Tuesday TV Touchbase: Killing Eve (Again?), The Flight Attendant

 

First of all, a quick revisit of last week's post about the series finale of Killing Eve.

I wrote "I've known since season 1 that there would be no happy ending for Eve and/or Villanelle, that at least one if not both would end up dead when the series reached it's end."   Although the ending was unsatisfactory, my ultimate conclusion was what other way could it end?  

As I wrote last week, "Eve and Villanelle were never destined for domestic bliss in a cottage somewhere."  Well, maybe not but death was not necessarily the only alternative.  

Luke Jennings who wrote the novels on which Killing Eve was based spoke well of the series as a whole but took exception to the end with Villanelle being killed. In the books, Eve and Villanelle do carve out a happy ending for themselves. 

Death was not inevitable.

The finale of Killing Eve suffers from a similar problem with the much reviled series finale of How I Met Your Mother.   

The series finale of HIMYM was in many ways a perfect capstone to the premise laid out in the first episode of the first season.  But all the water that went under the bridge since that first episode made the ending less than satisfactory.

In the same way, the Eve and Villanelle we meet in season 1 episode 1 of Killing Eve are on a hard path towards a fatal destiny for one or both of them. But all that has gone on in the subsequent episodes and seasons has put those two women on different paths.  

The argument has been made there is no way Eve could be in a domestic relationship with a psychopath like Villanelle, precluding a happy ending.  That's assuming domestic bliss is the only definition of a happy ending. And also assuming Eve's journey has not changed what she would define as a happy ending. 

I don't know how Luke Jennings wrapped up things in the books but I thought, what if Villanelle gets to still be a killer and Eve is her handler, guiding her murderous skills for good, not evil, killing sons of bitches who deserve it, that sort of thing or something like it.  

OK, so not quite so quick a revisit of Killing Eve. Anyway, I couldn't help thinking about this. 

"So Killing Eve ends in death  as we always knew it would."

But no, it did not need to. 

______________________________

Last week, the beginning of the second season of The Flight Attendant dropped. The Flight Attendant was originally conceived as a limited series  so the question is there a story for Cassie Bowden to keep this thing going for another season?

Cassie's living in Los Angeles, going to AA meetings and is a couple of days shy of being sober for 1 year. She's got a nice place to live, a nice boyfriend named Marco and she still working as a flight attendant.

And a side hustle she can't tell anyone about, as a civilian asset for the CIA.  

Not an actual spy, mind you. Just someone the CIA uses to help keep an eye on certain people. Not to engage with them or follow them around town in a taxi or spy on them from across the street while they have sex in their hotel room.

So natch, Cassie does all these things while in Berlin.

Where she sees her target having sex with a woman who looks like Cassie, right down to the tattoo on her back. 

And Cassie's too close surveillance puts her in the blast radius of a car bomb that kills her target. 

And Cassie Bowden's life is all crazy all over again and puts her hard won sobriety on a frail and unraveling thread.   

Cassie's mind palace returns but this time the occupants are other versions of Cassie.  

And Megan, Cassie's friend and fellow flight attendant from season 1 who turned out to be spying for North Korea? She's in trouble and drawing Cassie into her drama. 

So there's a lot going on to keep Cassie more than a bit preoccupied for a second season.   

When we meet Marcos, Cassie's photographer boyfriend, both Andrea and I wondered, "Hey! Is that Chris Rios from Star Trek: Picard?"  

Nah, it can't be. Well, it can be and it is. Marcos is played by Santiago Cabrera who is Rios from Picard. Wow! Small world! 

Everything hinges on the performance of Kaley Cuoco who just nails it as Cassie Bowden in various stages of confidence, confusion and panic.  The first episode of season 2 opens with Cassie being a bit too over confident that she has life figured out. She quickly experiences the old adage that life is what happens when you're making other plans.  The events of Berlin expose that that whatever progress she has made on her journey to sobriety and happiness, she still has a lot of work to do.   

So it looks like season 2 of The Flight Attendant will have more than enough to keep us busy.    

So that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.  In the coming weeks, I need to update on what's going down on Outlander, Young Sheldon, Star Trek: Picard (spoiler: that's not going to be fun one to write about), Julia (the HBO Max series about chef Julia Child), Naomi and Superman and Lois.

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. 

_______________

BLOG BIDNESS

I'm shutting this thing down! 

Well, for a little while.  

Taking the rest of April off.

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You will return May 1st with Cinema Sunday when Audrey Hepburn charms Paris. 

