Decorations Exit

Here at the Fortress of Ineptitude, the last of the Christmas decorations came down on Saturday February 1st.  

 

Andrea and I took down the outside decorations the previous week and Saturday saw the disassembly of the Christmas tree.  

 

Last year, the Christmas tree came down on January 10th when it took itself down when the base cracked.  

 

The longest the Christmas tree remained up was in 2017 which was the year I fell and broke my left arm and also had a stroke. I’m not sure of the exact date but it was (or nearly was) March. 

 

Why so late this year? Andrea and I laid out a plan of action to take down the outside stuff one Saturday and work on the tree the next. The outdoor stuff got delayed due to some very cold weather we had here at the Fortress.  

 

You may wonder why we didn’t just flip the script and take down the tree first.

 

We had a plan and by God we were sticking to it! Outside first, inside last! 

 

Well, we’re done with this mess now!

 

Until Thanksgiving and we go through this again!

This (Non) Sporting Life: Carolina Could Be "Fina"

It’s time for an edition of This (Non) Sporting Life, a blog post about sports written by a guy who knows little about sports.

 

This post is about this past Saturday’s men’s basketball game between the Duke Blue Devils and the Carolina Tarheels.  

 

My wife is a Carolina fan, an allegiance built into the DNA of her family legacy. Her support of the Tarheels is important to her, to her heart and her  immortal soul. Her fandom of the Carolina Tarheel’s men’s basketball team is deep, earnest and significant.

 

I on the other hand am a fan of Duke mostly because I like dark blue.  It doesn’t get much deeper than that. 

 

There is an intense rivalry between Duke and Carolina and their matches up are usually stressful and hard fought battles with a slim lead for whoever does win.

 

But not this Saturday. 

 

The final score was 87 to 70 which is not a clear reflection of most of the game.  Carolina spent most of the game in the hole with a deficit in the 20’s and one point, they were 32 points down to Duke.

 

I was reasonably happy with a good ol’ romp ‘n’ stomp. I do not care for the stress of a close game.

 

Andrea and all other Carolina fans were not happy and not just for losing but for losing by a lot. As of now, the Tarheels have a 13 – 10 record for the season.

 

There’s talk of showing coach Hubert Davis the door. 

 

In his 4 years as head coach, this is the 2nd year that the Tarheels are struggling and may not make it to the NCAA Men’s Tournament.  

 

For Carolina fans, it is a fait accompli that the Tarheels will have not just have a winning season but a great winning season and that an invite to the NCAA is a God given right! 

 

The other two years Davis was coach, the team performed very well but this is not one of those years and 2 out of 4 is 2 too many and Carolina fans are getting antsy.   

 

College basketball coaching is a tough gig.  No matter the successes in the past, it’s always “What have you done for me lately?”  

 

Andrea has tried to be supportive of Coach Hubert Davis but even she is thinking it might be time for a change.  

 

Hey, Hubert, if you’ve lost Andrea, you are well and truly screwed.

 

Meanwhile I’m… happy, I guess? Duke is #2 in the nation and still wears dark blue.

 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Comedy Today

 

Since it feels like there's not a lot going on these days that I find all that amusing, today's Tuesday TV Touchbase will turn our attention to the current sit coms that Andrea and I are watching.

St. Denis Medical has been renewed for a 2nd season which is good news as this series continues to put on a good show, delivering laughs and unexpected moments of pathos. A recent episode involved a patient with a "do not resucitate" order leaving the family to just wait for death. They fill the time with yelling, arguing and threats. Until doctor Bruce calls the time of death and the family finally stops shouting and hold one another. 

Speaking of dying, hospital administrator Joyce decided to update her will and wants head nurse Alex to be the executor of her estate. Like all things Joyce does, she's going WAY overboard in planning and wants to drag Alex (always overworked and doesn't see her family enough) away for a whole weekend to work on her will.

There's a moment Alex looks at the documentary camera weary and silent then says: "New plan: I need to die before Joyce does."  

Alex tries to finagle Joyce in making doctor Ron her executor but Ron finagles it right back, 

Played by David Alan Grier, Ron is my favorite character, a grumpy curmudgeon who is (in Ron's own words) not to be trifled with.  

