Lit City Blues

Watched On: The Big Screen Released: 2020 Directed By: Jeff Fowler Starring: James Marsden, Ben Schwartz, Tika Sumpter, Jim Carrey Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer 64%, Audience Score 94% Pick: Austin's So, the Eldest Spawn is a major fan of Sonic the Hedgehog- when his DS was actually working* he could play the video games- the old school ones and loved every minute of it and then followed that up with the cartoons on Hulu- both the new and old school ones. So- and it seemed like a million years ago now, what with all this pandemic going on- it was actually maybe a month ago- that we went to see Sonic The Hedgehog the movie. In theaters. On the big screen. Sonic (Ben Schwartz), is, of course, a blue hedgehog who can run at supersonic sepeeds. He's sheltered as a child by his guardian Longclaw, an owl (Donna Jay Fulks), who wants to protecth im from a tribe of echidnas for his power. When they catch up to him one day, Longclaw gives him a bag of rings that can create

1. This is a multi-level crisis which means you've got multiple potential points for successes and failures and depending on where you live, you're mileage may vary when it comes to finger pointing/grading. In general, I find it helps my overall anxiety level to think of it this from a local, then state, then regional, then Federal and then Global perspective. It's way too early to lock in 'final grades' on this mess yet, so whatever you do: grade on a curve. 2. Read this .  Insert [Surprised Blink Gif] and then lean back and really think about it...  I'm not sure he's entirely wrong, but it's an insight which I don't think has really occurred to anyone yet- because we're all sheltering in place and slowly going stir crazy being locked inside our houses. 3. The nature of 'work' has changed, probably forever and that's a good thing. 4. Once the dust settles, I'd be interested to see how urban planning reacts to this. The over

Howdy y'all-- so, I'm going to start keeping a running list of thoughts/links/initiatives that I've come across to kind of help get knowledge moving around out there. I'm not in Public Health. I have no secret sources of knowledge. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own...  if you know of something that I should add to my list or have some comments/thoughts you want to get out there, let me know and I'll throw 'em on the list... 1. In general, I am taking the attitude of "it's already here" and acting accordingly. Plan. Plan. Plan. Don't wait for confirmed cases or for the government to tell you what to do. Educate yourselves, make informed decisions for yourselves and make a plan for yourselves. We've cleared the decks for the rest of the month in terms of non-essential appointments for the kiddos and we got an extra thing of TP, 200 bucks of groceries and are preparing to hunker down and get into "work or home" mode for

Well, I did it.  I finished The Office . The Office had eluded me for years. It was one of those shows that I couldn't quite get into-- I tried a few times and just sort of petered out after half a season or so. I started fresh this time and stuck with it- and honestly, once you break through that first season or so, it's smooth sailing- especially once you get into the Jim and Pam of it all. And honestly, at this point I've seen so many GIF/memes and references to it online, it sort of felt incumbent upon me to actually sit down and watch the show, if for no other reason than to finally understand all the references for once. I think the thing that blocked me the most was Michael Scott (Steve Carrell), especially in the early going. At first, he just seemed like an incompetent dick of a boss, who was so massive oblivious to modern workplace etiquette that you just thought there could be no possible way he would last in that position for as long as he had up until

Look, I'm a dude and if you're still processing the fact that five women have dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination and the sixth is technically still running but facing what I imagine to be really, really shitty math and don't want to hear from a dude right now- I get that. Don't read this post. Come back in a week or two and it'll still be here, I promise. But here's the thing: I have not (as of yet) been blessed with a daughter, but I do have four nieces and the sackcloth and ashes routine that's going on in the wake of Elizabeth Warren's exit from the Presidential race is starting to piss me off a little bit. This: Rachel @Maddow to @ewarren on her dropping out: “Feels a little bit like a death knell in terms of the prospects of having a woman president in our lifetimes." pic.twitter.com/uFIE8J4mfT — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 6, 2020 ...is starting to piss mee off a little bit.  Articles like these are starting

Watched On: Redbox Released: 2019 Directed By: Paul Feig Starring: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thompson, Boris Isakovic Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer 46%, Audience Score 81% Pick: The Missus' Because we're parents, the Missus and I get to see many trailers for many movies that we say, "Oh man, we should go see that one" and that inevitably never happens, because life and kids. Occasionally, we'll get back around to one of them usually courtesy of Redbox or a streaming service- and Last Christmas turned out to be one of those movies. The movie opens with Kate (Emilia Clarke) heading to her job as an Elf at an all-year Christmas shop in central London. The owner (Michelle Yeoh) calls herself Santa. She's also currently homeless having been thrown out by her flatmate. While at work, she notices a man outside the shop staring upwards- she talks to him and finds out his name is Tom. (Henry Golding) After an unsuccessful audition

Well, this is a pleasant surprise to start the week with! https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/fce1ut/ot_spotlight_litcityblues/ If you followed the link over here, welcome! It's a general mish-mash of all kinds of things that rattle around my brain-- in terms of writing related things-- I've got books out there in the world! My first two 'babies' are: The Prisoner And The Assassin The Arrows of Defiance Just e-books for now, I want to get them back as print on demand paperbacks sometime this year.  Also, my third book The Last President is getting close to the finish line and I hope to have that out later this year. Hey, did you like my response to this writing prompt ? Lots of people told me I should write more of it-- and I've been trying to listen and figure out how and then I found out about r/redditserials, so expect The Adventures of Preston and Lark to pop up there sometime in the next couple of month- maybe even this month if I ca

Gene Wolfe has been on my list of authors to read for a long time. My parents used to have a copy of all these books, but somewhere along the way it vanished. I tried to pick it up from the library a couple of years ago and realized almost immediately that it was going to take far longer than two weeks to get through and finally, I just ended up snagging a volume with the first two novels, Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator (Entitled in their combined form as Shadow & Claw ) and plunged into the magnum opus of the author many considered to be one of the best science fiction authors of the 20th Century. The first book, Shadow introduces us to Severian who is an apprentice of the torturer' guild who nearly drowns when swimming the River Gyoll which runs through the great city of Nessus where the Autarch rules. On his way back to the Citadel where the Guild is located he and a few other apprentices sneak into a necropolis where he meets Vodalus, a revoluti