Deja Vu

I started watching Avengers: Endgame today, and I couldn't for the life of me work out whether I'd seen it before or not.  Am I suffering from MCU fatigue?  Most definitely yes.  Much like the Star Wars universe, it is so easy to lose track of which films I've seen and which ones I haven't (I know that I still haven't seen The Rise of Skywalker yet).  A quick search on this blog reveals that I have indeed seen Endgame before, and even that I actually snuck out of my office and watched it at a cinema in downtown Seattle.  This was in 2019, oh those heady pre-pandemic times.  But I have absolutely zero recollection of doing that, and whilst watching (re-watching) I had absolutely zero recollection of the actual film.  That about sums up the Marvel Cinematic Universe - in one ear, out the other.  That's why you can't sell me on all this multiverse crap. 

Dr No

I'm long overdue writing something about each of the Bond films.  Now that I've finished watching all the blu ray extras, let's start with the OG.  The most important film in the franchise.  The very first one, celebrating it's 60th anniversary this year - Dr No.  Does it hold up after all this time?  For the most part, I'm going to say yes.  This is the film where so many memorable tropes that make a film a Bond film were established, to great success.  The style, the tone, the action, etc all started here.  Of course, some parts haven't aged well - it is clearly low budget, and there is a disturbing amount of "yellowface".  But Connery is an absolute stud, Ursula Andress coming out of the water is still very iconic (even if it appears much later in the film than I thought), also memorable is the very first introduction to our hero at a casino table - "Bond, James Bond" indeed.

An ongoing ranking of Bond films (which will mean a lot more when I start watching more of the films):

1. Dr No

Some key autographs I own:

- Sylvia Trench, Miss Taro, one of the Three Blind Mice, Monty Norman (composer of the "James Bond Theme")

Drug Advertising

It doesn't matter how long I've been living in the States now, it is always somewhat jarring and strange to see advertisements for prescription drugs during TV shows.  Yes, they are really allowed to advertise prescription drugs direct to consumers - something that almost no other country does.  Yet another consequence of the messed up healthcare system here.  And there are plenty of ads, including ones for drugs that my company makes.  It could be for inflammation, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, asthma or whatever.  One of the more recent ones I've seen is a treatment for depression.  Now something to note, I assume for legal reasons that these adverts have to list the most common side effects for the drug being advertised.  So it is very surreal to see an ad for a drug to treat depression, and then for it to list a side effect of increased risk of suicidal thoughts and actions.  Hmmmm, that's not really the kind of side effect you want when you're already suffering from depression.  Nausea and/or diarrhea - unpleasant, but common.  Suicidal thoughts and actions - yikes.  But apparently not enough to stop the spending of millions of dollars on TV advertising.    

A Meeting Gone Awry

We had a company-wide meeting today to discuss COVID, and our company’s approach to COVID (think working remotely, wearing a mask, health checks, etc).  And I made the mistake of reading the chat during the meeting.  It was insane.  Like the worst and most toxic kind of Reddit thread.  I thought the people who worked at a biotech company would be a bit more rational and would understand the science around COVID, but apparently not.  It was almost like the chat had been hijacked by anti-vaxxers or trolls who were making deliberately provocative and outrageous claims.  Unreal.  I looked up a few of the people saying these things on our company address book, and apparently they are real employees or contractors here (or at least they appear to be).  My god, that is surreal – maybe they shouldn’t be.  I’m almost convinced that there must be people attending the meeting who shouldn’t be – I think one of the speakers did say at one point that there were over 4000 people on the call, which is way more than normal.  Very strange.

Brrrrr

The false spring we had is well and truly over.  This week it has been really cold - reaching daily record lows overnight.  Not quite as bad as the end of last year, but cold enough that I've had to turn up my heating.  Cold enough to freeze up my hummingbird feeders, so I've had to deal with that.  And we've also had a couple of overnight snowfalls.  Nothing extensive thankfully, just a dusting.  And by the afternoon it has warmed up enough to mostly disappear.  So I've still been able to drive somewhere for shopping or late lunchtime hikes.  I wouldn't trust driving up or down my driveway whilst it's still well below freezing in the morning.  The trails are a lot more slippery than normal with lingering snow and ice, so a lot more exercise as I take baby steps to not slip down while going down some downhill sections.  At least with the cold weather has come some clear and sunny skies - best make the most of it before another week of rain ahead starting at the weekend.      

Song of the Week #98

I've always liked this song.  But listening to the lyrics, I think it is really a lot less uplifting than I previously thought it was - more a song of regret and sentimentality about a failed relationship.  Which might be why I like it.  And it's another one that I wouldn't be surprised if I had already included in this blog.