The Pandemic Is Still A Thing

This past Friday, both Andrea and I had the day off from work so we used this opportunity to get our 2nd COVID-19 booster shot. Andrea ran a low grade fever late Friday night but otherwise we're fine.

I would mention I was super tired Friday afternoon but I'm not sure I can attribute that as a side affect of the booster shot since I'm always super tired.  

So far, Andrea and I have been injected 4 times, twice for the original vaccine and twice now for boosters.  We're doing our part to make to try to bring this damn pandemic to an end. 

But sadly, two years in, it's still a thing. 

People are still testing positive.

People are still getting sick.

People are still dying. 

Of course, having vaccines and boosters doesn't mean people will not test positive, get sick or die but it does help mitigate risks. 

Getting vaccinated means you're less likely to get the disease.

If you do get the disease, getting vaccinated means you're less likely to get sick.

If you do get sick, getting vaccinated means you're less likely to die.

If you do die, well... I got nothing. Sometimes shit happens.

There are still right wing nut cases who are against getting vaccinated for any number of goofball reasons, citing vaccines lack of infallibility as proof of their misguided views. 

These same people are still pushing hard against wearing masks and recently scored a win when a judge recently issued a ruling that masks could not longer be mandated for use on mass transit like trains, buses and airplanes. 

The judge who made the ruling was a Trump appointee who prior to her being made a judge was labeled as unfit for the post by the American Bar Association citing her complete lack of any trial experience in a court.

And the gist of her ruling was not based on any point of law but on the opinion that "Eww! Masks are nasty!" 

Between resistance to vaccines (34% of adults in North Carolina are still not vaccinated) and masks, the pandemic is still a thing. 

Andrea has been informing me that are church has had a wave of COVID-19 with several members testing positive and getting sick.  Mostly in the wake of this year's Passover Sunday service.  

Andrea continues to attend church virtually online because she still can't trust people there to do what they can and should to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.   

(I'm using my Sunday mornings to catch up on the TV shows I personally watch as opposed to the shows I watch with Andrea.)  

Even with no mask mandates in our county, Andrea still wears her mask everywhere. Ostensibly, it's because she has asthma so getting COVID would be particularly bad for her. But mostly she's just afraid of everything. 

I carry my mask with me all the time but I do not wear it all the time. I will put it on where I am with other people in a small environment or a business that actively encourages mask use.

Acme Comics is a good example of this. It's a fairly busy shop but it's also rather small which means being close to other people is rather inevitable. Store manager Jermaine actively urges people to wear a mask so I do. It's his store and it makes sense to me.   

But we share this world with people who are actively opposed to any measures to lesson our risks. 

Which is why sadly the pandemic is still a thing.   

Cinema Sunday: Made In Paris

 

I can't always express why I may watch some movie I stumble when switching channels.

When it comes to Made in Paris, a 1966 American romantic comedy film I happened upon one Saturday afternoon, I know exactly why.

It begins with Ann Margret getting dressed.

Now I know for most men, their interests lie in seeing women getting undressed, the sooner the better.

But there is something about watching a sensuously beautiful woman like Ann Margret assembling her accoutrements from her lingerie to the dress she layers over it.  

It is a beautiful and captivating thing to watch. 

A shame I can't be as indulgent with my praise for the rest of the movie.

Made In Paris labors under the ancient and groaning guidelines of American morality laid out by the Hays Code.

Ann Margret is Maggie Scott, a young midwestern ingénue who's made it to the big city working as a buyer for a major department store.  

Maggie may have made it to the big city but she still has her small town ideals of what a woman wants: "I’m just an average American girl. I have the foolish idea that I’d like to settle down in the suburbs with a man I love and have children, and maybe even have a station wagon, and two of those large dogs with hair in front of their eyes."  

Ted Barclay (Chad Everett), son of the store owner, makes a move to seduce Maggie but gets bonked on the head for his trouble. Well, he had it coming. He was coming on too strong towards Maggie in her apartment where she did not want him.

Don't worry. Those crazy kids will work it out, profess their love for each other by the end of the movie.

Before we get there, Maggie gets sent to Paris for a fashion show where she encounters Marc Fontaine (Louis Jourdan), a fashion designer who is very suave and sophisticated in a way that only characters played by Louis Jordan can be.

At first Maggie ain't putting up with Marc's seductive act but eventually she just can't help herself and begins to act all swoony around him because it's Louis Jordan y'all. 

Ted has asked for help from Herb Stone (Richard Crenna), an expatriate journalist, to watch over Maggie and keep her safe from the charms and allure of Paris.

