Bryce Moore's Blog, page 14

Adventures in Single Parenting

Denisa and Daniela are away at a youth conference for the first part of this week, which leaves me and MC holding the fort down at home. I didn’t think this would be too terribly difficult. MC is eleven now, after all, and she’s home by herself often anyway. True, she has swimming lessons each day that I’d have to make sure to get her to, but really. How hard could this be?

Yesterday started off smoothly enough. I was teaching a four hour session to upcoming students all on the business of writing, and MC came along with me, sitting patiently in a corner working on her own stuff and watching Netflix. She walked down the street to her swim lesson and came back with no hiccups at all. I then drove her home so she could keep an eye on Ferris the rest of the day. Easy peasy.

She went to take him for a walk while I was grabbing some lunch, and while I was eating, it started to really pour outside, so I took the car and went and picked the two of them up. Once I dropped them back off at home, I headed back to work. On the way, I was surprised by just how hard it was raining. Tons of standing water on the road, and enough rain coming down to make it hard to see at times even with the wipers going full blast.

I worked for the next few hours in peace as it continued to come down outside. My phone rang, but it was a California number, so I assumed it was spam. I checked to see if it left a message, and I was surprised that it had. When I listened to it, it was MC (calling from Alexa), frantic because an alarm was going off in the basement. She was convinced it was a smoke detector, and she’s always been very worried about house fires, so she was naturally panicked.

I called her right back and headed home as I did. As soon as I heard the alarm, I knew what it was: the sump pump was clogged in the basement. That happens sometimes when it rains too much all at once. So there was likely some standing water down there, but nothing I was too worried about. I tried to reassure MC, ending up telling her to just close the door to the basement and go to a different part of the house where she couldn’t hear the alarm. She was in tears.

When I got home, I unclogged the sump pump and then went to work on calming my daughter down. It took about a half hour to get things smoothed out. Definitely more of an adventure than I was anticipating, and it made me realize just how difficult it would be/is for parents trying to get everything done between running a job, a house, and a family all on their own.

She’s back at swim lessons today, and I’ll be bringing her home again soon. Thankfully, no rain in the forecast today, so things should be smoother sailing. Denisa’s back tomorrow night, so wish us luck until then.

The post Adventures in Single Parenting first appeared on Bryce Moore.

Replacing the Civic

After some insurance hokey pokey (the car was totaled, the car wasn’t totaled, the car was totaled for reals), Denisa and I discovered that yes, we were going to have to get a new car. For a researcher like me, this is officially The Worst. Not because I’m scare of some research, but because the research question (“What is the best car for Bryce and Denisa?”) has so many facets. We have to consider price, reviews, reliability, warranty, availability, taste, engine type, and more. There are just so many things to get up to speed on when I haven’t really paid any attention to cars for the last seven years.

There was nothing to be done but to dive in.

First up, I had to get a general idea of how much a car was going to cost. We’ve always bought used before, and so looking at new wasn’t even a question. Except as I looked at used cars, I discovered that they’ve all gotten ridiculously expensive since I bought the Prius 7 years or so ago. Just poking around, looking to see how much a Prius or a Civic would cost showed me that to get one with low mileage, I’d be paying somewhere in the mid $20ks. I had to run a few more searches, just to make sure I hadn’t read that wrong.

I had not.

Yes, we could get an older car with more miles, but I was reluctant to do that, mainly because I like the dependability factor. Having a car we can rely on is important to me, and I’d rather not have to get a new car a few years down the road. I also would rather not be paying for repairs. So I resigned myself to the fact that this car was going to cost more than I wanted it to. I also recognized that I did not have enough cash on hand to be able to afford to pay it all at once. We were going to have to finance.

Next? What kind of car to get. I knew there were a number of rebates for electric cars right now. $7,500 from the federal government, and $2,000 from Maine. So maybe now was the time to get an electric car. The idea of just driving around town for no gas was appealing, and for a while, a Tesla even seemed like it might be in the cards. Once you took $9,500 off the price, then the cost sunk to the upper $20ks. Could that really be possible?

