Amazon Is the Devil!

Yes, I said it. Amazon is the devil! I use Amazon just like many others and I generally love it. I have a Kindle that I love that also. However, I do hate many things about Amazon. For example, the pressure the company puts on employees to get items we order delivered to us. Case in point: an Amazon driver stopped traffic behind me on a two-lane street just so he could drop a package off at someone's house. There was no way to go around him because of on-coming traffic in the other lane, so everyone was forced to wait for him to get out of his truck, mosey on up to the house he was delivering to, and then mosey on back to his truck. Ridiculous! The house he delivered to even had a driveway, but did he pull in there? No. He chose to disrupt traffic instead. Yes, the driver was a jerk, but Bezos and Company are also jerks for pushing drivers to get deliveries made within certain deadlines at breakneck speed. Drivers can't even use the bathroom just so I can get my new hot pot or whatever else I choose to buy from Amazon. I considered complaining to Amazon about the driver because, even though I didn't have his license plate number, I had the exact location where he stopped and dropped and I know the company tracks their drivers, so I'm sure they could have figured out who he was. But I didn't go to the company to complain about the driver because I know he's under pressure and trying to make a living like the rest of us. 

When Bezos went on his little space trip, I was surprised to see the news stations providing full coverage of it. That's how sad the media has become right now. The networks show wall-to-wall coverage of a billionaire going into space. Really? Yes, really. I'm sure many of my Amazon purchases helped to contribute to Bezos's little journey. You're welcome, Jeff. 

Random Monday Thoughts

 As another week starts, I've been thinking about a few things:

1. I had no idea so many people cared about who the next Jeopardy host should be. Really, folks? Count me in the group who doesn't care. I don't even watch Jeopardy because it comes on at weird times in Chicago, either during the day when I'm working or really early in the morning when I'm sleeping. 

2. Can we all stop pretending that J Hud is a great singer and a talented actress? She isn't. I had to mute the sound over the weekend when a clip was shown of her singing at a concert in Central Park. Awful. I don't think she's the worst singer, but I don't think she's better than a number of women who grew up singing in local churches either. Her acting is no great shakes either. Sorry, not sorry.

3. If someone who is able to get vaccinated hasn't done so by now, nothing will probably convince that person to get vaccinated. Sometimes you just have to move on from folks and stop wasting your breath. 

4. The CDC needs to put out some hard data about "breakthrough" COVID infections. What are the real numbers? What are the demographics of those with breakthrough infections? What kind of vaccinations did these folks have? Were they fully or partially vaccinated? Did they share households with people who aren't vaccinated? Do they have any idea how they were infected? 

On that cranky note, it's time to start my day job. 

Finished (Finally)!

I'd been working on the same short story for months and I finally finished it over the weekend. Yea! I'll have more information about this later as the publication info is provided to me by JMS Books, but it's such a relief to have that over and done with. I often need a push (like a deadline) to get me to finish something. Now I need to work on the next thing and I don't really have a next thing lined up. I'm thinking about what's next, but I don't have any firm ideas yet. I always like to have something in the hopper and, right now, the hopper is empty. Unfortunately, my day job has been sucking up so much of my time (during the week and on the weekends) that it's interfered with my writing. I hope to correct that problem in the coming months. Speaking of my day job, we were told about a month or so ago that we'd be going back to the office in September, but now with the Delta variant of COVID running rampant, that date has been pushed back to 2022. Woo hoo! I have no desire to go back to the office. I'm fine working from home. I know working from home isn't the greatest setup for everyone and even I have issues with my home and work lives being so intertwined, but I'll deal with it to avoid having to commute and share bathrooms and kitchens with others. 

57 Channels and Nothing On

If you're old (like I am), you might remember a song by Bruce Springsteen back in the day called 57 Channels and Nothing On where he sings about how bad cable TV is. Well, it's been probably 20 years since that song came out, but the message still resonates today. I have more than 57 channels, but there's STILL nothing on. I flip endlessly through cable, On Demand options, Tubi, Roku, Pluto, whatever, and often find myself unable to find something to watch and end up watching "Forged in Fire" reruns. Maybe there are just too many choices today. I have actually watched a few interesting things over the past few weeks.

1. Hotel Hell: Why does Gordon Ramsey have to show his bare ass in every episode of Hotel Hell? Not that the guy has a terrible body or anything and he clearly keeps in shape, but there's no reason for his pasty behind to show up in every episode of the show. Watching these hotel failures is interesting to me. Every show goes by the same formula: Gordon shows up, criticizes the lodgings and the food, tells off the owner, has an intervention between the owner and staff, does some minor renovations (along with menu changes), and leaves on a high note, claiming victory. I just enjoy seeing hotels in different places. 

2. The White Lotus: I've only seen the first episode of this HBO show because that's al they're offering for free. (I don't have HBO and refuse to pay for it.) The first episode wasn't bad. If I get another free weekend of HBO, I'll binge watch the rest of the shows. I do like seeing Murray Bartlett with his porn stache and listening to him use his Australian accent for a change rather than doing an American accent. 

3. A Quiet Place 2: I saw the first Quiet Place movie back when I still went to actual movie theaters and I enjoyed it. The sequel was good also. I thought John Krasinski did a good job of picking up where the first movie left off while also adding some backstory. This one was worth the small fee I paid to rent it via On Demand.