Tag: Netflix

Snow

It is snowing today. The forecast called for 1-3 inches but we barely got anything. It stuck, but it wasn’t enough to cover the grass. I hate snow, but I can live with it today. Assuming, of course, that the “storm” didn’t just get delayed and we’re going to get the 1-3 inches later today. That would blow.

Hey, dig it, the Bruins won again. Nice. Granted they beat Chicago and Chicago isn’t what we’d call… good. I’ll take it though.

Today is Thursday. I have 90 minutes to go before I punch into work. I could be doing something creative or productive. Nope. I’m watching Better Call Saul. Season five, episode two. Half off for non-violent felonies.

Okay then, Robert. Let’s start this crappy day. Bring it on. Say no to snow.

Random Lunchtime Thoughts

Just some random things going through my tiny little brain right now.

I don’t get hungry anymore. In this post-gastric bypass universe I go from feeling comfortably satisfied, skip right past normal hungry feelings, and catapult straight to oh my god I am so hungry it hurts why does my stomach hurt so much?

Normally that isn’t a big deal. I have something to eat and I feel better. Some days though, like the last couple of days, it gets a bit annoying. Some days I just can’t get out in front of the problem. I eat something, then an hour or so later I feel the hunger pains coming back. Normally I can go about three hours without any issues. Sometimes, like when I was visiting my father in the hospital and had other things on my mind, I could go twice that without my stomach perking up at all.

Today I finished breakfast at around 8:00am. I started feeling it at a little before 11:00am. I was drinking water at the time and had to pause for 15 minutes before I could eat again so I didn’t get any food into my empty stomach until 11:20. I had a quick snack. I was done at 11:26. The hunger pains were back in full force by 12:11pm. What the hell, bro? I went on lunch at 1:00pm so I made myself wait to eat anything more. I didn’t want to fill my new little stomach pouch before lunch and then throw off my schedule even more. I was able to sneak in a little water which helped a little but come on, stomach… you have to do better than 45 minutes, right?

Change of subject. Television shows that are currently being worked through.

  • Mindhunter on Netflix. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first of two seasons. It’s creeping me out. Good stuff.
  • Only Murders in the Building on Hulu. I think I am an episode behind. The new season is good. I was nervous when I heard it was moving to Los Angeles, but so far it’s firmly grounded in New York where it belongs. It is also nice to have Paul Rudd back again.
  • Agatha All Along on Disney+. Episode three is out today, I think. I’ll watch it tonight. I’m enjoying it so far.
  • Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. The last couple of episodes feel like a small step back in terms of quality. Word on the street is the next two (the last two episodes of season two) are going to be spectacular. I’m all in.
  • Dark on Netflix. I liked the first season. I’m halfway through the second season and it is struggling to hold my attention.
  • The Orville on Hulu. Season three is a bit of a slog. The episodes are WAY too long and not good enough to justify the time commitment. It’s not bad, it’s just not that good.
  • Futurama on Hulu. Gold. Absolute gold.
  • Exploding Kittens on Netflix. It’s not bad, but I’m having a hard time staying invested in it.
  • Coming Soon: Penguin on Max. The first couple of episodes are out but I haven’t watched them yet. I’ll get to them soon.
  • Coming Soon: Daryl Dixon season two on AMC. The new season kicks off this coming Sunday. I’ll be there.

Dude… that’s a shit load of TV. I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten a couple of shows too.

I have some linens that I took from my father’s apartment. The plan is to donate them somewhere. My sister suggested the MSPCA at Nevins Farm in Methuen. It’s right around the corner from my house. I wasn’t sure if that was something they’d take so I Googled it today. Sure enough, they take bedding. They don’t take pillows or knitted blankets though. If I have any of those I’ll have to bring them somewhere else.

I also took a combination turn table, AM/FM radio, CD player, cassette player from his apartment. I haven’t found a home for it yet. I am thinking that tomorrow I’ll plug it in next to my desk and listen to old Rush records on vinyl while I work. That sounds like a good plan to me.

Okay then. Here’s hoping the hunger pains are taken care of for a few hours at least. I’m crossing my fingers… and symbolically crossing my bypassed digestive system too… whatever that means.

Firewall Fail

I took my laptop to the hospital today. My father is asleep so I took it out of the bag thinking I could watch the season three finale of The Umbrella Academy. I connected to the guest wifi and…

All of my streaming services are blocked by the firewall. I have an account with a free VPN service, but that appears to be blocked too. I cannot connect to it.

YouTube works though.

True Crime Docs

My wife and I watched a true crime documentary on the Netflix today. I don’t remember what it was called.

I listen to a couple of true crime-ish podcasts regularly. It’s not my favorite genre but it will do in a pinch.

This one tonight has freaked me out. I mean, I know there are people out there who can be best described as evil, but the things this piece of shit did.

Hug your kids, folks. I mean it. Wow.

In happier news, I cooked chicken on the grill tonight and I didn’t ruin it! How cool is that? Jen said it was delicious. She’s so nice to me like that. I loves her lots. Hug your spouse or your significant other too because sometimes they will say nice things about your chicken.

Rebel Moon Part II Recap

Okay, I finished the new Rebel Moon movie. As bad as the first half was (see the post from earlier today), the second half is better. Why? Because with about an hour left in the movie it turns into an unending string of action scenes with almost no dialog. Perfect. It has an obnoxious amount of slow motion, but that’s Zack Snyder for you.

There are a whole bunch of Chekov’s Gun moments. Character A picks up weapon B and dies without using it. 15 minutes later character C is about to die but stumbles on weapon B and uses it to blow shit up. That happens a few times. There is also multiple deus ex machina moments. One of the funniest moments in the movie is where the source of a deus ex machina stands regally and watches a different deus ex machina play out. It’s freakin’ absurd.

Is the movie good? Oh, hells no. Is it as bad as the reviews? Yes. The first half is worse, the second half is just one long, unending battle scene and therefore avoids all of the things that are awful about the first half. It’s still not great, but it’s better. Not enough to save the film from this review though: Terrible.

Will there be another one of these movies? From the story point of view, yes… of course there will. From the standpoint of Netflix and money? Who knows. If people are watching it then probably. If that is the case then you can blame me. Sorry about that.

Unrelated musical note. I finally got around to putting volumes five and six of Quarantine Tunes onto my bandcamp account. Not because I expect anyone to buy it… please don’t buy it… please, it is not worth any money… but so I could add them to my music page here on the ol’ bloggie. I am one mix away from finishing volume seven. I’ll probably post that to bandcamp and the music page as soon as it’s finished.

Rebel Moon II: Atrocious?

I said in a post the other day that I was planning on watching the new Rebel Moon movie (part 2) on Netflix. I was thinking about re-watching the first movie because even though I watched it a short time ago I couldn’t remember anything about it (except for the thing about Daario Naharis doing a scene with Daario Naharis). I figured I’d watch part 1 to refresh my memory and then watch part 2.

Last night, that’s what I did. I watched part 1 again. It’s still bad, but probably not quite as bad as the reviews made it out to be. The dialog is worse than I remembered. It’s really bad. I mean… really bad. The complete and total lack of plot was just as I recalled. The movie isn’t so much terrible as it is just boring.

This morning I have started watching part 2. I am about 45 minutes into it and… oh my goodness, is it terrible. I mean. Atrocious. It’s not like we are expecting much out of Zack Snyder these days but sweet christmas this is ridiculous. I still have about an hour and a quarter to go, so it might improve, but I am not what you would call hopeful.

My favorite part so far is the slow motion, action farming scenes. We watch them harvesting grain in slow motion while super intense, dramatic music plays and I gotta be honest with you all, I laughed out loud at how incredibly stupid it was. Just ridiculous like you’ve never known before. That was briefly topped by the scene of the general filling his water bottle in slow motion. Like… wow. Just… wow. I mean, it’s probably Chekhov’s water bottle, right? It’s got to have some meaning at some point further on in the movie, right? He filled a water bottle in slow motion… that has to have meaning, right?

I’m 48 minutes in now… it can’t get worse, can it? Can it?

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.

Happy Dishwasher Day

We had a new dishwasher installed today. I am in the office so I have only seen pictures so far. I want to take it for a spin when I get home. I’ll dirty up some dishes if I need to.

I was in the office yesterday. I’ll be in the office tomorrow. Then I am at home on Friday, which is good because a plumber is coming on Friday. It never ends, kids. It never ends. Totally worth it though.

Change of subject: I watched 3 Body Problem on Netflix. I enjoyed it. I was warned that episode five was a mind blower and sure enough it was. I wonder if people who read the original books enjoyed it too. It read somewhere that it was considered to be an un-adaptable book and the fear was that people who read the book would hate the show. I wonder if that’s true. I wonder how moving much of the focus away from China would affect people’s opinions. I don’t know that I am curious enough to try and read the book, but maybe. I feel the same way about Foundation on AppleTV+. I enjoyed the show, but did I enjoy it enough to give the Azimov books a go? I don’t know.

Change of subject: This coming Sunday is Easter. Easter doesn’t have any real meaning for me anymore. Sorry, not sorry. We’ll have dinner with my father. The rest of my focus this weekend will hopefully be music. I have two songs for the March edition of Record Every Month to finish and there is a lot left to do on both of them. Here’s hoping I’ll get everything done. I won’t be distracted by the start of the Red Sox season though. Some moron decided to have Boston start the season on the West coast with all of the games being night games. That means the first handful of games this season won’t start until 10pm for Red Sox fans. Screw that.

Okay, here’s today’s bad photo a day challenge picture. No reason, just cause.

209/365
209/365

I’ll be in the office tomorrow too so expect number 210 of 365 to be another thoughtless picture of whatever I happen to see in the cellar while doing my daily exercise at 5:00am.

For All Mankind

Now that the epic Star Trek: Deep Space Nine rewatch is over I need a new show to binge. Jen and I are going to watch Star Trek: Voyager together. I had started an X-Files rewatch at the same time as Deep Space Nine and I intend to get back to it. I also started For All Mankind the other day. I am on season one episode six right now. There are four, 10 episode season. It’s pretty good, so far at least. 

I also thought about giving Peaky Blinders another try. Jen and I watched the first couple of episodes a long time ago but stopped for some reason. Maybe it’s time to try again. Unfortunately it’s only available on the ad-free tier of Netflix. Figures. Jerks.

Anyway, here is a picture of Robin the cat. Just because.

New Years Eve

It’s New Years Eve again. Wasn’t it just New Years Eve a few weeks ago? 2023 is ending? How the hell did that happen?

We don’t have any solid plans for today apart from picking up some take-out Chinese food. Maybe some board games? Maybe another round of Yahtzee?

I watched Rebel Moon on Netflix. I was conflicted. I wanted to watch it but I also did not want to watch it. See the conflict? My spoiler free review is to recommend that you wait until part two comes out in April. This movie feels like two hours worth of a four hour heist movie, where generally the first half of a heist movie is assembling the team. That means the movie that is out now is really just the assembling of the team. That’s why it doesn’t have a coherent story. It’s more like a bunch of mini-movies introducing all of the characters. Hopefully part two will make sense on it’s own. So if you wait for part two to come out and then watch them both together, maybe it will be a decent movie as a whole. For now though… eh.

I have to play guitar today. I have two songs in progress for this month’s Record Every Month challenge. They both need lead guitar parts. I need to record them today and then mix the two songs and then I will have my first R.E.M. win since September. It’s a must.

Speaking of guitar, I went down a rabbit hole last week that I find myself visiting once every couple of years. If you read this page you might have noticed that I have been obsessed with the band Rush since 1981. Back then there were two bands that I was obsessed with. The other was Led Zeppelin. As I got older though, the whole unending adolescence vibe that Zeppelin had sort of got tiring for me and I moved away from them. Also, Jimmy Page is one of my guitar heroes, and he is definitely one of the reasons I NEEDED to learn to play guitar when I was a kid. When I look at my own playing objectively though (if that’s even possible) I don’t hear a lot of his style in my playing. I think as I moved away from the debauchery that Zeppelin represented, I sort of moved away from Page too.

Every once in a while though, I feel the need to really dig into the catalog and try to remind myself that there is a lot of value there. That comes up once every couple of years, and it came up for me on Thursday. I put together a playlist with all of their studio records and over the course of the work day I plowed through all of it. Did the old musical feelings I used to get when I listened to Led Zeppelin as a teenager come back? Yes. Not exactly the same, as I am no longer that kid that I used to be, but it was close enough that I felt good about the whole experience. Now I can move on to other things again until the next time I feel cosmically compelled to examine the Zeppelin again. Probably some time in 2025, I think.

Okay then, it’s almost 11:00am. I have not had anything to eat for about three hours. It’s time to have a snack to keep my stomach happy. Gastric Bypass for the win!

Happy New Years Eve, everyone. HoHoHo.