The Status Is NOT Quo

 I need to address some personal stuff.

"Routine" is the watch word here at the Fortress of Ineptitude.

Andrea and I get up Monday through Friday, making the long commute up the hallway to our respective places where we work from home.

At the end of the day, we eat dinner, watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and whatever else we have on our "to watch" list and we call it a day.

Other than not actually working at our jobs, weekends are not much different with moderately successful efforts to get things done around ye olde Fortress before collapsing into a mid afternoon nap followed by watching TV. 

Our routine might be boring but when you're as dysfunctional as we are, that routine provides an important anchor to what would otherwise be chaos.

Right now, Andrea and I are a bit gobsmacked that our routine has been significantly altered.

Last week, Andrea's father had to go to the hospital with a rather lengthy list of things that were to put it mildly a cause for concern. 

Her dad is 88 years old and for the most part is healthier than a lot of people half is age.  He has been remarkably self sufficient. And for the most part, he has all his cognitive marbles.

Until last week.  

A disturbing episode where he became lost, confused and incoherent pointed to an inescable fact that time was running out on his status quo.

A sad part of aging is no matter who well you might take care of yourself, there is a point where the human body reaches it's limits of sustaining a healthy existence.

To put it another way: entropy is a bitch.

It comes for everyone and everything.  

It has inevitably come for Andrea's dad.

Wrapped up in the routine of our existence, we did not want to see that coming. 

By the time this posts, our routine will be different, spending more time at her dad's house and less here at the Fortress of Ineptitude.  

Doing whatever it is we need to do to help her dad live his life. We want to help and we will do what we can. 

But we are not prepared for this. I for one am not prepared to deal with my own life let alone be responsible for someone else's.

Like it stays on this blog's banner, I am trapped in a world I am not designed to cope with.  

For the moment, however, my marbles are slightly better organized that my father in law's so I guess it's time to step up.

Meanwhile, Andrea's brother is working on getting their father into assisted living. 

Their dad does not want to go.

Neither did my mom when she was no longer able to live on her own. Her situation was different as she was in the throws of an ever encroaching dementia.  

My father in law is not so far gone but he's wobbly enough that he needs help and guidance, especially from those trained specifically to do that.

Andrea and I will do what we can.

Even at the cost of our routine.

We need to accept that the status is not quo. 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Leverage, Hudson & Rex, Phineas & Ferb (Also Roku Live TV)

For this week's Touchbase, let's look in on TV shows Andrea and I are catching up on.

We're up to season 2 of Leverage and the point where Gina Bellman who plays Sophie Devereaux had to be written out for  a few episodes while she was on maternity leave in 2009. Taking her place was Jeri Ryan as Tara Cole as the team's grifter.  Tara's more ruthless and less compassionate than Sophie.

We're still plowing through season 2 of Phineas and Ferb.  We basically use P&F to cap off an evening's TV entertainment, especially if we just watched something particularly distressing. (Case in point, this week's Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was very depressing and we needed some Phineas and Ferb to decompress from that.)  

Don't have time for an entire episode of Phineas and Ferb?  Here's the whole thing in just one minute.

We're still catching up on Hudson & Rex.  The good ones before the producers fucked over John Reardon and Diesel died.

We're not necessarily watching these in order. Sometimes Charlie Hudson and Sarah Troung are a couple, sometimes their not.  To be honest, it's not always each to determine which episodes are which.  

Sarah's smiling at Charlie with delight and affection when he said something funny? Nope, not dating. Just friends.

To be honest, whatever Charlie's feelings are for Sarah in any given episode, it's clear his emotional priority is Rex.

There was an episode where Charlie is forced to team up with a French Canadian detective who chastises Charlie with "You would rather work with dogs than with people."  And Charlie just stands there sputtering because he WANTS to argue with her but he can't because damn it, she's right.  

Oh good! Sarah interrupts the moment to say she loves Charlie.... nope, she has new forensic evidence to share on their latest murder case. 

Anyway, we're still having fun with Hudson & Rex for 6 seasons and 2 episodes of season 7. 

There's a Season 8 with Rex teamed up with a different guy named Hudson? No, I refuse to acknowlege it exists. 

Season 8? Blasphemy, I say! Blasphemy! 

