Tales From An Alternate Reality

We finished the last episode of Ashes to Ashes (Britbox) last night, and it was all over too soon. I celebrated the weirdness of Alex's dreams (were they dreams?), the same way I enjoyed Sam Tyler's dreams in Life On Mars (the first series). Really, the weirder, the better! The appearance of the Roland the Rat puppet show was perfection, even though that apparently was a real TV show in the '80s. :O

The rebooted series certainly did not waste Gene Hunt. In fact, they made even more of him, with the orange Audi (and the black driving gloves) and his irascibility. It's clear that audiences wanted more of Gene, and now I'm just sorry the potential '90s reboot never made it off the ground. You can never have too much of the Gene Genie! :D

Now we need to pick up another series to watch with The Boy. Possibly Timeless (Amazon), which he's never seen but probably would like? Or something else on Britbox, where my Save list is substantial? We're already watching Prime Suspect there.

Meanwhile, I'm girding my loins for another week of biking in the garage. We won't see anything below 96 until maybe next Thursday. Ugh. Summer is the worst here.

Today's bike ride was not quite as bad as Monday's. Less hot, though windier. Still exhausted by the end, still had an extra unplanned stop. But at least this time I went the full distance!

I can't tell if the bulk of this tiredness is the weather, the altered biking position, or a side-effect of having started Zepbound. Possibly all three. \o?

On the plus side, I finally saw something going over that second train trestle! The maps say "Western Pacific", but it looks like those tracks are for Union Pacific (the other trestle is Southern Pacific). On the negative side... there's a manure stench at the Business 80 over-crossing. The wind is blowing the wrong way for it to be coming from the State Fair, so IDK why it's happening. When I used to bike near the office in Roseville, construction would sometimes unearth that smell and it would last for months. That all used to be cattle-grazing land, and I use to wonder if backhoes were cracking into a reservoir of buried stench just by breaking the surface. Ugh.

I finished reading On Earth As It Is On Television, which was fun. Then I plowed through A Quantum Love Story, which was wonderfully soulful and bittersweet. It's about two people who are the only ones who realize the Earth is in a 4-day time loop, and they fall in love as they work together to try to fix that. Based on how much I liked it, I've put a bunch of other Mike Chen books in my online library wishlist. Now, I'm reading Three Days In April.

And TV-wise? I finished Hope Street (unresolved ending--boo!) and have started a single-season crime drama on BritBox called The Jetty. After that, I've got a couple of things to try out on Hulu, based on friends-list recommendations. :D

We had family visiting us over the 4th, which was great, but it meant I didn't get around to posting any updates. The day itself was kind of weird, in that the 250th would normally be a big deal and instead inspired a "meh" feeling, thanks to Trump ruining it for everyone (both by killing the celebration and by putting the country in the state it's in). Our daughter bought some fireworks, though, and so we had a little show at the bottom of the driveway. First time for that since my brother moved North about 4 years ago. He used to go nuts on the 4th -- it was his favorite holiday! And now he's passed on, so I have a lot of bittersweet feelings about the date.

I was shopping for something at Amazon this week, and it remembered that I've been looking at book nooks, so it suggested a Dolphin Island set to me. Is that a thing? I guess it must be. Anyway, this was a much better set than the one it suggested, though still not as good as other book nooks I've seen. AKA,

* Dinosaur Museum

* Magic Station (Harry Potter Hogwort's train)

* Voyage Memories

* Whatever This Dreamy Seafaring Thing Is

* Steampunk

* Zodiac

* Tarot

* Pirate Bay

* Dark Family (Netflix's Wednesday show)

Whoo!

In TV viewing, we watched The Vow on Netflix last weekend and enjoyed it, and I've been bingeing on Hope Street (Britbox) before it gets removed. I was unprepared for the cast shakeups that happen each season, especially since Nicole and Clint and their toxic, histrionic relationship is one of the storylines I least like, and yet they're still around and still yelling at each other. :(

We've also started S2 of The Good Girl's Guide To Murder, which we both like. The lead character is played by the actress who plays Enid in Wednesday, so that's nice. She's very likeable. But looking through my Netflix list yesterday, I can see that I really need to finish S2 of Beef (disappointing) and get to one of the other 30 or so series in my queue. Probably this week, since we're having a heatwave and I'll be biking in the garage for-e-ver. \o?

