An article comes out on Bloomberg, Middle Age Misery Peaks at age 47.2, I use a calculator and determine I am 47.24 years old the day this article is published. This leads me to the mistaken belief that the year will only get ‘better’
Cute internet meme of Pet and what they’re named for gives me an excuse to post a goofy pic of Hux, and a beautiful pic of Hedy.
Hedy murders 2 bunnies in 2 days. Well, almost murders. Just maims and I have to finish them off. My least favorite present to myself was a Rabbit Braining Stick.
“Not bad, Buddhists.” – Eleanor Shellstrop
“None of this is bad.” – Chidi Anagonye
Framed the wooden puzzle of Einstein we had made after he died. Now it hangs in my office, looking at me reproachfully.
Parasite was really a good movie. Ever heard of it?
Had a deck built, then tore down our garage, so that we can build a newer, better one. But we tear down the garage early, so we can remove a gigantic tree. Then, the world happens and we decide to not quite build the garage yet.
Had to help some folks figure out some code I wrote at work a while ago. The stored proc was named [WhatItDid]DELETE_ON_07312014. I told them it was a temporary fix more than 6 years ago, and then it just kept going.
Left the gate open, dogs ran around neighbor’s yard and immediately came back. First time I’ve done that with these super fast and super dumb dogs that barely know their names. Soooo lucky.
Had lunch with my mom on 2/29/2020. I did not realize that was the last time I was going to get to go have lunch with her at work, possibly ever.
Leap Day episode of 30 Rock still… rocks?
Drop the dogs off at the sitters the day before Hedy’s 8th birthday.
#ResponsibiltyIsOverrated2020 is what we decide to brand our vacation at the start of March, seeing the Coronavirus news starting to pile up in Seattle, and in New York. Unsure the cruise will even depart, but unable to determine if any of insurance will work if we voluntarily opt out.
Formal Friday and Work From Home collide in fascinating ways on the last friday of March. Wearing a shrit and tie and houseshoes and shorts. I gave up on the tie for the year soon after.
John Scalzi, a prominent Sci-Fi Author and Joco Cruise regular, wrote the best essay about the weirdness of being on a boat that took COVID seriously, and still came back to a world we hardly recognized. The Last Best Time
Sometimes in our lives / We all have pain
We all have sorrow / But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow
–Bill Withers
Schitt’s Creek ends, Michelle dresses for the finale in her best Moira wig and pajamas. Yeah, we were home alone during the whole thing, but a girl’s gotta find her joy somewhere.
One of our neighbors has 2 (now 3!) small boys. When walking the dogs, I complimented them on their sidewalk chalk art, and asked if they did commissions. A couple of days later our sidewalk was covered in chalk art. I think I owe those kids some chalk, and a review on Nextdoor.
“Hux, He’s Greyhoundy.” 5 minutes of various clips of Hux being a bit rambunctious premiers on youtube. It has since garnered nearly 200 views.
The protesters showing up at State Capitals just go to show you how many people would gladly mash the button on the device that gives them money if it caused a random person to die.
And just how little money it would take.
– Me. I said this.
John Krasinski, husband of Emily Blount, and somewhat known for his role of “Jim” on the American version of The Office does a weekly Youtube show called “Some Good News”, that’s geniunely charming.
really Loved Knives Out. I like Rian Johnson movies.
Parks and Rec does a fundraising special. Ben Wyatt is the house rep for my district in Southern Indiana. Ahh, comforting fictions. The real rep is a really stupid republican whose daddy bought him his seat.
But your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore
They’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war
Now Jesus don’t like killin', no matter what the reason’s for
– John Prine
For Star Wars Day, I did a Star War (built a stormtrooper lego helmet)
My national limerick day effort wasn’t great :
Here, without malice, or bias / a limerick to inspire us;
Please, stay safe at home / And some day we’ll roam
After beating this fuckin' coronavirus
Finally bought a print of The Onion’s HOLY SHIT MAN WALKS ON THE FUCKING MOON front page, displayed it for a few days on zoom meetings. I need to remember to do more “humorous” background stuff for Zoom meetings. Those are the kinds of jokes that never get old.
Rewatched Little Shop of Horrors, because it’s on HBOMax, the 4th or 5th streaming service I now subscribe to.
In my hometown of Louisville, KY a kid breaks the hand off a statue in Louisville and it matters a lot more to a certain type of person than the fact that cops will get away with literal murder over and over again this year.
I am the architect of rock ‘n’ roll! I am the originator! – Little Richard (He wasn’t wrong)
I started being the Dungeon Master for a group of coworkers. I suck at it, but it’s fun. Apparently I’m a giant nerd? Who knew?
Lady Antebellum changes their band name to Lady A, denouncing the former name’s association to slavery. When I pointed out that calling yourself Lady Antebellum is no different than Madame Third Reich or Misses Apartheid, I was yelled at by even my wokest friends a few years before. So, neener neener.
Michelle’s b-day, I give her a hand carved giraffe thingie I snuckily bought back in Florida, 3 short chronological months and 427 emotional years prior.
Lust is easy, Love is hard, Like is the most important. – Carl Reiner
Hamilton comes out on Disney+. That was just 6 months ago, y’all.
My work place is forced to migrate from Slack to MS Teams so some line on a spreadsheet that doesn’t calculate the real costs of using shitty tools looks a little better to someone that never actually has to use those tools.
Upstairs AC went out, so we replaced both. Because building a garage is never, ever, ever going to really happen.
I ordered a handful of cloth masks. One muppet themed, one octopus, and one a picture of an eclipse. The eclipse one just looks like I’m wearing a picture of a ball gag. I don’t wear that one much.
