barkley

I watched Whiplash the other day, and I have to say, I didn't much enjoy the experience. I find when I do that with a movie that is highly regarded, it sticks with me. Whether because I'm trying to puzzle out why it is highly regarded and why I didn't feel the same or whether because it's stickiness is part of the goodness, is, well hard to separate out.

Anywho, I was also watching the Beckham documentary, and how it approached the same thing in a different manner. Instead of the beginning to end approach of Whiplash, this started with the kick under pressure that was successful and worked back to the relentless practicing as a kid under either his dad or Sir Alec Ferguson. It didn't explicitly paint out all the assholeish ways that they were like JK Simmons' character, but the implications were there.

Beckham was far more palatable to watch, but OK, it was also thinly veiled PR. (I type this as I am watching Welcome to Wrexham in the background.)

Let's go back to October 30th. MLS semi finals. At the end of that day, my Philadelphia Union were going to the finals, but unfortunately GOING to the finals in Los Angeles as LAFC won the right to host.

So that night after blasting my "Driving From Footy Wins" playlist through the streets of Chester, giddy as all get out, and I mean giddy, my co-conspirator and I went home and texted until midnight and decided, what the heck, let's go to LA. We had game and tailgate tickets on Sunday night. On Monday we decided on a flight itinerary. By Wednesdays we had our LA Hotels. On Thursday we were in the air on the way to LA.

That was one of the best weeks ever. Just starting off from a high and not coming down. My resting heart rate graph on my fitbit is hilarious. There are other Union folks on our plane. We don't know them but we all give a little cheery acknowledgment to each other!

Friday, we plan for like an early dinner, early to bed. We had a tailgate to get to at 9:00 AM. Then she's like, "Oh wow! Guster is playing tonight in LA and there are tickets available for $5. So we made a deal, as long as we were in bed by 11, it's AOK. So off we went to see Guster! And true to her word, round about 10 o'clock, we got into a lyft back to the hotel. (that she is seeing them in NYC in a few weeks was easy for everyone to make that deal.)

So game time! There is no parking because of USC homecoming and their stadium is in the same complex and they take priority. We don't have a car, but it was a thing! We met nice LAFC fans on the metro. We tailgated. We marched to the stadium! This is by far, my favorite part of games! The march in. Flags waving, megaphones leading the chanting, and when we make the wrong turn and have to double back, "We fucked up! We fucked up!"

The game itself was AMAZING. Like beyond amazing. Like everyone who has no skin in it was saying, "wasn't that the best final in maybe forever?" We tied it up! We went to 30 minutes extra time. We got a goal with just minutes left and we were up a man!! WE WERE GOING TO BE THE CHAMPIONS! OMGOMGOMG I HUGGED EVERYONE WITHIN A TEN FOOT RADIUS... and then Gareth Bale did the thing that he does. And then there were penalty kicks. Our #1 in the league goalie versus the guy from LaSalle that was our backup 5 years ago who just got put in cause their starter broke his leg clattering into Cory. We got this right? Right?

Dear reader, we didn't have it. It was great up until it wasn't. And then there were tears.

We got back on the metro, and I said, let's never get off. So we just rode it until we came to Santa Monica. Saw some Union fans we knew. Hugged them. Watched the sun set over the ocean. Went to a bar and had terrible calamari with great breading and watched the Phillies. Ordered more beer and more terrible calamari. Still chewy. Go figure. The Phillies were losing on the TV in the darkened bar under the Christmas lights.

We got a ride back to the hotel. Ran into more fans in the lobby. "Let's hug it out." Watched the Phillies lose the world series in private. What a day. I always wondered what it would be like to spend all that money to go to one game and to not have it go your way. Turns out, I would do it in a heartbeat again. I fucking loved it.

It's still not a true answer though because it was such a good game filled with four glorious minutes where we were totally going to win. What if we were down 6-0 in the first half? ya know?

I also hedged my bets by going to Oregon. "Since we are almost there, do you mind if we pop up into Oregon?" We stayed for a couple of days. I didn't feel like risking bad snow mountain pass weather to go see crater lake, so we opted for the rainy hail pelting coastal tour, and it was delightful. Went to a brewery in a hardware store. Walked a mile back in full moonlight on the beach. I stood on the same beach that Keanu and Patrick Swayze stood on. I went to Powell's books.

But most importantly, for those following my state shennanigans, I now have 49. Hawaii, here I come!

I can not do three things at once. SADNESS.

Right now though I am playing Minecraft and face timing and finally posting here! So I can do three things at once. (the minecraft is suffering.)

ANYWHO, I read the other day that there was a season 7 of Shetland coming out and I didn't know there was a season 6 (or some numbers like that) and so I am very excited and that's when I knew that I had to come here and express my excitement.