A Promise

I want to make a promise today.  A promise that I will keep.  A written record.  I promise that I will NEVER buy an NFT.  Never ever ever.  Not even a James Bond NFT.  I consider these "non fungible tokens" to be a colossal waste of time and money.  Nothing more than a scam.  A hoax.  It's bewildering to see the amount of money they go for.  And if I'm going to be honest, I still don't really understand what they are and why they exist.  Anybody can download a digital image, so "ownership" of these images seems kind of redundant.  It seems like they are nothing more than another kind of cryptocurrency.  And even though I was surprisingly asked about cryptocurrency in my tax preparation software, I don't own any and don't plan on getting any anytime soon either (though I'm not making the same general promise about cryptocurrency than I am about NFTs - who knows what the future of financial transactions will hold).      

President's Day

Another early year bank holiday today, this time for President's Day.  And another holiday that has kind of sneaked up on me.  Indeed, I don't think we were given any notification about it from work at all - so I wouldn't be surprised if someone still thought today was a work day.  And how did I make the most of the extra time off?  I started on my taxes.  And boy, was that depressing.  I owe so much - even more than last year, and that was a lot.  And what was even more depressing was going through my trading accounts, and seeing how much they have lost since the start of the year thanks to the volatile stock market.  Unfortunately, I have set up my accounts to be predominantly stocks over bonds - so they are open to more risk.  Hmm, might be time to change to a more conservative strategy.  Or hope that the market bounces back (which it should do, ..., eventually).       

And oh yes, I've just looked outside and it's snowing.  Great.  Winter is not done with us yet.

Not So Cold War

Well, what to do with Russia?  It seems inevitable that they will invade Ukraine, if they haven't already.  And the international response will be meek, to say the least.  As it was when pro-Russian militia shot down that airplane over Ukraine a few years back.  As it was when Russian operatives poisoned a double agent on our home ground.  Yes, there will probably be some economic and diplomatic ramifications, but nothing that will seriously stop Russia doing what it pleases.  If we are serious about stopping conflict, then the NATO countries should send troops into Ukraine.  If Russia can conduct "military exercises" in Belarus, then so can we in Ukraine.  But a bigger deterrent - let's stop Russia being able to compete in any international sporting competition.  After all, they're a bunch of drug-taking cheats anyway.  So no "Russian Olympic Committee" - which is just a ridiculous charade to get around an existing Russian ban.  But they shouldn't be allowed to compete in any other major sporting event, such as the World Cup.  I'd go further than that - let's ban all Russian athletes from competing in any international event.  No Russian tennis players, no Russian ice hockey players, no Russian MMA fighters, etc.  And let's make it a serious ban - 50 years.  I bet they'd think twice about invading then.  Can you imagine if the UK was banned from competing in the World Cup for 50 years - it would be absolutely devastating to the national psyche.  That is the kind of consequence that means something.      

A Relegation Fight

I am extremely worried about Palace's form.  That's now 6 league games without a win - and we are definitely being pulled into a relegation scrap, with no real teams tailing off (not even Norwich!).  The next 2 league games are crucial - Watford and Burnley, 2 teams below us and 2 teams currently in the relegation spots.  We need to win at least one of these, preferably both.  Draws won't do - which is all we seem to be managing at the moment against teams we should be beating (see our recent games against Norwich, Brentford, Brighton).  In fact the only games we have won in 2022 are in the FA Cup.  Every year it always seems like there is one team who have an FA Cup run to the serious detriment of their league form.  And I'm kind of worried it is going to be us this year - especially with another favorable draw against a lower league opposition.  Which is why I kind of secretly hope that Stoke beat us.  

Work vs Vacation

So, my rearranged trip back to the UK in April has had some unintended consequences at work.  I'm not currently busy, and don't really have any significant projects lined up for the rest of the year.  So whenever another group is short of resources and needs some help, then my name is one of those put forward to assist.  So far this has happened twice, and both times they've said no to me.  Nice.  In both cases, they have said that my planned vacation in April could be problematic.  I don't entirely believe that, though I don't know their timelines to be sure.  But I suspect there's also an element of my not being Chinese a factor.  Whatever.  But even if it's not personal, then I still feel somewhat conflicted about it.  On the one hand, these would be important and high profile projects I'd be helping out on - which would maybe be good for recognition and for my career.  But on the other hand, the work would probably be stressful and demanding of my time.  So maybe I've dodged a bullet?  Again, I wish I could just find that perfect compromise of being busy, but not too busy, with work.  Instead for the last couple of years now, I've been vastly underused.  Their loss.       