A tree in the opposite neighbor’s yard from where we had an old unhealthy tree removed loses a large limb, which lands on the power cable coming into our house. This snaps the telephone pole in the alley, which has a transformer on top. Somehow we don’t lose power and the power cable holds coming into our house (though it was only like 2 feet off the ground). People with real jobs and real skills show up, and fix everything in like 3-4 hours.
I’m certainly relishing the idea of living a century. Can you imagine that? What an achievement. – Olivia de Havilland
Some kid from the Indiana GOP stopped by, knocked on my door while I was a meeting. I answered in my Ohio River Coastal Elites t-shirt and told him he was kind of wasting his time, then got back to my meeting. Which was wasting MY time.
Take Hedy Dog Parking several times, because our August had quite a few relatively cool days. Thanks climate change.
Spent a lot of money on a new couch and ottoman. Shopped local, didn’t negotiate hard enough, spent more than I probably should have. It takes several weeks to deliver, but it’s sturdy and gorgeous and eventually Hedy got comfortable jumping up on it.
The Milwaukee Bucks forfeit an NBA game in protest of yet another police shooting of yet another black man. Then, the players all threaten to stop the already weird season. This lead to boycotts in other professional sports, and made me even more of an NBA fan than I had already become.
Sometimes you need to get knocked down before you can really figure out what your fight is and how you need to fight it. – Chadwick Bosemen (Howard commencement speech, it’s a good one, look it up)
We finish watching Teenage Bounty Hunters on Netflix. I am shocked at how good Method Man is at playing a dorky version of himself. Of course this show is cancelled, because Netflix knows they don’t have to make ‘great’ stuff to keep us paying month to month.
Leading up to my birthday, I spent 30 days posting things that made me smile. It was a good exercise in trying to refocus an anxious mind.
People outside of Kentucky keep pouring money on to the burning mountain of cash piled at Amy McGrath’s feet. She ends up spending more than $100 per vote.
WFPK does a fan voted top 500 albums of the 80s. It was a great distraction for a few weeks.
Bought a t-shirt from http://sept21st.com/ to donate a few bucks to causes Demi Adejuyigbe supports, and motivate him to keep on making goofy stuff on the internet.
Best twitter thread of the year - Too much rice
I hope there’s a tinge of disgrace about me. Hopefully, there’s one good scandal left in me yet. – Diana Rigg
Finally got my CPAP fixed, after about a week of not being able to sleep properly again. My dependence on this machine has made me weak. But it means I’m also still alive, so I guess it’s a fair trade.
To prove that he’s not a one trick pony, the president and republican lead senate that refuses to bring any bills to the floor railroads through a Supreme Court nominee even less qualified for the bench than the last one.
Kentucky Shakespeare adapts to the weird year we’re having and performs Macbeth in a parking lot. It was a great experiment made only slightly maddening by the fact that turning off the running lights in my car is way more difficult than it should be.
I discover that one of the kids I pass regularly while walking the dogs shared a b-day with me. So I give her a book and some candy for her birthday and make a new birthday buddy!
There’s a relatively new brewery near me that is a converted shipping warehouse. Huge open spaces, good outdoor seating. I take the risk and invite a bunch of coworkers to join me for a beer for my birthday. A bunch of folks show up, faces I hadn’t seen in person in 7 and a half months.
Our 12th anniversary is a roadtrip to Shaker Village, after being assured they’re doing big distancing requirements and masking stuff. We have a great time. The playlist is a little rough this year, but it’s still a really fun day.
On a recommendation from one our favorite podcasts to listen to together, Stay F Homekins, we watch a show called Staged on Hulu and consume the whole thing way too quickly. (This line is really a way to throw in a couple of extra recommendations without making the recommendations section below look bloated)
Halloween we get around 175 kids. Our lowest total in the 4 years we’ve been here. 50+ lower than last year’s ridiculously cold year. Of those well over 100 families, maybe 5 parents had masks on. People are fucking dumb, and completely unwilling to do the smallest things they don’t see immediate personal benefit from.
I don’t like doing interviews, I don’t like doing what I’m doing right now. I’d rather be at home playing my guitar. – Eddie Van Halen
Somehow the ridiculous cartoon villain of a president and his cadre of kleptocrats and cruelty loving sycophants gets 71 million votes. He still loses by 5%, but it’s further proof that America is due for a reckoning.
I get the new Sesame Street Lego set, and build it immediately. There’s a ton of in jokes and references, including quite a few that are likely from the 40+ years it’s been since I watched the show. But it is a wonderful set.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Lego minifig joining on camera for Zoom meetings.
Animaniacs reboot makes me laugh, many times.
This year, on what I really hope is the last of 5 consecutive shitty Thanksgivings, we get catering from the folks that run our work cafeteria, it’s great food. And actually the weekend is pretty relaxing, at least for 2020.
I’m curious about everything - even things that don’t interest me. – Alex Trebek
The Arecibo Observatory collapses. 2 weeks after it was decided that it wasn’t worth saving. Americans can’t stomach spending money on things that don’t deliver them packages of stuff they don’t need faster, or turn quarterly profits.
Salesforce buys Slack. Proving that in the world of tech money, having a good product doesn’t matter all that much. Gross.
I do 5 total gifts to 3 different Secret Santa group things. One of the folks I send a box of goodness to is actually in Canada, and it costs a lot. Every package is delivered in a pretty timely manner though. I want to do these box of goodness things more often.
Grogu is a dumb damn name. Even for Star Wars.
“My phone corrected asymptomatically to asymptotically, proving that Siri knows I’m a math nerd, but kind of failing to READ THE ROOM.”
The year ends with nearly 2 weeks off. Here’s hoping nothing that happens with my remaining time off makes me want to change this thing.
You don’t owe anyone your attention. Not wanting to have to deal with their train of thought is not censorship. Block freely.