Tag: Television

Two Random Things

Here we have a post sharing two random things on this quiet Sunday evening that have nothing to do with anything anyone other than I would ever care about.

First, I watched an episode of The Trogly’s Guitar Show on YouTube today and accidentally learned something about my first Gibson guitar. It was a Les Paul Deluxe but I never learned what year it was made. Deluxes date from the late 60’s to the mid 80’s (I think). I bought mine in 1987 and always assumed it was from the late 70’s, but I had not learned how to get the manufacture date for a Gibson guitar until after my Deluxe was stolen in 1990.

Thanks to Trogly’s I can narrow the date down a little. The guitar had a Gibson chainsaw case. From a description on the episode I watched it was a version two chainsaw case. Trogly told us that Gibson introduced the version two chainsaw case in 1978. Therefore my guitar (assuming the case I had was the original case) could not have been built prior to 1978. That knocks about 10 years off of the possible dates. Thanks, Trogly!

The second item of note: The anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is coming this week. That means Jen and I are in now entering our annual 9/11 remembrance period where we binge a shit load of documentaries. We’re watching the first of the season right now. Things have already been super heavy around here due to my father’s passing. Now it’s going to get heavier still.

I just felt the need to share all of that with the wider universe. You’re welcome.

Movies vs Books

Why am I in such a Tolkien phase right now? It’s probably due to the second season of Rings of Power, but I read The Silmarillion and I am rereading Lord of the Rings and I am watching Rings of Power and I am (finally) watching the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies. I’m about 15 minutes away from finishing the second movie. It is requiring more suspending of disbelief than I am really willing to give. I’m in a weirdly completist mode now and have to get through all three movies (even though it is laughable that Jackson took a 400 page book and adapted it into a nine hour movie).

What’s the point of this post though? The point of this post is a spoiler free comment on Rings of Power season two episode four. I saw the first two Lord of the Rings movies before I read the books. When I was done with everything I was able to look back and consider if the books were better or worse than the movies. I think they are pretty even. There are a couple of things about the movies that I prefer to the books though. First, there is a whole lot less singing in the movies. In Fellowship, especially, people are singing all over the place and it just gets tedious.

The other thing that I like better about the movies eventually became my absolute favorite thing about the movies. Literally the thing I like best. Simply, they left Tom Bombadil out. I mean… The Hobbit was a kids book. Lord of the Rings was not. Somehow it seems that Tolkien must have tried to make Fellowship a little more kid-friendly by throwing this insufferably boring, painful character named Tom Bombadil into the story. In my current re-read of the books I am in the middle of the Tom Bombadil arc right now and I cannot get out of it fast enough. It’s just awful. Jackson left him out of the movies and it makes me love the movies that much more.

I just finished this week’s new episode of Rings of Power. Season two, episode four. Without giving out any spoilers, mostly because the news has been out since we saw a trailer months ago, Tom Bombadil is in the episode.

Why? Why, Amazon Prime Video? Why are you torturing me like this? I will say that he’s nowhere near as awful in the episode as he was in the books, but all the same… why would you do this to me?

Friday Ramblings

Is ramblings the right word? Should I have called this masterpiece of literary genius “Friday Mumblings” instead? We may never know.

Has anyone else found that they have become chemically depended on GPS apps while driving anywhere? We have a meeting scheduled for 4:00 today at the funeral home to start going over the arrangements. I know where this place is. I grew up less than a mile from it (Google maps tells me it is 0.8 miles from the house I grew up in) and I could probably find it with my eyes closed in the middle of a blizzard. Why then did I just email the address to myself so that I can plug it into a GPS app on my phone when I head over there in about 80 minutes? Why can’t I just… ya know… go? Why do I need a bunch of satellites in orbit of the Earth to tell me when the next turn is coming up? What did I do to my brain?

A year and a half ago, when my mother passed away, we had a similar meeting with the funeral director booked and we all went into it without the faintest clue of what we were in store for. Now? Today? We know exactly what’s coming and somehow that makes this whole experience more depressing. It’s a little less stressful and a lot less intimidating, but it is so much more depressing. Of all the things to be pro’s at… yeah, this shouldn’t be one of them.

Complete and total change of subject… When the forth and final season of The Umbrella Academy came out a couple of weeks ago I jumped right into it. It was only six episodes (the previous three seasons were all 10 each) and as I was watching the fifth episode I declared to myself (and no one else because why would anyone else care) that when I finished the finale I was going to immediately go back and watch the whole series from start to finish.

I did exactly that, and I finished it yesterday. Just in time for new seasons of Rings of Power and Only Murders in the Building to launch. I watched the first episode of each show (there are two more Rings of Power episodes available and I’ll get to them shortly). While I was waiting for Rings of Power to come back I started reading The Silmarillion and woah babie, is that puppy a slog. I’m on chapter 19 and so far the entire book has been 100% exposition. It’s like a textbook only less interesting. I know at some point it’s going to tie into the Lord of the Rings at least a little bit, but good heavens is it tough to get through. Maybe had Tolkien lived to finish it himself it might have been more readable… then again, maybe not. Yikes.