OK, back to being the Minecrafting Aunt with the wee peeps.

In my 80 year old grandmother’s tiny one bedroom apartment, cheering my ass off while was was begging me to contain myself because of the neighbors.

Yes, I finally finished the last episode of Once Upon a Time in Queens, the 30 for 30 about the 1986 Mets. You know what my favorite part of that was? You just knew starting off that it was a series of fans recalling “Where were you during game 6” and not the series winning game 7.

I loved watching this and remembering how joyously exciting that 1986 season was. Even for a 15 year old in Philadelphia who had temporarily switched allegiances for Lenny Dykstra.

I am also so glad I am watching this far removed from that 15 year old girl who would have been so disappointed to ever meet her heroes. OMFG. I mean, Lenny certainly had a lot of energy back then. The whole team did. NOW I KNOW WHY. S-U-R-R-E-A-L.

I am easily swayed by peer pressure. I see people playing and posting about the NYT spelling bee game on twitter and I play around with it. But then I hit the pay wall. I was sitting next to a friend of mine playing it. I play. I hit a paywall. I want to play! Today had an ING in it. SO MANY WORDS I COULD DO. But paywall. Do I, oh, pay??


Pros:
Can finish game!
Can get a game with nonillion in it and beat Mike Schur to the punch.
Will stop feeling cheap every time I come up against the paywall.
Word games are good for brain! It can't all be numbers and colors.

Cons:
Will not save money
Will be annoyed about paying for it.
Will feel the need to play it.
Once playing it, I will lose my easy stopping point and will feel the need to complete it
No, really, will feel the need to complete it.
No, you don't understand, I spent two hours this morning playing different combinations in a game of solitaire and I still haven't solved it and I don't even know if it is solvable but I can't stop thinking about it.
No, no, really, this happens at least once a week.

Last March, I decided to start watching Avatar: the Last Airbender. Watched it a little bit at a time each weekend morning like it was Saturday morning cartoons. I never could watch more than an episode or so in a row because the kid's voices were not pleasing to my ear.

But I finally finished! So now, we can be done with pandemic. That was my yardstick.

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Never Have I Ever played on my ipad during the credits and not realized that they had more stuff!

I just mainlined season 1 of Never Have I Ever and I LOVED it. Didn't realize until episode 6 that they had Never Have I Ever words on each open credit. I will start Season 2 soon, but it's good to savor before moving on.

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Speaking of enforced time between shows, TED LASSO IS BACK and I might have been working late last night, so I just soft of kind of took him to bed with me and watched it in the wee hours of the morning. He makes good company.

Now I must wait another week for the next one.

Instead of regretting all the shows I never told you about, I should just get to my currently watching show.

Mythic Quest - never was a fan of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Never was a gamer. But I LOVE this show. It's stupid, it's smart, it's sweet, it's dumb. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. The end. WHO KNEW?! I never even heard of it.

Also, Apple TV's interface sucks ass and does not cater to the obsessive TV watcher who wants to pop into Ted Lasso and rewatch her favorite episodes again and again.

But if you find yourself there, you just might like Mythic Quest.

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I was watching Poppy (of the aforementioned Mythic Quest) type on her dark themed editor, and it made me remember. 1.5 years ago, I started on a new team with all the kids and they all wrote code with dark themes. I decided to go halfway in, and use a dark theme on my UI editor, but then use the light theme with my API editor. At first, it was difficult, and I couldn't get used to it.

So ffwd, one year later, I occasionally open up a ui page in my light themed editor, and IT LOOKS ALL WRONG and I CAN'T READ ANYTHING. It's as painful as it was switching to the dark theme in the first place. So, so weird (considering that just one project over, in the same solution, I can still read the light API no problem.) Brains are weird.

I keep hearing about Mare of Easttown and I want to watch if only to clear up IF it is a gritty show featuring Delco accents in a fictional southeastern Pennsylvania town, then why is it set in Easttown which is... not what I'd call fictional, blue collar nor in Delco.

I am sure I am going to pony up sometime. But I just can't deal with yet another streaming service at the moment.

I've watched it all on Netflix (and careful googling leads me to believe that this is all that is out there) and I am both pleased as punch and wanting more. A good spot to be in, yes?

They are humans and they do some appalling things, but not outlandish things, and are so charming otherwise, you are just kind of taken with the lot of them. (Some more than others of course.) I did so love spending time with them. I especially loved watching the Gillian and Caroline relationship grow over time.

