Observations: Off the Top of My Head

"Oppenheimer" is out in three weeks from the time I write this.  Really looking forward to it.  Might need a 'Stadium Buddy' piss bag, though, clocking in at over three hours long.  Still, it's gonna be worth it, especially in IMAX, which is Chris Nolan's specialty.  He actually had new film invented for the black and white version of IMAX to make this.  This will be... ahem... Explosive.

So.... "The Flash" movie bombed (no pun intended relating to the previous paragraph) in theatres in a pretty big and loud way.  I was counting on it being the blockbuster of the year, judging by all the hype.  Then I thought, there's likely a lot of people like me who are being choosey about the movies they go to because it's so friggin' expensive, right?  Plus, everything's out on streaming almost immediately afterwards, so if you're so-so on seeing a movie, wait a bit and it'll be on TV soon enough.  That's not good for the movie business at all.  And don't get me started on streaming... it's a bubble that's got to burst at some point, with there being way, way, WAY too many streamers on the market right now.  No one can afford all of them.  Although, Warner/Discovery, formerly HBO/Max (maybe they still are, they can't seem to make clear what they want to be called), quite possibly is going to sell a lot of their stuff to Netflix in the coming weeks.  This may signal co-operation with streaming outfits to share their product and make it more affordable to the masses.  Though I doubt it.  Big corporations rarely have the interests of affordability to the public in mind.

"Star Trek: Prodigy" has been canceled by Paramount.  To the surprise of countless Star Trek fans... of which I'm not one.  Not surprised, that is.  It's fine that you can make cartoons for just about anything these days, but don't expect everyone who watches live-action content to join the cartoon ride.  I don't know how "Lower Decks" stays on the air, either.  When "Picard" season 3 came out, and Trek fans watched it in droves - being the first Trek show to crack the streaming top 10 - to me, it said a lot.  The first Trek to crack the streaming top 10??  So "Discovery" must not have.  Or "Strange New Worlds".  The former fizzled out for me with season 4 (season 5 will be its last), and the jury's still out on the latter.  But familiarity should not be dismissed by Paramount, with Picard season 3 bringing back a lot of fan favorites and more concise storytelling.  My suspicion is that "Discovery" is on its last season because of ratings, though it hasn't been publicly said.  Honestly, it's a bit hard for me to believe in a show that's set around the 32nd century. 

Cutting the cord... something a lot of folks are doing lately; that is, getting rid of cable TV in favor of streaming and internet.  I have a problem with that, though, being that I like live stuff like the news.  I don't quite know what the best thing to do is just yet, especially considering options of a grand total of two cable companies in my area of the country.  I do like CBC Newsnet, but I won't watch CTV's new channel or the main network, because I simply don't like how they're treating people who work for them.  I like MSNBC a lot, namely Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow and a few others, but cripes, there has to be more going on in the world besides Trump and SCOTUS and Roe v Wade.  And CNN is just awful now.  I mean, they go and have Trump on their channel for a live town hall without rebuffing him on all his lies, get a big backlash about it, then Anderson Cooper comes on and says "people should get out of their silos" and listen to others??  Others like a wannabe dictator who failed at a coup of your country that you just gave free time to, to support a re-election bid?  Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?

Here in Canada, the Competition Bureau is finally getting off their asses and looking to diversify the grocery stores in the country, after Loblaws and Sobeys basically claimed ownership of everything, including corner stores.  But I feel it may be way too little, way too late.  But while they're at it, why not go after big telecom?  Bell and Rogers basically sucked up all the smaller tech and tel companies over the last number of decades without a peep from our governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, though the Liberals have their hands filthy dirty with basically giving millions upon millions to Loblaws for 'efficient fridges and freezers'.  And inflation is being driven right now by high food costs while giants like the aforementioned are raking in record profits.  Overall inflation is actually coming down -- so why are our food prices increasing?  Canada has one of the very best economies in the G7.  There is no excuse to let these grocery scalpers get away with ripping us off like this.

Ah, my beloved Boston Red Sox... they make it hard to be a fan these days.  Just this morning I read that owner John Henry is being accused of not giving a rat's ass about his team by paying all his attention to everything else.  If you don't want to support the team and its fans, sell it!  This year's team hearkens back to the dreadful '12 season when Valentine was coach.  And what a disaster that was.

