Long live the Queen....

To be honest, the phrase "The King of England" sounds like something that should only exist in movies or video games. It's been so long now that the very sounds feel strange in the mouth. But now, in 2022.... here we are. She lived a good life.

As much as I can understand a lot of the feelings of...um, less than grief..being offered today by individuals who had...issues... with even the idea of a real life monarchy still existing in the twenty first century, I'm not one to pick apart the life of someone who has passed on. At the very minimum, they no longer have a chance to atone for those misdeeds in this life, and that alone is very sad. Now is not the time for a rehashing of a long life which by definition is polarizing, she wasn't a starlet or some singer but the head of a nation and empire, so let history be the long judge that determines her place. When you get down to it, she was still a mother, a grandmother and great grandmother. And so a family grieves as an era ends within themselves.  

She served. Queen Elizabeth II. 1926 - 2023

She did the damn thing

Ramblings Post #405
We idolize whom we idolize. It's personal most of the time. Most people like to think of Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball player of all time (so far). In my opinion it's a toss up between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Some others might say Bill Russell, or maybe Bron Bron. The metric we use in our head for really constitutes greatness varies. It's part of what makes sport a thing, facilitates argument and discussion, and in some cases causes men to do the only real research they'll ever do after they've gotten their diploma. 

By artist Yung Yemi

Well, to say she had a good run..is an understatement. Of Biblical proportion.

Unlike the arguments for greatest football team, best golfer, best home run hitter, there is no question who the greatest women's tennis player in the world was. Serena.

I hope her future is as bright as past. 

I look up at night...

Ramblings Post #404
They were right. We don't really know what we've got until it's gone. It's hard to miss something still there, or in some cases even understand it at that moment, but once something is no longer within our boundaries - something as simple as spot to look up at night and be awed - the loss becomes evident in ways we can hardly imagine. 

As a kid I spent time on grandparents farm, a place down three different bumpy dirt roads beautifully decorated by nature with a canopies of trees that made the trip feel magical to me. It was a quiet place, where they'd lived for fifty years, pumped water from a well and one of the barns was where my father was born. At night there was one light pole that was perpetually dim, I don't know why.

There the night sky was a tapestry. It was magical. Thousands upon thousands of stars.

At my parents house in a small southern town, with light poles here and there by request, looking up at the night sky I could see at best two or three stars.

I now live in the city. 

I want to see the sky of my childhood again.  

There is always time for Art...

Ramblings Post #403
Art is subjective. Those things that bring light to my soul, that sets off the seismic tremors in my brain and spark the avalanche of ideas for me, might just be blah to you. And vice versa. I think we all need to learn to appreciate that difference and what it means. Because to me it means that I grow and my tastes change, I won't have to wait for the world to catch up to provide inspiration. It might already exist, it's just that last time I saw it my mind wasn't ready. But then again to you...

Josep Tapiró i Baró was a Spanish painter; best known for his Orientalist watercolor portraits of the peoples of Morocco done in the late 1800's. I find his work fascinating in that his talent for capturing the essence of a subject practically leaps out of the image. And second, that a number of his subjects have to same skin tone as I. And I think his art is important, for it comes from a time when generally only rich European aristocrats were the subject of such works (or at least what has survived). 

His grasp of detail is fantastic. Some of his work looks like photographs, or something that might have been photo-shopped last week. After the death of close friend in 1874, Baró moved to Tangiers, at the time bustling city of people from around the Mediterranean. There he set up a studio and painted images of the people he saw, capturing a different kind of person than the normal portrait artist of the time.

Florida man upset when Irony serves warrant

This is a political post. 

I will admit that I, like pretty much everyone else, did not see that coming. And while I've tried to defend Merrick Garland over the past year, to be honest the man hasn't given me much to work with. And then suddenly he feints and lands a solid haymaker, and the crowd goes silent for a second. Whoa.

Republicans want to scream about the weaponization of the Department of Justice, as though six months ago when they were sure they'd win back the Senate they weren't making sly remarks about using the tools of government in going after their own enemies along with those who'd betrayed Cheato. And they've completely forgotten or just pretended not to know about how the previous administration weaponized the IRS for those exact same purposes. Oh the irony of this situation, compounded by the fact that in 2018 the administration changed the penalty for unauthorized removal of classified documents from one to five years and turned it into a felony. (Public Law 115-118, Jan 19, 2018, Title II, Sec. 292)

And as much as Fox news and the Conservatives want the White House to own up to being behind this, the reality is Cheato has a copy of the warrant, even though he was in New York when it was executed. And that copy explains exactly what they were looking for, what statutes that the court thinks were violated, and what judge came to the conclusion that there was preponderance of evidence to proceed. And instead of releasing for the clarity that his supporters believe is being hidden, he has not.

