gwyn: (pussypad kerry beary)
gwyn ([personal profile] gwyn) wrote2025-06-04 09:25 pm
Entry tags:

Every picture tells a story, don't it?

Ugh, there's nothing like having to get a new roof on your house. Just the whole thing: the heinous cost, especially at a time when tariff bullshit/supply chain/tanking economy makes that 100 percent more devastating, the having to get multiple bids, then the having to tell people you went with someone else when they're awesome too...it's like something specially designed to make me miserable. I ended up getting bids from some great roofers, and it came down to two and it was so hard to make a decision, they were within a few hundred dollars of each other and they both had 4-star ratings everywhere and lots of good references. But I'm such a coward, the part where you have to tell the one company that you went with the other one is just excruciating omg.

Anyways, in about a month to six weeks, I'll be getting a new roof on the house. Poor Blues will be a wreck, but I don't know where I can really take him so he doesn't have to deal with the noise. I didn't have him when I did the kitchen remodel/addition, and Olive was the chillest cat you could ever have and she was fine with the construction (she literally slept through jackhammering my old concrete back stairs out), but my little sick, decrepit old man Blues will NOT do well in this situation. Home ownership sucks sometimes, so much.

I've been doing small things sporadically here and there--a tiny bit of writing, a bit of reading, lots of watching things. It doesn't feel like I ever accomplish much of anything; some days, the side effects are just awful enough that I don't really have the wherewithal to get much done. I'm trying to do accountability buddies with [personal profile] belmanoir to force myself to walk at least a few days a week, but if I'm having a lot of side effects, even that can be hard to make myself to do.

I *have* been watching things on TV, though--I signed up for a couple months of Disney and Max so I could watch a couple shows there, even though I couldn't really afford it. But the most important one to me was Andor, and so I can't regret spending the money.

Andor season 2 was just...wow. Holy crap. SO FUCKING GOOD. I mean, I can always find things to quibble with or critique, but when something is that amazing, it's just easy to handwave the details. What an incredible series, what an incredible season, what an incredible showcase for good writing and real production values instead of plastic manufactured crap filmed in that giant egg thing they call the volume. The costumes, the sets, the acting, it's all astounding and adult in the best way. I want to talk more at length about it, but I'm still digesting it all, and I need to sit down and rewatch it again, really take it in now that I know where it's going.

While I had HBO Max (or just max or whatever the fuck it's called), I figured I'd try The Pitt, even though I swore off hospital/medical shows a long time ago (I think anyone who knows my history, especially with regards to my sister's death, knows why). But I couldn't escape it on tumblr, and so somehow ended up deciding to give it a whirl, and...well, it is definitely as good as most people say. I do hate the medical show thing where everything has to be ramped up to 11, like, regular medicine in an emergency setting isn't dramatic enough, no, we have to have a mass casualty event. Okay.

I liked most of the characters, and while I've never cared about Noah Wyle, I will say that as Dr. Robby, he was much more appealing to me: I simply can't resist the broken, damaged, compassionate, competent guy who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, fuck my life. And also, *of course* I fall for the piping hot mess of a dude that is Langdon--he has a total WWII Bucky thing going on with his looks (tell me he couldn't be Bucky's double in First Avenger), so it just figures. I *had* to go for the guy with Big Problems who's a little bit of an asshole underneath the really good doctor veneer. I absolutely loathe Santos, every minute with her was torture, and I couldn't stand Javadi, either, with her perpetually wide eyes and grimaced mouth. They are both awful. Lest this sound like I just hate women characters, everyone else I loved, especially Mohan and McKay and Collins and OMG Dana. I adore Dana, I am really hoping she's coming back. And Dr. Ellis, I think was her name? at the end there, please tell me she's going to be front and center next season. It's funny, too, that I despised Shawn Hatosy after Southland, like, he was just the *worst* character ever and so obnoxious that it seemed like it had to be because of the actor, so color me shocked that I kinda...love him? on this show as Abbot. Very weird.

After Andor, I went over to Netflix to find something mindless and soft to watch, and checked out Mike Shur's latest show with Ted Danson, A Man on the Inside. It was very cute, but I couldn't get over the fact that this retirement center, which was very much like my dad's luxurious retirement center (in that it had the same apartment-->assisted living/memory care-->nursing facility progression structure), had only 100 residents and all those incredible amenities. Like, there is just no way to run something that incredible (it made my dad's place look like a dump) with so few residents, especially in the middle of downtown San Francisco. It would cost like $10,000 a week. It's a charming show, but I just could not stop thinking about the financial structure the whole time I watched. But if you're looking for something soft and short, it's a good show, especially if you enjoyed The Good Place.

