Snow Big Deal

 The snow ended here about noon time, after tapering off for about an hour. We ended up with about six inches of light powdery stuff, relatively easy to clear. I have now cleared the driveway and gotten the car out, including a trip to the store to replenish my salt supply.

The very kind young lady who lives at the other end of the block used her massive snow blower to do everybody's sidewalks, including clearing the plow leavings from the entrance to my driveway.

The main drag we live on, which is officially a state road, was plowed and salted by PennDOT and is clean to the pavement. Other roads are plowed but still have a coating of packed snow; not hard or dangerous to drive on so long as you aren't reckless.

Amy's Run is Over

 Well, Amy Schneider's run on Jeopardy! ended yesterday, after 40 straight wins that put her in second place for all-time streaks, between Ken Jennings and Matt Amodio. I had an inkling she might be at an end when I saw two different on-line pieces about her, both discussing how difficult it is for long-run champions to keep their secret. One of them included the kind of questions I can only imagine she would answer after she had finally lost.

There was also a hint when the contestant who ultimately beat her, Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago, dominated the early play in the first round, hardly letting Schneider get in at all. He also hit two of the three Daily Doubles: he missed the first one, but crucially went all in on the last one, putting him within striking distance of Schneider's total. 

Then, in Final Jeopardy, he was the only one with the correct answer, finishing with a total just $2000 bigger than Schneider's to that point...and Schneider, perhaps over confident, had wagered $8000, putting her about $10,000 behind Talsma.

The Champions tournament later this season should be very interesting, with both the second and third-place all-time winners competing. I expect we'll see them head-to-head in the finals (but not before, if the producers are smart in how they arrange the quarter- and semi-finals).

Community Theater Plague?

 Covid is playing havoc with community theater productions throughout the local area. One theater has stripped its schedule down to the bare minimum, canceling two productions outright and moving the shows set for its smaller "black-box" venue to the main stage. Another cancelled its annual "murder mystery" dinner theater production. A third just had to cancel a performance of its current production when one of the actors tested positive and plans--for now--to add an extra performance next weekend.

The show I'm working on has had a few scares, mostly handled just by re-arranging who is called for specific rehearsals. We're all hoping things will be much quieter, Covid-wise, by the time our performances begin in late March.

Weather Non-Events

 One of our local TV stations prides itself on its weather coverage and whenever there's even a chance of a bad storm they issue what they call a "First Alert," and begin talking about it as much as three days or more ahead. Of course, like most TV stations, their signal reaches a wide area--in our case from the Jersey shore to nearly Lancaster, from southern Delaware to the Poconos. That means, in most cases, a wide range of impact for most weather events.

Case in point: Starting early this week, they began talking about a winter storm coming in late Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and predicting rain changing over to snow, with freezing rain or sleet mixed in, and snow totals anywhere from one to six inches. Our particular neighborhood, located on the famed I-95 corridor, was told to expect one to three inches, followed by below-freezing temperatures which would rapidly turn everything to ice.

So, what happened? Well, it started raining around midnight on Wednesday, just as they said, and turned to snow about 10 AM Thursday. But the temperatures stayed above freezing throughout, so the snow never accumulated--not even on unpaved surfaces. It just hit the relatively warm water already on the ground and melted.

Temperatures did plummet--but not until after dark (it's about 16 degrees as I write this), long after any rain water left had either seeped into the ground or run into the storm sewers, so the warnings of "black ice" (at least around us) were false alarms as well.

I think the TV meteorologists have to begin targeting their forecasts more closely.

Crypto-Art?

 Has the world of crypto-currency and money laundering at last intruded upon comic-book collecting?

As reported here, a single page of Mike Zeck's art for Secret Wars #8, featuring the first appearance of the black symbiote that would become first Spider-Man's new costume and then the villainous Venom, sold for a record $3.36 million dollars at auction on Friday. It's said that the reason for the high price is Venom's role in the recent Spider-Man films, making the character a "hot property".

It is further speculated that the price was actually paid in crypto-currency; such deals for artwork (though never before for comics art, as far as anyone knows) are said to be a frequent method for laundering illicit income, especially by foreign entities.

Certainly, absent the current interest in Venom, the page would never have reached such an astronomical price--the pre-auction estimate was $330,000 (and I think even that is incredibly inflated).

Boba Not-So-Feckless

 This post is in the way of an apology to the producers and writers of The Book of Boba Fett, A few days ago, I complained that they had apparently ignored the relationship between Fett and the Tuskens in setting up the "current day" portion of their story. This week, they corrected that "error"--which I admit was not one--by showing that the Pikes (the fish-like aliens who ran the train through the Tusken territory) wiped out the Tuskens in revenge, while Fett was away.

