Week Ending 8/27

 Let's see, what happened this week...

Former President Donald Trump was booked on racketeering charges in Georgia.

Russian dictator Putin assassinated the head of the mercenary Wagner group. Sorry, the private plane carrying the head of Wagner group and nine others had a sudden, unplanned disassembly while flying from Moscow to St Petersburg for no readily apparent reason. (I mean really Vladimir, if you'd shot the guy yourself, on live tv, it would have been slightly less obvious.)

Indian landed on the Moon, which is Awesome.

Spain joined the Me Too movement in a big way, which is also Awesome.

I rested a lot, painted some minis (pictures later) and wrote a couple of blog posts. Which is OK.

I also discovered that I need to find a better balance between not asking my wife to do too much for me and not asking her to do stuff I really want to ask her for help with. Not bothering her so I don't stress her out doesn't work if I get stressed about the stuff I'm not bothering her about... because I don't hide my feelings well. Or at all. Which is less OK... but at least I didn't assassinate anyone or do any racketeering, so I'm one up on the dictators. (OK, I can set the bar a little higher than that... but it's funny.)

All in all, kinda a weird week. Still working on finding the balance for things (which, I swear, keeps shifting on me).

Onward

Spain's "MeToo" Moment

 Spain wants Rubiales kiss row to be 'MeToo moment' - BBC News

I want to take a minute to talk about what's going on in Spain at the moment. 

In case you missed it, after a major win by the Spanish women's football team, the head of Spanish football (what we Americans call soccer) - Luis Rubiales - kissed one of the players - Jenni Hermoso - full on the lips on front of everyone. The kiss was nonconsensual and Rubiales been fiercely called out by just about everyone.

Rubiales has doubled down, refusing the resign and even threatening to take legal action against Hermoso. 

Basically every Spanish female footballer has announced they will not play if Rubiales isn't removed. Eleven female coaches have quit in protest and the Spanish government is investigating to see if they can bring changes against Rubiales. Even FIFA, which is basically a criminal cabal that runs international soccer, has moved against Rubiales, suspending him (albeit only for a short time). 

Let's be clear - Luis Rubiales is wrong. What he did was wrong. Even if it was a "spontaneous celebratory action" as he claims, he shouldn't have done it. Further, everything he has done since has been wrong and serves only to showcase that the guy is a total asshole.

Spain is lining up in support behind Jenni Hermoso. I think that is fantastic and I hope that it continues in the days and weeks to come. I hope that this is indeed Spain's "MeToo" moment and that it represents part of a better reality for women, not only in Spain but all over the world.

Onward

Acceptance, Apathy and Nuclear War

 I think the only reason I stay on Facebook is the memes... those funny and/or insightful little pictures and quotes that people post from time to time. Sometimes, they get me thinking...

This morning, a couple leap out at me. These two in particular

At first glance, you can reasonable wonder what these two have to do with each other - chronic illness on the hand, the rise of fascism on the other. (Though the title of this post probably gives you a hint.)

Well, surprise, surprise, the chronic illness one got me thinking about my own illness. Even before I got sick, I was pretty good at accepting the idea that 'bad things happen and it's not your fault.' I mean, people get sick, or have accidents or lose their jobs or whatever... and it doesn't mean they did something wrong. It just means something happened, often something totally out of their control. I get that. I really do.

It occurred to me that might be a 'child of the Cold War' thing. I mean, I grew up with the basic, underlying idea that the world could end in nuclear fire at any moment... just because a few old men in Washington and Moscow decided to end it. It wouldn't be my fault and there was nothing I could do about that. I don't think I ever made the conscious choice to just get live my life as best I could because of that, but I did. The idea of the sudden death of me, and everyone and everything around me, was just a fact. Nothing I could do about it. No way to prevent it. Just live and deal with what comes.

Acceptance.

Unfortunately, there's a dark side that... and that's the apathy that also defines my generation. 

My son once looked at me and said - "This (global warming, the return of fascism, the wealth gap, etc) is all your generations fault... you don't do anything to stop it." 

I countered - "We couldn't. We were locked out of the halls of the power by the generation before us."

I wonder now if I missed part of that. Yeah, the Boomers did lock us out through underemployment, crushing debt and refusing to relinquish their grip on the reigns, but our own native cynicism aided and abetted. 

After all, the world could end in nuclear fire at any moment... just because a few old men in Washington and Moscow decided to end it. It wouldn't be my fault and there was nothing I could do about that. The idea of the sudden death of me, and everyone and everything around me, was just a fact. Nothing I could do about it. No way to prevent it. Just live and deal with what comes.

Apathy.

Could we have prevented this world? Or am I seeking to accept blame for something beyond my control, in order to feel some twisted illusion of control? 

There's probably some truth in both.

The truth of the matter is, we're all a little damaged by the world we grew up in. We all strive to just live our lives. There is stuff outside of our control that we just have to accept and there are times when we need to stand up and say something. 

