I really like using clicky mechanical keyboards like this one that is on my desk in the office. Jen gave it to me. I like it a lot, but I really miss the number pad. I find myself reaching for a number pad multiple times a day when I work at this desk. I’m thinking about looking for a new clicky mechanical keyboard that has a number pad. I don’t know. I don’t want to spend money on it though.
Mostly this is just because the work day is ending soon and I wanted to post a picture of something and I am in the office so really my keyboard is the only subject available to me. You know how it is.
The Bad Batch is Over
This morning, while doing my usual morning exercise, I watched the new episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch that was released today. Not only is it a new episode, it’s the last new episode. Ever. The series finale wrapped everything up nicely.
Well… nicely may not apply to everything it wrapped up. No spoilers, but some of the stories didn’t so much wrap up as just end. It was a good episode and it closed out a very good season. The first two seasons were a little on the hit or miss side, though more hits than misses, but season three was a banger from start to finish.
There was a lot of speculation on spin offs and it does open the door to something, but not any of the things people were guessing. Those things could still happen as there is a lot of ground to cover. I’m still hoping for a Ventris/Omega buddy cop show, but today’s episode didn’t hint at anything in that direction.
There were a couple of dark moments, but nothing even remotely close to what I had predicted. When the first episode of the first season premiered, I made a prediction on how I thought the show should end. I expected it to answer the question, why are there no clones around in the original movies? The reason, of course, being that George Lucas hadn’t come up with the idea of a clone army yet. He mentioned The Clone Wars in the original movie but never gave any details at all. It wasn’t until the second of the prequel movies that we learned what that name meant. Back in the 70’s and 80’s? Ol’ George didn’t have a clue.
That’s the real reason why there are no clone troopers in episodes 4 through 6, but what is the retconned story reason? My prediction, after watching season one episode one of The Bad Batch, was that the ending to the series would include The Emperor giving an order along the lines of Order 66 which would result in all of the clones just dropping dead. Poof, all gone. Dead clones everywhere. No muss, no fuss, no clones around for A New Hope. That would have been dark. Really dark. Alas I was wrong with my prediction (big surprise there, right?) and as the series ended there are still clones all over the place.
Maybe if there is a spin off my predicted Order 67 (or whatever) might come to pass. We’ll have to see, my fellow Star Wars fanboys and fangirls. We’ll have to see.
That Face
I was trying to get ready for work this morning when I saw this face looking at me, begging me for some attention. How could anyone ever say no to that face? I mean, come on.
Quote
I like to borrow my quote-to-live-by from the keyboard player for Spinal Tap. He said, “have a good time, all the time.”
No… sorry, I can’t back that up. I’m full of it. I don’t live my life that way. I more live my life by a quote from the drummer from Spinal Tap. He said, “the law of averages says you will survive.” Actually, Marty DiBergi said that, not the drummer. He said it to the drummer and the drummer agreed… and then shortly after the drummer exploded on stage.
So that might not be a good quote to live by either.
Google used to have a good quote and I would like to say I try to live my life by it, even if Google does not. Google said, “don’t be evil.” I would expect most of us could live by that pretty successfully without much effort, but if that is the case how does one explain the maga cult and the rise of fascism worldwide? That’s the exact opposite of don’t be evil. That’s a bunch of psychotics embracing evil and being as evil as humanly possible all day long.
Crap.
I guess I don’t really have a quote to live my life by. I love my wife and I love my kids and I love my family and I love my friends and I try to be a good employee and a good supervisor and I try to play the guitar as much as possible and I try to embrace the chaos that is the occasional run-on sentence.
Other than that… I guess… have a good time all the time.
Game Five: Tied in the Third
Game five is about seven minutes into the third period and the score is tied at one.
This isn’t a must win for the Bruins, what with their three games to one lead in the series, but after blowing the same lead to Florida in the first round last year, it sure feels like a must win to me!
Come on, Bruins. You’ve got half a period left to put Toronto away for good.
