Post-Christmas Greetings

As I enjoy a few more days of vacation from my day job this holiday, I hope everyone had a restful Christmas and not a stressful Christmas. I went to see the latest Matrix movie over the holiday weekend (mainly because my sister is a huge Keanu fan). What a long slog that was. I drifted off during the movie and others did too. Given that it was about 2.5 hours with a lot of lengthy talking scenes in the middle of the fighting scenes, I'm not surprised people fell asleep. This was the first movie I'd been to in over a year. The last movie I saw in the theater before The Matrix: Resurrections was The Invisible Man with Elizbeth Moss. Yeah...The Invisible Man. That must have been February of 2020. I'm not anxious to return to the movie theater either. It's just not worth it for me. I also went out for dinner on Christmas and a had a nice dinner that, unfortunately, jacked my stomach up the next day. Just like the movies, I think my in-dining days are over also for a while. I'll stick to takeout. 

Aside from seeing long movies and going to restaurants, I also have been reading a lot and watching a lot of TV. I watched a docu-series called Don't Fuck with Cats on Netflix over the weekend about some internet sleuths who tracked a psycho who killed cats and then a person (and filmed his exploits and posted them online). It was a fascinating series, but I was surprised at the time effort so many people put into tracking this guy online. Don't these people have day jobs? One woman in the series clearly did have a day job because she talked about it! I don't know where people find the time or the will to analyze online videos, create JPGs of each frame, do reverse searches of people online, etc. Aside from having jobs, don't these folks have family? Friends? Errands to run? 

The Ringer

I got my Covid booster shot last week and felt like I was run over by a truck the next day. I'm tired of shots. I know they're necessary, but I've had enough. Is this going to be a yearly thing now? God, I hope not.

In an effort to take my mind off of Covid, Omicron, Delta, and everything else going on in the world right now, I've been watching a lot of Project Runway (the current season on Bravo and past seasons on Tubi). I used to watch Project Runway when it first started, but I slacked off after a few seasons. But I'm back now and loving it again. (Fun fact: I saw Christian Siraino walking down 8th Avenue in New York one time when I was living/working there. I had gone out for lunch and my office was near Penn Station and he was walking by, right near Penn Station at the post office.) But I digress. 

One thing I've noticed from watching the current season and past seasons is that the show sometimes has a ringer. On the current season, there was a woman who made straight-up clown clothes. All she needed for her models was a red nose and floppy shoes. As someone who loves clowns and feel they've been given a terrible reputation due to John Wayne Gacy and horror movies like It, I'm usually on board with clown-related stuff...but not for women to wear daily a la Project Runway. The clown-wear woman from the current season of Project Runway shouldn't have even been on the show from the jump. I kept looking at her clothes and wondering who DIDN'T make the cut so this woman could be on the show as the season's ringer. How many designers, who were actually talented at making real clothes for real people, were turned down so the clown woman could get a shot? 

On a past season I'm watching now on Tubi, a woman who couldn't sew and made crazy outfits has just been kicked off and I wondered the same thing. Which talented designers didn't get a shot so the crazy, non-sewing woman who tried on her own clothes to judge their sizing and didn't fit her models, could be on TV with her wacky looks? Again, the season ringer. I understand the purpose of the ringer. That person is there to drive the ratings and have viewers like me look at them and think, That designer is terrible! But it's a shame that really talented people were pushed aside for these folks.

Great...and Not Great

Great: Seeing Leslie Odom, Jr. in concert Saturday night at the CIBC Theater. What a great show. Leslie sang a lot of Christmas songs (and a few Hamilton and Sam Cooke tunes). No Nationwide jingle though! Leslie could sing a lit of random words and I'd be there for it. His voice is so soothing and he puts on a great show. My seat was in the nosebleed section (as you can see from my photo below), but I didn't care. I was glad to be able to see Leslie perform. 

Not Great: Chicago last Saturday night. First, my sister and I had to jump off the Red Line on our way to the show because the train stopped at a station two stops away from where we were getting off because of "police activity." Then we hopped on a bus for a slow ride down Michigan Avenue. We were lucky to make it to the show on time. Then, after the show let out, the Loop is like a police state because hordes of kids descended on the Loop and some of them beat up a bus driver. This is the kind of stuff that makes me NOT want to go into the city. I was emailing a coworker about Saturday night's shenanigans and the bad-assed kids downtown causing trouble and I told her if you've got 10-20 kids coming at you, there's nothing you can do but take the beatdown/get robbed/whatever. No one should have to deal with that kind of mess. Chicago...do better. Ugh.

Post-Thanksgiving Greetings

I know Thanksgiving has bee over and done with for more than a week now, but I hope you and yours enjoyed the holiday. Normally my sister and I would travel to Michigan for the holiday, but because of COVID, we've been staying stateside for Turkey Day. The last time we went to Michigan for Thanksgiving was in 2019! Maybe next year...