I saw a couple of baby quail again the last couple of days, and they just seem impossibly small compared to the adults. They could fit inside a chicken egg! And yet, they have feathers.

The "pile-driving" sound was going on again at my first cycling rest stop today. When I go downstream, I pass under the Highway 99/Business 80 overpass and a Southern Pacific railroad trestle, and then I rest under the Highway 160 overpass just before the Western Pacific railroad trestle. In the almost 40 years I've been biking on that path, I think the Western Pacific tracks have been in use maybe a total of 5 times? And that includes after an arsonist burned the Southern Pacific trestle during the Pandemic, and rail traffic had to be re-routed for 6 months during the rebuild (that trestle is concrete now).

Anyway, I actually spotted a piece of construction equipment from the project-o'-mystery yesterday. It was a small backhoe, working near the base of one of the trestle supports. Maybe they're replacing some of those supports? The tracks do angle in a way that puts them in the vicinity of the hidden noise. Because otherwise, the only thing I can think of that would be behind those bushes is... more bushes. And those do not need construction equipment!

We finished watching S2 of The Pitt yesterday. Disappointed that there isn't more! That show is so addictive. Now it's just The Glitch, Ashes To Ashes, and Leverage:Redemption in rotation. Time to add a 4th show!

I sped my way through T.J. Klune's The Bones Beneath My Skin this week. Boy, I did not see that mixed-genre plot coming! Which is interesting, because the last book I read of his was In The Lives Of Puppets, and that was also largely sci-fi. The Bones was apparently something he wrote in 2017, but it was shelved due to weirdness with his then-current agent. It's nice that he finally published it. It was well-written overall (I LOVED Art), though the couple of mentions and then all-out step-by-step explicit sex scene felt kind of out-of-place. They leaned really heavily on "romance/erotica" when the novel was more sci-fi overall.

Now I'm reading the 5th Dungeon Crawler Carl book. Oh, how I have missed these characters! They are such a colorful bunch. :D

TV-wise, we're watching S2 of The Pitt on Hulu. What a fantastic show that is. I only wish there were more episodes! HalfshellHusband and I also watched People You Meet On Vacation (Netflix) over the weekend, and that was honestly pretty good.

In my private garage and late-night viewing, I'm in S2 of Beef (Netflix), which is not anywhere as good as S1, and I've crossed into S3 of Arrested Development. I also just finished Dublin Murders (BritBox), which was really gripping but also a little frustrating. I wish the ending had been happier, though I can't say that it was unrealistic. I might go back to watching Euphoria on Hulu next, or (more likely) I'll stumble onto something else on BritBox. Still waiting for AppleTV to put out S3 of Silo so I can do a short-term subscription for it and the most recent season of Slow Horses. It's too much to hope for a third season of Severance anytime soon...

And for Amazon? WHAT is taking so long re: the third season of The Devil's Hour? I need that yesterday!

I only work Monday-Thursday, so this would normally be a 4-day weekend for me. I'd thought we might go somewhere for our anniversary, but that was when I thought Memorial Day was NEXT weekend. So, maybe in June?

I feel like I missed most of yesterday, due to filling out Disability Accommodation forms and routing the needed ones to my doctor. What's happening is that my company is demanding people go into the office to work a minimum of twice a week. But after the pandemic, my division (and probably most) shrank the office space and radically changed the environment. Instead of having individual cubicles (which kept getting smaller over the years), the office now consists of rows of long tables with people packed in side-by-side. Most of the employees are software or hardware engineers, so this is the worst possible environment for getting that kind of work done! And with my ADHD, particularly the problem I have with visual distraction, I will not be able to get any work done there. You can use headphones to combat noise distraction, but without high cubicle walls, there's no way to hide the movement of all the people next to, in front of, and behind you. Plus, I don't think you should have to fight an unreasonable office environment just to try to do your job. :( So, I'm requesting to be exempted from the in-office policy and allowed to just continue working from home. Fingers crossed, because otherwise I'll probably have to retire earlier than I want to. :(