Normalcy

Have we turned a corner?  Is this a dawn of a new age?  A new post-COVID world?  What will be the same?  What will be different?  For starters, it seems that masks may be on the way out.  It has been announced that the Washington state indoor mask mandate will be lifted on March 21.  The day that I don't have to wear a mask just to go shopping will be a good day.  The day that I don't have to wear a mask in the office will be a good day.  Will I still have to wear a mask at the airport and on my flight to the UK in April?  I suspect so.  But we shall see.  What may change might be my working patterns.  We are expected to go back to the office soon.  Naturally, the timelines for this are totally out of sync with the timelines for the indoor mask mandate.  From the beginning of March, there will no exceptions for people like me who want to work fully remotely.  Instead, I can work remotely up to 3 days per week without manger approval.  And then from the beginning of April, I will only be allowed to work remotely up to 3 days per week with manager approval and under our company's pre-pandemic flexible working rules.  Do I really want to go back to working in the office every day like before?   I don't mind going back to some degree, especially since the new company policy is that everyone has to have had a booster shot.  But as everyone else also returns to their offices across the region, I think the commute could be worse than ever.  With predictable timing, the free Tuesday lunches at work are ending next week.  I honestly don't know how I'm going to approach work now.  They have eliminated core hours, so I'm almost thinking to get into the office mid-morning, leave the office in mid-afternoon, avoid rush hours, and work from home to make up the hours.  Is that even an option?  Frankly, I don't want to work at all - I've been thinking a lot recently about taking a sabbatical.  At a minimum, I think it's something I really want to do when I turn 50.  Especially as the pandemic has made me reflect on how fragile our lives are, and that I want to go to places and see more of our fragile world whilst I still can and before it's too late.     

Song of the Week #97

Yes, we're going back to my favorite decade for music - the 70's.  And a warning - this is a long one.  From an artist who I really know very little about other than his use of a talk box - and I'm glad to say we do have a little bit of that in this one. 

The Globe

It surprisingly didn't take me too long to put this together:

And it looks pretty damn good.  Maybe not as sturdy as you'd hope - but hey, it is made of Lego!  And the globe does spin.  The build was quite repetitive, but at least I have a space I can display this.  Which makes a pleasant change from all the other bigger unopened sets I've got (and want to get!). 

Daily Puzzles

I’m obviously still doing Wordle every day.  And I’ve obviously still got a 100% success rate, though I should really stick to the same device so that I have an accurate and complete history.  Though I will add that I struggled with today’s Wordle (I think I got it in 5 - hopefully this is a sign that it will start getting more challenging now that the New York Times have taken it over).  But I’ve also started doing various knockoffs or alternatives to Wordle every day – these include Dordle (which is solving 2 words), Nerdle (which is solving a numeric calculation) and Worldle (which is identifying a country).  And I don’t have a 100% success rate in all of these (indeed, I didn’t even know today’s Worldle country was now called this).  Yes, this is probably all a crazy fad that will end one day.  But I’m enjoying it while it lasts, and maybe all of this is something like a modern day equivalent to sudoku that came from nowhere about 20 years ago and will seemingly persist forever. 

Superbowl Sunday

Congratulations to whoever won the Superbowl, whatever.  I didn't watch any of it.  A regular season American football game is already stop and start enough with loads of advert breaks - the Superbowl is ten times worse.  It's almost unwatchable. 

I Hate My TV

I said I would watch all the Bond films in this calendar year, and I'm already well behind on doing that.  So I thought I'd try to watch Dr No this evening.  But as soon as I put the disc into my PS5, I got distracted.  First of all I spent ages fiddling around with my PS5, TV and soundbar settings to try to get the optimal picture and audio.  The audio is a particular issue - my TV and soundbar don't work well together at the best of times, and the lag between the picture and the audio can be a particular issue when trying to watch a blu-ray.  This is an issue I've encountered before, and it just won't go away.  Personally I blame the TV, which has just been a total pain in the ass for one reason or another ever since I got it.  But even after settling down to watch the film itself, instead I spent loads of times watching all the extras on the blu-ray instead.  I thought the James Bond discs would be fairly vanilla, but they've actually got quite a bit of extra stuff on them - things like featurettes and a commentary track.  Being the completist I am, I think I've got to watch everything on a disc before I can move onto the next one, even if a lot of these extras are a total drag - so I think getting through all these Bond discs is going to take a lot longer than I thought.

O. O. Denny Park

A few photos from a mid-week visit to a park I haven't been to in years, even though it's less than a 20 minute drive away.  O. O. Denny Park is located in the Kirkland area of Greater Seattle, next to Lake Washington and about 5 miles south of where I live.  This is really the perfect weekday lunchtime place to go for a hike - a short loop trail (maybe 2 miles), which has some elevation change so some good cardio exercise, not very busy at all (I maybe encountered 2 other people when I was there) and although the main loop follows a stream into the forest away from Lake Washington, there is also some shoreline to enjoy on a nicer day.  I think this might become one of my regular jaunts. 

Quiz

I can’t tell you how disappointed I am with myself.  The day before yesterday, we had an office Lunar New Year Celebration Virtual Event.  Normally, I wouldn’t bother with this kind of meeting.  However, this one promised a “surprise gift for all participants” and a trivia game.  I’m not going to miss out on a freebie, so I joined.  And then came the trivia game.  I like me some trivia – but when I found out that the topic of this quiz was the Lunar New Year, my expectations were immediately crushed – not exactly in my wheelhouse, and with a lot of Chinese people from the office participating.  But during some “technical difficulties” as the host tried to set up the quiz, about half the questions appeared on her shared screen.  Well, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth – I scanned the questions and did a quick google search on the ones I didn’t know the answer to.  Nice.  Then came the quiz, 15 multiple choice questions in total.  After 5 questions, I was 5/5 – but so were a lot of other people, so I didn’t appear in the leaderboard.  But after 10 questions, I was miraculously 10/10 and second in the leaderboard – some logical guesswork helping my earlier google searching.  When people have the same score, then the order was decided by time of response – so I was a tad slower than the leader.  But within touching distance.  And then came the 11th question.  A relatively easy question, and one I won’t easily forget.  Where is the largest Lunar New Year celebration in North America?  Of course I knew the answer was San Francisco, but in the heat of the moment I panicked and selected Vancouver, BC because I knew it also had a large Chinese population and thought this might be something of a trick question.  But nope, I was wrong.  Gutted.  But I recovered from this, and by the end of the quiz I had a score of 14/15 – not bad.  And then to the leaderboard – and I finished third.  With about 50 people participating in the quiz, not bad at all!  No one had got 15/15, so I was about 5 seconds behind the leader and less than a second behind second place.  And then I found out that the top 3 people in the quiz won a prize – bonus!  But then came the realization that the prizes were weighted by where you finished – first prize of $75, second prize of $50, third prize of $30.  So I lost out on $20 by less than a second, and $45 by this one stupid question.  So even though I won a prize, I’m not happy at all.  Frustrating.  And ungrateful.

Song of the Week #96

I may have already chosen this song in one of my earlier entries, I don't remember.  But I wanted to pick this, because it made the news recently because the singer has been forced to disown it thanks to the ridiculously aggressive cancel culture we live in nowadays.  Which is a shame, because it is a classic.   

Winter Olympics

I cannot emphasize this enough, but I am stunningly indifferent to the Winter Olympics currently going on.  I haven't watched a minute of coverage - mainly because it's about 25% sports and 75% Chinese propaganda.  And the American coverage inevitably sucks (though the current lack of US gold is highly amusing).    When the majority of "sports" involve some degree of subjective judging, then something is seriously wrong.  Especially when I suspect the judging is about as unbiased as the voting in the Eurovision Song Contest.  Is Britain even expected to win any medals?  I just looked it up, and it appears we won 1 Gold and 4 Bronze in the last Winter Olympics.  So are we expected to do better this time round?  I only see a big bunch of 0's on the medal table so far.  It's been a long time since those heady days of watching Torvill and Dean performing Bolero.     

Camano Island

A rare sunny and warm winter day yesterday.  And perhaps even rarer, I actually went somewhere in the afternoon to make the most of it.  Drove over to Camano Island, and took a hike around one of the state parks there.  There were lots of people on the beach and coastline, so stuck to the trails on top of the cliff.  Some great views - and it was so nice that even Mount Rainier was "out", as you might be able to tell from some of the photos.  Even took the opportunity to find some easy geocaches along the trail - something I haven't done for a very long time.

Distractions

I may not be under a lockdown, I may not be snowed in, but whilst I'm still working from home then I need distractions.  On a nice day, that might be a walk.  On most days, I am prone to watching a lot of stuff on YouTube.  And obviously I'm still watching way too much telly.  But I also like to keep my hands busy - which is why I like solving a good jigsaw puzzle or putting together a Lego set.  I just finished my last new jigsaw puzzle (which was a bit too easy):

So what next?  I'm expecting a new Lego set to get delivered this week, and I've got the perfect space lined up for that.  But after that, I don't know.  Ring Fit Adventure is an obvious candidate to pass time playing - and a healthy distraction at that.  I keep on getting asked to play golf - but I just can't bring myself to do it, it just doesn't appeal to me enough.  I've got a ton of unopened Lego sets upstairs but nowhere to put any of the finished builds.  I'm also thinking about turning my "billiards room" (i.e. my 3rd bedroom which currently has the pool table in it) into a "home gym".  My pool table gets next to no use now, so I might as well put that room to better use by having all my current exercise equipment, and any future exercise equipment, in there.  Maybe I may actually use that room then!

Calcutta Cup

One match, and I'm already over the Six Nations.  What a disappointing loss today - and indeed one of many disappointing results for England in recent years.  It must surely be time for a coaching change - we have the better players than Scotland, much more possession and territory, yet at times seem totally aimless.  And this is definitely not the first time this has happened.  The tactical ineptness starts at the top.  Losing to Scotland twice in a row - well that's just embarrassing.  But I'd also add, since when did the Six Nations start using southern hemisphere referees?  Some of the refereeing decisions were extremely dubious.  I think England need to start the next Six Nations with a home game against Italy - get an easy win and build up the confidence for the rest of the tournament.  Rather than an away game against a fired up auld enemy.  At least Palace won today - we are long overdue an FA Cup run (though not at the cost of getting embroiled in a relegation fight).         

Bread

I timed an afternoon visit to a local supermarket perfectly today - in addition to getting some of the free N95 masks that the government is giving out, I was able to get a reduced-price freshly baked baguette.  And there are few culinary pleasures as great as a warm chewy baguette with a crispy crust.  As an Englishman I'm expected to have a love/hate relationship with France and the French - but boy, they sure get it right when it comes to bread, cheese and wine.    

Class Action Lawsuits

Everyone knows that the US is an extremely litigious place.  And as proof of this, in just the last week I became a claimant in 3 class action lawsuits.  And if I'd kept my service records from my old car, it could have been 4 class action lawsuits.  So how does this work?  Basically, you get an e-mail notifying you about a class action lawsuit and you have been identified as a potential claimant.  Normally this e-mail looks like junk - so it's a good job that I regularly check my Junk e-mail folder.  The e-mail points you to a website (which is kind of suspicious, so I always do a quick google search to ensure it is a genuine lawsuit), and it takes just a few minutes to enter your information here and submit your claim.  So the 3 lawsuits I am currently part of are (1) Martin vs Safeway - because apparently I used a Safeway gas station between 2017 and 2019 and the receipt may have displayed more digits of my credit card than it should have; (2) Plaid Privacy Litigation - apparently I used an app that took certain "improper actions" in connecting to one or more of my financial accounts; (3) Zoom Privacy Litigation - there were privacy and security issues with Zoom meetings between 2016 and 2021.  Ridiculous right!  Now my knowledge of class action lawsuits is not great - the most I've probably got is from reading a low-brow John Grisham novel a long time ago.  But from what I can tell, these lawsuits have reached settlements - normally with the company settling at paying many millions of dollars towards a settlement fund.  A huge proportion of this money will obviously go towards attorneys' fees - the vultures.  And the remaining amount gets divvied up between the claimants.  And since we are talking about thousands or millions of potential claimants, we are not exactly taking about big money here.  So I'm not expecting much, but for so little effort I might as well submit a claim.         

Mail Delays

The mail service in the US and/or the UK is an absolute shambles right now.  Some cards arrive in less than a week after posting, other Christmas cards arrived well over a month late - not exactly in time for Christmas.  The unpredictability is shocking.  I've also got some items I've ordered from the UK that still haven't arrived, and because the tracking history on the package I'm waiting for hasn't been updated in over a month I had to contact the seller to see if they could locate my package (they have launched an "investigation").  I'm also expecting a Christmas gift package from work - that was ordered before Christmas - but I still haven't got that yet (and I don't think any of my colleagues have got theirs yet either).  Yes, we can blame COVID for a lot of these delays.  But I would also blame some serious underfunding - I'm surprised that the postmaster general is still the Trump appointee.  Makes you wonder who else wildly unqualified for their position is still in government.  

Song of the Week #95

This week, one of my favorite artists from the 80's.  And someone who is criminally overlooked beyond one song with a memorable video.  In actual fact he has released many great songs and albums, and is a major pioneer and proponent of early progressive rock and later world music.  At university in Bath, someone told me that he lived in one of the houses on the hill between the city centre and the university campus - but I have my doubts how true that is.  However, he definitely has many ties to Bath - and indeed this song is named after somewhere just outside the city.  And this is a live version, because I find it particularly uplifting.