No. It couldn’t. Tesla does this weaselly thing on their site where the price they show you includes not only the $7,500 federal rebate taken off, but also $6,000 more taken off, because you’re going to save that in gas money. So the actual price is much more. Once I figured that out, I realized I wouldn’t be getting a Tesla for under the low $30ks, and so I took it off the list.

But did I want an electric car at all? I did some calculations. If you drive on average 15,000 miles/year, then it’s pretty easy to calculate how much gas is costing you based on mpg. If your car gets 30 mpg, then you will have to feed it 500 gallons to get it to go 15,000 miles. If gas is $3.50, that will cost you $1,750. A Hybrid gets something in the realm of 55mpg, which equates to $955/year. A guesstimate to charge a Tesla from empty to full is about $10, from some poking around online that I did. If a Tesla gets you on average 250 miles per “fill up,” you’ll have to fill up 60 times to get to 15,000 miles. That would be $600. So, still a lot less than gas, but far from free.

Denisa and I do not usually drive 15,000 miles/year. It’s closer to 10,000, judging from our past records. So that means things break down to regular car ($1,173), hybrid ($640) and electric ($400). Though again, electric is a big question mark, especially up here in Maine, where the cold temperatures will tend to lower its range. Viewed through that lens, I tossed out the plan of getting an electric car, since I wasn’t able to find a model I liked at a price I could afford, even with the rebates.

So then it was hybrid vs. normal. I looked at the recent car issue of Consumer Reports, wanting something that would be consistent and reliable. According to that, Toyotas won hands down, which would mean a Corolla or another Prius. I was surprised that Civics had fallen out of favor somewhat, so I researched that some more and discovered that there are now two different engine models for Civics. The 1.5L turbo has more problems than the old reliable 2.0L. With that tidbit of information, I added the Civic to the list.

Looking at reviews in general, the current Civic appeared to be almost universally loved by car sites, getting a 10/10 from some of the big names. The Corolla? More like a 7.5 or so. The Prius got very good reviews as well, but it was going for about $3k-$5k more than the Corolla or the Civic. When I looked at the actual gas mileage of the Civic, for example, it would cost $970/year for us to drive, a savings of around $330/year over the Prius. Assuming the Prius was $4k more, it would take us 12 years of Prius ownership for us to see that money.

I tossed out the idea of having another Prius. (Don’t get me wrong. I love mine, but since it was more expensive, and we’d already be getting a loan to finance this, it just didn’t make sense.)

So. Corolla vs. Civic. We weren’t crazy about the small trunk size, but we discovered that both models come in a hatchback, which bumps the cargo space from around 14 cubic feet to more like 24 cubic feet. The one drawback is they cost more money, though not as much more as a Prius. We liked the idea of having more cargo space, so we set our sights on a hatchback. And after weighing the options, we went with the car that was getting the better reviews. The Civic won.

When I looked at how much it would cost for a used Civic hatchback, it appeared the base model (the LX) went for around $23,000 for a 3 year old car with 30k miles on it. For kicks, I decided to see how much a new Civic hatchback would cost. They start around $25,000.

None of this made any sense compared with all of my previous car buying experience. Black was white, up was down, cats and dogs, living together. Why in the world would I want to get a used car when $2,000 more would get me the same car, new, with a full warranty and 0 miles? Crazier still, car loan rates have gone up. Financing a used car would be around 6-7%. Honda was having a deal through July 8th where it would finance a new car at 3.9%.

Which is a loooooong way of saying Denisa and I went to a Honda dealer yesterday and put money down on a new Civic hatchback. It’ll be here in three weeks. I never would have thought I’d be buying a new car, but I guess this is the new reality I’m living in at the moment. My hope is this is the last car we have to buy, though realistically, I understand that’s likely not the case. Judging how much things have changed since I last bought a car, there’s no need worrying about what things will look like 7 years from now.