Russia is quite a ball of wax these days.  The Wagner Group goes to Ukraine, gets their asses kicked, then goes back to Russia and kicks their own asses.  Pooty Poot feels threatened and gets help from the wannabe strongman in Belarus to get the Waggies out of Russia, only to get the Waggies' leader to be exiled to Belarus.  Buddy, stay away from tall buildings and open windows.  Better yet, park yourself by one.  And bring that bloodthirsty coward Putin with you on the way down.  The world is waiting to see what's going to happen to Russia in the coming weeks.  It's looking like Trump's golden parachute to Moscow isn't going to open anymore, doesn't it?

I've been reading this book in the last week or so, called "Them" by Whitley Strieber.  What an incredibly fascinating read.  I'm just about through it; the first part of the book talks about Strieber's experiences from his late 80's book "Communion" and the avalanche of letters he and his wife got from folks who had remarkably similar experiences with 'visitor abduction' and encounters.  He picked some prominent ones, and attempted to decipher what they mean, some of which he only realized after he thought about them for some years.  It's an incredibly descriptive, informative hypotheses on the stories that were brought to him that he brings much light and thought to that really makes you question the nature of everything around us, quite frankly.  His attempts to decode the nature of the visitations is quite remarkable.  And he doesn't just pull stuff out of his ass for facts... he has actual documented evidence, facts and files to supplement his findings.  I think it's something everyone could read and get something out of, and a lot of what he talks about could come into play in the coming years, for better and worse both.

Canada is on fire.  Not in a good, metaphorical way, either.  This reminds me of the rampant fires that happened in Australia not all that long ago.  This is not good.  Every spring when summer approaches, I get worried now, because every summer seems to be getting worse and worse, re: the effects climate change is having on our country.  New Brunswick, where I live, had some serious fire issues, but it was terrible in Nova Scotia, where numerous evacuations happened because of out of control blazes.  Now in Quebec, it's nuts.  They can't get a handle on the fires there at all, and countries from around the world have come to help.  The west is no better.  This is a record breaking year for forest fires in this country, and we're only halfway through the season.  I'm not optimistic about the future.

Anyway, one way to make the future better is to be kind, understanding and tolerant of each other.  As I try to be just this way, I hope you will too.

Take care, friends.

Random Thoughts 12

It's a good day to post some random thoughts.

The TomKat has been spayed and neutered.  Bob Barker would be proud.  Seriously though, is anyone else surprised that the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage lasted THIS long?  Just how long did she endure being creeped out by His Highness of Scientology?  Don't get me wrong, I love Cruise's work.  But something just doesn't quite ring true with this scientology nonesense.  Starting with everything. 

'The Amazing Spider Man' is out tomorrow from the time I type this.  I hear I'm not the only Spider Man die-hard that's shrugging his shoulders over seeing it.  I really wanted a 'Spider Man 4', not this, another origin story with a guy pushing 30 playing a high school teenager.  I will see it though.  Maybe it's a good thing my expectations are low.

On the other hand, the buzz is all good for 'The Dark Knight Rises'.  Of course there will be detractors, like I am for TASM, but there's only one director named Chris Nolan out there, and he hasn't misfired yet.  His weakest movie was 'Insomnia', a movie he had no real creative control over.  All the rest kicked some serious tail.

Heard the new KISS song, 'Hell or Hallelujah'.  Good riff, though it reminds me an awful lot of 'Danger Us' from 'Sonic Boom'.  I don't think KISS should shun outside writers for material so quickly and maybe get with Bob Ezrin for one more album.  My dream team for a writing partner for Paul Stanley would be with Moe Berg from TPOH or Lenny Kravitz, but there are no snowflakes in hell either.  I would LOVE to see Kravitz produce a KISS album.

On the upcoming U.S. election... there are worse Republicans than Romney, that's for sure.  I would prefer him over either of the Bush's or Reagan.  But, seriously, Obama has done far more for that country than anyone else could have following the extremely crooked regime of Dubya.  Honestly, who would want the task of cleaning up the mess that jackass left behind?

