A bit short on time this weekend, so I'll try to crank out this entry as efficiently as possible. Too many leisure activities are cutting into my blogging time. I played trivia last night over Zoom (we had our worst showing -- 10th place out of 26 teams; we usually finish top-5), and then we watched the last Star Wars movie, number nine. I can't remember the subtitle. I think it's Star Wars: Same Shit, Different Movie. We watched all nine movies as a family, so this was the final one. S and I hadn't even seen it yet. It's not great. The entire sequel trilogy is pretty lousy, to be honest. I mean, not as bad as the prequel trilogy, but still not good, at all. Derivative, inconsistent, schmaltzy, and too damned long. (Whatever happened to the 1:55 movie? Why is everything 2:20 or longer now?) I wonder if Lucas/Disney would have been better off just spinning it off completely and never doing anything with the original trilogy. Certainly, they wouldn't have been better off financially -- you could build a real planet-destroying Death Star with the amount of money those movies have made -- but artistically I think they would have been. I enjoyed both Rogue One and The Mandalorian quite a bit. Anyway, there's already been more than enough virtual ink spilled on Star Wars over years, so I'll just leave it at that.
I've been playing a lot of Monopoly lately too. Lil' S1 had gotten into it. It's a good way to kill an hour as a family. S will play too sometimes. Lil' S2 is too little, but we can usually occupy him by letting him roll for us and handle the deeds and houses and stuff. I used to play Monopoly a lot in high school (seriously), and I got pretty good at it, so usually I'll try to control the game and make it as even/fun as possible. Like, I'll try to make deals so that everybody has a fair chance, and then it's just whoever gets the lucky rolls will win. Lil' S1's strategy is to get Boardwalk and Park Place at all cost, which isn't a terrible way to go. What usually happens is we will play for a while, and then once somebody starts falling behind they'll just quit, which is good, as in Monopoly, you can hopelessly drag things out for hours if you want to. We implemented the whoever-loses-has-to-clean-up-the-game rule, which has worked out very well. It helps abate any hurt feelings, and it gives people incentive to concede gracefully.
Man, what a weird time, huh? We all have to stay home, while the world burns down around us. I've started sneaking peeks at the presidential election poll numbers, which I told myself I wouldn't do. I was so into it in 2016, and it was so painful; I vowed not to let that happen this time around. But I can't help it. Things just look so good for Biden right now. It's hard not to check out FiveThirtyEight when I need a little pick-me-up. I mean, Biden is currently leading the polls in Texas -- Texas! ... Okay, let's move on to a new topic before I jinx this. I don't believe in jinxes, but I'm not taking any chances. I'm Pascal's Wager-ing this one.
I actually pulled the trigger and deleted my Facebook account. It should be gone from view now, and in a few more weeks it will deleted permanently -- or so Facebook says. It wouldn't surprise me if it's alive forever on some server farm in The Dalles, Oregon, or something like that, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned, I'm out. I recommend it, if you're considering it. It's nice to not have to feel compelled to check anything and to not have to feel conflicted every time you hear Mark Zuckerberg give his junior-high-libertarian views on free speech and why the massive spread of misinformation is actually good a thing. Gaming social media algorithms to spread old, out-of-context stories as if they're news is paramount to any free society!
I'm still on Twitter, and my use has gone up quite a bit since I quit Facebook, but on net, my social media usage has dropped. In fact, my overall screen time was down 20% this week from my average, which is a positive thing. I've been making a concerted effort to look at screens less. I got a paper subscription to The New Yorker, and I've been trying to read it during down time instead of staring at my phone. I'll print out a crossword puzzle and solve it on my clipboard more often now. And when I want to stream something, I'll cast it to the TV, and it watch it there instead of on my phone.