This past Christmas, son Dean and friend Jan got me Roku to help manage my various streaming services as well as provide even more options to watch TV.

As if I needed ways to watch even MORE television.

Here's some of what I'm watching on Roku's Live TV option.

Classic Doctor Who  is mostly Tom Baker but also Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Davison, Colin Baker & McCoy.

There are other channels with TV dramas that are British or Britsh adjacent such as My Life Is Murder and Ms. Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries.  I recently caught up with a 1980's adaption of Hound of the Baskervilles with Tom Baker as Sherlock Holmes. 

It's a 24 hour a day party with The Graham Norton Show channel.  

The Star Trek  channel has the original series 24/7 

The Price Is Right - The Bob Barker Years is a peak into pop culture and consumer history.  Wanna see people get excited over winning a brand new Ford Pinto? Or one of those new fangled Radar Ranges? Or television sets that are 10% TV and 90% furniture? 

Watch Bob Barker ogle the models without fear of reprisal from human resources.

The Joy of Painting allows you to enjoy the calm honeyed tones of Bob Ross as he crafts beautiful landscapes from nothing save the light touch of his paint brush on a blank canvas.  

There's an entire channel dedicated to TV series from producer Dean Devlin including The Librarians, Leverage and it's sequel series Leverage: Redemption.  Since Andrea and I are only halfway through season 2 of Leverage, I have to be careful not to be spoiled on episodes I haven't watched.  

There's an ION channel with more chances to watch Hudson & Rex as well as Bones and look, more chances to watch Leverage. 

Don't want to sit through an entire episode of SNL with lame monologues, bad sketches and musical guests you never heard of? The Saturday Night Live channel is a distillation of classic sketches from across the 50 year history of SNL although most are from the past decade or so. 

And there are channels with classic sitcoms from the 1980's and '90's such as Just Shoot Me, NewsRadio and Mad About You.  

There's are entire channel for just Cheers. 

And The Dick Van Dyke Show.  

And that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   

Have You SEEN the Stock Market?

Usually on Monday I will reflect on whatever dumb, immortal, illegal shit Donald Trump said or did over the preceding week.

The problem I have is trying to narrow down which which dumb, immortal, illegal shit Donald Trump said or did because there is so much of it on any given day. 

It's hard to distill my thoughts to any one paticular issue when every single damn day, Donald Trump is a lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, small minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit! 

But he has help.

Unlike in his first term when Li'l Donnie might have accidentally nominated people to positions of power who actually understood their jobs and had some level of competency to understand how to do them, Trump 2.0 is top heavy with syncophants who see loyalty to der Führer as their only consideration.

Does Donald Trump  want something? Well...

• Is it legal?
• Is it Constitutional?
• Is it ethetical?
• Is it humane?

Fuck all that! Donald Trump wants something! Go do that thing!

Last week, Pam Bondi as ostensibly the Attorney General, head of the alleged Department of Justice appeared before a U.S. Senate oversight committee prepared to discuss things that a DOJ should be doing and answer questions about those things.

Such as hey, what's up with those dang Epstein files.

Bondi brought a big ol' binder full of documents to show how seriously prepared she was to seriously discuss the serious business of the Department of----

Nah, I'm fucking with you! 

It was a binder full of insults.

Instead of actually answering any questions about whatever legal shit the DOJ has done, is doing or will be doing, Bondi would consult her oversized notebook of quips and zingers to attack any Democrats who dared think they had a right to ask a question or (get this temerity) dared to expect an answer.

She was also prepared with take downs of any Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal to der Führer.   

Bondi snippily snapped and snarled her way through her prepared put downs all the while refusing to answer any questions that might make Li'l Donnie feel bad.

Pam Bondi really went off the rails when she shouted over questions about the Epstein files with declarations about how well the goddam Stock Market is doing.

SIDE NOTE: The Stock Market is doing great! Mostly fueled by a big speculative bubble about A.I..  

Corporations are just giddy over the prospects of replacing those pesky annoying people with Chat Bots who don't demand annoying things like decent wages, health benefits and a work/life balance. 

A lot of economists are really worried that this bubble is about to burst and send us into a crash not unlike what hit the economy in 2008.

Who cares, the future is someone else's problem. 

