Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile

 I think Kenneth Branagh is an interesting film director. When he's on his game, he can make really interesting, artful and compelling cinema. The teenager really enjoyed his take on Murder on the Orient Express, so I was interested to see if what he could do with Death on the Nile.

 Death on the Nile... he was not on his game.

 OK, first - full disclosure - I am a big fan of David Suchet's Poirot. For me, Tom Baker is Dr Who, Jeremy Bret is Sherlock Holmes and David Suchet is Poirot. That said, I am willing to give other interpretations a fair shake. I will say good things about Christopher Eccleston, David Tenet and even mildly positive things about Benedict Cumberbatch (though I still dislike the actor greatly for other reasons). I too enjoyed Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express... so I had hopes for this movie.

 Yeah... some on to the criticism.

Mild spoilers here...

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One, Hercule Poirot's mustaches do NOT have a Tragic Backstory!

Two, Hercule Poirot is not a dark, brooding, tragic man of action! Poirot does not brood. He obsesses. Frequently, he complains - usually about English food, English weather and English... English-ness. Sometimes, he sulks. He does not brood. 

He is not tragic. Occasionally, he is melancholy... and yes, the ending of Death on the Nile is, itself, a kind of tragedy... but Poirot himself in not tragic. 

He certainly is not a man of action. He is a fussy, obsessive, little dandy who would be much to impressed by his own brilliance if he were not, in fact, almost always the smartest man in any given room he happens be in at the time. 

Kenneth... Kenneth. Dear Kenneth... the key to creating a successful adaptation of a beloved character and story is in knowing what to change and what to leave alone. 

In the words of my New England fore-bearers - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

 

In conclusion - Hercule Poirot's mustaches do NOT have a Tragic Backstory!

Week 47

 Late post this week, which is odd because it was actually a pretty good week as a whole. Lots of good, solid up hours. Most days were good or great, on the health side of things at least. Unfortunately, Sunday I crashed really, really hard and wasn't able to post about it. Feeling OK this morning, though. Not sure if I just wore myself out all week or what. 

 I am starting to get annoyed with this persistent brain fog. I think it's relatively new. I'm having a hard time planning or thinking ahead. I can react to things OK but my memory is still for crap and it's just hard to push through. It's funny in a way. I've spent so much of life looking 5 steps ahead and 5 steps behind. Since I've been sick, I've been forced to live in the Now... and now I can't seem to look ahead. Need to work on finding a better balance.

 In other news, the Long Term Disability insurance people finally made up their minds. Turns out I'm not sick anymore and never was. I just have migraines for nine months but I'm all better now. So says the doctor who has never examined me, met me or even spoken with me. Where do they come up with this stuff? At least they paid up some of the money. They just don't want to keep paying. That's OK, I don't want to keep being sick... unfortunately, I'm still sick. 

 Onward. Here's hoping for continued better days.

Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness

 Yes, I dragged myself to the movie theater and watched the new Dr Strange movie. Did I like it? Let me get back to you on that.

 OK, yeah, I liked it. I didn't love it but I enjoyed it and it was worth dragging my exhausted bones out to the theater. Now I'm going to criticize it.

 First thing to say is - if you haven't seen Dr Strange and Avengers Infinity War/End Game, you need to in order for this to make sense. Worse, if you haven't seen the Disney+ series WandaVision, you absolutely need to for this to make sense. Seeing Spiderman: No Way Home, Disney+'s What If...? and one of the later seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D would also help... 

 and therein lies the problem.

 The MCU is starting to sag under it's own weight and the fact that you really need to see not only several movies but also a couple of series only available on their proprietary streaming service is an issue.

 That said, given the prerequisites, the movie isn't bad... but I have a few more things to say about it.

 Here Be Spoilers

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Ye Have Been Warned

 OK, despite Dr Strange having the title role and the introduction of the facinating but somewhat under-used character of American Chavez, this is Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch's movie... and yeah, she's the bad guy.

 Only, she isn't... and this where needing to see WandaVision et al comes in. So, this is the story of a women whose life has been full of tragedy, who is traumatized and broken, who tries to escape in fantasy and dreams... and who unfortunately has the power to re-write reality with her mind. By the end of WandaVision, we hoped that maybe she has found some peace... but instead it appears she found an Evil Book of Evil Magic and now we have traumatized, broken, and Corrupted by the Evil Book of Evil Magic. 

 As Dr Strange tells us early on... the bad guy isn't Wanda. The bad guy is the Evil Book.

 I should say now, my wife had a hard time with this movie. She didn't like that Wanda was the bad guy... that her journey had ended in her corruption. For me, I've latched onto the idea that the bad guy was the Evil Book... and that Wanda, in the end, has a tragic but heroic journey, which leads to her redemption. (Hey, I warned you there would be spoilers).  

