Backyard Action

Some more activity in my backyard courtesy of my trail cam.  A lot more deer action this time.

TV Recommendations

Here are a few random, and somewhat niche, TV shows I'm currently watching:

- Hostages: a documentary on the Iran hostage crisis, a chapter in history that (just about) occurred in my lifetime but which I knew very little about

- The US and the Holocaust: a self-explanatory Ken Burns documentary

- Let the Right One In: there are a couple of vampire shows currently airing, but this is the one that has stuck

- The Vow: a second series about the sex cult Nxivm

- Miss Scarlet and the Duke/Magpie Murders/Annika: PBS are currently showing this trifecta of British female-lead detective series

- East New York: about as close to the CSI/NCIS/Law & Order type show that I can tolerate

- Tales From the Territories: stories from pre-WWF wrestling, a much wilder time than today's "professional wrestling entertainment"

- Lucifer: my current choice of lightweight watchable show to binge on

- Documentary Now!: a deep and funny parody of documentaries, most of which I've never seen the original

- So Help Me Todd/Alaska Daily: a rare couple of new network shows that I am actually watching among all the detritus out there 

Great Scott!

It was released a while ago, but I finally managed to get hold of my latest Lego set (this one was right at the limit of necessity, since I'm surprisingly indifferent to this particular film series):

Windfall

I know it is somewhat unseemly to talk about money and income, but I have to mention this.  Yesterday my company published its third quarter earnings, and they beat the estimates.  So what happened today?  The share price only increased by nearly 13%.  And what does that mean for your humble narrator?  Well, I checked my stock account today and I noticed that my account had a little bit of a daily gain.  I don't want to give a specific number, but let's just say it was in the $50k to $100k range.  In one day.  Nice.  If I had any sense, I would probably sell some of my shares to capitalize on this unexpected windfall.  But no, I'm in it for the long haul so these daily ups and downs don't really mean much to me - though this is a particularly unusual and extreme and welcome up.   

Trench Warfare

Well, it's on.  I am officially at war.  With moles.  Again.  And I use the plural, because the devious sods have initiated a 2-prong attack.  A massive assault on the front of my house, accompanied by some minor skirmishes round the back.  I guess the recent, and long overdue, rainfall has caused this brazen and unwarranted assault.  And it appears they might succeed - I don't have any poison bait to fight back with, at least not yet.  So all I can do is flatten the huge molehills, and make an absolute mess of my lawn.  They clearly have the upper hand - it's that time of year when leaves and tree debris cover the ground, so I can't easily see where the next offensive will occur.  And we are under a wind advisory right now, so I expect a load more crap will come down tonight to cover their tracks.  They may have won this initial battle, but the war is far from over.       

TV Theme Tunes #1

It's time to change things up.  Nobody cares about my songs of the week, so I'm going to do TV theme tunes instead.  Predominantly memorable theme tunes from my childhood, though not necessarily from children's shows.  And I have to start with a classic.  But this particular version is special - because it includes some lines that were never actually used on TV.  If you've heard this theme tune as many times as I have, you'll pick up on this immediately.  Enjoy!

The Work Blues

I'm fed up with my job at the moment.  Fed up with being a pawn in some weird power struggle between my manager and another manager.  Fed up with not having much say in the direction my job is going in.  Fed up with having to engage in some crappy training course I don't want to do.  Fed up with the news I found out today that they're thinking about making Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday core days where we have to go into the office.  A ridiculous notion that I don't agree with at all - it's basically going to result in an overcrowded office on those days, and absolutely nobody there on Monday and Friday.  Even the appeal of free lunches at work has lost a lot of it's luster.  These are not good signs, I think I need to give a lot more thought as to how I want to live out my twilight years professionally.       