Too late! Maggie's done been charmed and allured by Paris at night, dragging Herb from club to club and just having a good old time drinking and dancing and flirting. OK, Herb promised his pal Ted a solid by protecting Maggie in Paris but damned, it's Ann Margret for God's sake and Herb is supposed to ignore it when Maggie oozes all over him?  Now if he could just get her to stop with the clubs and get back to his bedroom where he can sex her up right. 

Spoiler: Maggie does wind up in Herb's bed. Fast asleep, all tuckered out from drinking and dancing and flirting. Herb only removes her shoes as he leaves her. Herb is a perfect gentleman.

Ted has arrived in Paris because what the hell is happening to his woman.  

Ted punches Marc because Ted thinks Marc is fucking Maggie.

Then Ted and Marc team up to stop Herb from fucking Maggie.

Maggie decides she wants to fuck Ted within the institution of marriage. 

"Oh yes, Ted darling, I'll marry you!"

This is the same Ted whose sexual predatory proclivities were halted by Maggie bashing him the noggin at the start of the film.

Nobody really comes off well in this movie. The three guys are at turns selfish and idiotic.  

And Maggie is flighty and unfocused. 

I kind of sorry I invested 90 minutes in this movie.

On the other hand, it had Ann Margret in it so....

Next week, Cinema Sunday returns to Paris for a much better film, a comic heist picture from 1966 called How to Steal a Million.  

Songs For Saturday: The Beatles

 

Well, since tomorrow is my birthday, today's Songs For Saturday kicks off with the Beatles and their birthday song.

Next up is the second strangest song by the Beatles, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". 

OK, if that was the second strangest Beatles songs, what comes in first?

Here is "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)".  

Try to sing along without looking at the lyric sheet.

And that my friends is that for today's Songs For Saturday.

A most strange and eclectic selection.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another...

And to always keep the music alive....

And you know my name?

Look up the number.   

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Birthday Boy!

Well, this weekend marks another damn loop around the sun as I endure another birthday.

Yay. Not dead yet.

OK, for this week's Flashback Friday, let's go back to Thursday, April 24, 2014 for that year's birthday post called simply....

Birthday Boy!

Hello! Welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You. I am Dave-El and today is my birthday!

One fun thing to experience on one's birthday is having "Happy Birthday to You" sung to you.  Which can be extremely awkward. 

Someone actually owns the rights to "Happy Birthday To You" so that's why waiters in restaurants sings other little ditties like--

"The good news is we sing for free! 
The bad news is we sing OFF KEY!"

Of course there's some wise ass at work who'll do the classic song but with different words. 

"Happy birthday to you! 
You live in a zoo! 
You look like a monkey!
And you smell like one too!"  

A phenomenon of birthdays as one gets older is that it's apparently OK to mock one's inevitable collision with the Grim Reaper's scythe. 

And once the fat and sugar in that cake hits your arteries, you'll be even closer to death. So, yay, cake? 

But you don't see anyone pulling this on younger people: 

"Oh, you're 4 years old now? Ah, how sweet! So based on your projected average life span and barring any accidents or serious illness, you're now about 70 years away from death! Isn't that great? Why are you crying? Hey, are you going to eat that cake?"

But somewhere around 40 to 50, it's just fine to decorate your cubicle with black balloons and faux tombstones wishing you to have a happy birthday AND rest in peace. 

But as the clock ticks down on your mortality, the honor of having lived yet another year means the birthday guy or gal is treated... no, not with respect but is subject to humiliation.  

Like being forced to wear a hat.  

So today is my birthday. Congrats to me for having successfully not died in the past half century and here's to a glorious future of physical and mental entropy. 

But at least there's cake. 

Do you know what this Whovian needs on his birthday? A greeting from the Doctor! 

Thank you, Doctor!  And look, here's a happy birthday wish from my cousin Kal and his friends. 

Oh, that puts the Kurt in my Schaffenberger, for sure! Thanks, Superman and Superman's pals! 

You may wonder what I might want for my birthday.  Really, there's one thing that would make my heart happy: 

All of you, just be good to one another! Do that and I'll have the best birthday I could ever hope for.

Book Report: True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman

With all the damn posts about all the TV and movies I watch, you might wonder, "Does Dave-El ever pick up a damn book?"

Well, yes I do and today I'm going to post about a book I finished up a couple of months ago,The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman.

Now, before I get into this book, let me share some of my thoughts about Stan Lee. 

I never bought into the whole "Stan Lee created the Marvel Universe" mystique.  I understand enough about how comics are made to give too much credit to one person.  Whatever Stan's skills and talents were as a writer and editor, he was certainly just as adept as salesmanship, a huckster in service to the Marvel brand and also of the image of Stan Lee.

