Cable

Now I've got a 4K TV, it was time to update my cable box to one that gives a 4K signal.  So I got my new box this afternoon.  Installed it, turned it on, and black screen.  Unplug, plug back in, black screen.  Check connections, try again, black screen.  Call customer service, go through automated steps, no change.  Speak to an actual technician, go through a load of checks, no change.  Schedule appointment with technician to come round to my house tomorrow afternoon.  No cable until then.  Not happy.  This may be the final straw that breaks the camel's back - might be time to cut the cord.  Ironically, I also got a new modem as well and didn't have any problems getting that set up (thank god) and my internet speed has never been faster. 

TV Update

From a quick look at my DVR recordings - scheduled and current - here are a few programs that I'm watching (or plan to watch) that are worthy of mention:

Homeland - the last series of Homeland is currently airing.  Obviously nowhere near as good or as iconic as the early seasons, but still quite watchable.

Kidding - probably the best comedy currently on TV.  Though the word comedy is extremely loose in this regard, this show is very dark.  But if you know who Fred Rogers is, then this is a no-brainer.

The New Pope - probably the most original show on TV.  The follow up to The Young Pope, this is just as good and pleasingly unique.  Must watch.

Better Call Saul - the penultimate (?) series is currently airing.  A totally different vibe to Breaking Bad, even though it has a setting and characters in common, this is one of the few prestige shows still airing.  Quality stuff.

The Outsider - this is the current flagship program on HBO (until Westworld starts its third season next month) that airs at 9 pm on Sunday night.  I've been recording it, but haven't watched any episodes yet - but by all accounts it's one of the better Stephen King adaptations.

More Random Photos

Some more random photos from a couple of blue-skied lunchtime walks.  I do like it when the snow-capped mountains are out.

Pandemic

As the coronavirus continues to spread, it’s impact has been felt here.  A number of my friends and colleagues have cancelled trips to Europe scheduled in the next few months.  And just today we got an e-mail telling us to postpone or reschedule any non-essential business travel - and that includes domestic travel.  I’m starting to worry about my vacation plans this year, as I have friends and family supposed to be visiting me this year – but depending on how the disease spreads, it might not be a good idea to travel.  I suspect it will be a case of when, rather than if, it hits the UK.  We can definitely expect things to get worse in the US – I think San Francisco has already declared a state of emergency, and I’m sure other cities will follow (particularly those with large Chinese populations – like Seattle).  The virus has also had an unwelcome side effect of hitting shares, and hence my retirement nest egg, hard.  Though ironically my company is actually one of the very few whose share price has gone up over the last few days, because we are one of several biotechnology companies working on a cure.  This feels like a big deal and like we’re living a real life movie – like the the film Contagion.  The next virus that China releases on an unsuspecting world will be even worse, maybe more like 28 Days Later!  And the scaremongering has already started – one of my colleagues has already said that I should start stockpiling canned food.  Wow, so someone here is already going all in on the doomsday scenario. 

Neighbors

I think I’ve mentioned in this blog before about how I have to deal with people (teenagers?) who just chuck their fast food litter, empty energy drink cans or empty beer bottles into the verge at the bottom of my driveway.  Every now and then I will go down there and do some litter picking.  Well, someone has just escalated this and I am not happy.  I left for work this morning, and what did I find at the bottom of my driveway?  Someone had dumped a toaster oven there overnight.  Unbelievable.  It is one thing if you’ve just picked up some drive-through food or some late night snacks from a gas station, and thrown the trash out of your car window.  It is quite another to make the conscientious decision to transport and dump a large item like that.  I would maybe be less angry about this if it had been dumped further down the road, but this was explicitly dumped at the bottom of my driveway.  Not happy about this at all – I assume it’s up to me now to dispose of this thing properly.  This is on top of a number of other recent incidents.   I already mentioned the potential mail theft.  In addition, I discovered some suspicious tire tracks over the weekend, where it looks like someone went a little up my driveway, not all the way to the house, before turning around on the patch of grass there.  No idea what that was about.  And also over the weekend, someone in the neighborhood decided to have a REALLY noisy party all Saturday night.  It wasn’t one of my next door neighbors, but the music and particularly the conversation from the party was so loud and carried so clearly that it sounded like they were next door.  I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.   

Note – I do want to mention that I am reluctantly but intentionally dropping my u’s from words like neighbour and neighbourhood.  This is mainly due to American auto-correcting and spellcheck when I type this up.  Sorry, deal with it. 