 The rest... the multiverse jumping, the cameos of people from other Marvel movies (hi, Sir Patrick, liked you better here than in Picard), the, again sadly under-developed, America Chavez (looking forward to seeing more of her in another movie), the really overdone angst of Dr Strange having relationship issues with his own ego... all made for an interesting movie but really, it was Wanda's story... and like my wife, I didn't love it.

CREDO Mobile

 CREDO Mobile sucks.

 I want to get that out of the way first. CREDO Mobile sucks. This, I think, is a fairly recent turn of events since we've been CREDO Mobile customers for 14 years, or so they tell me. I think it's been more like 20 with a break in the middle, but whatever.

 Several months, maybe a year, ago (it's lost in the haze of being sick) CREDO "upgraded" it's network and required us all to get new phones. They even gave us the phones - Samsung Galaxy S10e... which I hated from the moment I got mine. It's crap. It's difficult for me to use. It doesn't give clear notifications and I have to fight with it to answer incoming calls. I can't emphasize enough how much I already hated this phone.

 A couple of weeks ago, I found a new reason to hate it. I haven't been getting my voicemails. This phone, rather than just telling me I have voicemail, has a Voicemail App. The App can only load 20 voicemails at a time (which it didn't tell me), so I needed to delete a bunch (which took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to do... OK, I'm not good with smart-phones. I'm nearly 50, deal with it!). Then I discovered that, even having cleared that, the App won't refresh reliably. It doesn't download new voicemails all the time, crashes often and doesn't notify me when new voicemails are available. 

 So, I did what any customer should do. I called customer support. 

 Now, I feel terrible for this next part. As much as two years ago, CREDO customer support answered their calls with "Hello, I'm [name] and I support [progressive cause... or Peace if you can't think of one]." They were also clearly located in the United States. Now, they answer with the generic "Hi, I'm [mumble so you can't hear my fake English name], can I have your name please" and are clearly located somewhere in Asia. I know, I have guilt about my self-identified racism... but the truth is, some kid in India who barely speaks English and is clearly reading off cue cards has a lot more trouble helping me. Yeah, the kid in Seattle doesn't know how to fix my phone either, but there was less of communication barrier and we got things figured out faster.

 Anyway I spent most of this week, when not at work, fighting with the CREDO call center. Major take-aways: 1) don't read me a stock apology - it just pisses me off. 2) don't tell me you're not reading me a stock apology when you are using exact the same words - word for word - as the last three people who read me the stock apology - it really pisses me off. 3) no I don't want to talk to a supervisor in 48 hours, I want to talk to one right the hell now! 4) CREDO Mobile sucks.

 ... and no, my voicemail still doesn't work.

Week 46

 Well, that was a pretty good week. (Ok, am I shifting from good day/bad day to good week/bad week... because I think I could live with that if that's the case).

 Honestly, health-wise this has been pretty great. From about Wednesday through Friday, I didn't have the hard crash that has characterized my afternoons for a while (and dominated the week before). Yeah, I stopped around noon, sat down and didn't do much (besides yell at the phone company - more on that later) but I didn't crash. I slowed down a lot, but I didn't crash. I really can't emphasize enough how fantastic that feels. 

 OK, Saturday I finally crashed but Saturday was good too... I got a shower and I went to see Dr Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. I actually crashed before going to the movie but, damn it, I wanted to see the bloody movie! And I did. More on that later too.

 On the whole, it's been a pretty good week. Now, what do you think? Can I break the cycle and have two good weeks in a row or am I jinxing it just by asking?

Week 45

 This has been a strange week.

 I feel like it's been horrible, health-wise. I've crashed hard almost every day... barely about to do anything once I get done with work. However, when I look at my "hours up" numbers, it's actually been pretty good on paper. I guess I've managed to be upright for a decent amount of time each day but I've crashed hard afterward. Not a great tradeoff.

 Not much other news... The cats are doing alright. The teenager seems to be doing OK. Work is crap. 

 Guess it's a short update this week.

Wekk 44

 Well, another week gone and, touch wood, things are looking up.

 Sure, this week had the same pattern of highs and lows as every other week, but the highs have been a bit higher and the lows not quite so low. In fact, on Friday I didn't really have the hard crash in the afternoon that I usually do. OK, I did crash on Saturday but even that was a pretty great day energy-wise.

 Family-wise, New-Cat seems to settling in a bit and the teenager had a significant day yesterday. The cat is skittish and shy, but she's exploring more and playing/tussling with Hippy. They're not exactly become great friends yet but they tolerate each other pretty well. As for the teenager - after much drama he's started working toward his high school equivalency. I've got my fingers crossed for him. Once he gets through the bureaucratic hoops, I think this will be good for him.

 Not much else to say here. Have a good week.