Anyway. There you have it. My research and thought process from start to finish. Very glad to have it over and done with. The car has a full warranty for 36k miles/3 years, and a powertrain warranty for 150k miles/10 years. Here’s hoping we never need to use it.

The post Replacing the Civic first appeared on Bryce Moore.

The Tooth is Out

Ugh. What an ordeal. I’ve blogged before about how I cracked my tooth and would need to have it extracted. That was back in March. When I made the appointment to have the tooth come out, they didn’t have time until July. Then they called back in early May to let me know that actually the guy who was going to extract my tooth in July had quit, and they rescheduled me for September. The tooth wasn’t actively hurting me too much, so what else was I going to do?

Well, all of that changed on Friday. Suddenly, the whole jaw was aching. It began as a dull throb, but a bit before lunch, I texted Denisa to see if she could find any place that might have an opening earlier than September. (I was at a conference and unable to do any of the calling right then, and I had a hunch I’d want to get something soon.) Then at lunch, I upped that to “can someone see me right away to have it out?” The tooth pain was ramping up, and I was worried about having to deal with it too long.

Thankfully, my usual dentist could fit me in today, so things were lined up. Unfortunately, the pain got steadily worse over the weekend. I was taking OTC painkillers like clockwork, and it was just barely enough to stay ahead of it. Sleeping was difficult, eating was far from pleasant, and . . . yeah. Not good. I’ve never related to Tom Hanks in Castaway quite so much, though I never actually went looking for an ice skate.

That doesn’t mean I was calm about getting it extracted. I was still pretty anxious about the whole thing. I’m a baby when it comes to tooth pain (although my tooth was doing its best to get me more used to it as quickly as possible). This morning, I just sort of tried to forget it was coming, but it felt like I’d made an appointment to slam my fingers in the door as hard as possible, and I had to just wait for the chance to actually slam them.

The good news is that it was much better than I feared. (Go figure.) My dentist numbed me with three different shots, and I didn’t feel a thing. (He described the process afterward, and I was very grateful I hadn’t felt any of it.) All that I registered was pressure as he worked the tooth back and forth, and then it was gone.

Apparently it’ll take some time to heal. I have to sit here with gauze on the site for the next while to stem the bleeding, and then I have to watch what I eat for the next couple of weeks. My current plan is to get an implant in a half year or so, once the site is healed. The good news is that should be in the next calendar year, so the $5,000 I’d set aside for it isn’t money I have to spend just yet. (And with all the expenses that have been coming, that’s a very good thing.)

Anyway. I’m off to lie down for a while. Thanks for all the well wishes!

The post The Tooth is Out first appeared on Bryce Moore.

Officially an Independent

I went and voted today in the Maine primaries, mainly so I could vote to approve the school budget. But in the lead up to today’s vote, I started to get texts. Soooooo many texts. All of them telling me how I had to vote for somebody because he’d be the one person to stand up for Trump, or how he did something for Trump, or how he knew Trump’s gardner’s grandfather’s ex-bowling buddy.

Guess what! I didn’t care about any of it. In what should surprise no one, knowing someone supports or is supported by Trump is the best way to get me to not vote for someone at all. It was like seven or eight texts in a row, followed by more this morning. And that was enough to make me just decide to call it a day for the Republican party. They’ll be better served not trying to get my vote these days. I suppose I could have hung around just as a way to make them waste money, but who’s got time for that?

So after I voted, I asked if removing myself from a party was a difficult process. It was not. I just went over to a different part of the room, put my name and address down on a card, checked a box, and signed it. It will take two weeks for it to take effect, but maybe this will mean I won’t get as many texts and flyers in the mail this November. That would be lovely.

When I think about where I used to be, politically, and where I am now, part of me is very surprised. I was a pretty staunch Republican. What changed? Some of it is definitely due to changing views I’ve had on social issues, but I would say a much larger part of it is due to the dramatic shift in the Republican party to areas I am very (very) uncomfortable with. The leaders of the party feel like they’re part of something totally different than what I believed in. I’d held off making the change official for years, but it looks like there’s a point for everyone when enough is enough.

