You're Doing It Wrong

I tried adding a few new shows to see whether I liked them. But then everything started when I was in Germany so when I came home I was already several shows behind. I tried one episode of Flash and thought it was terrible. I missed the pilot for How To Get Away with Murder but I watched half of the second episode and deleted it. I thought about that show with David Tennant called Grace Point that was a UK series called Broadchurch but I feel like I’ve seen enough gloomy detective shows about a small town murder so I didn’t even try that one. I tried Scorpion but I didn’t like any of the characters. Bob says Jane the Virgin is really good so I’ll see if I can catch up during the holidays.

I always find shows I think are decent but it’s been awhile since I found a show that I want to make time for. Did I already tell you I gave up on Sons of Anarchy? It’s always been a tough show but this season felt like it was just an excuse to kill people in terrible ways. Colleague updates me after each episode to tell me who else is dead.

You can see I’m already running out of steam. But I’m going to type words and press publish every day this month like it or not.

This is Shy Boy, the cat that lives with my parents. This is his happy face. He wants to come in and rub cat hair all over me and sit on me in the exact spot where I want to put my book or magazine or laptop.

I don’t understand why man hasn’t turned to cats as a food source instead of making them pets.

Every once in awhile I will be interested in more information about a company. Maybe for work, maybe personal. Maybe just curiosity.

And sometimes I run across these websites where I want to send them a note to tell them how worthless their site is.

I want to say that I suspect for some companies that is the strategy but why have a website that reveals absolutely nothing about you?

It will be filled with generic stock photos of multi-cultural people who look thrilled to be watching a power point or handing pieces of paper to one another. And then the copy will say: Super Systems International: An Innovation Company.

What does that mean?

Huh. Well if you put “an innovation company” into a search engine all kinds of stuff comes up. So I guess it does mean something. But sometimes the copy says other things like: “Established Leaders in Industry” or “Cutting Edge of Fresh Solutions.” My point is you can’t tell what the company does by looking at the website.

Did I already write about this?

Awhile back I had this weird situation with someone cold-calling at the office. As in coming into my office to sell me something. Later I was buying something at a local store and visiting with the store owner and when he asked how my day was going, I told him about this creepy salesman at my office.

He said: all salesmen are creepy.

Then he went on to tell me about the people who come into his shop to sell him things and how problematic the entire situation is – that you’re being asked to discuss this while you’re working in your store.

Later Bob and I continued the conversation and Bob said, or make a decision while you’re standing on your porch.

I thought I could make this more interesting but that’s all I have.

This is nature people. Can you see those fish hanging out in the pool? They are headed upstream where they are going to spawn and die. There were some dead fish in there already but I didn’t get them in the photo.

Does anyone else think cookbooks are getting out of control? Every time I log into my food site or the NYT food section it seems like they are reviewing a stack of giant cookbooks. A celebrity chef. A food blogger. Some random celebrity. Some random theme. A whole giant cookbook about fennel or Van Nuys regional cuisine or paring knife cookery.

People must be buying them because they are churned out so fast. But it would seem hard to profit on a giant book filled with glossy photos. What do I know? I’m trying to be a new cookbook free zone because I already have some nice fatties that I haven’t used nearly enough. But every once in awhile I’m tempted.

This dog looks like a lunatic.

So confession: I scheduled the first 15 posts during Halloween weekend because I knew not only that I wouldn’t haven’t time during the first half of the month but I wouldn’t have Internet service for a number of days. I went to Orleans last weekend to visit my folks.

(It’s November, I’m doing a post a day. I do it every year. I can’t find a link but it’s a thing, or it used to be back before everyone gave up blogging.)

In addition, at the last minute I decided to do NaNoWriMo but I’m only doing 40K words this month, because I’m not crazy.

So basically I keep complaining that I’m too busy and can’t get anything done while signing myself up for things that have no consequences if I fail but I will run myself into the ground making sure I accomplish those goals.

There is a lesson in there somewhere.

Earlier this year I was on a kick of watching older movies that I haven’t seen for years to see how they hold up.

Jaws – totally holds up. It gets a little long at the end, but still a great movie.

Big – holds up. Tom Hanks is so good in this movie. They even manage to avoid making it creepy when Elizabeth Perkins has the hots for him.

The Fugitive – totally holds up. Tommy Lee Jones is great. But the soundtrack is stab-your-ears out awful.

Romancing the Stone – does not hold up. Danny DeVito has some great scenes but mostly the movie is awful plus it has a stab-your-ears-out awful soundtrack. From this performance it is unbelievable to remember that Kathleen Turner was a BFD back then.

Witness – totally holds up. Looks for Aragorn in the barn building scene.

Not an old movie but I have a note here to write about Her which is the one where the guy has a relationship with his operating system. When I saw the trailer I wanted that 60 seconds of my life back. I thought it looked dreadful. A number of people that I know and trust told me I should see it, that it was good, but I was doubtful. Bob got it from Netflix and asked if I wanted to watch with him. I told him to watch it and if he thought it was okay I would watch it.

He said: I didn’t want to like it either, but it’s pretty good.

And it is pretty good. I didn’t love it but I liked it. I thought Joaquin Phoenix was amazing. I wish I could say more but my notes end here and I can’t remember the details. That’s why I don’t get paid to work here.

I don’t know if I’ve ever confessed about my terrible gossip addiction. I’ve been going through cycles of this for years, where I read a bunch of gossip online. Then I’ll decide that I’m rotting my brain and wasting all this time that I could use for ANYTHING else and make the world a better place. So I’d give it up. Mostly.

And then it would creep back and then I’d cut back. And so on. And so on.

And the problem with reading a lot of gossip and trashy sites is that you develop the most screwed up view of the world – that it’s nothing but awful people who don’t do anything worthwhile except get seen on trashy websites. (You also develop this view if you read comments. Don’t read the comments.)

While we were in Montreal I didn’t have my computer so I didn’t read any of my sites for 10 days. And when I got home I decided to keep going. I have been TMZ free for over 3 months. There should be a chip for that! I haven’t heard one thing about [terrible person] or [other awful person] this entire time.

It’s amazing. I recommend.