As for those annoying Epstein victims and their advocates who just want shut the hell up, the past is also someone else's problem.

All that matters is RIGHT NOW everything is GREAT! 

Pam Bondi's abrupt swerve into wildly extolling the successes of the Stock Market in avoidance of actually addressing the question she was asked about the Jeffrey Epstein case is just a perfect distillation of the transactional attitudes expressed by Donald Trump and his acolytes.

Who cares about your injustice as long as my stocks are going up? 

SIDE NOTE: Trump's EPA last week rolled back years established guidelines on climate change that will make it easier for companies to pollute the air and water.  This move ignores the concensus of like 99.99% of all known science but hey, Donald Trump thinks climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese or some bullshit.  

Just like the DOJ, the EPA is prepared to ignore facts in deference to whims and selfishness of  der Führer.  

Without worrying about climate standards, cars will be cheaper so Li'l Donnie's rich friends can sell more cars and make more money.  

Well who the fuck cares if the fucking planet is on fire if I'm getting richer.

Damn it, where was I?

Oh yeah, Pam Bondi.

So Pam Bondi's meltdown to praise the Stock Market instead of addressing the crimes of Donald Trump's good buddy Jeffrey Epstein is of course an embarrassment to the DOJ and to this country.

Or it should be.

Ah who cares? My stock portfolio is going through the roof! 

Doctor Who: Absolute Maybes

 

It's been a minute since I've done a Doctor Who post.

Here's what we know:

Russel T Davies is absolutely out as show runner!

No, we do not know this but that doesn't stop people from speculating wildly online that this is a thing.

We know there is supposed to be a Christmas Special this year and last we heard, RJT was/is/will be writing it.

After that....

Who knows?

I would say that given how the Disney+ deal imploded and some of that was due to some questionable choices by RJT, I would speculate that Russell may well be on his way out. 

But ignore all that you're hearing because nobody knows nothing. 

Here's another one:  

David Tennant is absolutely returning as the Doctor! 

Again, this is just the rumor mill running amuck.

And as much as I am down for David Tennant in anything, I kind of hope this rumor remains unfounded. 

Doctor Who really needs to move forward and beyond this rutting around the moldering truffles of nostalgia including whatever Billie Piper is supposed to be.

Billie is most definitely OR most definitely NOT the Doctor!

The rumor mongerers cannot seem to wrap their heads around a consistent theory of Billie's role in the show.

My guess for what it's worth is Billie is some interim form of the Doctor owing to the unique circumstances of 15th Doctor's regeneration. Some manifestation of Bad Wolf or the Moment or some damn thing like that. 

CEO of BBC Studios Global Content Zai Bennet assured that the  BBC is committed to ensuring Doctor Who has a “long and flourishing life”.

Meaning... what exactly? 

Your guess is good as mine.

Which brings us to another rumor.

There will not be a NEW Doctor Who series until 2028.

Again, just wild speculation but it sadly makes sense.

Unless the BBC is ready to ramp up production of new episodes immediately in the wake of completing the 2026 Christmas special, it seems unlikely a Doctor Who series would be ready for 2027

The general concensus of everyone guessing on the internet is that the BBC will not make a decision on a Doctor Who series until after completion of the special or even waiting until after it airs. 

Particularly if there are pivotal decisions up in the air as to who will actually run the show or even star in it. 

Another thing that is still up in the air is the fate of The War Between the Land and the Sea outside the United Kingdom.

The UNIT based Doctor Who spin off mini-series was part of the Disney+ deal but Disney has made NO reference to when or even if the series will ever be presented on it's platform.   

Meanwhile, the series is available for sale in the U.K. on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Meanwhile, I have been catching up on classic Doctor Who on it's Roku channel and there will be a Doctor Who Is Classic post at some unspecified point in the future.

Just like the BBC, I too can be vague and uncertain about the future. 

Doctor Who has a future filled with absolute maybes. 

Movie Time: Les Diaboliques

Today is February 14th which means it's Valentine's Day.

Ah oui ! Saint Valentin! Quand nous offrons des expressions de romantisme et de passion à ceux que nous aimons.

Sorry, today's post is about a French film so I got caught up in the spirit of the thing.

Let's try that again.

Ah yes! Valentine's Day! When we offer expressions of romance and passion for those we love.