I’m sure many Republicans who are left in the party would read this and say good riddance, but I would suggest they might want to take another look at what their party is doing politically that is actively driving once ardent supporters away from it. Typically, people want parties to get bigger, not smaller, yes? At the moment, it feels to me like the Republican plan is get elected one last time, and then change the rules to make sure they can stay in power. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me with the sort of scorched earth, “Trump or Bust” mentality they’re embracing.

But whatever. Done is done.

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How to Find New, Original Content on Streaming Platforms

Various corners of the internet have repeated the refrain time and time again: Hollywood’s not coming out with anything original anymore. It’s remakes all the way down. While I’d go along with a statement like most of the tentpole films that get a ton of marketing are remakes or adaptations, I don’t think that’s true for all film by any stretch. You just have to actually pay attention or look for the original ones out there. Unfortunately, that’s not something any of the streaming platforms are interested in doing. Search functions are limited and clunky, and all the streamers just shove the big budget stuff in your face all the time.

Thankfully, I’ve found a workaround. (Again. I had one before, but they shut down.)

For this one, you just go over to Metacritic. If you’ve never used the site, it’s something you should be aware of anyway. Unlike Rotten Tomatoes, which reduces each review down to a “liked/didn’t like” rating, Metacritic uses a lot more nuance, giving each review a score from 1-100, then averaging those scores out to come to a number. Unlike IMDB, it’s not just user reviews. (It has those, but far fewer than IMDB, so if you just want to see what scored well with average viewers, you should keep going there.) Metacritic covers movies, TV shows, and video games. (Looking at it now, it apparently even does music, though I’ve never used it for that.)

If mouse over the “Movies” tab at the top of the page, “Best Movies of [Insert Streaming Service Here]” comes up, and you can then see all the movies on that platform, sorted by Metacritic score. Better yet, you can search multiple platforms at once, and you can easily filter by date or by genre. Want to see a great action movie from the ’60s? You can find it, and I almost guarantee the platforms won’t be highlighting it.

There are some limitations. I’ve found it struggles to tell the difference between Amazon Prime and Amazon purchase options. It also seems not to have literally everything on those platforms. (It does TV shows, but it’s much more hit and miss. According to it, Max only has 6 TV shows total. That’s not right.) But if you’re looking to break free of whatever it is each platform just wants to cram down your throat, using this approach can really help you find different things. Even (yes) new films that are original and compelling. For example, I searched for a new-ish mystery film and was suggested The Endless, on Peacock. It got an 80 on Metacritic (which is a very solid score for the site), and I gave it a shot and (shocker) gave it an 8/10. Smart science fiction-y puzzle movie about a doomsday cult that may or may not actually be on to something. (You should check it out.)

As far as interpreting ratings at the site goes, I’ve found anything that scores above a 60 has a good shot at being very good. Once you hit the 70s or 80s, that spikes dramatically, and anything over a 90 should probably get some of your time. That said, even a movie in the 50s might be a good fit for you personally. It’s all relative, of course.

In any case, there’s my good deed for the day. Hopefully it helps some of you. One day, perhaps we’ll finally get to a point where the search options on these platforms are actually decent. Until then, there’s this.

The post How to Find New, Original Content on Streaming Platforms first appeared on Bryce Moore.

Artificial Intelligence Tricks: Tell It Who to Be

I’m still over here, plugging away at using generative text in different ways to see how best to apply it. Yes, I still have concerns, and I continue to yo-yo back and forth between thinking this is being overplayed and thinking it’s being underplayed. I’m reading books on the nuances of AI and generative text, and my biggest conclusion is that we still don’t really know what the heck we’re doing and why it’s working when it works. This is likely oversimplified, but it’s where my head is at the moment.