During the holiday weekend and in the week that followed, I did manage to get a lot of TV time in. My cable provider gave me a bunch of free channels so I was able to catch up on the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (that, unfortunately, isn't that good), the third Conjuring movie (also not great), and an odd movie called Long Weekend (that I only watched because Finn Wittrock was in it). 

Since I finished reading The Power of the Dog, I was ready to watch the movie version when it debuted on Netflix a few days ago. The movie was pretty faithful to the book and, like the book, it's kind of a long slog. I stick by my initial opinion that Cumberbatch was miscast. I did, however, like his interactions with the actor who played Dunst's son. There's one scene with the two of them in a barn and they're sharing a cigarette that is really great. No spoilers, but that pivotal scene really tied the story together. I did wonder if people who hadn't read the book understood what was going on there.

It's Their Fault!

I read that director Ridley Scott is blaming millennials for the failure of his latest movie The Last Duel, starring those hot millennial stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Millennials may be the ones to blame for some things, but I don't think it's their fault this movie failed. No one seemed to want to watch this movie: boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z...no one and that's why it bombed. Ben and Matt playing Europeans? Get real. Plus, their schtick is tired. Who cares about these guys anymore? Neither one has had a box office hit in a while. The movie also featured a woman being raped on screen. Who wants to see that? The market has changed, Mr. Scott. Old guys like himself may enjoy watching a woman being attacked on screen, but I have to assume a lot of millennials (and others) don't want to watch someone being raped as a form of entertainment. Then you add Covid into the mix, and you've got a recipe for disaster. If someone is going to venture to a theater to see a movie these days, I have to assume they'd have to really want to see it. Otherwise, they'd just wait for it to show up for home viewing via On Demand.

Expensive!

I went grocery shopping this weekend and spent $50 at Target, $25 at Trader Joe's, $60 at Jewel-Osco. And I didn't buy much stuff (and hardly any meat), but everything is so expensive. When I was in Alabama last month, my father and I picked up a bag of Lay's at Walmart (shown below) and I couldn't believe the price was over $5....for a bag of chips. Crazy (which is why I took a picture of the price)! I'm grateful I have a job and money to buy groceries and that I only have myself to feed. I can only imagine what people with kids are spending weekly/monthly on food. And what if your kids are older kids who eat a lot? Oy vey! 

In addition to paying a lot for food and basic needs stuff like toilet paper (a whopping $9.99 for six rolls at Jewel for me), housing costs are out of control too. I just read an article in the NY Times today about how intense the bidding wars are now for homes in some areas. People are bidding $50K or more over the asking price and still being outbid on homes. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that. I couldn't compete with that kind of competition. It's brutal. I'm glad to live in my little co-op that I bought a few years ago and didn't have to get into a bidding war over (although I was outbid initially by an all-cash offer that fell through). The NY Times article showed a series of houses a couple lost out on in Austin, Texas and many of them looked like small homes that I found hard to believe anyone would bid $400K or more for. The market is insane and I feel for anyone who's out there now trying to buy a home. I know interest rates are low and people are saving more due to working from home and not having commuter and other work costs, but still. 

Only the Strong

I've been on a Journey kick over the past week and had to break out my Journey's Greatest Hits CD (shown below that I got for a whopping $6.99 from Street Corner Music many many years ago). Journey was such an 80's band, but I love them and their music still holds up for me (but I'm a 70's and 80s' kid, so I'm biased). Everyone loves to praise "Don't Stop Believin'" as the ultimate Journey song, but that one was seriously overplayed for me. (I also cringe whenever Steve Perry sings about the kid who was "born and raised in South Detroit" in that song. South Detroit doesn't exist, Steve! Southwest Detroit would be acceptable, but I digress.) Not that I don't like "Don't Stop," but I've heard it too many times throughout my life to want to hear it again. Instead, I'm a fan of songs like "Lights," "Send Her My Love," and "Only the Young." I love "Only the Young" and I just recently realized I've been singing the wrong lyrics for that song. I thought for sure Steve Perry was saying, "Brave carry on / Only the strong" and I found out, just this week, that he's saying "Brave carry on / Bold and the strong." Huh! I've been singing the wrong words for decades! You really do learn something every day, don't you? In addition to singing the wrong lyrics, I'd totally forgotten this song was featured in the 80's movie Vision Quest starring a young Matthew Modine. I'd forgotten about that movie and that this song was in it. I watched the video on You Tube earlier this week and now I feel like I'd like to see the movie again. It's available on Prime now. I might have to check it out. I remember Madonna being in the movie (in one of her first movie rolls) as a singer doing "Crazy for You", but I totally forgot "Only the Young" was on that soundtrack too. 

Journey's music is so quintessential American 80's music and I get nostalgic for that time period sometimes. Things certainly weren't perfect, but I like to think they were pretty darn good. Being a teenager in the 1980s, all things considered, wasn't a bad deal. There was a certain freedom in being a kid during that time that the kids today don't have.