House of the Dragon - Season 1 Thoughts

I've had nearly 24 hours now to digest the season 1 finale of House of the Dragon, and indeed the entirety of the first season.  And I have some thoughts.  I will say that I enjoyed the second half of the first season a lot more than the first - it was significantly more entertaining.  But I will also say that the very last episode was a bit of a dud.  And that's mainly due to an issue that has affected (and will continue to affect) my viewing of House of the Dragon, especially compared to Game of Thrones.  And that is spoilers.  I went into Game of Thrones totally blind with no idea what was going to happen, and that made for some sensationally shocking moments (the Red Wedding!).  However, I have fairly extensive knowledge of what is going to happen in House of the Dragon - and yesterday's finale was a classic example of that, even if how it happened was not exactly known.  But it definitely takes something away from the show for me.  Generally, I will say that if you liked Game of Thrones then you will like House of the Dragon.  It's good TV, but it's not great TV - Game of Thrones had higher highs and lower lows than House of the Dragon, and I think the highs are what made it a classic show.  House of the Dragon has some ups and downs, but is generally a bit more consistent - though consistently dour.  It can be a slog - it doesn't have the heart that Game of Thrones does.  And it is dark (literally in some episodes, which a lot of people complained about but which I didn't notice - so at least my TV settings appear to be in good order!).  Interestingly as the season went on, some characters were clearly developed to be equivalent to characters in Game of Thrones - we have a new Joffrey, a new Littlefinger, a new Daenerys.  And ironically for a show about dragons, I find the best moments in the show don't involve dragons (at least not directly anyway).  I will continue to watch it - although my expectations for future seasons are not great.  We have the sides set now, so I expect the show will become a lot more action-oriented with an over-reliance on dodgy CGI dragons - and that is not necessarily a good thing.     

Historic ships

I forgot I took these photos, but I often go past these "historic" ships when I brave the homeless and go for a lunchtime walk from the office.  I took these photos last week - which feels like a long time ago, since this was during peak poor air quality time (indeed, I think at one point last week Seattle had the worst air quality in the world).  But that' has long gone - since Friday, it's just been wet, dark and miserable.  In other words, lot more typical fall weather!  These ships are moored at Lake Union Park next to The Center for Wooden Boats and behind the Museum of History and Industry (incidentally, a museum I've never been in - I need to rectify that one day).  They were filming something in the park when I was there, but I couldn't tell if it was some big feature film/TV show or something a lot less significant.  The ships include the second oldest fireboat in the US (a national historic landmark!), a tugboat (that is also the oldest floating vessel in the Pacific NW and the world's oldest wooden floating tugboat), a steamboat and a fishing boat.

 

A Random Thought

You see these adverts for dog food on the telly, you see these specialized dog food shops, and then you realize that most dogs are probably eating better quality and certainly much healthier food than most Americans.  What does that say about us as a species and as a society? 

Government

It's not lost to the American audience what a shambles the UK government has become.  Liz Truss made all the headlines here after becoming the shortest serving prime minister in UK history.  And what a spectacularly quick implosion it was - Trussonomics was a total bust, and she was so disliked that a lettuce bested her.  Now everyone here is asking if and when Boris is coming back.  As I said to a friend, just like Trump it isn't easy to get rid of a bad smell.          

Trail Cam

I checked my Trail Cam yesterday, and these were the best shots.  Some interesting stuff there, along with way too much squirrel action.

Monopolization

In unexpectedly bad news, Kroger and Albertsons have announced a planned $25 billion mega merger.  Who are they, I hear you asking.  Well, only 2 of the biggest grocery store chains in the US.  And this would be an absolute disaster for grocery shopping in the Pacific NW.  A further deterioration of what is already a poor state of affairs in our region.  The 3 biggest grocery stores, and the ones that I frequent, are Fred Meyer and QFC (both owned by Kroger) and Safeway (owned by Albertsons).  None of them are particularly great, especially in light of the ridiculously inflated food prices we currently have, but between them I can just about get what I want.  But if they combine together, then I suspect that will no longer be the case.  It's only going to push me into frequenting places like Walmart and the Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market more regularly.  And maybe even joining Costco.  Based on the headlines and amount of coverage this news is getting, it appears the merger may get some serious pushback from lawmakers and others.  Which is good.  But what we really need in our region is some decent competition and variety - I would welcome an Aldi or Lidl with open arms.       

