Wasted Opportunity (Also, blog Stats Review)

I’m serving another 24 hour prison sentence. Dinner has been served to both of us, the doors have been alarmed so she can’t wander off without making a huge noise (I can’t either of course, but I know how to turn the alarms off so there’s that at least), her meds have been delivered, and my intermittent fasting period has been kicked off for another night (a little early, but that’s okay).

If I were smart I would be using my prison sentence to work on some 50/90, but the SyFy channel is running both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and how can I not watch that? The only horcrux left is the snake.

We only have one more day in July, and lately that means I have been paying attention to the hit stats for this blog. I created this account in March of 2017 and the monthly counts for 2021 so far have (with one slight exception) destroyed every other month since the account was created. I’m not sure why (though I do seem to be posting more than ever before) but the numbers have been way up since last November and they skyrocketed starting in January. As always, please remember that skyrocketing monthly numbers for me look more like terribly bad afternoons for real blogs. All of you folks paying me visits are my new best online friends, but there aren’t that many of you, you know? Select company, right?

This is not my first wordpress.com account though. The first ran from December 2012 to July 2016. I was curious how my current stats compared to the old account’s. Turns out I am generally getting more hits now than I did then. Mostly. There were two months, December 2015 and January 2016, where the monthly hit count was higher than anything I’ve had with this account. Every other month was significantly lower than what I have been consistently getting in 2021. Why were those two months so much more popular than any other months since I started? No idea. I look at the summaries and I don’t see anything resembling a spike. There wasn’t one post that somehow, magically, drew in the people in droves. Nope, everything looks normal. I just had way more hits in those two months.

I set the record for this account last month, by quite a bit. This month has a chance to come close, but it’s going to take a crazy good night tonight and a really great day tomorrow to set a new record. Also, July has one more day than June so even if I do set the record it should have an asterisk. Roger Maris like a mutha, right?

Okay, I am going to ride out the rest of Deathly Hallows 2 for the next hour or so. Maybe I’ll try to write some lyrics, or a bass riff, or something. Anything, just so long as my mother doesn’t have a bad night.

Please don’t let her have a bad night. Pretty please.

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Not Like the Old Days

My mother has The Price is Right on the TV in her room. She’s not watching it, she’s reading the paper. I’m working down the hall from her and I can hear everything.

They just had the contestants bid on a pair of trips. One was to Utah and the other to Rhode Island.

Utah and Rhode Island……

I know it’s just a bidding round and not a showcase showdown (I cannot believe that I still remember that name) but come on… Utah and Rhode Island?

This is not the The Price is Right that I remember.

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Meaningless Stuff

I know this is completely meaningless given the shit state of everything else happening in my personal hell of a universe but I’m trying to finish season seven of The Flash and I have a question for the Berlantiverse.

Is Flash season seven episode 16 supposed to be a back door pilot for a Green Lantern show? I’d be down with that.

Okay, back to our regularly schedule shit show.

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Last Night

Last night was only really bad for about an hour. After that it was just a matter of waiting. Once the pain let up I had to wait for her to go to sleep for the night before I could relax. It took a long time. At least it seemed like a long time. I’m not sure when she actually conked out, but it was probably around 11:30. Definitely before midnight.

Today she slept until 8:00am. I was just bringing her morning meds to her, thinking I was going to have to wake her up, when she came out of her room on her own. That was good timing. She has a new problem today but I don’t think it’s anything too concerning. Some days she tries to talk on the phone to my father and if the phone is at her right ear she can’t hear him. I’m 99.999% sure it’s just wax build up. Today she has it in both ears. Here’s hoping it clears up a little.

In the interest of distracting me from everything, there’s a new episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch today. I have just enough time to sneak it in before work… assuming the rest of the world leaves me alone for half an hour.

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Lunchtime Post

I haven’t done a lunchtime post in a while because I’ve been too busy to stop working during lunch. The last few work days have been insane. Today is nuts but slightly less nuts so I’ve got a minute.

Usually work slows down a bit during the summer. That’s not the case this year. Is that due to the pandemic? Summer is meaningless when you’ve been locked down for a year and a half? Maybe. More likely it’s just bad luck.

I need things to change. I can’t keep doing this staying at my parents house for much longer. I feel like I’m coming unglued. We need things to change. I feel like Glen after Negan hit him the first time. Read the first 100 issues of The Walking Dead comic. You’ll understand.