It seems to me many people are eager to dismiss AI because it gets things wrong, or because they’ve dabbled with it and been unimpressed. It’s like on the one hand, they expect it to do everything amazingly well, and if it doesn’t, then it must be the fault of the AI, and no fault of theirs. But AI (at least for now) can very much be influenced by the person interacting with it. You can get it to say outrageous things if you just nag it enough or frame the question just right. One of the biggest tricks is to tell the AI what sort of person it is. It will then approach the question from that particular point of view, instead of just a generic one. This is easier to understand with some examples.

First off, the generic. I gave ChatGPT the following prompt: “Give me instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich.”

It dove in right away:

Absolutely! Here are straightforward instructions for making a classic peanut butter sandwich:

Ingredients:2 slices of bread (your choice: white, whole wheat, etc.)Peanut butter (creamy or crunchy, depending on your preference)Instructions:Prepare Your Workspace:Place the two slices of bread on a clean surface, such as a plate or a cutting board.Spread the Peanut Butter:Open the jar of peanut butter.Use a butter knife or a spoon to scoop out a generous amount of peanut butter.Spread the peanut butter evenly onto one side of one slice of bread. Make sure to cover the entire surface for a consistent taste.Assemble the Sandwich:Take the second slice of bread and place it on top of the first slice, with the peanut butter sides facing each other.Press down gently to ensure the slices stick together.Cut and Serve:If desired, use a knife to cut the sandwich in half, either diagonally or straight down the middle.Serve your peanut butter sandwich on a plate.Optional Add-Ons:For a sweeter sandwich, add a layer of jelly or honey on top of the peanut butter before assembling.Add slices of banana or apple for a fruity twist.Sprinkle some chocolate chips or raisins on the peanut butter for an extra treat.

Enjoy your simple yet delicious peanut butter sandwich!

With the exception of suggesting raisins (RAISINS?!?!), it does a perfectly adequate job. But it’s also extremely boring. So let’s see if we can’t spice that up a bit. How about a different prompt? “You’re a french immigrant with an outrageous accent. Give me overly detailed instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich. Make sure that some of the directions are wrong, and be as funny as possible.”

Ah, bonjour! I ‘ope you are ready to embark on ze culinary adventure of making ze famous American delicacy, ze peanut butter sandwich. Eet is très magnifique! Follow zese steps very carefully, or you might end up with a masterpiece worthy of ze Louvre!

Gather Your Ingredients:One loaf of ze finest French baguette (but any stale bread will do, really).A jar of ze gourmet peanut butter (or maybe some leftover béarnaise sauce, I can never tell ze difference).Butter (because why not? Everything is better with butter).Salt (you can never ‘ave too much salt, non?).A large pickle (for decoration, of course).Prepare Ze Bread:Take ze entire loaf of baguette and slice it horizontally, like you are opening a book. If you ‘ave a chainsaw, zis will make ze job easier and more fun.Once you ‘ave two pieces of bread, butter zem on ze outside. Yes, ze outside. We want ze butter to stick to everything you touch.Spread Ze Peanut Butter:Open your jar of peanut butter and take a big whiff. Ah, magnifique! Now, using a spoon, scoop out a generous amount and place eet in your left hand.Rub ze peanut butter all over your face. Zis will enhance ze flavor of ze sandwich through osmosis.After you ‘ave sufficiently moisturized your face, use ze remaining peanut butter on your hand to slap it onto one of ze pieces of bread.Add Ze Salt:Sprinkle salt liberally over ze peanut butter. Ze goal is to make eet look like a winter wonderland. Eef you can see any peanut butter through ze salt, you ‘ave not used enough.Assemble Ze Sandwich:Place ze two halves of ze baguette together, but do eet with a dramatic flair. Perhaps toss one piece into ze air and catch it with ze other. Voilà! Now ze butter is on ze inside.Press ze sandwich firmly to ensure ze butter and peanut butter are mixed beautifully.Decorate Ze Sandwich:Now, take your large pickle and balance it on top of ze sandwich. Eet should look like ze Eiffel Tower, but with a pickle.Final Touches:Cut ze sandwich into twelve tiny pieces, one for each of ze apostles. Ze French always appreciate ze religious symbolism in zeir food.Serve your peanut butter sandwich with a side of escargots and a glass of wine.