I saw Stan Lee as equal parts creator and con artist.

Abraham Riesman's book suggests I may be too generous to credit those parts equally. 

Riesman details Stanley Lieber's metamorphosis into Stan Lee through a hodge podge of some skill and talent and a lot of luck. Starting off as a teenage office assistant at the nascent Marvel Comics, circumstances propelled Stan into writing for the comics and quickly becoming the operation's editor in chief.  

Riesman also explores the questions of who created what. Stan Lee was more than willing to sell the concept of him as the genius creator of Marvel working in tandem with various artists who endeavored to give pictures to Stan's wonderful ideas.

Jack Kirby took exception to that concept. 

The problems stemmed from what Stan called "the Marvel Method" of producing comic books.  Usually comic books were produced with a writer creating a plot and full script with details telling the artist what to draw. At Marvel, the process started with the plot, the artist draws it and then the writer writes the script based on the art.  

The problems start with exactly how much "plot" does the writer provide and how much of the story creating is left to the artist. Jack Kirby's contention was Stan Lee gave him very little or nothing at all.  Jack's position was he was doing all the heavy lifting storywise and Stan Lee wasn't doing shit. 

Which is why it irked him no end when the credits would list as Stan Lee as the writer and Jack Kirby only as the artist.  

Even today you will find Marvel fandom divided on this point, that Stan Lee had more creative input than Jack Kirby alleges or that Stan was a mere hustler and Jack was the one and only creator.  

In trying to be kind to his biographical subject, Riesman tries to threat the needle by citing many inconsistencies in the tales told by both Stan and Jack  but it's clear Riesman leans towards Stan not quite being the super writing genius he claims to be.

The book is littered with the tales of Stan Lee's shortcomings and failures as writer.  His best successes were in tandem with strong collaborators like Jack Kirby, Steve Dikto, John Buscema and others.  

When left to his own devices, Stan Lee's creative output floundered. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the later years when media companies were started with their sole output being Stan's ideas. Half baked concepts for super heroes were hatched but never went anywhere.  Not just because they were bad ideas from a writer of questionable talent aged well past his prime but those ideas were in service of entities that were more criminal enterprises than cutting edge media outlets. 

Basically the pitch was "Hey, we've got the guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk and the Fantastic Four and he's gonna create more stuff just like that and we're gonna turn those ideas into movies and shit" and investors would throw their money into these companies because Stan Lee was gonna create more stuff like Spider-Man and the Hulk and the Fantastic Four but he didn't and people wound up going to jail and stuff. 

Basically, the latter part of Riesman's book is a litany of sad depressing tales of people abusing and manipulating Stan Lee until he finally and almost mercifully dies. 

Basically the only good thing Stan had going on was his beloved cameos in Marvel movies which endeared him to a new and expanding audience of true believers in the man, the myth and the legend of Stan Lee.   

While constantly reminding us of Stan Lee's shortcomings as a writer and creator, Riesman only gives a cursory mention of projects like Stan's Silver Surfer series he produced with the French artist Jean Giraud (AKA Mœbius) or his project for DC Comics where Stan Lee collaborated with artists like Joe Kubert, Jim Lee and others to re-imagine DC heroes.  Did any of these artists have any issues with Stan? What exactly did he bring to the table for these projects?  Was he greatly involved or just cash the checks? 

In addition to con artists trying to make money off Stan Lee's name, there is the exceedingly sad tale of his daughter J.C. was the caught in the throes of various mental illnesses while making Stan's life a living hell with incessant demands for more money.  

The back half of True Believer is a slog about a man who outlived his prime and is desperate to be relevant, to matter as major player in the entertainment industry while being ignored by anyone with real power and influence and being manipulated by those trying to forge power from nothing. 

It's the story of a young man who got lucky, had enough skill and talent to play out the string of luck into a vaunted position of renown in the comic book industry but was unable to expand his influence beyond his halycon days as Marvel's principal writer, editor in chief and publisher.   

Marvel in the 21st century achieved all the success Stan Lee imagined for Marvel back in the day but Marvel did all this without him. They let him film his cameos and write him some checks but Stan lived along enough to see his role slide into irrelevance. 

True Believer is not a happy book but Stan's life was frequently not happy, his reach exceeding his grasp.

What ever his missteps in life, one can't help feel sorry that Stan Lee deserved better than what he got.  

Doctor Who Is NEW!: The Legend of the Sea Devils

Well, here we go again.

As the Chris Chibnall era lurches to it's demise, we have a new special to partake and going into this, I was filled with trepidation.