So the theme for today's movie post is....

How to murder your spouse!

So Happy Valentine's Day.

It's Movie Time!

The subject of today's movie post is Les Diaboliques, a 1955 French psychological thriller film co-written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, and starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, and Charles Vanel. 

No, you don't know who those people are but that's OK.

Neither do I. 

The movie is based on the 1952 novel Celle qui n'était plus (The One Who Was No More) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narceja 

What happens when a wife and her husband's mistress conspire to kill the husband? Let's find out! 

Our drama centers around Hauts-de-Seine, a less than high quality boys' boarding school the suburbs of Paris. 

The headmaster is Michel Delassalle, a cheap and malicious tyrant who hates the school and the boys in his charge. He is a miserable misanthrope who takes out his frustrations on the students, the staff and his wife.  

The school is owned by Michel's wife, Christina, a wealthy, devout Catholic émigrée from Venezuela. She is the school's  Spanish teacher. 

Christina is also in poor heal, frail and unstable from a chronic heart condition. 

Michel is totally contemptuous towards Christina, despising her  for her frail condition, her mortality, her dreams. He consistently mocks her, always piling on emotional abuse. 

Michel is having an affair with Nicole Horner, another teacher at the school. But Michel doesn't seem to treat Nicole any better than he does his wife. 

Which may explain while Christina and Nicole form a bond over their mutual abuse from Michel. 

(They may also might be in a lesbian affair but that is totally subtext. More on that later in the post.) 

So a plan is planned to make Michel unalive.

1) Drug Michel's wine.

2) Drown him in a bathtub.

3) Dump his dead ass into the pool at the school.

4) Wait for his pale bloated dead body to float up to the surface of the pool.

5) Authorities will assume Michel got drunk, stumbled outside and fell into the pool and drowned.

The plan goes according to plan through step 3 but runs into a hitch at step 4.

Michel's pale bloated dead body never floats up to the surface of the pool.

Nicole arranges to have the pool drained and nope, no body.

What the hell?

Christina is feeling a LOT of stress. 

Which is not good for her precariously weak heart.

Thumpity-thump!

So the stress gets worse.

There are reports of someone matching Michel's description showing up around Paris.

Thumpity-thumpity-thump!

Christina's wake heart is getting worse.

And some of the kids report seeing Michel around the school grounds.

Thumpity-thumpity-thump-thump!

A photo of the students and staff in front of the school shows someone in one of the windows of the building. That kinda sorta looks like Michel Delassalle.

Thumpity-thumpa-thumpity-thumpa-thump!

Doctors attending to Christina are worried that she's thisclose to dying of a heart attack so they tell her to stay in bed.

CAUTION: I am heading for a major SPOILER!! 

While trying to sleep one night, Christina hears a noise coming from the bathroom and she goes to investigate. 

Rising out of the a full tub of water is the body of Michel Delassalle?!?! 

Thumpity-thumpa-th-th-th--SPLUT!!!!

Sacre bleu! Christina is dead from a heart attack!

SPOILER!!!

Nicole rushes into the room to embrace her lover Michel as they celebrate success in their scheme to murder Christina via heart attack! 

What the hell! Really?!?!

Les Diaboliques is a masterful exercise in building tension and suspense. It feels like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  But in French.

Reportedly Hitchcock wanted to get the rights to the book Celle qui n'était plus but was beat to the punch by  Henri-Georges Clouzot which royally pissed off ol' Hitch! 

Speaking of the book, the movie follows the book AND it doesn't.

In the book, it's the mistress and the husband who plot the death of the wife and it's her body that mysteriously does not show up in the pool where it was dumped. And it's the husband who has the weak heart who dies when the wife's body turns up to haunt him into a heart attack.

And the lesbian relationship between Nicole and Christina in the book is NOT subtext but text. As a French film, Les Diaboliques was not subject to the restrictions of the American film industry's Hays Office on the subject of homosexuality but French censors had their issues with the topic. 

Because much of the film hints as supernatural reasons for the absence of the body and the mysterious appearances of Michel after his "death", Les Diaboliques is frequently regarded as a horror film and certainly one can see how that assessment can be made given the rising levels of tension Christina feels due to Michel's mysterious appearances that haunt her guilt ridden mind.

