Week Ending 8/23

Hey, it's me... 

So, this week was J's first week teaching for the semester. That always means figuring out a new routine. Figuring out which days I need leftovers for lunches, which days she has late classes and I need dinner and just generally how to not be a big burden on her as she settles into her new semester. All things being equal, it didn't go badly (touch wood). We're still figuring it out.

I have this goal of being a little more self sufficient, but right now it's still a concept in progress. 

Let's so... otherwise, I finished watching the final season of Stargate Atlantis. It was OK. I was especially amused by the final season clip show episode where the Atlantis team is accused of war crimes by the other people of the galaxy... because F---ing Yes, they have been committing war crimes left, right and center since the start of the shows run. Pretty much everything going on is their fault because they cluelessly blundered into situations they had no understanding of but insisted on acting like they knew best. 

Stargate Atlantis was fun, popcorn sci-fi. It wasn't supposed to have a lesson or a didactic moral goal, like Star Trek. They kind of inadvertently managed to be a cautionary tale about colonialism anyway... but managed to miss it completely. When the life-sucking alien vampire warlord accidentally turns out to be the most heroic figure in the show, you know you've kind of gone off the rails. I still enjoyed it though.

With that fun behind me, I have turned my viewing attention to the original Stargate SG1... which is NOT the movie, Stargate. I keep telling myself that, despite the show kind of pretended it is. That's my first problem with it and why I never watched it's original run. My second problem has been, once I got past the intro episodes that set up the show and it's not-really-connection to the movie, the next two episodes were so painfully misogynistic that I was frankly horrified. It showcases how far we have actually come as a society in the ~30 years since the show originally aired (the MAGA bro backlash notwithstanding). Fortunately, the later episodes seem to have settled down into something watchable. I have hopes.

Well, that's me for the week.

Onward

Week Ending 8/16

Hey, it's me...

Not much to report. Another quiet week spent resting. I've been pretty worn out of late.

We're all fine here, weather wise. No flooding here... at the moment. Touch wood.

On the excitement front, it was the kid's b-day this week. Though, I guess he's not a kid anymore but he's still my kid. So, happy birthday kid. I think he had a nice day. Sadly, I crashed pretty early into it.

That's about it really. I'm going to lay back down now. Rest is good.

Onward

Week Ending 8/9

 Hey, it's me...

So, you know how I spent most of last week resting. Well, guess what. I spent most of this week resting too. I've been pretty seriously worn out. 

Mostly, I've been binge watching season 3 of Stargate Atlantis, which is fun. A couple of take-aways. First, when you have a fan favorite character who was so beloved that they went from bring a short term side character to a main character... don't kill them. Second, the Ancients are dicks. If you know the show, you get it and if you don't it would take too long to explain... but, yeah, the Ancients are dicks.

Managed to get in a one round of the new Warhammer 40K with D. Our second attempt at the new edition. I still don't love it, primarily because you can lose the game before you ever set a single mini on the tabletop. You can literally lose the game at the "buy minis" stage. That's not a good wargame.

Read the latest Eve Dallas paperback. My mom got me into the series. I still love it.

Finally, J and I got around to watching Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. I've missed Sokka. So, yeah, didn't hate it. A bit too much focus on action and epic battle scenes and not enough focus on the characters, but still I didn't hate it. 

Wow... for a week spent mostly in bed, now it feels like I did a lot. 

That's something to think about. 

Onward 

Week Ending 8/2

Hey, it's me...

You know how I said I might have overdone it finishing In Moonlight last week?

Yeah, I overdid it finishing In Moonlight last week. This week has been mostly resting, playing Skyrim, chilling and watching stuff (see yesterdays review of Conan the Barbarian (2011))

The only other thing I did is worked with D creating an Age of Sigmar conversion from the Grand Army of Cathay. Actually, D did all the work. I just reviewed what he came up with and made suggestions for tweaks. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's OK. We wrote house rules, converting a new faction from the Warhammer Old World tabletop miniatures game to the Age of Sigmar tabletop miniatures game because we don't play Old World.)