Of course, "trepidation" is the standard default mode going into any episode of Doctor Who during Chibnall's time as showrunner and head writer. 

The last special, "Eve of the Daleks" dared to actually be good. 

Of course, the preceding "Flux" event swung wildly and missed way more than it hit. 

Going into "Legend of the Sea Devils", I did have my hopes up a bit. The promos showed us what looked to be a rather lavish production with some promise of high adventure and some humor.

Really, Dan's pirate costume that Yaz has him wear?  

Promises, promises. But what would we actually get?

After the break, we'll find out.

THE LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS

by Ella Road and Chris Chibnall  

True to form, the TARDIS has not landed where the Doctor wanted to go but to where they appear to be needed. 

In 1807, a Sea Devil is running a murderous rampage through a Chinese village after be accidentally unleashed by pirate queen Madame Ching.   

The Sea Devil escapes on a flying pirate ship.  

There's also a massively large underwater prehistoric monster with way too many teeth. 

Buckles are swashed with characters swinging in on ropes (with the Doctor calling out "Geronimo!") and sword fights. 

The Sea Devils are on a quest to obtain an arcane treasure that will serve as a power source for a machine that will make the Earth exclusively habitable for Sea Devils and not for any one else. 

All in all, this special is self contained adventure that may not elevate the Sea Devils standing in the Doctor Who universe of monsters but it doesn't embarrass them either.  Their design is faithful to the original look of the Sea Devils from their debut serial with Jon Pertwee back in 1970 but with some modern tweaks such as eyes that blink.   

Probably the line of the episode comes when the Doctor and Yaz materialize under the ocean looking for ship wreck.  You know those sequences where the Doctor throws open the doors to the TARDIS to show off to the companion they are in space? It's like that but under the ocean. 

But the Doctor notices something is missing that Yaz hasn't picked up on yet. And the Doctor says, "No ship, Sherlock!"   

Now if you think that "no ship" is a meta reference repudiating the "Thasmin" ship, well guess what?

That ship is put out on the water and taken out for a spin.  

It is the Doctor who initiates the chat with Yasmin. 

The Doctor says Yaz is “one of the greatest people I’ve ever known” and that includes "my wife".  The Doctor gives Yaz the old "I would if I could but I can't" blow off speech.   

“I wish this would go on for ever,” the Doctor says, skipping a wishing stone at the end of the episode across the ocean waves. It's a sad, sweet poignant moment. 

It's the most noteworthy scene in the special that is not particularly noteworthy.  Filled with lots of ideas full of potential, "The Legend of the Sea Devils" manages to do like most episodes of the Chibnall era to squander that potential.  

It is not a bad episode. But it could have been so much more

 Craig Els who played Dan’s disgruntled but adorable Lupari protector Karvanista in "Flux" is back as the Chief Sea Devil.  

At just 47 minutes long, "Legend of the Sea Devils" is the shortest episode billed as a “special” since the show was revived in 2005.

After the special, we got some brief glimpses at the next and final special with Cybermen, the Master (Sacha Dhawan)… and yes, the return of Ace (Sophie Aldred) and Tegan (Janet Fielding).

Cool! Classic series companions! 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Killing Eve

 

So I caught up to the series finale of Killing Eve last week. I've known since season 1 that there would be no happy ending for Eve and/or Villanelle, that at least one if not both would end up dead when the series reached it's end.

So Killing Eve does end in death. 

But still...

What the unholy fuck was that?  

In the final episode,  Eve and Villanelle wind up on road trip together as part of their quest to finally bring down the super secret criminal cabal known as The Twelve.  

It is a trip where the ever building sexual tension of 4 seasons finally gets broken.  

Could there be a more appropos song to accompany this trip that the Human League's "Don't You Want Me Baby?".    

Villanelle is happy.

Eve is happy.

Of course they don't get to stay happy.  

They do destroy the leadership of the Twelve who have gathered on a riverboat on the Thames in London. 

On the deck of the riverboat in celebration of their victory over the hated criminal organization, Villanelle  and Eve embrace.

Then a sniper opens fire.  

Eve and Villanelle jump into the Thames to avoid the gun fire but it's too late.  Villanelle is shot and as blood flows into the water around her like the wings of some crimson angel, the currents of the river pull Villanelle from Eve's grasp.  

Eve bursts out of the water with a primal scream as a graphic in big bold letters informs us unequivocally that this is THE END. 

So Killing Eve ends in death  as we always knew it would.  

But still...

What the unholy fuck was that?  

Laura Neal who was the 4th season showrunner and writer of the final episode doesn't seem to under the show she was running. 