For intentional viewing, I recently finished a couple of TV series on Amazon Prime. The first was the one-season New Blood, where the bromance and humor really made the show. The second was In My Skin, a drama set in Wales that involves a teenager trying to cope with high school, a bipolar mother, and a vicious alcoholic father. It was very good, and it was interesting to see the wiry Rhodri Meilir playing another villain (he's also in the first season of Hidden). Now I'm onto A Taste For Murder (scenic fluff set in Capri) and may be continuing with 35 Diwrnod? That last is a Welsh mystery series where the language is entirely Welsh, but you miss part of the dialogue because notifications like "Beti speaking" obscure parts of it. Some idiot missed the fact that if you can't hear WHO is speaking, it's still more important to know what they're saying. \o?

Now I need to do some work on the photo albums before we go out tonight (dinner and In The Grey).

We're in the third day of a string of thunderstorms that could last through tomorrow. This isn't really the time of year for them-- they're more of a winter or summer event. The last time I lived somewhere where this was common, I was in Illinois. And thunderstorms were the beginning of the tornado season. SO glad to be back out West again.

This weather means I'm back to biking in the garage again. I'm about to finish Run Away on Netflix (I swear, James Nesbitt is everywhere), and I've started re-watching Arrested Development as my "early" entertainment for the first 30 minutes or so. I bike for 85 minutes plus warm-down, so I need a LOT of distraction out there. I should return to Season 2 of Euphoria (Hulu) again, despite the commercials. There are a couple of things on Amazon that look worthy too, but the commercial breaks just about kill me, so I mainly watch stuff on Netflix. Season 3 of Night Agent is ready, so maybe that next?

On the plane ride back from San Diego, I watched the remake of Rebecca. Armie Hammer was as handsome as ever (one of the few blond men I find attractive), though not sufficiently brooding enough. Lily James was good, though, and Kristen Scott Thomas was bracingly chilly as Mrs. Danvers. You can see why Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series always has people in the book world employing armies of Mrs. Danvers clones as agents of ruthlessness. :O

I'm still trying to get caught up with my friends-list. There are so many new people that even when I get near the end, I refresh and more posts come up! But I hope everyone had a good Easter, and that those both near and far will be seeing an end to winter soon. It has boomeranged here for a bit, but better that than an early summer.

The repair shop finished late on Tuesday, so it was gone almost a whole week. That's the longest I've been without a bike apart from vacations and when our garage burned up.

When I got it back, the seat post was jacked up about 3/4 inch too high. The mechanics never put it back after testing the gears, in spite of the blue painter's tape that shows exactly where to set it. The rear tool kit was also upside down (?), and they'd returned the handlebars to the neutral position. The shop had previously advised tilting them up a little to reduce the reach and the strain on the nerves of my left hand. I'd wondered if that had helped at all, but yesterday's ride produced numbness sooner than before, so clearly it did. I've restored the tilt again.

The ride itself was kind of brutal, due to the sudden jump in temperatures. I had to cut it short by 3 miles, and it was getting pretty tough by the end. It was only 87F, but that is a LOT until I start to get acclimated. My maximum temperature starts at 88F early in the season, and by August it's at 94F— and I will actually start a ride at 89F if it's not going to get too much hotter. But yesterday? Much too soon.

I finished watching Doctor Foster. Not terribly happy about the ending. Then I tried and rejected a bunch of BritBox comedies that were 1) unfunny and/or 2) too stupid to tolerate. One even had a laugh track. So I started Without Motive, a police procedural set in Bristol. Interesting mystery, but the characters are unlikable and it features a Welsh DCS who is incompetent and a drunk. May not finish it.

Bookwise, I've started Dungeon Crawler Carl. It was recommended to me, and so far so good. An alien species comes back to Earth to make good on the minerals/elements claim they filed (in a galactic office) 50 years earlier. All of the buildings/structures are flattened, so the only survivors are people and animals who were outside. They're eligible to play the Dungeon Crawler game, an 18-level challenge with increasing difficulty and reducing eligibility. The sole winner gets... to live? I think opting out (or not getting one of the limited admission slots) also equals death, so playing is advisable. Carl is accompanied by his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, for added fun. Also? Level 1 contains goblins. \o/

I need to line up my next book. I have some free Amazon thing, but the quality is never guaranteed.