And that scene of Michel rising ominously out of the bathtub dripping with water and unadulterated menace is definitely a classic horror trope.

But the horror tropes that are present are secondary to the main appeal of a tightly wound murder narrative that isn't all that it appears to be.

Les Diaboliques is about the murder of a spouse. The twist is which spouse is the actual victim.

So Happy Valentine's Day to my darling wife! 

This (Non) Sporting Life: Ice and Gold

Andrea and I were watching the ice dance competition Wednesday and caught the magnificient performance of Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

I may not know much about sports and that certainly includes any Winter Olympic events taking place on the ice but what Chcok and Bates did out there at the Milano Cortina Olympics looked pretty damn flawless to me.

It also looked flawless to the commentators on TV and the judges awarded them a very high score that reflected that assessment.

It looked like Madison Chock and Evan Bates had a date with destiny and a gold medal.

Instead they got a silver medal.

What the...?

Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France performed next and got a slightly higher score to vault them ahead to 1st place.

Again, I know little about any ice thingy happens at the Olympics, be it skating or dancing or whatever but what Beaudry and Cizeron did out there looked... OK, I guess? Their performance was proficient and nobody fell down but I didn't feel the same spark I felt watching Chock and Bates out on the ice.

The commentators on TV seemed to feel the same way. 

Imagine all our surprise when the judges saw something different, something imperceptibly better.

In the hours and days since that performance, there has been quite the uproar. 

There's a petition on Change.org calling for the International Skating Union to review the scoring.

Well, God bless whoever's trying to make that happen but I think that ship has sailed.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates have been gracious about the whole thing.  

Madison said of this outpouring of support, “It really means a lot to us to have so many people just appreciate our performance and what we’ve worked so hard for.”

Madison said she and Evan are at peace with what they did on the ice and the results of that performance.  “A medal is a medal, the Olympic dream is alive, and it’s not something that is tangible. It’s something that lives within us, and really is the driving force for our motivation and intrinsic goals. And I think that’s what’s special about the Olympics. And that’s a real win for us.”

No matter the color of the medal, gold, silver or bronze, the Americans still got something that had eluded them in 3 previous Olympics, a win in ice dance. 

The Olympics are a roller coaster of emotions. Imagine being recognized as being better than 99.9% of the world at something and still feeling a bitter sting of defeat anyway.

That's way more pressure than I would ever want to deal with. 

Your Friday Video Link: EVEN MORE METRIC!!!

Your Friday Video Link this week returns to my recently acquired musical obsession, the Canadian rock group called Metric.

For the THIRD time, it's EVEN MORE METRIC!!!

Our first video is for "Combat Baby".  

The video employs  "Supermarionation", a form of electronic marionette puppetry employed in the 1960's by British producer Gerry Anderson for the TV series Thunderbirds.

I have become enchanted by Metric's Emily Haines.

Enchanted, enthralled, fascinated, mesmerized by her voice, her writing, her overall person. 

Where has she been all my life?

With her heart beating like a hammer, next up is "Help I'm Alive".  

If you go to the I Love Metric website, you can get Metric merch like this "Help I'm Alive" t-shirt! 

A big signature song for Metric is "Black Sheep" which appeared in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  The song was performed by the Clash at Demonhead with lead singer Envy Adams (played by Brie Larson). 

Emily Haines said Metric was asked by director Edgar Wright if they had any songs they might want to contribute to the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack. Emily described "Black Sheep" as a quickly toss together song for a recent album that Edgar thought was perfect for his move. 

Here is Metric  performing "Black Sheep"  LIVE! 

Head over to the   I Love Metric website to get a Metric Black Sheep plushie.

OK, I'm in love with the music of Metric and Emily Haines but $50 for a plushie seems a bit rich for my blood weight now

ONE LAST VIDEO for this post.

Metric is still making NEW music and this video dropped on February 3rd, "Victim of Luck".

This is in advance of their brand new album dropping on April 24th which is my birthday! 

So am I done with Metric on this blog after 3 different posts?

I'm still discovering even more songs I haven't heard before but I really like. 

I would not be surprised if there will be a 4th edition of Your Friday Video Link with EVEN MUCH MORE METRIC!!!