In post finale interviews, she has described Eve's scream as she bursts out of the Thames as one of triumphant survival. 

No the hell it wasn't.

It's the frustrated scream of a woman who has had one more damn thing taken from her. 

Eve has lost so much, sacrificed so much, given up so much in her relentless quest to bring down the Twelve. 

Granted so much that she lost was due to Villanelle working as a loose cannon assassin for the Twelve but somehow for all her misdeeds, Eve's long suppressed attraction to Villanelle is finally given expression.  With some hope of Villanelle's redemption, there was some hope of Eve finally finding some peace and happiness and finding it with, of all people, Villanelle.  

I suppose if Eve or Villanelle had died in the course of executing their final plan against the Twelve, that death would've meant something, paying the price both of them knew they might have to pay for daring to defy the Twelve.   

The fact that Villanelle dies because Carolyn is suddenly back in the good graces of MI6 and has ordered a hit on Villanelle (and possibly also Eve) just seems so capricious. A plot twist for the sake of a plot twist.  

Much of the online outrage among the Killing Eve fandom is that finale plays right into the "Bury Your Gays" trope.  

And speaking of the Killing Eve fandom, they are hard at work on various fan fictions "correcting" the events of the finale.  

And there are unfavorable comparisons to the season finale of Game of Thrones.  Like the end of GofT, Killing Eve has boxes to be checked off and by god we're gonna check 'em off no matter what.

Eve and Villanelle get a moment together.

Eva and/or Villanelle will be dead by the end.  

So Killing Eve checks off the boxes we knew would be checked off.

But still...

What the unholy fuck was that?  

OK, let's be real. Eve and Villanelle were never destined for domestic bliss in a cottage somewhere.  

The ending of Killing Eve was in many ways the right ending.

It just feels so wrong. 

Or to put in another way....

What the unholy fuck was that?  

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. 

And alas remembering Eve and Villanelle from happier times. 

_________________

Blog bidness:
Doctor Who Is NEW!: The Legend of the Sea Devils  will post on Wednesday, April 20th.    

Computers Are Not Science

A couple of weeks ago,my Google Chromebook began acting weird.

It was a Saturday evening and I had just ordered dinner for pick up from McAllister's Deli. Andrea and I really like their club sandwich which we get even though we're not a member of the club. 

And for more about that line, check out this classic bit from Mitch Hedberg.

I had ordered food online from McAllister's before always as a guest. This time I decided to sign up for McAllister's app to get rewards and shit. Just for signing up, I could get a free iced tea.

Besides making great club sandwiches, McAllister's as a pretty damn fine ice tea too. 

So I put in the order, picked up the food and came back home to the Fortress of Ineptitude to eat. 

As is my habit, I flipped open my laptop to have something to read at dinner. 

You might think this would annoy my wife Andrea but she's a person who when she eats is focused on eating. Do not try to engage her in conversation.

Anyway, this was when I discovered my Google Chromebook was acting weird.

By acting weird, I mean it was doing shit without me. It was opening up multiple screens of whatever I was trying to look at and wouldn't let me do anything within any of those screens.

My heart sank. My Google Chromebook had been zapped by malware. 

I've seen this phenomenon before. When a virus gets past security, the computer will start opening screens at random over multiple times.

And I figured the Trojan horse this damn virus slipped in on was my signing up for McAllister's Deli.  

Unable to resolve this on my own...

(I'll pause here to give you a chance to cope with the shocking surprise that I was unable to resolve this on my own.) 

Unable to resolve this on my own, I took my laptop into a local computer store called Imtrex. They've done computer work for me in the past and have done right by me. 

I spoke with a guy named Victor who was very friendly but did give me some grief for the layer of grunge on my laptop keyboard. But he was more than happy to help with my malware problem.  

He also observed, "Hey this is a Chromebook!" 

Uh oh! He's going to tell me something like "Chromebooks are crap!" and "Chromebooks can't be fixed!" or some shit like that.

No, he says "Chromebooks don't get Malware!" 

So what's with all the multiple screens opening up and I'm not able to do shit on my laptop?

Victor said to boot her up and let's take a look. 

And we did.  

And it didn't.  That is, it's didn't do any of those things that were happening at home. 

Victor did some kind of re-set or something that would hopefully resolve whatever the problem was that wasn't happening now. 

I got back home to the Fortress, opened up the laptop and once more it was opening up multiple screens and not letting me do shit.  

I returned to Imtrex and spoke with Dylan who Victor said was younger than him and knew more about Chromebooks. 