Because, if you've been paying attention for the past few years the party that used to be the loyal opposition has transformed into something else much more dangerous. More cult than political party at this point, what an outsider can see as part con and part grift are blithely ignored by conservatives, who are probably more than a little scared that the world around them is changing at nearly every level and who are desperate to return to the "good ol' days," which weren't so good for any of the rest of us. And because the Democrats apparently weren't paying attention (or miscalculated) we came very close to end of our democracy just last year. Now caught out, the what used to be the party is grasping for whatever it can to stay afloat.

The real issue here is that half the country has been tricked into believing that "criminal" isn't a person who breaks the law, but a class of people. It's the good versus evil paradigm. The idea is a that a "good person" can do no wrong, even if what they did clear. The mass shooters weren't criminals, they have mental issues, they're good kids. The conservatives have associated good with a group (mostly themselves), not a set of actions, and the law is supposed to protect good people. It's why they felt they could attempt to overthrow the government and if they failed just could go home and nothing would happen to them. It's the fantasy where the hero breaks the law, but it's okay, because they had a good reason.

Merrick, my bad. You got a little something something. But you're not done, not quite yet.

Five minutes watching....The Bob's Burgers Movie. No, Really.

I don't watch a lot of movies because, well, at this point I just don't. I don't watch a lot of TV either. As I've said before, a lot of movies and television as of late have become much more niche oriented. And I ain't in their niche. Plus I'm STILL trying to be productive. And do some writing. Well, a little bit, I need to get back to it. And there is the business I'm supposed to be trying to get going. Well, I need to get back to that. I also still have a ton of video games I bought on sale I still want to play. Wait, I don't watch TV, play games, hustle or write...what am I doing?  

In an attempt to cleanse my mental palate, considering the absolute mess we currently find ourselves in as a country, I decided to sit down and watch the Bob's Burgers movie. Note that I'm not really a fan of the show.

Honestly, Bob's Burgers is one of those shows where I'm always surprised to find out that their still making new episodes. To me, it's a low stakes, low-action family dramedy cartoon, for which the sole benefit of using animation is that the age of the actors becomes irrelevant. From the viewer's standpoint the idea of this being their ninth Christmas when they're nine gets a little screwy, but then I'd have to complain about the Simpsons. I don't watch the Simpsons either. Also, and maybe it's because as I've gotten older, the wise-ass little kid character has become more irritating and this show is rife with them. Or maybe it's because I don't relate to the characters, because infinite struggle is great for drama, it's exhausting to watch. So while I understand that it's fans love it, for me it's cartoon I occasionally ended up watching because the remote was way over there and didn't feel like getting up at the moment because my food was still hot.

But I digress. The movie. Well, it was a movie. I suppose.

Forgive my lack of enthusiasm, but it just felt like an episode of the show, but longer, and with slightly better animation. The family is on the brink of disaster (again) and the plan they have to fix...no, fix is the wrong word, to um,...kick the can down the road a bit, yeah, that plan is foiled because it really didn't make any sense (It was a burger. They were going to offer a really great burger.) And so they're in trouble again. Again. Only this time a sinkhole opens up in front of the restaurant and they can't do any business. Oh, and each of the kids has a personal thing they're trying to get past. Yeah, that is really imp...no, it's not really, because they really only focus on Louise's issue, because apparently she's the star of the show.

Again, I don't really watch that much, but a lot of the stories I've seen seem to center on her.

So then shenanigans ensue. There is a murder. Or at least a body. There is also singing, although not much, and not really that inspired kind of musical you'd get from some other animated shows, but it's okay. Then the usual running around to solve the murder because the police won't do it trope. And an um....well, okay I don't remember much past that part because it was boring. It was really like three episodes of the show pasted together with a few semi-subtle hints at the solution. None of the characters you know died, or really changed in a significant way. I would have thought it would be a perfect time to kill off the Jimmy Pesto character due to his voice actor no longer being with the show. I would have thought they could have introduced Jimmy's widow at the time (or maybe she's already dead, I don't know) who Bob would think would be easier to deal with but really wouldn't be. At least then the movie would have changed...something.

As it is, I understand the film was a dud, although it reviewed well. Maybe the critics were fans. I dunno, but then I don't think it was for me. Which is fine, because not all media needs to cater to me, so there is that. So, in my useless opinion, if you need some good background noise...