I took the books to the library this weekend, and our bonus room has space in it again! There are a couple of boxes and bags in there with stuff to take to Goodwill (we seem to always have a running box for that), but all the books are gone now. Huzzah!

This was a weekend in which I actually got some things done. In addition to getting those books out, I cleaned up an office chair that I need to sell, and I assembled a couple of end tables I bought from Overstock last week. They were easy to put together, and they look pretty nice. But it took almost as long to get all of the tape off the boxes (for recycling) and break up the styrofoam they shipped with! I really wish styrofoam was recyclable. :(

While working on the end-tables, I started watching Euphoria on Hulu. This was mainly because someone recommended Eric Dane's performance in it (sadly, he passed away this weekend from ALS), and it also has Jacob Elordi. It's a high-school-age drama, and really well-written, though the kids lives are messy. It's full of things you would really hope teenagers aren't doing. It's also much more sexually explicit than I would like, especially given the age of the characters. I realize all the actors are in their 20s, but they're supposed to be kids, so it's kind of skeevy on top of being TMI. But I will say that Jacob Elordi was gorgeous even in his early 20s, and looked much the same as he does now. This isn't always true, especially for men— Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, and even Mel Gibson weren't really good-looking until after about age 30. For some, it's needing to lose a little of the baby fat that makes their faces less distinctive. For Gregory Peck, I think most of it was needing to put on about 20 pounds!

We also watched Sinners, which we enjoyed but I wouldn't consider Oscar-worthy— mainly because of the vampires! The period detail was really good, though, and Michael B. Jordan (as twins) lived up to all the reasons I have a weakness for him. :)

Next weekend: the coffee table I also bought last week. \o/

I watched Another Country again last night, for the first time in about 40 years. Rupert Everett was as gorgeous as ever! Though Colin Firth didn't look like much at that age (despite already having that voice), and Cary Elwes was... really blond. \o? I didn't feel the pangs I used to get when the movie first come out, but it was enjoyable. I also spent far too much time scouring the various crowd scenes trying to spot other actors who later made it big, but found nothing other than the three above.

We've been watching S2 of Night Manager, which improved as soon as Tom Hiddleston shed the fake glasses and began his Con Of Charm. Speaking of voices—his is so silky! I also loved the sexy-dancing with Camilla Morrone and Diego Calva. And the appearance of ( Spoilers ) One more episode to go.

And on another hunky note, Brilliant Minds is currently all about the transformation of Dr. Josh for me. I actually checked IMDB.com early this season to see if the part had been recast, but no. Teddy Sears was an okay-looking guy before, but letting his hair go gray and changing the style turned him into a hottie! I've seen photos of other roles, and this is really the best he's ever looked. I'm not rooting for him to get back together with Wolf, though—I'd like to think Dr. Josh has more sense. Wolf is... work. A lot of work. And I'm not loving the flamboyant nurse they introduced this season. The show has a main character who is gay—was there a complaint about it lacking gay stereotypes? And the new asshole resident is similarly unwelcome...

I'm in the last episode of Orphan Black, and they seem to have wound up the series nicely. I'll miss it and all the sestras, though. I've enjoyed the journey with them all. Five seasons was really helpful for all of the garage-biking I've done since November, too. Now what? I have some potential action/thriller shows in my Netflix list, but most are just 1 or 2 seasons. And I'll be in there most of this week—yesterday was too windy to bike outdoors, and today starts three days of rain. :(

If it weren't for the ads, I would probably watch some of the Winter Olympics in the garage. I caught a little of it late last night. I missed Men's Figure Skating already (as I always seem to), and it looks like Ice Dancing has become Rhythm Skating, which... *sigh*. It seems to mostly now be loud music and gangsta-style dancing. What a change from the romance of Torvill and Dean! Last night also featured a couple of new-to-me sports: free-style skiing (which contains elements of snowboarding) and ski-sprinting. That last one... wow. I've never seen someone try to ski uphill before, and there was a lot of that. Overall, those women were strong. It was quite a workout.

All right, back to work. Carry on! :D