We opened up the Chromebook and once more it persisted in behaving itself perfectly normally.   

Despite being young and knowing more about Chromebooks, Dylan was perplexed as to what pray tell was occurring since it was consistently not occurring whenever I showed this computer to anyone.

What I had here was the god damn Michigan J. Frog of Chromebooks! 

Dylan said they could check the laptop but they didn't want to take my money for a problem that wasn't happening.  

I didn't want to give them my money for a problem that wasn't happening. 

Despondent of a solution, I eventually returned home to the Fortress of Ineptitude and tried my laptop one more time.

Where it worked perfectly.

In fact, I'm writing this blog post on the Chromebook now.

OK, I'm glad things are working fine now but damn, what the hell happened? 

What went wrong?

What went right? 

I have no idea. 

But I think it's because computers are not science but some form of arcane magic.    

And I am so glad my suffering amuses you.    

_________________

Blog bidness:
Doctor Who Is NEW!: The Legend of the Sea Devils  will post on Wednesday, April 20th.    

 

Cinema Sunday: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

After last week's post on Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, this week's Cinema Sunday looks at another Kubrick classic, the tale of how the human race accidentally nukes itself into Armageddon.

And it's a comedy.  

Released in 1964, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the story of a bizarre sequence of events that pushes to the world to the edge of a nuclear holocaust. 

Then over that edge.  

The 843rd Bomb Wing out of Burpelson Air Force Base is composed of flying B-52 bombers armed with hydrogen bombs. The planes are on airborne alert two hours from their targets inside the USSR.

United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, the base commander, sends out an alert to the bombers that the USSR has attacked the United States and their orders are to drop their bombs on Moscow.   

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake of the Royal Air Force (RAF), a exchange officer, knows this is bullshit but is helpless to recall the bombers without the code that only Ripper knows and he can't get a call out from the base to alert Washington.  

Eventually word does get out and the bombers are recalled.

Except one.

In the War Room at the Pentagon, General Buck Turgidson briefs President Merkin Muffley about the plan that enables a senior officer to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack on the Soviets if all superiors have been killed in a first strike on the United States.

President Muffley invites Soviet ambassador Alexei de Sadeski into the War Room to telephone Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissov on the "hotline" to explain the situation, giving the Soviets a heads up to perhaps stop the bomber before it reaches it's target.

But there's a new problem.

The ambassador tells President Muffley about the Soviet Union's doomsday machine which automatically detonate if  any nuclear weapons strikes strike the Soviet Union, making the Earth's surface a radioactive hell for 93 years.  

The doomsday machine was allegedly designed as a deterrent but it's ability to deter is hindered by the fact the Americans did not know it existed.  

So the Earth is doomed if the bomber succeeds in it's mission.

And flight commander Major T. J. "King" Kong is doggedly determined to succeed, even in the face of various technical glitches and gaps in communication.  

Back in the War Room, talk turns to strategies for survival.  Dr. Strangelove, a decrepit and infirm German scientist in a wheelchair, recommends that the President gather several hundred thousand people to live in deep underground mines where the radiation will not penetrate. He suggests a 10:1 female-to-male ratio for a breeding program to repopulate the Earth once the radiation has subsided.

The all make command staff just loves this part of the plan.

The film ends on the following notes:

• After the bomb gets stuck in the launch bay, Major Kong kicks the damn thing loose and rides the bomb on it's way to Moscow, yelling "Yee-Haw!" while happily waving his cowboy hat.
• Dr. Strangelove suddenly rises from his wheelchair and exclaims, "Mein Führer, I can walk!" 
• And we witness a montage of nuclear explosions, accompanied by Vera Lynn singing "We'll Meet Again".

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Dept.  

Peter Sellers who would go on to be most famous for his role as the bumbling French detective Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies in Dr. Strangelove THREE times:  Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley and Dr. Strangelove.  He was supposed to be in the role of Major T. J. "King" Kong but a last minute injury led the role to be recast.

Slim Pickens was brought in at the last proverbial moment to play Major Kong. Pickens most made his rep as a supporting actor in a bunch of Westerns and would go on to star in the ultimate western parody, Blazing Saddles. 

Sterling Hayden is General Ripper. We ran into him in a previous Cinema Sunday post where Hayden played the chairman of the board in 9 To 5.   

And yep, that is future Darth Vader and King Mufasa his own damn self, James Earl Jones as Lieutenant Lothar Zogg, the B-52's bombardier. 

By the way, the nuclear explosions at the end of the film?

Real actual nuclear explosions from nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, the Trinity test, a test from Operation Sandstone and the hydrogen bomb tests from Operation Redwing and Operation Ivy. 

