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.