Night Court continues on our watch list and I think the show is slightly funnier. The addition of Wendie Malick to the cast helps a lot. The show has been more willing to embrace a more absurdist approach.  

This was exemplified by the recent guest star appearance of Mayim Bialik who appeared as "Mayim Bialik", the psychotic former star of Blossom and now neuroscientist (which she insists on bringing up as much as possible) who is stalking Blossom fan Judge Abby Stone and perhaps intending on holding her captive. 

The resolution of that plotline is dumb as a brick but I thought was genuinely amusing.  

The current thinking is that NBC will not be renewing Night Court for a 4th season.  

Abbott Elementary has been renewed for a 5th season.  The current 4th season has engaged in some long form serialized storytelling. Jabob has a student who is not engaged and Jacob is determined to reach him, to find out what sparks his passion, his interest. A breakthrough is made but Jacob laments to the documentary crew that there are so many other students like that and he can't reach them all.  

There have been hints that Barbara may be considering retirement after 30+ years. Which kind of makes sense for the character but it would be shame to lose Sheryl Lee Ralph from the cast.

The recent crossover with It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia was very funny with the nefarious reprobates of Paddy's Pub forced to volunteer at Abbott as part of their community service.  Sweet Dee tries to steal Gregory away from Janine (Dee fails and concludes that Gregory is gay) and Charlie learns to read. (No wonder he was so horribly bad in that office mail room job in the season 4 episode "Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack".  Charlie can't read!)  

 (I am not a regular watcher of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia but I've watched enough to know who the characters are and what their deal is.  But while I understood Charlie is profoundly stupid, I never realized he was illiterate.) 

Happy's Place is more for Andrea than me. I find the show is more sweet than laugh out loud funny. My favorite recent episode is when Bobbie's daughter, Gracie (Emma Kenney) returns home on leave from her military deployment.  Gracie has an ascerbic sense of humor that cracks the sweet candy shell that exists around Happy's Place.  

Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage is finally back after a nearly 2 month hiatus. The most recent episode had a surprise connection to Young Sheldon when Georgie visits a bookstore and encounters  Sheryl Hutchins (Sarah Baker) the Medford High librarian who also works at the bookstore who is still the glum lonely person she was before.  

The still teenage Georgie seems to have a better handle on life than his 12 years older wife Mandy. His sales acumen is coming into play working for his father in law's tire store which sets up Georgie's future success with his own tire store chain as established in Big Bang Theory.  

Ghosts is back and ghost Isaac has agreed to stop butting in on the design of Jay's restaurant.  Isaac is an investor using his part of the money that Sam made from the book based on his life.   

The storyline from the Christmas episode where Jay finally got to see the ghosts because he was dead and ghost Pete was occupying his body was very funny and needed change (albeit temporary) to the status quo.  The funniest dynamic comes from Sam and Jay not being on the same playing field when it comes to interacting with the ghosts.  

Well, that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.

Next week, I'll catch up on our game shows including THREE versions of Jeopardy.   

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.  

"Not Surprised. Disgusted"

Last week I wrote a post where I discussed my plan to cope with Donald Trump's return to the Presidency to step back and see Li'l Donnie's incompetency and corruption as theater. "Gee, I wonder how low Trump can go this time!"

Think of it as me fiddling while Trump burns Rome. 

Last week, there was an event, a tragic event wherein such a detached strategy was simply not possible. 

An airliner and an Army Blackhawk helicopter were in a mid air collision over the Potomac River in Washingon DC.  Broken twisted wreckage fell into icy waters of the river below as well as the 67 people from both aircraft.

No survivors. 

A nation horrified, consumed by grief.  

In this time of heartrending sadness, the man who currently holds the title of President of the United States approached a podium to address an anxious nation.

And blamed the crash on diversity. 

What the unholy FUCK?

Really?!?

With corpses still being pulled from the river, god damn Donald mother fucking Trump is claiming 67 people are dead because someone involved in this was black or a woman or gay or disabled?!??

I cannot detach myself from this. 

In addition to my grief over lives lost, I can now add anger because this asshole wants to blame diversity, equity and inclusion?!?!?!

Asked why he singled out DEI as a cause of the crash when an investigation was just getting underway, Trump said: “Because I have common sense, OK? And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level.”

