Minus deer, a full complement of backyard wildlife captured on trail cam over the last few weeks. I should maybe move the camera to somewhere else, just for a bit of variety. It's also that time of year when there is a load of cottonwood seeds everywhere - in the air and covering my driveway with white fluff. Thank god I'm not allergic to it.
With the Olympics rapidly approaching, they’ve started advertising it in the US by airing these little featurettes highlighting various US competitors. And I caught one the other day featuring someone who competes in “breaking”. What the heck is “breaking” you may be asking yourself? Well, I kind of knew because I heard about this a few years ago, but I’m still kind of sad that it was confirmed. Yes, breakdancing is an official Olympic sport. What an absolute joke. Simply ridiculous. Especially when you think of all the popular and international sports that are not in the Olympics. How do you compete in breakdancing? How many spins you can do on your head in one minute?! This is probably another one of those sports that are subjectively judged – something that I am really starting to disagree with. The Olympics should stick to sports that are objectively measured – whether by time, by distance, by a score, by a weight lifted, etc. The winner of breakdancing can only, presumably, be decided upon by a judge. By god knows what criteria. Sure, it’s not the only sport like this – for example, a lot of the gymnastics events suffer from a similar issue. But breakdancing seems particularly egregious, and seemingly a rather pathetic attempt to appeal to a younger and more “urban” demographic.
There's a certain irony that whilst I have Neighborhood Wars on the telly, one of those crappy clip shows of real-life neighbo(u)rs fighting, I'm once again getting irritated by my neighbor across the way. After leaving a note, he actually got in touch with me via my landlord (who has apparently bought lumber from him before or something). Anyway, we exchanged a few text messages (generally amicable, although I may have irritated him a bit by not wanting to meet face-to-face) and things have been alright for the last month or so. Perhaps also helped by the foliage building up to partially block my view of his property - out of sight, out of mind. But over the last few days, I've once again noticed outdoor burning going on - particularly noticeable at night when I can see the flames. And I also heard the tractor this morning. Oh dear, after a month's break does that mean things are going to get bad again. Great. I've got his number, so at what point do I say something? I want to point out that his outdoor burning is clearly illegal, but I don't want to provoke him to make things worse. It's a delicate tightrope. My god, I hate feeling like I'm turning into a Karen. But why can't I just have normal neighbors? It's just like at work - why did this co-worker have to take the space next to me? There were so many better cubicles to choose from that afforded a lot more privacy, but nope they had to go right next to me. And it's very annoying - for example, we clearly disagree about when blinds should be drawn or not. People suck.
Not happy. I've somehow contrived to lose a baseball cap. One that I'm positive I've worn over the Memorial Day weekend, but which for the life of me I can't find anymore. I've looked everywhere multiple times - including the trash - but absolutely no sign of it. I don't know what I could have done with it - there's only so many places I could have left it, and it's just not there. And it's not exactly the kind of object you can just leave behind somewhere outside the house - I'm either wearing it or not wearing it outside the house. It's driving me insane. It wouldn't be so bad if I could just buy a replacement - but it's a Spectre cap that's not available anymore. Which is especially annoying. I hope it turns up eventually, otherwise I can only conclude there are unnatural forces at work.
"In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous"
Oh no, what is wrong with me. I've been watching old episodes of Law & Order: SVU over the last few days. About as generic and one-dimensional as shows get. And especially popular among the elderly. It's been on for god knows how long (actually - according to Wikipedia - since 1999 and over 550 episodes, the longest running primetime live-action series on US TV). And it's not particularly good. No originality - all the storylines seem to have been cobbled together from real life crime in the news. And the acting is atrocious - the main culprit being Ice T. It's especially heinous to see a rapper who had a big hit called "Cop Killer' badly playing a cop for countless episodes.
They call the Indy 500 - which is raced every Memorial Day weekend - the "greatest spectacle in racing" or the "greatest show on wheels". It isn't. Admittedly, I don't watch much Indycar racing, because I find it about as uninteresting to watch as I find Formula 1. And some of the race that I caught today only confirmed that. And the Indy 500 traditions can't redeem the tedium of the race - the kissing of the bricks, the chugging of milk, whatever. But this wasn't the only race today. We also had the Monaco Grand Prix - which I didn't bother watching, because even by Formula 1 standards it's an absolute procession. And we also had the Coca-Cola 600 in NASCAR - which as I write this blog (about 8 pm) is currently under a rain delay, one of my pet peeves with this type of motor racing. Making the longest race of the NASCAR series even more ridiculously long. And totally unwatchable. As with a lot of other sporting events, I've got into the habit of recording NASCAR races, so I can fast forward through all the adverts and most of the racing - only watching the interesting parts, which in the case of motor racing is the crashes. And, recently (and amusingly), the fights between drivers.
2 different theme tunes from the same kid's show today, plus the end tune which I knew the words to.