There's a sequence in the War Room where the discussion gets heated to the point of violence and President Muffley as to admonish is staff, "This is the War Room, gentlemen! There can be no fighting in the War Room!"

And President Muffley's phone call to the Soviet premier reads like a classic Bob Newhart phone call routine.  Dmitri seems upset that Muffley never calls just to say "Hello".   

Dr. Strangelove is a wonderfully multi-layed movie with a lot of moving parts that unfortunately are moving the story to a fatal conclusion of planet wide consequences. Surely the film won't go there and then it does.  

Well, the Earth had a good run. Would've been longer if idiots were not in charge.   

Thanks for reading. Until next time, remember to be good to one another and...

And...

"Mein Führer, I can walk!" 

_________________

Blog bidness:
Doctor Who Is NEW!: The Legend of the Sea Devils  will post on Wednesday, April 20th.    

Songs For Saturday: Classical Edition

 

Today Songs For Saturday is getting all classical up in here.

After last weekend's Cinema Sunday post about 2001: A  Space Oddessey, let's check with the BBC Proms of 2012 from the Royal Albert Hall as Juanjo Mena leads the BBC Philharmonic in Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra".

I've posted this one on a previous Songs For Saturday but I simply cannot get enough of this performance. 

 From Beethoven's  "Moonlight" Sonata III, here is Valentina Lisitsa with "Presto Agitato".

Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons is my perhaps my favorite classical work.  Performing from the Summer section of that composition is violinist Sarah Chang.  

As we began today's play list with the BBC Philharmonic at a BBC Proms, so shall we end it with a performance that shows classical composition is not just a relic of the past. Performing one of my favorite compositions by Murray Gold for Doctor Who,  here is "I Am the Doctor" from the 2013 BBC Proms.  

Speaking of Doctor Who, there is a new episode tomorrow and I'll be posting about it on the blog on Wednesday.

In the meantime, I hoped you've enjoyed today's classical selections. 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.  

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Good Friday

For these dives in the archives of this blog, I usually endeavor for the Flashback Friday posts to go back further in the blog's history, say between 2013 and 2015 or somewhere in that time frame.

Since today (April 15, 2022) is Good Friday, today's Flashback Friday is only going back about two years, to Friday, April 10, 2020 for another post about....

Good Friday

Today is Friday. 

Yes. Yes, it is Friday.   

Specifically it is Good Friday for Christians and I have the day off from work.

I don’t have the day off from work as part of some personal religious observance on my part.

I have the day off from work because my employer whose primary functions are centered around the investing and management of money is one of hundreds of private institutions in America that observe Good Friday as an official day off. 

So thank you Jesus for dying for my sins and getting me the day off from work. 

I don’t mean to sound snarky about that. Hey, a day off from work is a day off from work.

But it does underscore that sense of privilege that too many Christians feel so entitled to.

Name a date that the businesses shut down for that is centered around a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or any other religious event. There isn’t one.

Yet there are Christians who while living in a country that shuts down a lot of businesses in deference to their calendar still insist that they are under attack, their faith is threatened. 

It is a mind set that has shown up during the current coronavirus pandemic quarantine. Most churches have been smart, shutting down in person worship services and working with online options through Facebook and Zoom. But there have been so-called Christians who have defied the call to help their fellow man in a time of crisis by staying away from each other. No, they have insisted on still gathering together, as if defying both government directives as well as common sense as some kind of testament of their faith when such actions are a willful expression of pride and selfishness.

The thing is the Christian faith is under attack, it is being threatened but those dangers are coming from within.

Especially in the last four years, alleged Christians have done so much to undermine the basic message of Jesus Christ in pursuit of an ideology rooted in fear and exclusion.

Yes, I am talking about those who support Donald Trump.

In support of a man whose only consistent ethos is “What’s in it for me?”, these alleged Christians undermine the very Savior they profess to follow because, through Trump, they’re getting what’s in it for them.

It’s that same mentality that’s driving these same people to defy social distancing. What’s the point of being a “good Christian” if no one can see you doing it? There’s nothing in it for them to be a “good Christian” alone in their homes. They need to be seen making a spectacle of their faith in a public setting.  “Look at me!” they proclaim in defiance of society and government. “Look at me, showing my devotion to my God!”

What’s in it for them to stay home? Nothing.

So today’s Good Friday and I have the day off from work.

I think I’ll just stay home. Which these days means I’m also hanging around the office.

_________________________________

I kind of hope...

...this has been cancelled.  

BONUS GRAPHIC: