Tag: binge watching

Directionless

It is weird, you know? Now that I’ve run out of daily writing prompts and have kicked the habit (so to speak) I feel like I’ve lost my blogging mojo somewhat. Like… now what do I do? You know what I mean, jelly bean?

Today is the 4th of July. That is meaningless now that the united states supreme court has declared that the president is above the law. We the people, except for the president, right? Fuck it, I don’t care. My country is dead. Nothing to do now except vote for the guy who won’t abuse his new dictatorial powers. Whatever.

The holiday no longer has any meaning except that it’s now 50 songs in 90 days challenge season. From today through October 1st I am going to try to write a shite load of shitty songs. Be warned, I am going to write about that a lot. It’s only 8:18am and I already have one riff written. There will be tons more to come, I think. Unless I wuss out and lose motivation and stop working… like last year… and almost every year that I’ve tried this dumb thing.

The holiday is meaningless now but it’s still a day off during the summer. The plan is to have a cookout. Burgers on the grill for lunch. Chicken on the grill for dinner. Of course climate change has turned New England into New Seattle and it rains here almost every day. The forecast calls for thunderstorms right around dinner time. Hoo-fucking-ray, am I right?

What else… binge TV watching. What are we checking out these days? The Acolyte is excellent. It was good through three episodes, then ramped up big time starting with episode four. There are six episodes out and two left to go. Really looking forward to seeing how it ends. The Boys has a new episode out today. I haven’t watched it yet. House of the Dragon is just as spectacular as you hoped it would be. Over on Netflix I am trying to get back into The Witcher. I watched each of the first two seasons when they came out. They were okay. I started the third season when it first came out but lost track of it. I’ve watched a couple more episodes this week and am having a hard time remembering who everyone is and what they are trying to do. I’ll power through. I started watching Dark. I think I am three episodes into the first season. It’s okay. It’s a little tough to follow given that multiple actors are playing each character. Also, it’s a German show and I’m having a hard time taking some of the hairstyles seriously. I mean… wow. Not that that sort of thing catches my eye at all, but really… wow. There is also Torchwood on Max. It’s good. It’s not great. I’ll power through it, for completeness sake.

I’m sitting at my desk in the cellar right now. I just saw a spider. That’s not unusual. Our cellar is kind of the Spider Kingdom. I am not one who is afraid of spiders or weirded out by spiders or anything like that. I usually just ignore them and let them eat the other bugs. This guy though… it was big. Like… it’s going to haunt my nightmares big. I tried to terminate it with extreme prejudice using a fly swatter but I missed. I can’t find it now. I fear that it is going to come hunting for me to get revenge. I mean… it was big enough that if we still have mice hiding out down here then they might be in trouble. It was that big.

Yeah… see what I mean about me being directionless, bloggily speaking?

Failure to Stick the Landing

The Great X-Files Rewatch Adventure has reached an important moment. Season nine episode 19. The first half of what was expected to be the series finale. Let’s ignore for the moment that they made a second movie a few years later, and then added two new seasons many years later. This was supposed to be it. A two part series finale.

And it was not good.

I mean, I remember it being okay but not nearly good enough. They had a chance to end it with a bang but instead they just failed to stick the landing. They failed to give the show the send off it deserved.

Now, in 2024, let’s see if it was as meh as I remember it. After that, I’ll watch the second movie for the first time since Jen and I saw it in the theater in 2008 (I think).

Less Than Nine Hours to Go

It’s just after 8:30am on the Friday before Labor Day weekend and I haven’t punched in to work yet. I had a few things to do first. I went with Harry to the garage to drop off his rental car and pick up his car. It’s all set and it looks as good as new. He just left to go back to Burlington. He’s going to miss his first class this morning, but that’s about the only downside to this visit. All is well again.

I’m less than nine hours away from a three day weekend. I just finished season 11 of the new Doctor Who. I have 20 episodes over two seasons left to go and then I’ll be all caught up. I’m on episode 17 of season seven of the original show. Eight episodes left in this season and something like 2346123472572 episodes left in the full series. I don’t expect to finish either series this weekend, but I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be done with the new show in a week or so which means I will be 100% caught up before the next episode airs in November.

What about the music project? I have 27 songs finished and 39 total in progress. I have four more songs ready to mix and I hope to crank them all out tonight. I have 30 days left, including today, and a ton of work still to go, but I think I am more or less on pace to finish on time. I’ll have a few days at Disney World where it will be tough to make progress, but I think I will be okay. I should note that even though I took over two weeks off in August, I still managed to finish an RPM Challenge Rules album in a month as I started and finished 12 songs within the calendar month. I started and finished 10 in July too. In order to hit 50 songs over all I will need to start and finish 11 songs in September. Three album in a months in a row isn’t a bad place to be. I think once this project is finished I will try to get back into the last re-recording project which has been left hanging for a little more than a year now.

I mentioned in the last post that my stomach has been a little less than 100% this morning. I had some trouble with water early on and had to deal with a minor bout of The Foamies after taking my vitamins. I only got eight ounces of water in during my exercise, but afterwards I was okay for breakfast and I am feeling much better now. I’ve managed another eight ounces since I came home from Harry’s auto shop. I think we’re back on track today. I might have a hamburger on the grill for lunch today. We’ll see how it goes.

Okay, it’s 8:50am now and I have to be punched into work by 9:00. I think I’ll hit publish on this masterpiece of an update and get my work day started. Lots to do today, lots to do. Eight hours and 40 minutes to go until the long weekend.

You can do it, Robbie! You can do it!

Random Doctor Who Occurrence or Odd Coincidence

Funny things happen when you binge watch two different versions of the same television show. Well… maybe not, but when you’re a weird ass nerd like I am maybe uninteresting things seem like interestingly funny-ish things. I don’t know.

I think I* wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, but while binging both the original Doctor Who and the current Doctor Who series, I had this moment when I hit points in each show where they changed Doctors. In the old show, I started season four where Hartnell turns into Troughton and in the new show I hit season eight where Smith becomes Capaldi.

Strangely, even though the two shows have vastly different episodes counts per season, it literally just happened again. Yesterday I hit season seven of the old show where Troughton became Pertwee, and a few minutes ago the new show hit season 11 where Capaldi becomes Whittaker. That’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it? Weird, right?

There’s an even weirder coincidence in the current plots of both shows. Six full seasons through the original show and for the first time The Doctor doesn’t have a TARDIS. The story line is that he is being punished for something and it was taken away from him. He’s going to get it back eventually, but I think he’s going to be TARDIS-free for a couple of years. I didn’t see that coming. The weird plot coincidence is that the last shot in season 10 of the new show is The Doctor getting thrown out of the TARDIS just before it blows up (does it actually blow up? I don’t know yet) which means that when we start season 11 The Doctor is also TARDIS-free. Again, I didn’t see that coming.

I mean… how weird is all of that? I know it’s not actually weird or funny or anything, and I am just a total nerd who sees things that aren’t really there. It’s nothing but I just figured I’d write it down so that 10 years from now I’ll read this post and think, “oh yeah, I ‘member that” and then move on with the rest of my life.

*The right shift key on my MacBook Pro keyboard is acting funny again. It took me three tries to type “I” without getting “i” instead. It seems to be working fine now though. Aren’t you thrilled?

So Much Doctor

I flaked out in a huge way today. Apart from going grocery shopping and helping a tiny bit with cooking dinner, I didn’t do anything productive today. Well, I did add a few new song ideas to the fifty songs in ninety days challenge pipeline, but outside of that it was just a marathon of Doctor Who.

I watched a couple of episodes of season seven of the current series, and a shite tonne of episodes of season three of the original series. I haven’t gotten to the point where either of my current season doctors change actors, but I am getting there.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a little more musical, and I also kinda need a haircut before our wedding weekend next week. Maybe I’ll take care of that. We’ll see.

For now though, first doctor, season three, episode 40: The Savages Part 3. Let’s see what hi-jinx the first Doctor gets up to in this one.

Reality vs 90210

My beloved wife is binge watching the shit out of Beverly Hills 90210. Since I am such a good husband, I am watching it with her. In season four there is a story line that does not line up to my personal experiences. Allow me to explain.

For three years I was a college radio DJ. 2002-2004 or so. Something like that. Maybe 2001-2004? Whatever. I had a show on UMass Lowell’s radio station. Once a week on Tuesday afternoons. It was a great time.

On the show, one of the 90210 gang also has a college radio show of his own. Outside of that, things aren’t really similar. For me, there was never a time when I opened a random desk and found a packet of crystal meth just sitting there. That literally never happened. I never even found a packet of sugar in a desk. Maybe it was just a California vs Massachusetts thing, but David 90210 and I had vastly different college radio experiences.

Meeces to Pieces

It’s time for our two new cats to prove their worth to the household. Yesterday we started seeing clear signs that they were stalking something. The hunt was on. Last night Harry got a brief glimpse: a mouse. Later, Jen and I also saw it hiding in a tiny space between a cabinet and a wall. I tried getting it with a broom but failed miserably.

The cats were hyper vigilant throughout the night but haven’t had any success yet. There was a moment this morning where I heard them attacking from the next room, and also heard their prey squeaking in terror. I felt kinda bad, but that’s the price you pay for invading our home.

The cats have two responsibilities in this house. One is to be adorable and let us pet them and snuggle them. The other is to eliminate small furry invaders. It’s time to hold up your end of the bargain, Robin and Lily. I have full confidence in your mousing abilities. Make Daddy proud, girls.

No problems last night as far as stomach pain goes. I was a little nervous before bed. I was a little queasy. Not bad, but just aware that I wasn’t at 100%. I was also so thoroughly exhausted that I couldn’t really think straight. I turned in at about 11:00 but I forgot to clean out my CPAP mask so I went to sleep without it. I woke up at about 3:30. My first thought was, here we go again. Then I realized what woke me up. It wasn’t in my stomach, it was on my stomach. Miss Lily had jumped on me and was very insistent about showing me some affection. I gave her what she wanted. She doesn’t really show me any attention like that, so I wasn’t about to say no.