Song of the Week #131

This week, a band that I really liked from the late 90's/early 00's but which were quite underrated and never really saw all that much success.  Which is a shame, because they produced some good stuff.  But despite owning 2 of their albums, I haven't listened to anything of theirs for a very long time - so perhaps 20 years later, I need to reassess their worthiness.  But I think, for example, that this track still holds up quite well.

Shorts

It's mid-October, and today it was warm enough to wear shorts.  So I did.  What the heck is going on with the weather?!  With a change in wind direction over the weekend, some new wildfires popped up and the preexisting ones flared up around the state.  The amount of wildfire smoke we're still getting is crazy.  The air quality was at least a bit better today - it didn't bother me on a lunchtime hike.  But the official air quality alert that was supposed to expire today has now been extended to Thursday.  At least it's dry - however Thursday might be the last sunny day for a while.  Starting Friday, I don't see a single iota of sun in the forecast for the rest of the month.    

eBay

Is there anything more deflating and frustrating than constantly getting outbid on items in eBay?  Clearly someone with more money than me is bidding on the same James Bond items that I am - damn those even more serious collectors.  I need to rethink my strategy.  But I'm not sure anything I do will make a difference - I have a feeling people are using bots to put in last second bids.  For example, today I put a bid in the last 10 seconds of an auction - my bid was substantially higher than the last bid.  My thinking was that there wouldn't be time for someone to counter, so I would win.  Nope, I still lost out.  In some respects, I don't mind too much - it was an awful lot of money for something that is not really worth it, and I wasn't prepared to go any higher.  But the fact that it still wasn't enough is extremely disappointing.  Yes the prices of everything from gas to groceries to utilities is ridiculously high at the moment, but even I have my limits.   

Note

Note to self - if you plan to go out for an afternoon hike, don't fall asleep on the sofa after a big lunch.  By the time I woke up, it was almost sunset - what a waste of a day.  Especially as it might be the last dry weekend for a while - finally, there is some rain in the forecast, beginning Friday.  Not that today is a particularly nice day.  We are under another official air quality alert, and it is bad out there - smoky and unpleasant.  And then my dishwasher broke down again this evening - after my landlord had said he'd fixed it.  But this time water leaked all over my kitchen floor - not happy.  Especially as my landlord is about to go away on vacation, so I'll seemingly be without a dishwasher for over a week.     

Vaxxed Up

I had my flu shot yesterday, and my COVID omicron booster today.  I should feel invincible.  Instead, I feel like shite.  And my left arm, where I had both the shots, is absolutely killing me.  I'm expecting any other side effects to hit me tonight and over the weekend.  It was a drive-thru COVID clinic I went to, and it was very easy to get an appointment and there weren't many other cars there - I don't think many people are bothering to get another booster.  This winter could see a major uptick in positive cases - even if the COVID symptoms are milder.  Some "sensible" people I know - like some friends, my manager and my landlord - have expressed skepticism about the booster and likely won't get it.  If they aren't getting it, then that means an awful lot of people are not getting it either.  I would be very interested to know the omicron booster vaccination rate - I imagine it is less than 5% right now.           

Drama

There was some unexpected drama on the road at the end of my driveway this afternoon.  Apparently there was a vehicle fire.  The circumstances of my finding out were quite confusing.  I happened to come home after lunch, and so I was sitting at my computer working away when I heard my outdoor faucet (wow - that's very American language of me) being turned on.  What the heck - I took a look, and saw a teenager I didn't recognize taking a cup of water down my driveway.  A second later I saw my landlord's son - who had been working on his car in their driveway - following him down the driveway, with what I thought were water balloons.  I assumed it was just some high jinks going on - some friends having a water battle or something.  So I went back to my work - but then I heard my faucet being turned on again.  Well, that's kind of rude I thought to myself - but let it go.  Then 5 or 10 minutes later, I saw the lights of a fire engine at the bottom of my driveway.  Now, I had to go out to investigate.  As I was walking down my driveway, the landlord's son was coming back up the driveway with a fire extinguisher - and so I found out there had been a vehicle fire.  Something which I couldn't see from my house and would totally have missed if I hadn't seen the lights.  The fire had been put out by the time I got there, but there were a lot of firemen still milling around - along with a broken down car and a couple of teenagers who had presumably been in the car.  I'm glad the fire looked as though it was just contained to the car - with the lack of rain and all the dry leaves and undergrowth on the side of the road, that is a lot of tinder for something potentially much bigger to break out.  They had shut down the road, so it was a good job I didn't need to go anywhere (or indeed had been trying to get home then) because I couldn't leave my driveway for some time because of first the fire engine and then the tow truck.  Naturally they left quite a mess behind - whatever they used to put out the fire will probably stay on the road for a while.  And then my dishwasher broke down this evening.  Fun times.          