Common sense? Of course no straight white man would've let this tragedy happen? Is there a black transgender woman involved? Common sense would....

This fucker makes me so angry.

“I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level.”

FAA standards Trump referenced were in place since 2013 with no changes made during the first Trump administration. 

Dry your eyes, America, because Trump knows of at least one gay man who was at fault: former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “He’s just got a good line of bullshit. The Department of Transportation, his government agency charged with regulating civil aviation ... he runs it right into the ground with his diversity."

Buttigieg responded online calling Trump's words and actions "despicable".  

“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.”

How bad is Trump fucking this up with his lies and misbegotten opinions? He forced me to agree with Ted Cruz!  

“I think we should wait to see the results of that investigation. Obviously one or more people made a devastating and catastrophic mistake, but we should wait to examine the evidence and understand exactly what went on.”

It is the official policy of this blog that Ted Cruz is a lying fuck bastard and we do not want to agree with him. 

But THAT is a perfectly reasonable assessment. 

Damn it! 

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell had this to say:   “It is the first time in history that a president in the United States has assigned blame for an aviation accident on his own, immediately, based entirely on his own profoundly, ignorant, prejudiced guess."   

Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger (who safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009, saving the lives of all 155 people aboard) was asked to comment on Trump's actions in the wake of the Washington disaster. He took a moment, sighed deeply and replied “Not surprised. Disgusted." 

Me too, Sully. Me too,  

Sullenberger went on to say “It hit me deeply, intensely. The loss of those lives, those precious lives. I can imagine the families of those who are lost and the grief they must feel and they’re looking for some reason, some explanation that has yet, is not available to us, one day will be. But they (National Transportation Safety Board) will follow the truth, they will follow the facts wherever they lead. And we can have great confidence that the results will be found, they will be made public and as we always do after such a tragedy, the entire industry will learn these terrible lessons that we learned at great cost.”

In a moment of profound grief and trauma, Donald Trump once more proved his complete and total lack of fitness for the job of President of the United States. Fuck that, he once more proved his complete and lack of fitness for being a human being. 

So Trump took this moment to promote his own ideological obsession and attack his political enemies? What is my reaction to that? 

Same as Sully.

Not surprised. Disgusted. 

Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Star Trek Section 31

Today’s edition of Dave-El’s Weekend Movie Post is about the first Star Trek movie in nine years. 

 

A Star Trek film headlined by Oscar winning best actress Michelle Yeoh. 

 

That film is Star Trek Section 31 and boy is this….

 

I don’t want to lead off with a negative. I want to start off positive.

...

…

…

…

Did I mention it stars Oscar winning best actress Michelle Yeoh? 

Oh yeah, I did.

….

So let’s get on with it.

 

Star Trek Section 31 is really, really bad.  

 

This “movie” is a disjoined mishmash of poorly conceived ideas that do not hold together well at all.

 

A little bit of background.  The concept of “Section 31” was created during Star Trek Deep Space Nine as the dark underbelly of the utopian paradise we know as the Federation.  All this peace, unity and harmony sometimes needs someone who will lie, cheat, steal and commit murder to preserve it.  And that is the job of Section 31. 

 

A lot of Trekkers think Section 31 is anathema to the ideals of Star Trek. 

I reservedly concede Section 31 has a role in the Star Trek universe but it should be very rare, very limited and as an object lesson of the perils of going too far afield of the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation. 

Star Trek Section 31 is anathema to the idea of a good movie. 

The basic plot is standard issue spy mission to recover a super duper weapon thing that can destroy everything which does not really call for a super duper secret organization to carry out.  

Michelle Yeoh is back as  Philippa Georgiou, former emperor of the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe, she finds herself holding court over Baraam, a space station turned night club as "Madame du Franc".  Georgiou joins up with the intrepid Section 31 team to find out who came to her space station turned night club with a super duper weapon thing that can destroy everything.  

The weapon is from the Mirror Universe. a nasty piece of work called the Godsend. 

The courier with the Godsend is San, Georgio's former boyfriend from the Mirrow Universe.   

Then stuff happens after which the movie ends.  

Mercifully.   

It's a chaotic mishmash of characters we do not care about, a plot that fails to engage any interest, clunky dialogue and jarring  changes of tone.  