In addition, except for that one scene, they avoided flashbacks for the most part this time around, finally telling a story that was predominantly about Fett's struggle to control his domain. A good part of it, though, was simply a Tattooine-based version of a classic urban car chase in any contemporary crime caper--it was fun, but the various tropes they included were just too obvious.

What Do You Miss?

 This is not necessarily a COVID-related question, but for some it might be.

What's one thing you haven't done in a long time that you miss doing? As I thought about this last night, I realized that, for me, it's something that long pre-dates the pandemic. It's been several years since I saw a live, professional performance anywhere. Play, concert, whatever--I honestly can't remember the last one I saw. It might have been the Billy Joel/Elton John show at Citizens Bank Park about ten years ago. I really can't recall anything I've seen since then.

I've seen numerous very well-done amateur performances (and been in a few, too). I've seen recorded live performances, such as David Tennant's turn in Hamlet that played as, I think, a Fathom Events show in theaters a few years back.

But I haven't seen a live performance, with me in the audience surrounded by others, in ages. I miss it.

A Visit from the Heat Miser?

 Temperatures today are not expected to break 30, with a wind chill dropping the "feels-like" to the high teens. By tomorrow morning, it will be even worse--air temperature high in the low 20s, wind-chill taking it to about 11 or 12....and morning low not getting out of the single digits. 

Of course, by Thursday, it'll be in the mid-40s. I haven't been on a roller coaster like this since my last visit to Six Flags!

Boba Feckless

 Watched the second episode of The Book of Boba Fett last night. I have a couple of problems with this series, which really began with the first episode and have not been corrected with the second (if anything, they have been exacerbated).

The first is the extreme reliance on flashbacks to give us Boba Fett's backstory--a backstory that, so far, seems to have little relevance to his current situation. Why is he not relying on his close relationship with the Tuskens in his position as the new boss on Tattooine? Why use the apparently unreliable Gamorreans (after all, they turned on their last two employers)?

The second is the content of that backstory. Last night, my first impression was that this was just a new version of the first several chapters of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, as John Carter is first captured and then ingratiates himself with the Tharks. On second thought, I realized it was really all based on T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and his campaign to assist the Arabs in fighting the motorized forces of the Germans. In either interpretation, it all smacks of the "great white savior" trope, doesn't it?

Anyone else see it all this way?

Coming Soon

 I suspect many of you will expect a posting about the events of a year ago today, but I have nothing to say on the subject I have not said before or has not been said by others, more eloquently and more cogently than I could.

But I will take this opportunity to make the formal announcement of my next theater project:

https://spotlighttheatrepa.org/2021-2022-season/the-lion-in-winter/

 

 

Auditions in March; more details as we get closer.

 

Doc, It Hurts When I Do This....

"...Don't do that...."

I've been having a minor health problem--not COVID, something entirely unrelated to that--and last Thursday afternoon I had a telemedicine conference with my doctor to discuss it. She said she would put in a prescription for me at my pharmacy to see if it helped. Normally, when she does that, the prescription is filled within a few hours.

This time, not so much. By mid-afternoon on Friday, the pharmacy said they had not even heard from the doctor yet. So, I called the doctor's office to inquire--they were closed. OK, it was New Year's Eve, maybe they closed early...but still, why hadn't the scrip been called in on Thursday?

I called the doctor again yesterday...and they were closed at 10 AM (usually they open around 8). Tried later, still closed. We had snow predicted, maybe they decided to close out of caution. (We actually got only a dusting.) Now, I'm annoyed: Tell me you're going to take a step to help treat my condition (admittedly, not life-threatening, but still) and then close for four days without doing so? 

Am I wrong to think the doctor's office dropped the ball on this one?

Whatsits-day

 Ever had a period of time where you simply lost track of what day of the week it is? That's how it's been for me over the past ten days or so.

Part of it may be the timing of this year's holidays. With Christmas and New Year falling on Saturday, it seemed as though the weekend began on Friday, with the eves of both those celebrations...so Saturday became Sunday and the rest of the week simply a blur. Of course, being retired, the work week means much less to me now than it did two years ago, but I still keep track because Jill is still working full-time. 

But she works from home...and her business is closed from December 23 until January 3, so that no longer mattered for the last ten days, either. Add in that all that means we have not been keeping to our usual morning routine, either--sleeping late, for instance, nearly every day this week. (Although "sleeping late" in this house means getting up at 7 or 7:30 instead of 6, so.....)

So, today is Sunday, right? I think....