And as so many people are, I'm enjoying the hell out of Murderbot. I really side-eyed the casting of ASkars as SecUnit, but I have to say, his inherent weirdness and goofiness is really turning out to be an asset. Some of the changes to the stories threw me a bit, but when I went back and rewatched the eps knowing what the changes were, it felt a little less jarring, and now the show really feels like it's hitting its stride. I am excited about Friday nights! I love the casting for Dr. Mensah and of course, the glimpses of Sanctuary Moon are just the fucking best. And anytime John Cho is on my TV is a good time.
the_shoshanna: little girl screaming with glee: "OMG squee!!" (omgsquee!)
the_shoshanna ([personal profile] the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-28 06:10 pm

I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike

When I was ten years old, friends and I came back from seeing a James Bond movie and were playing at James Bond on our bikes, and I swerved too sharply, fell over, and broke my left leg. I broke both the fibia and the tibula, in fact, but they were clean breaks, very tidy. Hurt like screaming hell, though. As was the custom of the time I was in the hospital for several days and came out in a full-leg cast. My father, who lived some distance away, couldn’t get there right away and sent me a dozen roses in the hospital, which made the whole thing absolutely worth it; I had never felt so grown-up!

But that was the end of my bicycling career. For fifty years.

Now, however, I've moved to a small, mostly flat, navigable city, and I want to try getting back on that literal-not-proverbial bike! I fairly often have places to go and errands to run where driving feels silly but walking might take juuuuust too much time, and a bike seems like the obvious option. But do I want to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a new bike and run the risk that I won't enjoy it, or feel safely balanced after so long, or whatever, and will in fact end up not using it much? I do not.

Fortunately this city has a couple of nonprofit bike repairing and reselling organizations! So I stopped by one of them this afternoon and chatted with the head mechanic, and he picked out a bike for me from their (all donated) stock on hand, and we verified that it fits me. It needs some repair work and tuning up, which they will do over the next couple of weeks (him: "There's about six bikes ahead of you in line." me: "It's been fifty years, another two weeks is not a problem!"), and they asked for $125-$175, according to my ability to pay. I wasn't able to actually test-ride it, since it has no tires at the moment, but I was able to balance pretty well; I do feel pretty confident that I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike.

(And this time I hope to learn how to shift gears, too! Kid-me's bike was a three-speed and I just left it in second all the time.)

Now I just need to get a helmet -- which I do know to buy new/unused. And a lock. Whee!
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
marthawells ([personal profile] marthawells) wrote2025-05-28 02:29 pm
Entry tags:

David Dastmalchian interview

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/david-dastmalchian-murderbot-dexter-resurrection-interview/

"Now I feel much more comfortable advocating for [what I need]. To give you an example, on the set of Murderbot, going to my directors and writers, the showrunners, Chris and Paul [Weitz], and saying, ‘I'm really sorry, but on Wednesday at 2pm - I know I'm on the schedule that day, but is there any way I could be in my trailer for 45 minutes to have a therapy session?' and them being so supportive and loving and saying, ‘Of course, we will get you a Wi-Fi booster,’ because we were out in the middle of nowhere.
the_shoshanna: Arthur is too shiny for this shit. (too shiny)
the_shoshanna ([personal profile] the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-25 04:56 pm

give the governor a "harrumph"

I was supposed to meet up with someone yesterday, and we had the following email conversation:

them: We operate out of Location A and Location B. I'll be at Location A Saturday afternoon from 2:00 on.

me: Great, I'll be at Location A a few minutes past 2:00 on Saturday!

me at 2:15 pm: Hey, you're not here yet so I'm going to run a quick errand and come back.

me at 2:30 pm: You're still not here, so I guess we'll try again next week? I hope everything is all right on your end.

them at 3:00 pm, after I was already home again: We're at Location B.

It's not a huge deal, we will connect next week, but damn, I would have appreciated even a perfunctory "Oops, my bad," you know?
the_shoshanna: Professor Farnsworth, of Futurama, with a blackboard on which is written his catchphrase, "Good news, everyone!" (good news everyone)
the_shoshanna ([personal profile] the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-24 10:39 am

all in good taste

Quick final update: coffee everywhere except at home tasted fine, and coffee at home was vastly improved after we, uh, disassembled and thoroughly cleaned the grinder, which had never been done. So I guess I was just hypersensitive to the buildup of ick after several days away from it? Anyway everything is fine and I did not have COVID and I can enjoy my morning coffee again, yay.