K

I had some lab tests done at my doctor's visit last week, and I am suffering from low potassium levels.  Apparently this is not an uncommon side effect when taking blood pressure meds, and would explain the occasional muscle weakness I experience.  Time for me to eat more bananas.

Mail Theft

Finally, I got my landlord to buy a lockable mailbox for me.  One evening last week, I came home and went to check my mail - and found my mailbox open and empty.  I have no idea whether anyone had actually stolen any of my mail, but it sure looked like it.  I'm sure I'll find out when it comes to checking whether I've got all my tax forms when I go to file my return.  And this wasn't the first time I've found my mailbox like this - so this was the final straw.  Mentioned it to my landlord, and he agreed to get a lockable mailbox - I suspect he has had some mail stolen as well, as I don't think he has a lockable mailbox either.  The joys of living somewhere that people who deliver newspapers or mail are not expected to go down people's driveways - they either fling the newspaper into your yard, or deliver the mail into a mailbox at the top of your drive.  Hence why you see movies of kids driving round hanging out of car windows with a baseball bat knocking down people's mailboxes.  I'll probably find my mailbox knocked over now.

We are in a Golden Age ...

... of cheating in sports.

Manchester City
Saracens
Houston Astros
New England Patriots
Australia cricket team
Russia (in all sports)

But are we?  There is no Lance Armstrong or Ben Johnson type figurehead.  Just some shady team actions.  We don't have the prevalence of something like steroids in baseball, or the fury of something like the Hand of God.  So perhaps this is just more of the same in sports - people and teams have cheated in the past, and they'll cheat in the future.

Illogical

Decision time this year.  I need to either renew my green card, or become a US citizen.  Although I think citizenship is something I eventually want to do, not right now – and especially not under this president.  So that means renewing my green card.  But then there is a problem.  You can only start the renewal process when your current green card has 6 months or less until it expires.  Fair enough.  But then I went online to check processing times, and it said that it can up to 12 months to process a green card renewal.  What?  So, in effect, that means that there is going to be about 6 months when I don’t have a valid green card and I can’t leave the US because then I won’t be able to get back in.  What if there is an emergency and I need to return to the UK during that time?  What if I lose my job?  Because then I won’t be able to get a new one.  All of this suggests a very flawed system which could potentially be very problematic.  Let’s hope it never comes to any of that.  And of course this will very much dictate my vacation plans in the next few years, at least when it comes to foreign travel.  I still plan to come back to the UK this Christmas, but after that I’m probably not going anywhere anytime soon because that is when my green card expires.  And don’t get me started on how much a green card renewal costs – it ain’t cheap.

Infighting

I didn’t watch the Democratic debate yesterday – no surprise, since I have zero interest in watching any of the debates.  However, this was the first one with billionaire Mike Bloomberg in it so I was interested to read about the fallout.  And, totally predictably, the rest of the candidates piled in on him.  And once again, it just goes to show how self-destructive the Democratic Party is.  I can’t stress enough how ill-advised and wrong it would be to have a progressive win the candidacy.  It would be a disaster, and it would guarantee another Trump term – the vast majority of Americans will never vote for a socialist.  I wouldn’t either.  So with Bernie Sanders the clear front-runner at the moment, he should have been the one ganged up on.  But nope, they targeted Bloomberg instead because he was the easiest target.  It was desperate, and predictably Bloomberg didn’t come out of it looking good.  Which is sad, because he is one of the few viable contenders to Trump.  So, as Bloomberg himself correctly conceded, Trump was the only real winner of this debate.  Just for the record, my vote would be for Bloomberg – with Joe Biden kind of fading away (I haven’t seen a single mention about his performance in the debate and I kind of wonder whether he has lost heart in the race – but I suspect that might be what the media want me to think about him) I think Bloomberg is the best chance of beating Trump.  And that has to be the priority.  The only priority.  But apparently common sense has been thrown out of the window – I despair.  If you put a bet on Trump to win re-election as I recommended in a previous blog post, I think I would double down on that bet right now.