The world isn't easy... and we can do is the best we can.

Onward.

Week Ending 8/20

 So, I've had a Week. 

Warning - icky medical stuff follows..

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Don't say I didn't warn you. 

So, this week's excitement was a little outpatient procedure to get a lump removed. 

Good news, the pathology report is already back and it's negative for malignancy. So, no worries there. 

Bad news, when they cut a piece off you, it tends to bleed. The doc had this electric cauterizer gizmo to seal the wound. Unfortunately, this particular lump had "very good blood flow" ... which means, it just kept bleeding. So, doc had to hit it a couple of times. Eventually, the heat pushed past the anesthetic and I yelped. This was also the point where I also noticed the billowing cloud of grey smoke rising from... well, me! We gave up on the gizmo at the point but fortunately the blood flow was down to Band-Aid-able.

Later that day, I had a craving for a flame grilled hamburger... 'cause of the smell of charred meat (or charred me as it where).

Anyway, the rest of the week has been spent recovering from that little adventure. The actual hole/burn is healing very nicely. Hard noticeable anymore, unless I bump it. 

I'm hoping next week is a little less exciting.

Onward

(Edit: Oops. Looks like I got the date wrong. I said it was a Week...)

Week Ending 8/13

 Well, after several rough weeks this week has been quite inspiring.

Somewhere around midweek, something went click in my head again. Good days and bad days. They happen. I had a particularly good day and the next day I had a bad one, but I felt good about it. The bad day was a day with low energy, didn't do much of anything... but I wasn't frustrated by it like I have been, It was just a day that I spent resting... and you know what, the next day was a good day. The day after that, inspired by my doctor and encouraged by my wife's cat, I spent in bed... and I had a very nice, restful day. The next day was a good day and I did fun things. 

It's strange but I seem to be finding my balance again. 

In other news, my son's 19th birthday was this week. He's starting a full semester of college classes next week (having already taken one summer class earlier in the summer). We're all very excited and proud.

Onward

Week Ending 8/6

 Sorry, a little late posting here... Sunday was a Down day and I kind of lost track of Monday.

Last week was a bit odd, in that it both was and was not a good week. I've been having pretty good energy most days, but when I crash I've been crashing really hard. That makes it frustrating because no matter how good the Up times might be, the Down times are bad enough to overshadow it. To sum up - brain fog sucks.

Still, on the plus side I managed to get a new SimLit story started. Wyrd Tales: Bad Moon Rising will be the first "short(er) story" set in the same world as my Wyrd Girls story, but focusing on other characters. Unfortunately, my computer and the EA App which I need to run the Sims are still not getting along well. At this point, I'm pretty convinced it's either a problem with the EA App or the gods are just messing with me. :)

Not much else to report, as I've already posted my review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. 

Onward

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 - review

I'll start off by saying - I didn't like it. I don't know that that's entirely it's fault. 

Mild Spoilers

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 suffers from trying to deal with the burdens passed to it by the grievous and unforgiveable mistakes of Avengers Infinity War/Endgame. A fair amount of the movie has to deal with the whole Gamora-isn't-Gamora-anymore problem, and that takes up time from other things.

We'll never know if that screen time could have been dedicated to turning the Adam Warlock subplot into an actual subplot. As it stands, he's just this gold skinned, superpowered disaster who shows up, creates havoc and then disappears long enough for you to forget he's even in this movie until he shows up again and creates more havoc. The tornados in Twister are more developed characters.

The actual story - delving Rocket's backstory - into basically an emotionally manipulative indictment of animal testing. The villain is probably one of the few totally irredeemably evil villains of modern cinema. Unfortunately, our "heroes" don't actually appear to care about him, or about the people he's hurting... at least not until the very end of the movie.

... and about our heroes. The once cocky, goofy and fun Starlord spends most of the time moping. Drax has been reduced to a punchline (I blame Vol 2 for that). Nebula and Mantis, despite a good efforts, never seem to really work as part of the group... maybe because we never really got a chance to see them become fully fledged parts of the group. We're just expected to believe they are. Rocket is the only one who remains Rocket and shows consistent growth across the three movies. Well, and Groot. Groot is still Groot but that fact that I forgot him should tell you something.

It's implied (actually it's said outright) that this was always Rocket's story. I don't think that's strictly true, but his was the only story that remains true to itself. Unfortunately, Rocket spends most of the movie unconscious, so the fact that his is the only story worth a damn doesn't save the movie. 

I think, among the many mistakes of this movie, the biggest was actually the end credits. Not the mid and post credit scenes, those were ok, but the credits themselves. A montage of pictures from the first two Guardians movies served only to highlight how much better the first movie was.

Yeah, I didn't like it. I think I've said before that the MCU movies are now suffering under the weight of the MCU. This one certainly does.