Tag Television

Random Boring Quarantinie Thoughts

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Three weeks down… still going… no end in sight.

It’s okay.

I’m all caught up on the three CW DC Comics shows that I’m still in to.  I finished Bojack Horseman, Picard, and Discovery.  Now what?  I watched the first five episodes of Altered Carbon something like a year or more ago.  I just started episode six… if I can remember what’s going on I’ll try to run with it… I don’t have a lot of optimism on that.  I want to watch Lock and Key too.  You is also out there unfinished.  I don’t know.  Part of me wants to just do a full Walking Dead rewatch.  I don’t know.

Over the last year or so I have sort of rediscovered King Crimson.  Big time.  Listening to the 1981-1984 line up is making me think… is it time to start playing with guitar synthesizers?  Back then you needed to buy a whole new guitar to do that.  Later you could do it with just a new pick up.  Now you can do it with pedals alone.  I’ve been watching demos.  It’s a major rabbit hole.  I don’t really want to go there.  I mean, Albert King never used a guitar synthesizer, right?  I don’t know.

The weather has been shitty for a week.  Rain rain go away and all that shit.  April showers bring May showers and everything.  Next week we might hit the 60’s.  That would be nice.  I very much want to go outside, even if it’s just to sit on the patio.  If we’re all going to be stuck at home for… ever… then I want the weather to be nice enough for me to take my conference calls outside.  I want to cook on the grill… at least until it runs out of propane.  Not sure how we’ll replace that.  Gas stations are essential, right?

I’m gonna play some guitar today, I think.  It’s not much, but it helps.

The kids are at their father’s this weekend.  I wish they were here.  All of this crap is somehow easier to deal with when all four of us are together.  It’s easier to worry about how they are holding up when I can actually see them.

I got them mean old quarantine blues.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 12

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I was just watching TV and some commercials came on.  One was for some diaper brand and the background music was a song that Lizardfish covers.  I tried to play along but it was only 30 seconds long and I didn’t get my guitar case open in time.

I think I need a band practice.

The next commercial used a David Bowie song.  I don’t know if it was the original version or a cover/sound alike deal but if it was the original it means I just heard Robert Fripp in a television commercial.  It made me kinda throw up in my mouth a little bit.    There was a lawsuit recently where the Bowie estate tried to remove Fripp’s name from the rights to the song.  I wonder if this is the reason, or just a result.

One last thing about TV commercials.  I am getting a little sick (furious) over companies trying to market to the quarantine.  Burger King… really?  A tax prep company that made their add look like it was shot on a web cam?  They are so the same as us, right?  I guess all that federal bailout money gives them all the money they’ll ever need to use people dying as a marketing plan, am I right or am I right?

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 7

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It’s been a week and a half, can I get used to this already?  Come on, this is stupid.

My normal-life telecommuting day is Thursday.  New episodes of Star Trek Picard come out on Thursdays.

A few minutes ago I was shaving… why?  I don’t know.  As I was shaving I thought to my idiot self, I’m working from home today so there is a new Star Trek Picard to watch before work.  Sweet!

Wrong.

It’s Wednesday.  It’s my eighth consecutive telecommuting day.  Why the hell can’t I stop thinking every single effing day is Thursday?  Brain, would you get on this please?  I’m tired of being disappointed over no new Picard every single solitary day!  Enough already!

And what the hell am I gonna do when Picard is over?  I should have three more weeks of The Walking Dead followed by the premier of the new spin off.  Wrong.  It’s two more weeks and then nothing.  The season finale of The Walking Dead isn’t finished and it won’t be until after this all clears up.  It has been delayed indefinitely.  The new series is also still in post production so they are pushing that off indefinitely too.  Same with (at least some) of the CW DC Comics shows.  The final episodes are being delayed until it’s all over.  Bloody hell!

That’s all right though, our schmuck of a president say’s all of the restrictions will be lifted by Easter.  He said it would be so great to see all of the churches full.  When I heard that I realized what his goal was.  He doesn’t want to be remembered as a nazi.  He wants to be remembered as a great nazi.  Therefore he is going to arrange for the death of millions of Americans.  He’s going to go down in history as the first great mass murderer of the 21st century.  Why should hitler have all the fun, right?

Our president is evil.  He’s going out of his way to demonstrate it each and every day.

Okay, so this goofy post about feeling stir crazy got a little heavy right there.  It’s okay.  It needed to be said.

British Actors

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There are only like 10 British actors at any given time. I think, at least.

We are spending some of our social distance time watching Downton Abby. It good. I mean, the world was obsessed with it for a reason.