Merch

Since we’re getting closer and closer to the latest Bond film coming out, the preponderance of Bond merchandise has started to crank up.  And as a Bond connoisseur, that results in me having to make some difficult decisions.  Do I buy this, or do I not buy this?  There are some staples that I don’t bother with – notably clothing, sunglasses and watches.  Which is a shame, because I particularly like some of the watches – but I’m not prepared to shell out the thousands of pounds necessary to acquire an Omega or Rolex.  Swatch has just released some more affordable 007-themed watches, and although they are “limited edition” (my favorite 2 words) they just seem a bit tacky.  What else?  Well, lots of luxury brands have undoubtedly paid tons of money to appear in the film – so we can forget about those.  Champagne, perfume?  Nope.  I do own a couple of Bond cars – you know the Corgi/Matchbox type ones (sadly, a full size Aston Martin DB5 is just outside my price range).  At one point I thought about going all in on this and trying to acquire as many of these model cars as I could, but that never really happened.  What else have I seen?  Figures – nope, especially not those ghastly Funko Pop figures.  It seems that any companies beginning with the word Royal are producing something – Royal Mail are releasing a set of James Bond stamps, the Royal Mint are producing something (there is a countdown on their website for something 007-related), and Royal Doulton are releasing another Jack the Bulldog porcelain model (which I think I’m obliged to get, because I’ve got 2 of their previous ones).  I would love to own some genuine James Bond film props – but there are very few out there, and those that are normally get snapped up in auctions at inordinate prices.  There are lot of prints and posters out there, many of which look great, but again something I have never really got into.  I have got a lot of Bond trading cards, and I could certainly splash the cash to complete some of these sets – but again this doesn’t seem like a good use of money.  Indeed, most of these things are probably a colossal waste of money.  But hey, if they give me just an iota of pleasure and satisfaction, which they do, then perhaps they are worth it.

Sun

Today feels like the first time I've seen the sun and blue skies in about 3 months.  Very uplifting.  So here are some photos of houseboats on Lake Union that you've probably seen many times before in this blog, courtesy of a lunchtime walk.

Out of Sync

Another day off work today - this time for President's Day.  We have too many public holidays at the start of the year - such a waste.  And although it wasn't all wet today (though it did hail briefly), how did I spend the day?  Setting up my new entertainment system.  Let me state first of all that it is not easy unpacking, adding a stand and moving a big TV by yourself.  But I just about managed to cope, and so was able to go ahead and set everything up.  And then the problems started.  What joy it is to try to make sense of all the various settings.  On each piece of equipment.  And how they all tie in together, and what results in the optimal picture and sound.  First of all, realized that I have an old cable box that doesn't output 4K - so my hope of being able to watch the Chelsea-Man Utd game in really high definition was dashed.  I think I could get a new cable box - but if I'm going to cut the cord then now is the time.  So I need to make a decision on that soon.  But my biggest gripe - and the thing that is going to keep me awake at night - is that the video and the audio from my cable box do not quite sync up.  The video is every so slightly ahead of the audio.  I don't know whether it is the TV, the sound bar or the connection between the TV and soundbar that is as fault - but I suspect the TV.  And as best as I can tell from playing around with the settings and reading lots of online posts about it, this is apparently a known flaw and not something I can easily fix.  So either I have to get used to this lag, or I need to come up with some sort of workaround (without buying whole new equipment).  So much for putting all my trust in such a well reviewed TV and well reviewed soundbar - they don't mention anything at all about any of these kind of issues.  Next time I'll spend the money and stick to quality electronics from the big names.  Not TCL (for the TV) and Vizio (for the soundbar).

NASCAR

As my sporting tastes continuously evolve, another decision was made today.  I'm done with NASCAR (stock-car racing).  Why?  Because it was the Daytona 500 today - the opening race of the season - and who was the guest of honor and given loads of free airtime?  Why, only a certain orange-faced buffoon.  The build up to the race was unwatchable - and it officially politicized the sport.  And although I've been aware of this for ages, it dawned on me just how many fans of NASCAR are supporters of Trump - it is easily one of the whitest sports in America, in both the competitors but especially the owners and especially the fans.  I remember in the recent news they had difficulty dealing with NASCAR fans still displaying confederate flags at races, despite their racist and offensive overtones.  And I suspect that NASCAR events probably contain the highest concentration of MAGA caps outside of actual Trump rallies.  It is still on my bucket list to go to a NASCAR race - but this will definitely be a one off and I have no plans to follow the championship any more.  Let the "god-fearing" and "country-loving" Americans have NASCAR and have Trump - the foolish hicks.  And to top it off, just as they were about to begin the race it started raining and they pulled the cars off the track - it is just ridiculous that they are incapable of racing in wet weather. 

