Tag: Television

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.

AppleTV+ Was Messing With Me

There are so many good Science Fiction shows on AppleTV+. It’s a little crazy. Severance, For All Mankind, Silo, Foundation, Invasion. They are all killer shows. The latest is Constellation, which is weirding me out like mad. There will be eight episodes in this first season. Episode Seven was released today.

So there I was, trying to watch the new episode while sitting up in bed. Suddenly, without warning or provocation, the video started lagging. It went from, huh? to bad to worse quickly. I closed the app and opened it again. When it launched the episode it crashed. I tried again. It wouldn’t launch the episode at all.

I did what The IT Crowd always said to do, I turned my computer off and on again. Reboot city, population me. Did it work? Nope. When the episode tried to launch, the AppleTV+ app crashed. Over and over again.

Shit.

I tried to outsmart it. I know, thought me, I’ll watch something else on another app for a while. That will make AppleTV+ jealous so that it will work for me the next time I try it.

Success. Five minutes or so of Penny Dreadful season two episode five was all it took to guilt AppleTV+ into working again. I was able to finish the new episode of Constellation.

Don’t be a jerk, AppleTV+. I needs me my Sci Fi.

So Many to Chose From

Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
View all responses

Well, ol’ Robbie was fully enveloped by a nasty head cold by the time he went to sleep last night. Last week his wife dealt with it and was pretty much better by yesterday. For poor ol’ Robbie though, he got to the airport to pick up his step daughter and felt a little twinge in his throat. Uh oh. Two hours later he was planning on calling in sick to work the next day (today). Now he’s sitting on the couch with a nose too stuffy to breathe through and a throat sore enough that breathing hurts. Yippee.

What was I talking about (and why was he doing it in third person)?

Oh yeah, the daily writing prompt. TV series or movies that I’ve watched more than five times. There are a lot of them. I’m old. They pile up.

Star Wars. All of them. I’ve watched them all at least five times. Probably closer to 50 times. I can watch ’em over and over and over again. All of them. The same can be said of most of the Star Trek movies. The good ones at least. Not the one Shatner directed, but the ones that are worth watching. The top of the line Marvel movies are probably over five views by now. Winter Soldier, Infinity War, Endgame. Antman too, which is odd. Harry watched that puppy over and over again when it first hit iTunes.

As for TV shows, I don’t know if I’ve ever hit five views of anything. Dead Like Me is probably close. So is The League. The Mandalorian isn’t there yet, but it will be some day. Same with Andor. Maybe I might give Andor another watch while I’m sitting here sick today. Yellowjackets might be another show that hits five views. It’s at two right now and it’s only been out for a bout two years. The Walking Dead might get there too. I’m in a rewatch now. Season one has probably hit five views. I can’t think of anything else right now. I’m too sick.

Wish me luck today.

The Truth is Out There

Beware! There are Extraterrestrial Biological Entities hiding in plain site! They are among us! I want to believe! The Truth is Out There!

194/365
194/365

Get it???

Sorry… I’ve been watching The X Files lately. It was bound to rub off on my tiny little pea brain.

Office Day

We are in our second week of having to come into the office twice per week instead of once. It’s Monday so here I am. At my desk. In the office. Monday feels like a really crappy day to come in, but I need to pick a day to go along with our usual Wednesdays and I don’t want to come in two days in a row and Monday just feels better than Friday so I’m here on Monday. I did Friday last week and the morning commute was all right both days. Friday had the benefit of having far, far fewer people around. Monday has the benefit of getting the second day out of the way really fast. I think we’ll stick with Mondays for now.

My step daughter is flying home tomorrow afternoon. I took the afternoon off so I can get her at the airport. I am thankful to have as much personal time available to me so that I can do stuff like this. It’s a good thing and it makes me happy.

I took a pic this morning. Nothing special but it’s a photo a day challenge kinda thing.

193/365
193/365

I need a haircut. Did I mention that? Do you care? No? That’s okay. I need a haircut anyway. Just sharing, or maybe just over sharing.

What else… I don’t know. I have a meeting in half an hour. That’s fun, right?

I watched the third episode of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (aka the Rick and Michonne show). It’s the weakest of the three so far (there are three more coming this season), but it was still pretty good. I am pleased with the season to this point but I am hoping the quality goes back up starting next week. No spoilers. If you like The Walking Dead, you should be watching. That is all.

Jen and I have been watching Star Trek: Lower Decks. I started watching Penny Dreadful the other day. I’m still plowing through The X-Files. I watched the first movie after finishing season five. Tomorrow morning I’ll start season six. I’m getting near to the point where Mulder leaves and that’s going to make it hard to power through. I’ll stick with it though. I promise.

Okay, back to work with you, Robert.

Some Thoughts on the X-Files

This post is going to be one for the ages, he said sarcastically.

So last Spring (I think) I started an epic rewatch of both The X-Files and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. At first I spent more time on the X-Files, but then I stopped both shows and embraced the insanity of 60 years worth of Doctor Who. When that ended I went back to Deep Space Nine and kept the X-Files on the side. When DS9 was over I slowly started getting back to Mulder and Scully-land and now I am burning through it once again.

I have seen every episode in the past. The original run of the show (nine seasons and a movie, I think) was completed on DVD and the later stuff (two more seasons and another movie, I think) were watched as they happened. I didn’t start watching the show when it originally aired until (I think) the movie came out. That was in between seasons five and six… again, I think.