That's really it. A quiet week. 

Onward

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Hey, it's your roving movie reviewer, back after who knows how long...

I just have to talk to you about the movie I watched today - Conan the Barbarian (2011) with Jason Momoa. I watched this on streaming because, well, I was tired and needed some mindless entertainment. This looked promising for that. 

I can say, it lived up to that promise. :)

Honestly, if this movie had been one of those cheap '80s Conan knock-offs that a lot of men of my generation are embarrassed to admit we enjoyed, it would have been a pretty good one. It's got the big, strong guy with a loincloth and a sword who spends most of the movie hitting people. It's got the pretty girl, who's bare breasts you do get to see in the obligatory sex scene. It's got enough incidental bare breasts to solidly lock in the young adult male audience. It's got a creepy evil sorceress and a scenery chewing villain. It even has a vague semblance of a plot, engaging enough to drive the action while simple enough so you don't really have to think about it.

In short, it's a basic, cheesy sword and sorcerer flick. If it had come out in the '80s it probably would done OK in theaters and spend the rest of the decade being played nightly on Cinemax. 

Unfortunately, it came out in 2011 and so missed it's target audience by about three decades. According to Wikipedia, the movie's own director is horribly unhappy with it and considers it's sole saving grace the fact that it did not tank Jason Momoa's career. Honestly, on that score I think it might actually have helped him... if only by proving conclusively that you can't just give him a loincloth and a sword and expect success.

Still, if you're looking for a mindless guilty pleasure to kill a couple of hours with, you could do far worse.

Week Ending 7/26

Hey, it's me...

It's finished! I have completed the drafts and screenshots for the last ten chapters of In Moonlight. About two months ago, this story was kicking my ass so hard that I had to stop and set it aside for a bit. Then, when I finally felt up to writing again, my game started crashing like crazy, making getting screenshots a virtual impossibility. Now, after all these trials and a couple of weeks of struggling with the most technically complex writing and screenshots I've attempted since I started on SimLit... It Is Finished! It won't actually be fully published for another ten weeks, but it's written (baring the minor edits I always make as chapters get closer to publication). 

I am proud of me.

In other news, I had my doctor's appointment this week. After last weeks blood test debacle, I spent most of the worrying about what was going to go wrong next. Answer - not a blessed thing, as far as I can tell. I had a good talk with the doctor. He explained why he hadn't put in an order for bloodwork (the metformin needs more time to work before bloodwork will show meaningful data). We discussed a couple of other small things that were bothering me and, it turns out, I'm actually doing really well. All the small things are, in fact, small things. 

So, yeah... that's good.

I have probably massively overdone it finishing In Moonlight today, but I'm still too bloody pleased with myself to care at the moment. 

Onward

Week Ending 7/19

Hey, it's me...

What to say about this week?

I've been pushing myself too hard, working on write and getting screenshots for my current Wyrd Tales story. I'm very near the end and I'm excited to get the story finished. At this one, I'm down to two more chapters to write and screenshots for those and five more. It's some of the most technically ambitious stuff I've done both in terms of writing and screenshots. I'm rather proud of it. Still, it's taking a lot out of me and I'm getting frustrated because I can't just work until it's done.

I also had a deal with some extremely annoying blood tests... in that there weren't actually any blood tests. I have a doctor's appointment next week, so I went to the lab to get my bloodwork done. First, the idiotic new hospital managers closed the lab that was across the street from me, so we actually had to go all the way into town to go to the hospital. Then, when we got there, they said I didn't have any bloodwork scheduled. They even called the doctor, who evidently agreed that I didn't have any bloodwork. So an entirely wasted day... and weird because I always have bloodwork before an appointment. Well, we'll find out what's going on with that next week. 

So, I'm worn out and frustrated... but my story is fantastic!

Onward