Really looking forward to season 3 of 'Game of Thrones'.  My nephew Chris and his wife Jana told me I should take a look at that show a year ago, and I've been stuck on it ever since.  It takes balls to have a show so full of stuff that 'GoT' has.  And it challenges its viewers to pay attention and go back and watch again.  'The Walking Dead' is another one I'm waiting to come back.  The most watched show on cable ever is going to break its own records when it comes back this fall with a rip-roaring season with promises of more zombie-riffic tension and thrills, with real characters and real storytelling.  Some don't know that TWD is adapted from a comic book.  Comics are real literature in this day and age.  Don't believe me though.  Time Magazine lists 'Watchmen' as one of the top 100 novels of all time for good reason. 

It's hot enough to make an egg explode like a popcorn kernel outside, let alone fry one.  Not complaining though, until it's bedtime when the heat is too stifling to sleep.  The fan blowing is good, except that it's blowing hot air, which is not so good.  It's almost like a hair dryer.

I haven't had pop in something like almost a week now.  I didn't set out to not have it, but it just turned out that way.  Not saying I never will again either.  I didn't stop drinking it because of the aspartame, because it's a complete and utter load of nonsense that it's as evil as it's made out to be.  You want evil?  Try regular pop.  It's not even real sugar in that stuff anymore.  It's concentrated sugar in the form of HFCS.  You won't see people getting diabetes from drinking diet pop.  In fact, my blood sugar was borderline, around 7, when I last checked it when I was drinking regular Pepsi many years ago.  I switched to diet and it's been in the 3-4 range ever since.  I don't need lectures on aspartame consumption either... not until you've punched it in at snopes.com and done credible research on it.  Trans fats, high sodium and salt, and nitrites have all gotten a lot of dubious press in recent times, legitimately, in the news.  All with real experts telling people to cut them down or out.  I've yet to see Lloyd Robertson or Lisa LaFlamme tell me anything similar about aspartame.  And no, I haven't experienced headaches or any kind of withdrawal from drinking Diet Pepsi.  None of it.  In fact, my weight's gone up since I started drinking water!

Nickelback is going to be playing the Magnetic Hill concert site soon.  I'm not a hater.  I'm not a liker either, though.  I guess people assume you hate them if you don't like them.  But I have a feeling that they're going to be a Bomb Jovi type thing, where they'll probably have one of the smallest crowds at the concert site yet.  BJ drew 25,000, which is a lot, but consider that tickets were 2 for 1 in the final week leading up to the show and they just let people in for free on show day, mostly women.  A real act will draw people from all ages and both genders, at least for a concert of the magnitude of the 90,000 capacity Magnetic Hill site.  We got 40,000 for a weekend festival thing that started it off with Lynyrd Skynyrd (sp?), Pat Benatar, Peter Frampton, Foreigner, etc.; 40-50,000 for a couple of big name country acts like Alan Jackson and Faith Hill, 50,000-ish for The Eagles, 55,000 for AC/DC, 80,000 for the Rolling Stones and 75-80,000 for U2 last year.  I think Nickelback should have been at the new stadium on the University grounds, which is open for concert business now.  Maybe even the coliseum would have been more appropriate.  But, I hope it does well.  They are rock and roll after all.  I'm interested in seeing what kind of numbers Springsteen will pull in this year.  After that, who could come?  I'm guessing Eric Clapton, Bob Seger, Coldplay, or some kind of package deal.  There aren't a whole lot of monster bands left to come to these parts for a first time show.

My Boston Red Sox look like they might've finally found their mojo, after a rocky start to a season that saw an injury riddled team struggle to reach .500 with a brand new coach and general manager.  My feeling from what I've been hearing, though, is that things are less than harmonious in the clubhouse.  When you've got someone like David Ortiz, who gets along with everybody, talking about leaving when his contract's up at the end of the season, and cornerstones like Kevin Youkilis getting shipped off along with Jonathan Papelbon and guys like Dustin Pedroia calling out team management for less than orderly conduct, you have to wonder.  One remedy to right the ship, if it needs it.... get Terry Francona back.  I bet the team would behave a lot better now that they've seen how it is since he's been gone. 

I guess that's about it for the time being.  For a more personal blog, or 'log', see my facebook page, where I post one every day about mine and the families typical goings-on. 

A mighty 'thank you' to Tim Churchill for being the lone commenter on my last blog here on Ragnar.  Always good to hear from you sir, especially since I have a faulty e-mail address of yours!  Ditched Rogers, did you? 

Thanks for dropping by.