Song of the Week #130

A classic early 90's tune.

More Neuroscience

Oh dear, my decision to not participate in this stupid training we've been assigned at work may be about to bite me in the ass.  This is the first week involving team discussion meetings.  Unfortunately, the leader for my discussion meeting is none other than my former manager.  The former manager who I dislike and who has had it in for me ever since I asked to change group and for her to no longer manage me.  So when she sent a meeting invite for the discussion meeting, I declined.  But when declining, I said I wasn't participating in the training.  That might have been a mistake - things escalated.  She then sent an email to my current manager essentially snitching on me.  The bitch.  My manager is more sympathetic - I've already told her multiple times how unhappy I am about doing this training.  But now she has to speak to her manager about the situation and whether I can skip the training or not.  As you can tell, this has suddenly become a bigger issue than it should have been.  I suspect my manager will be told that the training is mandatory - so I will have to participate in it, which sucks.  But if that is the case, then I will ask not to be in the discussion group lead by my former manager.  The whole situation is ridiculous - the training is an offensive waste of time.  But it was also kind of implied that I need to take part in the training if I was to have any chance of promotion.  The irony is that this is a training about speaking up - yet it was probably better for me not to speak up about my dislike of this training and instead just suck it up, which is the polar opposite of what the training is supposed to teach you.  What a joke.      

Florida

Hurricane Ian has reminded me that moving to Florida might not be a good thing.  It is something I've thought about - not necessarily now,  but maybe for retirement.  But yes,  Florida becomes a lot less appealing when you consider hurricanes in combination with the likelihood of ever increasingly extreme weather events (having an awful governor does not help either).  Not that there are probably many places left in the US where you don't experience extreme weather events of one kind or another.  Cue yet another reason to miss San Diego.

PS Whoever named a hurricane Ian should be ashamed of themselves.  But then I found an article saying that there will be a Hurricane Chris in 2024.  I'm calling it, this is undoubtedly going to be the most destructive hurricane yet and will stigmatize everyone with that name...   

World Series

It's currently the baseball playoffs going on over here.  And it's about the only time of the year I really care about baseball - specifically this year, because a Seattle vs San Diego world series is still on.  Both won their wild card series this weekend.  But both still have a very long way to go - so the chances of it happening are very slim.  But we can dream.  The San Diego Padres are my #1 team, but the Seattle Mariners are my #2 team - I have a lot more affinity for the Mariners than I do for the Seahawks, mainly because I've actually been to see the Mariners play whereas I've never seen the Seahawks.  And until this year, the Mariners had the longest playoff drought of any team in each of the 4 primary US sports (American football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey) - 21 years - so I was really happy that they simply made the playoffs, let alone progress.  Unfortunately both San Diego and Seattle have some of the longest championship droughts in US sports history (about 50 years for both) - so I hope that one of them can break that drought.  

Indian Summer

We're heading towards mid-October, and I still haven't had to turn my heating on yet.  And it is still t-shirt weather, arguably shorts weather in the afternoons.  Now that is definitely unseasonably warm and dry weather.  Unfortunately, the poor air quality persists.  Indeed, we are under an official air quality alert again this weekend - the wildfire smoke continues to linger.  I never thought I'd say this, but I actually wish we could have some decent rainfall sometime soon (but there's none in the 10 day forecast).    