It feels like the main reason Star Trek Section 31 exists is someone realized "Hey, we still have Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh under contract to make a Star Trek thing of some kind".  

Michelle steals every scene she's in but I wish she had a better movie to purloin her scenes from.   

Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Since we've reached the 2nd month of 2025, today's edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post brings us to the 2nd Sonic the Hedgehog movie.

Called Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Try to keep up.

Eight months after banishing Dr. Ivo Robotnik to the mushroom planet, Sonic spends his days living with with Tom and Maddie Wachowski in idyllic Green Hills.   

And he spends his nights as a self proclaimed big city super hero ("BLUE JUSTICE!!") but his exuberence and recklessness cause way too much collateral damage.  

Tom urges Sonic to pull back and wait for the moment when his powers will truly be needed. 

Then using one of Sonic's portal rings, Tom and Maddie head off to Hawaii to attend Maddie's sister's wedding. 

(We met Rachel in the last movie. She did not like Tom before Sonic came in their lives and that has not changed.)  

Then Robotnik arrives at the Wachowski house! He's escaped the mushroom planet. 

(Robotnik did not like the mushroom planet because he's not a....  wait for it! .... "fun guy".  No, I'm not sorry.)

Robotnik is not alone. He is joined by Knuckles, an echidna warrior (like the ones that came after Sonic at the start of the first movie.) 

Robotnik wants revenge! 

Knuckles wants the Master Emerald, a source of ULTIMATE POWER!!!!

Wait, did he say ultimate power? 

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Robotnik wants ULTIMATE POWER!! And revenge too.  

Sonic is in some serious trouble here but gets a helping hand from Miles "Tails" Prower, a young two-tailed flying fox! Tails is a big fan of Sonic and really wants to help save him from Knuckles.   

It's an around the world chase but Sonic and Tails wind up in danger. Having lost his portal rings, Sonic calls Tom for him to use his ring to teleport them to Hawaii.  

The arrival of Tails and Sonic leads to a major revelation: 

Rachel's fiancé Randall and his wedding guests reveal themselves as undercover agents of the Guardian Units of Nations (GUN), having set the wedding up to capture Sonic!

And they take Tails too!

And arrest Tom as well. 

Wait! What?

No, it does not make any sense but Rachel is royally pissed off.  Angry enough to even help Tom and Sonic.  

Meanwhile Robotnik and Knuckles had tracked the Master Emerald to an undersea lair and it's beginning to occur to Knuckles that Robotnik may not be on his side. 

Spoiler: he's not! 

There's a heapin' helpin' of shenanigans along with a variety of stuff 'n' junk  as Robotnik gets hold of the Master Emerald and gains ULTIMATE POWER like unto a GOD blah blah blah.   

Knuckles realizes he has more in common with Sonic than he cared to admit as events spiral to a battle royale in Green Hills (again?) 

Robotnik whammies up a giant robot armor suit that resembles the Robotnik design from the games and comics.

Sonic gets an upgrade from the Emerald and becomes... SUPER SONIC!!!!

Robotnik loses the giant robot armor and his powers but eludes capture at the end.  

Knuckles makes a pact with Sonic and Tails to protect the Master Emerald from evil together instead of alone and they start an idyllic life with the Wachowskis.

And THAT is the end....

Except....

Meanwhile...

The search for Robotnik leads GUN to information about a secret research facility known as Project Shadow. 

And we've set up the sequel.   

All in all, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 lives across from the first film, not worse but not better.  While some critics at the time (2022) praised Jim Carrey for his commitment to the outrageous persona of Dr. Ivo Robotnik, it seemed to me some sense of sameness, some boredom might already be slipping in to Carrey's performance.

(On the recently released Sonic 3, Carrey was asked about why he returned to play Robotnik again and he replied, "I bought a lot of stuff I need to pay for.")  

Expanding the Sonic universe by bringing in Tails and Knuckles is cool and opens up the franchise but I do miss Sonic bonding with Tom like we got in the previous film.  

Idris Elba has a delightfully droll delivery as Knuckles who takes everything literally.  

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 does what it's supposed to do, deliver action packed dumb fun.

Sometimes that's all anyone might need from a movie. 

Speaking of "dumb" but not so much "fun", we're tackling Star Trek Section 31 tomorrow.