Hold on, I have to give mom her pills….

….okay, I’m back. What was I talking about? Mom is watching soap operas. That’s new.

Spoke too soon. She just changed the channel back to a game show. That’s a whole lot better than the catholic channel she had on this morning, and it’s astronomical units better than Jerry Springer. Where did I put my headphones?

Do you own a pair of Apple AirPods Pro or AirPods Max? Turn on transparency mode and then have a fan blow into your face. The noise is incredible.

Eight minutes left in my lunch break. I have two meetings this afternoon. I want to take a nap, but that’s not unusual for 2:00pm on a Wednesday.

Wait a second… am I feeling out of whack today because it’s the first Wednesday in six weeks that didn’t have a new Marvel episode? Loki ended last week and What If doesn’t start until next month. Not sure how much interest I have in What If. Animated Star Wars is acceptable to me for some reason, but I am not sure if animated Marvel is also acceptable. We’ll see.

Okay, now it’s back to work. Have a good afternoon, everyone!

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Quiet Night

It was quiet here last night. No pain complaints. I made her soup for dinner, then an hour later I saw her bringing food into her bedroom. Did she forget that she ate? Did she not like the soup? Should I have given her more? Who knows. I’m just happy she went to sleep without issues.

Rick and Morty was good. Better than last week (Sticky!). World of Warcraft Burning Crusade never installed on my Mac. Jerk. I’ve been playing on a PC at home. The times I’ve played in the past I was always with Jen and just followed her around. I never really learned how to do stuff on my own. The goal this time is to get up to a decent level and then meet up with Jen and go on an online fantasy killing spree. You know, like you do. It’s love, yeah?

I’m working a half day today and then taking my mother to a doctor’s appointment. The hospital has valet parking. Here’s hoping it’s close enough to where we need to go to help. Also, here’s hoping the rain eventually stops (it never will, ever).

Okay, off to work.

robertjames1971

Family Feud

The fuck?

My mother has Family Feud on the television right now. I’m not sure if she’s actually watching it, but it’s on.

I can’t see the TV but I can hear it. They were just at the end of an episode in the bonus money round, or whatever the hell they call it. One of the questions was, “how long is Harry Potter’s magic wand?”

First of all… magic wand? No. Screw you. It’s wand, not magic wand. What do you think this is, some stupid abracadabra story? Fuck you.

I didn’t hear what the first player gave as an answer. The second player said 12 inches. Moron. Then they gave the scores and the player got a good total off of the question. Uh uh, no way. Then Steve Harvey said that 12 inches was the number one answer.

Well fuck you right in your stupid fuck you. 12 inches? No. Everyone knows that Harry Potter’s wand is 11 inches long. ELEVEN INCHES. Not 12. Morons. It’s bad enough that the contestant said 12, but to learn that most of the people surveyed said 12 too?

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. Fucking death eater sympathizers. There’s no hope for us.

robertjames1971

One Hour Down

One Nana Sitting hour down, 23 or so to go.

Two items of note:

First, I friggin did it again. I forgot to bring a 12-pack of Diet Pepsi with me today. What a moron. Looks like it’s grape flavored tap water for me for the next 23 or so hours.

Second, and this has nothing at all to do with the current situation but is instead a comment on modern cinema… I guess…

The E Network is showing all of the Harry Potter movies today because wouldn’t you? Sorcerer’s Stone was just kicking off when I got here. I had a thought about it that never occurred to me before. Sort of a Marvel What If? kinda thought.

Harry and Draco Malfoy meet outside of the great hall for the first time on their first day of school. They are waiting to be escorted in by McGonagall so they can be sorted into houses. Malfoy is his normal, slimy, racist, entitled prick self right off the bat. He offers to show newbie Harry the ropes and extends his hand in friendship. Harry, not being a schmuck, brushes him off.

The thought I had at that point was this: What would have happened between the two of them if Harry had been sorted into Slytherin? We know the sorting hat considered putting him in that house but Harry asked it not to. If Harry had been a Slytherin, would their rivalry have continued throughout their school years the way it did? Would they eventually have become buds? Maybe not actual friends, but would they have tolerated each other? Would Malfoy have acted on his jealousy the way that Ron Weasley never really did?

Someone has to think of these things, you know? Should I write fan fiction? Maybe a short story about how Harry hooks up with Pansy Parkinson and Malfoy loses his shit over it? Hmmmm… how about no? Yeah, no.

robertjames1971