Political Ads

I am sick to death of all the political ads.  They are on the telly, they are on the radio and - perhaps worse of all - they have started appearing on YouTube.  There is obviously a lot riding on the mid-term elections this year - but the sheer number of ads seems more than any ever time I can remember.  I'm sure some of it is targeted advertising - which is ridiculous when I can't even vote here.  And the ads are all negative - with the Democrat and Republican messaging clearly established (Democrats - women's rights and Trump, Republicans - everything else).  If the political advertising is bad here - where it is unlikely to make much difference to the result - I dread to think what it is like in battleground states.  It is depressing, and only going to inflate the divisions already dividing the nation.  This country is messed up.       

Ping Pong

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  Pre-pandemic, I was one of the best ping pong players in the office.  And arguably the best player left after some of my competitors moved on.  But today was the first time I picked up a paddle, the first time I hit a ball, the first time I played a game in over 2 and a half years.  And my rustiness showed.  I was awful - timing was off, positioning was off, just utterly dreadful.  It was another ping pong tournament at work - a tournament that I would probably have been seeded #1 pre-pandemic.  And I got knocked out in the group stages - losing 2 of my 3 games.  Against opponents who never would have caused me any trouble before.  But I play a type of power game that has little margin for error and in which I need to have confidence in my shots.  I didn't, and it showed.  Of course I'm disappointed, but I'm not devastated - this didn't come as a surprise, which is why I wasn't even sure whether I would enter the tournament.  But clearly I need to play a bit more regularly if I'm going to stand a chance in any future tournaments.  That might be possible - I think I'm going to be spending more time in the office with the amount of work I've got now, combined with the potential construction noise near my home.  But that elusive winner's trophy seems even further away.      

Song of the Week #129

A classic 70's tune.

Work

This afternoon, I went from having nothing to do at work to being totally overwhelmed with work.  I knew this was coming, but I didn't think it was going to happen so suddenly and so soon.  It is absolutely typical with this job - I either have too little to do or too much to do.  Never at the sweet spot somewhere in between.  It is frustrating, but I am used to it now.  It is not untypical at my company, and not untypical in my profession.  So now I'm going to be really busy through to the end of the year, and likely beyond.  Fun times.  At least this happened now rather than at the start of summer - I can handle a heavy workload better when the weather is crappy.  If only the weather would cooperate (it's STILL smoky outside, with no rain in the forecast - the summer weather looks as though it's going to continue through October.  Highly unusual for the Pacific NW.  You just know that winter is going to hit hard after this.).          

The Matrix

I haven't watched any of The Matrix movies since they first came out in the late 90's/early 00's.  But that didn't stop me from watching The Matrix Resurrections over the weekend.  Well I say over the weekend, it was actually over yesterday and today.  And why did it take me 2 days to watch this movie?  I kept on falling asleep during it.  That isn't exactly high praise.  This was a completely unnecessary sequel, to a series of films that started off great but quickly went off the rails.  This film had a lot of callbacks to those previous films - which was a major flaw when some of the key actors did not return for this film.  And, fundamentally, it just wasn't a particularly good film - particularly on the story front, where all the "meta" references to the previous films just felt like lazy screenwriting.  Whilst bullet time was fantastic in the first movie, that was a long time ago and action filmmaking has come a long way since.  Same with the visuals.  So this movie felt unoriginal and unmemorable - a generous 2 out of 5.       

Teddy Bear

Since a friend asked for a photo of this, let me also include it here:

I'll just say that you're never too old to get a teddy bear.  Especially a limited edition 60th anniversary James Bond teddy bear. 

Palace 1-2 Chelsea

I am officially worried about Palace now.  The remaining games before the World Cup break are critical now - we are not playing any of the "big" teams, but teams at or below our level, so hope and expect some better results.  Jeez, cannot believe the World Cup is coming up so soon.  I don't really care about England's shortcomings in the Nations League - a ridiculous charade of a competition - but I do care about England's best players suffering from fatigue, lack of fitness and lack of form.  My expectations for both Palace and England have definitely taken a hit.  And my hopes of watching Palace play when I'm next back in the UK are a big fat zero - thanks to the World Cup break right up to Christmas that I had totally forgotten about.  But thankfully that means I will catch some of the World Cup in the UK.