As with most of America, before I started watching I was aware of the fan bases desire to see Mulder and Scully hook up. As far as I know the term “shipping” was coined for the two characters and the audiences desire to see them couple up. If I recall correctly, there is a moment in the movie where they almost kiss but are interrupted somehow. I don’t exactly recall.

Now that I am up to my eyeballs in a rewatch I am almost up to the movie. I am on season five episode eight right now. I feel as though there was a conscious decision made by the producers, writers, and show runners at the start of season five to buy in to the shippers. Maybe I am missing something here but I feel like there are oodles of examples of the show hinting at a possible romantic relationship that really kicked off at the start of season five. They are a little more flirty with each other, they are repeatedly getting physically close to each other, and there are instances where other people ask them if they are a couple.

Is it just me? Was there a change in the way they handled the two characters or was there a change (unconsciously) in the way I am watching the show? I don’t know. What I do know, is that when I started rewatching this incredibly long series I forgot about the movies. A quick search tells me that neither of them are available for streaming… which means I have to find another way to watch them. I also need to get cracking on that as I need to have the first one ready for when I finish my current season.

The truth is out there, kiddies, and I want to believe.

How Did I Miss a Star Wars?

Season three of Star Wars: The Bad Batch was released today. Disney+ put out the first three episodes at once.

I knew it was coming… but somehow I forgot all about it. This morning when I did my exercise I watched an episode and a half of The X-Files when I should have watched at least the first two episodes of The Bad Batch.

My Star Wars fanboy status is suddenly being questioned. What is wrong with me? I’ve been completely obsessed with Star Wars since the spring of 1977 when six year old me saw the original movie in the cinema. I should have watched the new episodes and then spent the work day listening to recap podcasts… like a good fanboy.

It’s okay. I’ll get caught up tonight. Maybe first thing tomorrow, but possibly tonight. I’ll get my credibility back, folks.

Cross Over Events

I’ve been working my way through The X-Files again. I am up to season four now. The last two episodes have had major cross overs with The Walking Dead. Who knew?

In 1996 Laurie Holden played a U.N. worker (who may be Mulder’s next informant?) on The X-Files. In 2010 she played Andrea on The Walking Dead. Unfortunately Andrea the comic character was a bad ass, awesome character while Andrea the T.V. character… not so much. Sorry.

In 1996 Pruitt Taylor Vince played a psycho wack-a-do on The X-Files in a freak of the week episode. In 2011 he made a pretty huge impact on The Walking Dead as Otis, even though he was only in two (or was it three?) episodes. First he accidentally shot someone important (oops) then he became a gigantic plot device to turn a good guy bad.

Will there be more connections to come? I wonder. There are still a ton of X-Files episodes to watch, and 11 years worth of The Walking Dead. There could be 100 more cross overs for all I know.

Carl Weathers

Sad to hear that Carl Weathers passed away. I first new him as Apollo Creed in the Rocky flicks. Later he was Chubbs in Happy Gilmore. Arguably the greatest sports movie of all time. Most recently he was Greef Karga in The Mandalorian. He was the guy who thought that Baby Yoda was going to eat him. ’Member that? Yeah, I ‘member.

I was looking forward to seeing more of him in that recently announced Mandalorian movie. It will be lesser without him.

Rest in peace, Carl Weathers.

(Non) Daily Haiku for You #139

Today’s haiku for you is undead……

Zombies are hungry,
But feeding them is stressful.
Does my brain taste good?

So I watched an episode of The Walking Dead last night. Season two episode seven, titled Pretty Much Dead Already. That is the episode that changed my opinion on the show from “I think I like this show” to “holy shit I can never miss an episode of this show ever.” To say it’s a good episode is a massive understatement. If you were to say it was one of the best hours of television ever aired then I probably would not 100% agree with you, but I would understand where you are coming from.

I wrote the above haiku during my lunch break today. Watch a great zombie episode on Monday night, write a zombie haiku on Tuesday afternoon. Makes sense, right?

I then thought it would be funny to ask the wordpress.com AI Assistant to “write a haiku about zombies.” Allow me to share the results the AI came up with:

Hungry Zombies Haiku

Zombies are hungry,
But feeding them is stressful.
Does my brain taste good?

Yes, kids. You are reading that correctly. It gave me the same haiku that I just wrote! What the hell, bro? I hadn’t even published it yet! The AI Assistant literally read the document I was working in and stole my haiku! What the fuck?

Okay… I am going to ask for another one. This time I will ask it to “write a different haiku about zombies.” Here’s the result:

Zombies in the night,
Moaning for flesh and delight.
Fear their endless plight.

Oh nice, it rhymes this time. Think it did that as an apology? Neither do I. What a jerk! What an artificially intelligent ass wipe!

I wonder… did the AI Assistant somehow misinterpret my initial request for a haiku as a request to format my current post? Something like that? It added the title. I centered the text myself after the fact. I wonder if it thought I wanted input on the text I had already written. I’m not sure. I did specifically ask for a haiku, but I did not ask for a new haiku. Who knows. The AI is a jerk either way. A plagiarizing, haiku stealing thief of a jerk.

If the second AI haiku was not stolen from me… where did the AI Assistant steal it from? I’m sure it just went to google and spit out the first zombie themed haiku it found.