Reading

I've developed a lot of bad habits over the last few years.  And I think one of my worse is really cutting back on my reading.  I can't remember the last book I read - maybe one about Trump's presidency.  But certainly I haven't read a fiction book for quite a number of years, and that's not healthy.  Not even any of the Game of Thrones ones which I own but said I wouldn't start until the series ended.  And they're still wrapped in cellophane sitting on my bookshelf.  The only reading I do now is TIME magazine, but I even find I'm doing that less and less and falling behind on my issues.  This needs to change.  A good book is arguably better than a good film, and I think I might sleep better if I read before going to sleep rather than play a game on my iPhone.   

Feb 14th ...

... is my least favorite day of the year.

❤

No Time to Die Theme

I don't know anything about Billie Eilish, but just finished listening to her Bond theme for the first time.  Thoughts?  Pretty good.  Maybe a bit whispery and angsty for my tastes - but hopefully that suggests a dark Bond film, which wouldn't be a bad thing.  However I think every Bond theme needs a big sustained high note and loads of orchestration, and this one has a little bit of that, so it could grow on me.  Definitely more memorable than the most recent ones, but maybe not up to the heights of classics like You Only Live Twice or Live and Let Die. 

Migraine

I worked from home today because I had 2 scheduled deliveries (TV and exercise bike), but I should have taken a sick day because I have been suffering from a migraine all day.  Not that I was going to get much work done working from home anyway - I hate it.  But I hope this isn't a symptom of high blood pressure again - and I have to change my blood pressure medication again.  The joys of being overweight and unfit.  I really hope the weather improves soon so I can actually do some hiking - but it looks like we have another wet weekend in the forecast.  Great.   

4 More Years

Just as with the UK elections, it is sad and unnerving how much the media can manipulate the politics to get the result it wants.  The coverage of the Democratic caucuses has been absolutely appalling – the media are taking delight with every seed of chaos and totally exaggerating every swing of momentum.  None of the candidates are coming out of it looking good – and quite clearly the only resounding winner in all of this is Trump.  Which is why in many ways I’m starting to hope that Mike Bloomberg does well.  I’m sick to death of all his ads (they’ve started appearing on YouTube now as well), but I respect the way he has played this in refusing to criticize his Democrat opponents and only Trump.  And it’s interesting that for all the money he has spent, very little has been in the states like Iowa and New Hampshire that vote first – it is quite contrary to all the other opponents who spend so much of their time canvassing in these states of early but exaggerated importance.  I don’t know whether this strategy will work, but at this point I hope any candidate who isn’t Bernie or Warren does well.  Because if either of them face Trump, they will get routed.  Especially Bernie – who I think is nothing more than a sad and cranky old man, and I can totally believe Clinton when she said nobody likes him.  And he is the presumptive favorite to face Trump – a tragic sate of affairs, but not coincidentally someone who I think Trump and any of his foreign influencers would prefer to face.

The C Word

I’ve been in a really shocking mood for the last couple of weeks, and who is the source of my irritation – well, it is our old friends my Chinese colleagues.  Yes, another highly racist and offensive blog post coming up.  If taking over my profession wasn’t enough, now they have started to take over my stress release from work.  For the last couple of weeks, they have started to hog the ping pong table.  I have traditionally played sometime between about 4pm and 5pm, and there is one friend who I like to play then because we are quite well matched and the games get suitably competitive.  Now this time slot has been taken over by up to 4 Chinese colleagues.  And they hog the table for at least the full hour.  Sometimes we join them, but then you end up waiting too long between games.  It is so frustrating.  We actually even have a second table now – the (Chinese) head of our community inexplicably decided to waste most of our annual budget on an unnecessary new table, but we don’t have room for it.  This is just a ridiculous state of affairs.  It’s the kind of thing that shouldn’t bug me so much – I can try scheduling another time of the day to play (say lunch?), and push for the second table to be set up somewhere else.  But my status quo has got disturbed, and I don’t like it one bit.

How to Make a Grown Man Cry?

Watch YouTube videos of blind elephants being played music by a pianist.  Rescued animals (particularly monkeys) being reunited with their family or recognizing their rescuers after time apart also does the trick.

1917

I finally got around to seeing 1917 today - long overdue.  Why now?  Partly because it is Oscars weekend, and this film is likely to win some awards.  Partly because it was yet another wet day, and I had to get out.  Was it a good film?  Yes.  Very interesting to compare it to Dunkirk - this film seemed somehow quieter yet more visceral, but I think I need to watch it again at home to decide whether it is better or not.  And that is mainly because my actual cinema experience was awful.  From them starting the film with the overhead lights still on, to someone coming in late, sitting almost behind me and consuming a box of popcorn about as loud and distracting as can be, to the seat being unbearably uncomfortable after about an hour.  This is why I will continue to watch most films at home.

Splashing the Dough

I went on a bit of a spending spree yesterday and today.  And I don’t even know how big (or small) my bonus is going to be yet!  As I’d promised myself I would do, I have updated my entertainment system.  So I’ve ordered a new HDTV (but only 55”, not 65” as I think my sofas are just a bit too close to the tv that I’d almost be looking up at a 65” screen!), a decent soundbar (it still has some surround sound speakers, so I’m not totally eliminating wires trailing everywhere, but hopefully a lot less cluttered than my current setup), and, wait for it, ….

Yes, give me a few weeks to set everything up and I’ll be ready to challenge certain family members at Mario Kart.  And also colleagues – quite coincidentally, I found out today that one of my work friends has also just got a Switch and also just got Mario Kart.  Let the games begin!  And this morning, I was late into work because I went into Ikea and bought the dining table and chairs I had been eyeing.  They were finally in stock (though I only knew this because I went onto their website last night, I never got an e-mail to let me know – great customer service).  So I think I’m down to just a few more things I really want to get for my home – next on the wish list is an exercise bike (which I can expense work for – nice!).

Not Guilty

And to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Trump has got away with it.  I barely followed the impeachment trial, and certainly not interested in hearing about all his gloating afterwards.  Not guilty – yeah, right.  But at least there is one Republican senator who still has a shred of decency left and did vote to impeach, and that is Mitt Romney.  This is where we miss someone like John McCain, who I’m fairly sure would also have voted against Trump.  And between them, they could have made a difference.  I think I saw this headline somewhere, and I totally agree with it, is that maybe Trump has been the luckiest president ever.  From reaping all the benefits of Obama’s economic policies, to how all the Republican dominoes have lined up in his favor, to how all the foreign election influence has been to his benefit, to not having to deal with any real major crises in his presidency, to facing a directionless Democratic party.  It’s almost like some bigger power wants him to stay as president (that bigger power being the 1%).  As for Iowa, what an embarrassing mess and how sad that this piddling little state seems to have such a strong influence on who will face Trump in the election.  And if it is Bernie Saunders – oh my god, what a disaster that would be.  He has NO chance against Trump, absolutely none.  It’s an almost carbon copy of Corbyn vs Boris, and look at how that turned out.  I don’t know how the Democratic Party can be so blinkered to this – it’s a level of delusion I can’t fathom.  If I could vote, I would seriously consider voting for Trump over Bernie.  And as I’ve made clear in this blog, I utterly loathe Trump.  What does that say about Bernie.

Traffic

I made a huge mistake today.  There was an all-hands meeting at work starting at 8.30 am.  I thought I would try to make it in for the meeting, instead of listening to it at home or watching a replay at a later time.  I didn’t want to miss the chance of some free breakfast either.  So I set my alarm early, got up early and left home about 7.20 am - knowing that it would be  a much longer commute than normal, but Google Maps was still telling me the commute time would be about 50 minutes so I should arrive at the office in plenty of time.  And what time did I arrive?  9.00 am.  Yes – it took me over an hour and a half to travel about 14 miles to get into work.  Utterly preposterous.  I missed most of the meeting, and all the breakfast had gone by the time I got in.  Very pissed to say the least.  Google Maps lied to me about the commute time.  Maybe the traffic got backed up by an accident – after all, it was yet again a very wet commute.  I definitely should have left earlier – and indeed, if I ever try to do this again (unlikely) then I would want to leave before 6.30 am.  And this was a Wednesday – not the best day of the week for commuting, but certainly not the worst.  And there seemed to be an awful lot of traffic – particularly going to the university, who surely have some responsibility to promote better use of public transport.  I should have used Google Maps during the commute – it would probably have saved me time if I had gotten off the freeway and taken local streets.  But still, just an indication of how horrific the traffic around Seattle has become and why it has totally changed my (and probably many others) work patterns.

Perks?

Some unexpected, but welcome, changes at work were announced by HR today.  We now, apparently, have four more company paid holidays per year.  So as well as the Christmas shutdown, we now also have a “Fourth of July” holiday week shutdown.  This is great – a paid week off in late June/early July, I’m thinking ROADTRIP!  I need to plan and book something now.  In addition, they’re introducing a “global wellbeing reimbursement”.  We used to be able to get reimbursement for some limited expenses like gym membership, but this has now been expanded to include things like national and state park passes (something I currently buy myself) and, best of all, home gym equipment!  I’ve been thinking about getting a decent exercise bike – maybe not a Peloton because it’s so expensive, but something similar and cheaper – and now I can get reimbursed for at least part of the cost.  So why are we being offered all these extra perks now?  Do I think it is suspicious that they were announced on the same day that we announce our quarterly earnings?  Of course.  I’m going to guess we didn’t meet our financial targets, and our stock price is consequentially going to suffer.  So these minor little perks are not going to matter much when my financial future wellbeing is going to take a huge hit from all the stocks I own via the Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

Mondays

That feeling you get when you drive all the way to Ikea, which is about 30 minutes south of Seattle without traffic (when you live 30 minutes north of Seattle, and the traffic is a long way from being good), put the back seat down in your car ready to load it up, go all the way round the store even though you’re only interested in this one thing (at least for this visit), spend ages racked with indecision about which dining room table and chairs that you like going back and forth between them,  finally settle on a combination that you’re happy with (which was the same one you had already decided upon online), go to the aisle and section of the self-serve area that you made a careful note of, find that it is empty, go to check the computer to see whether it is in stock, find that it isn’t, and realize that you could’ve probably checked the availability online before you even set off.  That’s my Monday mood.  And their Swedish meatballs are vastly overrated.  They said the table and chairs I want might be in stock on Thursday, but we shall see – at least I’ve set up an alert so that I’ll get an e-mail when they’re available, so it won’t be another wasted trip.

Grandstand

A big day of sports today.

Football: good game between Man City and Spurs.  I think it's fair to say that Liverpool have a good chance of winning the league now!  Lots of talking points - not the least of which is yet more very dubious decisions by VAR.  I'm going to keep on saying this, but it simply doesn't work for the English game and we should just get rid of it.  Also, officially worried about Palace now.  That's 6 games without a win, little activity in the transfer window and the lack of goals continues to be a major worry.  Next games coming up are critical: Everton, Newcastle, Brighton, Watford, Bournemouth.  I would like to see 3 wins out of these if we are not going to get dragged into a relegation scrap.

Rugby: did England deserve to lose?  Yes.  Did England suffer from some kind of Rugby World Cup hangover?  Yes.  Do I think its coincidence that a lot of the Saracens players seemed to play particularly badly?  No (bunch of cheats).  Do I think it's ridiculous that France have a load of South Africans and Pacific Islanders playing for them?  Yes (though England are also guilty of similar).

Tennis: been watching quite a lot of the Australian Open, though not so much the finals because the time difference results in those games being played in the early hours here.  Of the big 3, I like Djokovic the least so it was disappointing to see him win.  Though I did catch the best match of the tournament, which was Federer's epic quarter final win where he saved 7 match points.  I hope he wins one more major, though I fear his great career is almost at an end.  It's also fascinating how little fanfare the American winner on the women's side has been lauded over here.  Very unusual.  I have no idea why - is it because she is Russian born?  Is it because she isn't black (the commentary and coverage of American women's tennis here seems to focus almost exclusively on the Williams Sisters, Coco Grauff and to a lesser extent Sloane Stephens - the others are almost an afterthought).  Reverse racism?

American Football: of course, let's not forget that today is the biggest sporting spectacle of the year in the US - the Superbowl.  I'm writing this bit before it starts: it's an intriguing match up between 2 good but stylistically opposite teams, the offensive Kansas City Chiefs and the defensive San Francisco 49ers.  I predict either a really close and exciting game, or a total blow out by one of the teams (though I'm honestly not sure which).  For such a potentially interesting game, I must confess to a certain amount of indifference to it (though just glad that none of the teams I really hate are competing in it - the worst of who are obviously the New England Patriots).  And I certainly don't give a monkeys about all the big money Superbowl adverts or some crappy halftime show.  Now I'm writing this sentence after the game: I did end up watching a lot of the game.  And it was a good Superbowl, close, seemed to go quickly (American Football can sometimes horribly drag) and happy that Andy Reid (the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs) finally won a Superbowl.  Someone local must be a Kansas City fan because I heard some fireworks going off after the game.  Or perhaps it was just a Seahawks fan happy that San Francisco (Seattle's biggest rival) lost!

Summer

Sometimes you just need a couple of classic late 90's/early 00's summer tunes to cheer you up on yet another grey, miserable and rainy day (it rained on 30 out of 31 days in January in Seattle - yikes.  And February hasn't started better.  The one day it didn't rain?  Jan 1st - which was so windy they cancelled the fireworks display.  And still no official sunny days since Nov 30th.).  It doesn't matter whether these are quite far outside my normal musical tastes, they take me somewhere better than here.