So for New years resolution, I decided to reduce my single use plastics. Here's what I tried so far:

Laundry Strips - These came in just a cardboard envelope. No plastic! They seem to work great. Laundry smells clean without a smell! I have a very sneezy nose when it comes to ocean breeze or fresh linen or mountain stream or whatever the sneeze smell of the scented laundry detergents usually is. This smells like nothing irritating, just clean like a non scented detergent usually does. It's delightful. Pretty much, I love it. It required no sacrifice in my lifestyle and only enhanced it by a) not taking up space in groceries, b) not having to deal with recycling laundry detergent bottles that may or may not have detergent dripping down the sides and getting things sticky.

Silicon re-usable bags These are a tad expensive so I bought three of them a la carte to get the exact sizes I want So far, I tend to only use a few bags at a time, so it's worked out well. Does what I need it to. I've frozen hot dogs, dough balls, etc. I don't believe I've used actual plastic baggies all year! Only sacrifice to lifestyle is that I need to wash it and let it air dry. I use an upside down cup on the counter and plop the bag on top of it.

Shampoo Bars and Compressed Conditioners
The shampoo bar, I've just started, and it lathers up like no one's business. I love it. Works great!
The compressed conditioner does not want to lather at all. Ever. I pretty much hate it and in five months when I've used it up, I will investigate new products. Both of them did come in a thin cellophane type wrapper, but as far as plastics go, much smaller and thinner than it would have been a bottle? (And my recycling company is now recycling flexible plastics, so yay!)

Large glass storage bowl with silicon lid so I stop using plastic wrap for leftovers all the time.

We're almost at the end of the first quarter of the year, so it's time to go another step. I'm open to suggestions for other replacements and criticisms of products that I've chosen aren't actually good for the environment.

There is an All State commercial that is using a Pet Shop Boys song (Opportunities) and god help me, I want to go clubbing. I never want to go clubbing. Not even when I was clubbing. I might be ready for this to be over.

Tag Team's Sccop There It Is commercial makes me laugh out loud every single time I watch it. And I watch it at least six times a weekend I'd say.

I stumbled across Gary Barlow's crooner sessions the other day and I kept clicking from one ot the other. I was enchanted. I had no idea who he was, and I may have been avoiding getting up and doing stuff, but still, clicked through from one guest singer to the next with joy.. I have since determined that he isn't a character on Coronation Street. He is a member of that oft mentioned band Take That band which I always smile and nod along, oh, yes, that's the boy band in the UK I never heard of when Robbie Williams came along and I still haven't heard anything they've done. (Well I thought so, this weekend, I also realized I DO know a Take That song! Back For Good! Turns out they were a real group outside the UK!)

Podcasts that go 5 days a week make me sad because then the burden of choice is forced on me. I add podcasts to my rotation when I think I can keep up with them. Two of mine so far have announced the great news that they were transitioning to five days a week! How exciting for them! I know I can pick and choose and make it more tailor made to me. But I don't want to. I want to subscribe and take what they are feeding me until I am no longer entertained. But now, I have to go make decisions each and ever week. And not only that, I get the fomo for what I inevitably don't get to listen to. And I miss not listening to the stuff I was only tangentially interested in but turned out to be really cool.

Today was so very cleansing. I shed more than enough tears at the historical firsts, the relief. Two weeks ago, I had a lot of work, so I was awake anyway, but I watched into the early hours of the morning how my vote was in question yet again even after everything that happened. I remember all the times the past year when my friends and I would call and strategize our voting plan. Would we go in person, would we mail in, etc, etc. Pros and cons. It was odd to feel so paranoid to discuss the various long games of how to vote. But so it went, lawsuit after lawsuit.

Today's celebration was a balm for the soul. I took the day off so I could watch it all. My fitbit says I went 2500 steps today, but I feel that is way overstating the number of times I moved from the couch. I eagerly lapped it all up: the oaths,the singing,the poetry,the parades, the fireworks. And now we build a better future. Amen.

I am doing the back catalog of Amazing Race since I came to it late and I'm up to Season 3. The downside is I can't jump on the internet and say, "ugh, they're the worst!!" OK, I don't want to say that. I know that. I just want to read other people saying it. No, this is not part of my plan to be a better person.

My plan to be a better person involves watching Ted Lasso. A lot.

( Spoilers for Everything )

I know I am predisposed to liking Ted Lasso because of, well, soccer! But I've managed to convince a friend and her cynical sports hating husband to totally adore it too!

Yes it's on Apple Plus which is yet another subscription, but if you are like me, you can watch it all in 2 days! Free trial!

The aforementioned friend likes to text me random words about shows that I've convinced her she will love when she finally starts watching. So I'll just be sitting around and get a text that says Patrick! or Tray Bake!

So when she took to watching Ted Lasso a week after me, I said, well, heck, I want to follow along with these outbursts, so I started watching the first episode again, and didn't stop until I was done watching it again. Less than two weeks after the first binge. And you know what? I could do it again.

IT JUST MAKES ME FEEL GOOD.