Part of this is that I don't want to have my face in my phone while I'm with my kids (which is pretty much all the time now). It feels so disconnecting and isolating. I feel much more "present" reading an actual magazine than scrolling Twitter on my phone with my kids around. Also, there's a mental/physical health component to it. It can't be good for your mental state to be on your phone all the time, and it definitely isn't good for your body. (I can tell my eyes are getting worse, and I don't think it's just because of age.) In general, I want to be healthier. It's one of the few things I can control in this out-of-control time. Cutting back on screen time is a part of this, as is exercising regularly (back on track after a mild back injury), abstaining for alcohol (I'm down to a drink or two a month now), and eating right. That last one is the hardest, without question. I can go a week or so eating healthily, and then I have a night like last night, where it's 12:15 am, and I'm like, Fuck it, I'm hungry; I'm making nachos. Oh well, nobody's perfect. If I'm forever doomed to be "Out of Shape In Shape Guy" so be it.
Until next time...
I've been playing a lot of Monopoly lately too. Lil' S1 had gotten into it. It's a good way to kill an hour as a family. S will play too sometimes. Lil' S2 is too little, but we can usually occupy him by letting him roll for us and handle the deeds and houses and stuff. I used to play Monopoly a lot in high school (seriously), and I got pretty good at it, so usually I'll try to control the game and make it as even/fun as possible. Like, I'll try to make deals so that everybody has a fair chance, and then it's just whoever gets the lucky rolls will win. Lil' S1's strategy is to get Boardwalk and Park Place at all cost, which isn't a terrible way to go. What usually happens is we will play for a while, and then once somebody starts falling behind they'll just quit, which is good, as in Monopoly, you can hopelessly drag things out for hours if you want to. We implemented the whoever-loses-has-to-clean-up-the-game rule, which has worked out very well. It helps abate any hurt feelings, and it gives people incentive to concede gracefully.
Man, what a weird time, huh? We all have to stay home, while the world burns down around us. I've started sneaking peeks at the presidential election poll numbers, which I told myself I wouldn't do. I was so into it in 2016, and it was so painful; I vowed not to let that happen this time around. But I can't help it. Things just look so good for Biden right now. It's hard not to check out FiveThirtyEight when I need a little pick-me-up. I mean, Biden is currently leading the polls in Texas -- Texas! ... Okay, let's move on to a new topic before I jinx this. I don't believe in jinxes, but I'm not taking any chances. I'm Pascal's Wager-ing this one.
I actually pulled the trigger and deleted my Facebook account. It should be gone from view now, and in a few more weeks it will deleted permanently -- or so Facebook says. It wouldn't surprise me if it's alive forever on some server farm in The Dalles, Oregon, or something like that, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned, I'm out. I recommend it, if you're considering it. It's nice to not have to feel compelled to check anything and to not have to feel conflicted every time you hear Mark Zuckerberg give his junior-high-libertarian views on free speech and why the massive spread of misinformation is actually good a thing. Gaming social media algorithms to spread old, out-of-context stories as if they're news is paramount to any free society!
I'm still on Twitter, and my use has gone up quite a bit since I quit Facebook, but on net, my social media usage has dropped. In fact, my overall screen time was down 20% this week from my average, which is a positive thing. I've been making a concerted effort to look at screens less. I got a paper subscription to The New Yorker, and I've been trying to read it during down time instead of staring at my phone. I'll print out a crossword puzzle and solve it on my clipboard more often now. And when I want to stream something, I'll cast it to the TV, and it watch it there instead of on my phone.
Part of this is that I don't want to have my face in my phone while I'm with my kids (which is pretty much all the time now). It feels so disconnecting and isolating. I feel much more "present" reading an actual magazine than scrolling Twitter on my phone with my kids around. Also, there's a mental/physical health component to it. It can't be good for your mental state to be on your phone all the time, and it definitely isn't good for your body. (I can tell my eyes are getting worse, and I don't think it's just because of age.) In general, I want to be healthier. It's one of the few things I can control in this out-of-control time. Cutting back on screen time is a part of this, as is exercising regularly (back on track after a mild back injury), abstaining for alcohol (I'm down to a drink or two a month now), and eating right. That last one is the hardest, without question. I can go a week or so eating healthily, and then I have a night like last night, where it's 12:15 am, and I'm like, Fuck it, I'm hungry; I'm making nachos. Oh well, nobody's perfect. If I'm forever doomed to be "Out of Shape In Shape Guy" so be it.
Until next time...
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