It’s confirmed my suspicion that, while television in the UK can be excellent, they all have the same cast.

So far Downton Abby has had Ygritte and Ser Jorah “Sir Friendzone” Mormont from Game of Thrones, and both Daredevil and Legion from the Marvel TV universe. I expect at some point we will see the cast of Absolutely Fabulous and Monty Python’s Flying Circus as well.

On a side note, I saw one scene where Rose Leslie, aka Ygritte, was standing in a crowd of people and I thought to myself, gee Robert… wasn’t she was taller than that? That’s when I remembered her real life husband, Kit Harrington, aka Jon Snow, aka you know nothing, is supposed to be tiny in person. I guess I thought she was tall because next to him she looks like some kind of comic book rendition of an Amazon warrior or something.

And that, kids, is the ridiculously tall guy making a short joke while stressing out over social distancing. You’re welcome.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 3

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I just finished season two of Star Trek Discovery.

Ever since I became a step father I have found that I often get overly emotional while watching things that never would have touched me before.  I start crying like a little baby at the oddest things.  More often than not it’s during scenes that involve difficult family moments, more often than not involving parents and little kids.

Most of these episodes happen in the obvious places.  The filmmakers push a button and I respond.  The first season of This is Us was utter hell for me.  I shed so many tears it left me dehydrated for months.  The last scene that Ned and Jon have together in like episode two of Game of Thrones.  On first watch it was a nothing moment.  On a re-watch years later it destroyed me.  Military stuff is really hard to get through.  The opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan on first watch was spectacular.  On second watch, now as a married man with two step kids, turned me into a gigantic puddle of emotional goo.  Some things effect me in huge ways when they absolutely should not.  The one I can’t get over is from Wonder Woman.  Yeah, Wonder Woman.  The scene where she jumps out of the trench and crosses no man’s land?  I ball my dumb stupid eyes out.  Every time I see it I completely lose my shit.  Why?  It’s a super hero movie for goodness sake.  It’s a Greek Goddess fighting a bunch of normal people.  Why does it wreck me so?

Well… Star Trek Discovery.  It happened again.  There is a goodbye scene in the last episode.  I literally had to turn away to keep my eyes from leaking like a leaky faucet.  Why did this stupid show mess me up like this?  What is it about the world around me that allows me to be effected like this?

Oh yeah… the world around me… that might be it.  I wonder if being at 99% of my maximum allowed stress level for 24 hours a day for over a week might have left me vulnerable to an emotional unglueing?

Yeah… I wonder.

As for the show?  Season one was really good.  Season two… awesome.  Star Trek Picard is a mystery show.  It’s a whodunit, where you’re trying to put the pieces together.  Discovery has elements of that, but it’s basically just an action/adventure/blow shit up kinda thing and it is just sooo good.

Fight the stir crazy, watch Star Trek.  You’ll thank me, even if you do fall apart like a baby near the end of the last episode.

I Should Have Known That One

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In last Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead there is a scene (no spoilers) where Eugene is talking over the short wave radio.  He is trying to find a record to play a song to whoever he is talking to and he can’t find it.

I now know why he couldn’t find it.

The song was published in 2010… there is no way it would have been released on vinyl.  C’mon guys, you should have thought that through.

(okay, at this point I realize that I am not sure that he was digging through vinyl.  I just assumed that but he might have been digging through CDs.  I have to watch again to verify)

Worse than that?  Later in the show he sings the song and I didn’t recognize it.  I can’t say for sure, but I doubt I’d ever heard it before… but there is a chance I might have actually seen the band who wrote it do it live.

It was an Iron Maiden song.  It’s not from a record I really know at all, but I still should have freakin’ known it was an Iron Freakin’ Maiden song!  I am such a tool!

Could I Be That Dumb Again?

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In March of 2014, after finishing my February RPM album, I started an album-in-a-month thing.  I didn’t finish.  In April I started another one, even though March was still out there.  I didn’t finish that one either.  In May I finished both March and April.  In June I started another one and finished it (yay).  In July, August, and September I did the 50 songs in 90 days challenge, and in the process completed an album-in-a-month each month.  In October I took a break and did half an album-in-a-month.  In November I did NaSoAlMo… an album-in-a-month.  In December I started one but somehow lost more than half of my GarageBand files and ended up with a little less than half an album-in-a-month.

So… when I woke up this morning, a telecommute day, I looked over at the corner of my room where all of my gear is still set up and thought to myself…

Could I be that dumb again?

I don’t know.  Maybe.  First I have a new episode of Star Trek Picard to watch.  Priorities, kids… priorities.