I’ll tell you what though, Rings of Power is making me want to grab the third Lord of the Rings book and read the appendixes. I’m sure I’ve made it through them at least once before, but maybe I should pay closer attention. It’s tough to read through a couple of hundred (or however long the appendix is) pages of a book that come after the book ended, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

What else should I write about before my lunch break ends and I get back to work for an hour before leaving early to go to the funeral home? I don’t know. Retail therapy… that might be a thing. All of the sadness and stress of the last few weeks. It’s possible that some new camera gear, or a new guitar, or a trip to Manhattan or the mountains might be the only things that can straighten me out. Just a thought, you know? The punchline to this joke is that I am not joking. I’m being serious. Oh well… it will be okay. We’ll get through this together. My father would not have wanted any of us to be all sad. He’d want us to focus on the good rather than stress over the bad. Although having said that, he was an Olympic level, world class worrier himself so… yeah. I love you, dad.

HotD – No Spoilers

I just finished watching the season two finale of House of the Dragon. No spoilers here, but it was nothing like what I expected it to be.

I will say this though… as cliffhangers go… it sure was one. Cliffhangers on top of cliffhangers on top of cliffhangers. The worst part is we’re probably going to have to wait another two years before we get any resolution. Here’s hoping the break between seasons two and three is shorter by far than the break between seasons one and two.

Sleepy Sunday

I didn’t sleep very well last night and then I got up pretty early (though not as early as I had planned) this morning. I did a bunch of stuff, including lots of chores around the house. There was a little time earlier this afternoon where I actually conked out on the couch. It was only a few minutes, but it happened.

That leads to the sleepiness question… am I going to be able to stay up long enough to watch the season two finale of House of the Dragon on HBO? It comes out at 9:00 on the Max app. I have clean sheets on the bed (one of today’s chores) and sitting up in bed while watching HotD is going to be a challenge.

I thought I might take an actual nap after dinner tonight but Jen and I discovered that the first chunk of the new season of Cobra Kai is out on Netflix so we can’t do anything until we watch that, right?

Right?

TV… we live in the golden age, my friends.

Futurama was Wrong

I was just playing a game of Space Invaders on an Atari 2600 emulator I found online. I had a pretty good game.

Then I thought of that one episode of Futurama where the aliens from planet Omicron Persei 8 invade and Fry defends the Earth armed with his bottle of Shasta and his all Rush mix tape.

So I put on the Moving Pictures album to see if listening to Rush would improve my game. While it did improve my mood and my general sense of mental well being (that album RULES), it did not improve my game. Not even a little bit.

I guess the bottle of Shasta is the missing link. Either that or Futurama was wrong, and we all now Futurama is never wrong.

Good(?) Morning

I woke up in a mood today. I don’t know what is bothering me. I feel a sense of doom and gloom. Am I suddenly psychic (Robert pauses the narrative to let anyone reading along finish laughing hysterically) and something is on the horizon?

Nope. Just in another bitchy mood. I didn’t get enough sleep last night and it shows. I have a small project at work that is hanging over me like a dark cloud. It’s not a big deal, I just don’t have the energy to deal with it. Crud, right?

The traffic was crappy this morning, but it was the normal level of crappy, not some extra thick level of crappy or anything. I don’t know.

Hey, did you watch the season finale of The Acolyte last night? It was good. I liked it. I liked the whole season though I will quickly admit that the action heavy episodes were by far the best of the bunch. No spoilers, but that scene last night where you actually see the light saber do that thing that light sabers are supposed to be able to do? You know, the thing that we never saw Anakin or Dooku or Maul or Palpatine actually do even though we all saw the end result? Hint Hint Sithy Hint? Awesome.

That should be putting me in a good mood, right? Star Wars is like my own personal dopamine fix. Nope. I was all smiles watching it last night, but today? Grumpy gus. Or should I call myself Darth Grumpy Gus? Does that work better?

No guitar playing today. Maybe before work tomorrow. I did use a guitar for today’s photo a day picture. I think the next time I play I am going to use a different guitar. I haven’t played my Gibson SG in ages and it’s kind of calling to me. My wife thinks that guitar looks cool so that alone should be incentive to play it more often, don’t you think?

Okay. Cheer up, everyone. It’s hump day or some shit. For my personal work week, once I get through the day in the office today, I am working from home for the rest of the week. That should cheer me up, right? Ugh.

321/365
321/365

One More Work Day

Tomorrow is Wednesday. I have to get through the work day and then I am on a four day weekend. It seems so incredibly far away. It is infinitely far away.

I am about to watch this week’s episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte. Will it be as excellent as the last few weeks? I hope so.

My stomach issues from this morning have more or less fixed themselves. That’s good. Unfortunately they were replaced by repeated hunger pains. What I normally call Empty Stomach Pain. It has happened three or four times today. No matter how big a meal I have, I just can’t get out in front of it. Instead of the usual three hours between eats I have been hurting at around two hours. In two instances it was only 90 minutes. What’s up with that? I will need to have a big bedtime snack today in the hopes that I won’t have any problems over night.

Tomorrow is an in the office day. I am exhausted beyond measure tonight. I don’t know how I am going to get through the few things I still need to get through before I can let myself sleep. I’m only one day away from a super long weekend though. I need it bad, folks. I need it bad.

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?