Once she had her fill I tried going back to sleep, but I was pretty much awake. I just sort of laid there for a while, then I got up and got a new CPAP mask out of my closet. I had to deal with Miss Robin who ran inside while I had the door open and wouldn’t come out. I swapped out the drool’d in mask for the new, clean one and went back to bed. I got to listen to an attack on the mouse before I fell asleep. My alarm was set for 7:00am but I snoozed it until a little before 8:00. So the good news is, no stomach issues or anything health related. The bad news is I didn’t sleep through the night the way I was hoping. The lesser good news is that I did snag about seven hours of sleep that I very much needed, though I am still feeling really tired this morning.

Here’s hoping tonight continues to show improvement.

I was afraid of this. I have fully committed myself to binge watching all of Star Wars The Clone Wars. There are 133 episodes. It’s going to take a while. I know I tried doing this once before but fell off the wagon very early. Why? What stopped me?

During this morning’s faux jog (pronounced, yog) I found out. Season one, episode eight… the entire episode focuses on Jar Jar and it is just as insufferably awful as you would expect. I made it through without vomiting but it did sap my re-watching enthusiasm by about 65%. Oh well. Maybe I’ll go back to the X-Files for a couple of days.

If I don’t get a haircut today I am going to go insane. Just warning you. Ya know, in case I start posting things that are more insane than normal. If I do, you’ll know why.

Monday Monday

It’s Monday and I’m back on trackish.

I slept a little late this morning and got a slow start. I got a little juice into my system along with my morning vitamins. I went through the morning routine and did a little laundry. I had everything wrapped up by 8:15 so I started my walking in place thing. I got all 30 minutes in and was feeling pretty good. I tried to help Jen find a charger for her MacBook Pro, and then I punched into work. I went through a good chunk of the weekend email and then grabbed half of a protein shake. I have a meeting at 10:00. I don’t know if I am going to be able to get any food in before then, but at least I’ll have some protein and some more liquid. I wonder if today might see a protein shake in place of breakfast. We’ll see.

Things I want to do today include going grocery shopping after work, maybe spending the first few minutes of my lunch break on the exercise bike. I have been wanting to up the exercise, and the bike is the way to do it. Is today the day I make it happen? Could be.

I wanted to play guitar this weekend and I failed. I spent a lot of time with my parents, and the rest of the time I spent hanging out with my wife. Time well spent. We finished The Offer, which surprised us both which how much we enjoyed it. Then we binged all 10 episodes of How I Met Your Father. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. I think I had exactly one laugh out loud moment through the whole 10 episodes, but I did like it. When season two happens I’ll watch it if Jen wants to watch it. I also finally started season three of The Boys. There are five episodes out right now and I am half way through episode three. Butcher as a Sup? Nooooo.

Okay. Time to get some working in. Have a good Monday. In the immortal words of U2, don’t let the bastards get you down! Huzzah!

Binge Watch

This post has two meanings. One is literal, the other is a test of some changes I made.

The literal part…

Jen and I have completed our epic binge watch of all nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother. The ending still sucks, even though they telegraphed it over the course of the entire series, and littered the last season with obvious hints. Oh well.

The question now is… what next? Should we binge watch another show, and if so what show should we binge watch? Part of me wants to suggest a Star Trek series, partly because they run long, partly because it’s totally different from a sit com, and partly because the last TV show I watched was an episode of Picard so it’s sort of on my brain.

What do you think? Make suggestions. Comments are open.

The test involves cross posting to Twitter. Specifically, not cross posting to Twitter. I don’t know if the elon muskhole experience is going to drive me away from Twitter or not, but I am setting myself up to go, just in case.

TV and Stuff

There’s a new episode of WandaVision out. I haven’t watched it. Hopefully later tonight. We’ll see how the time works out.

I just finished my pointless rewatch of The Flash. That show comes back soon. The Walking Dead comes back soon. There’s a new Superman show on CW that premiers this week. That could hold us over until Supergirl comes back, but the idea of Superman as a dad to two teenagers… I don’t know about that. Batwoman is back, but they are already rebooting and it’s only season two. Season one was okay, but was it good enough to justify coming back after rebooting? I don’t know. I haven’t watched any of season two yet. That might be a clue as to how interested I am.

What shows should I hyper focus on for the next stretch of Covid lockdown?

I heard Resident Alien was good. I might check that out. I never got around to the second season of Altered Carbon, so that’s a possibility. I hear The Expanse and Snowpiercer are good. Handmaid’s Tale is a possibility. I was afraid to watch that during Trump because it felt too close to home. It still does, but maybe I should try it? Ozark? Breaking Bad? Lost? Mindhunter?

I don’t know… WandaVision, The Flash, and The Walking Dead (along with Falcon and Winter Soldier, once WandaVision ends) are a lot. They should be enough. They don’t give me the option of putting it on Netflix and letting it run all day while I do other things though. Unless I start The Walking Dead from the beginning, the way I just did with The Flash. Maybe.

Maybe I’ll just put The Mandalorian on and let it run on a loop 24 hours a day. That’ll work.