Et voilà! You ‘ave created ze perfect peanut butter sandwich. Enjoy zis culinary delight with ze same passion and joy as you would a fine French meal. Bon appétit!

I don’t know about you, but for me, this one was much more amusing to read. But maybe we can keep the magic going . . . Next prompt! “I’m trying to imagine what a conversation on Seinfeld would be like. Could you give me both sides of the conversation where George Costanza is telling Jerry how much trouble he got into by making a peanut butter sandwich wrong, when he followed the directions you just gave me?“

Sure, here’s a Seinfeld-style conversation between George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld, where George talks about his peanut butter sandwich mishap:

George: Jerry! Jerry, you gotta hear this.

Jerry: What’s going on, George?

George: I got into so much trouble today. All because of a peanut butter sandwich!

Jerry: Trouble? From a peanut butter sandwich? How does that even happen?

George: Well, I was trying to make a simple peanut butter sandwich. I followed these directions I found. But I must have messed up somewhere.

Jerry: What could possibly go wrong? It’s just bread and peanut butter!

George: That’s what I thought! So, I put the bread on the counter, grabbed the peanut butter, and spread it on one slice. Easy, right?

Jerry: Right. So far, so good.

George: Then I put the other slice on top, peanut butter sides facing each other, just like the instructions said.

Jerry: Hold on, peanut butter sides facing each other? George, you were supposed to spread peanut butter on just one slice, and then put the other slice on top!

George: That’s what I thought! But the instructions were so clear. I figured they knew something I didn’t. So, I ended up with this mess. Peanut butter everywhere!

Jerry: Everywhere?

George: Everywhere, Jerry! It got on my hands, my face, the counter, even the floor! And then I realized I hadn’t put anything on the outside of the bread. It was just dry bread!

Jerry: Dry bread? That’s a crime against sandwiches!

George: Exactly! So, I tried to salvage it by adding butter on the outside after assembling it. Big mistake! The butter melted and made everything even messier. I slipped on the kitchen floor and fell right on my back.

Jerry: (laughing) You fell?

George: Yes, I fell! And when I got up, I had butter and peanut butter all over my clothes. I looked like a walking sandwich disaster.

Jerry: So what did you do?

George: I had to shower, change clothes, and then clean up the entire kitchen. It took hours! And by the end, I was so hungry, I just ordered takeout.

Jerry: (laughing harder) You went through all that and didn’t even get to eat the sandwich?

George: No! And I’m never making a peanut butter sandwich again. Never!

Jerry: (smirking) George, it’s a sandwich, not a science experiment.

George: Well, not for me, Jerry. Not for me.

This is a pretty basic example, but I just wanted to use it to show what an impact the right sort of prompt can have on the end result of an AI query. You can bounce back and forth with it, having the AI tweak things as it goes along. For example, you could tell it that Seinfeld skit was good, but it should really be Kramer’s fault. It’ll revise it accordingly.

I’d really encourage people to try it out for different uses. The more familiar you are with it, the more you can understand how to use it as a tool to get the things done you want to do. Apple’s having a developer conference next week, and I’m very curious to see what they do with AI, if anything. Word on the street is that it might be fairly significant. I’d said before that I thought big companies like Apple would shy away from AI for the simple reason that it’s supposedly super expensive to run. If Apple dives in, then that’s a pretty good sign it thinks the technology is sustainable long term.

Anyway. That’s what I’ve got for you today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

The post Artificial Intelligence Tricks: Tell It Who to Be first appeared on Bryce Moore.

Career Day!

I headed over to the middle school again this morning for another round of career day. While I offered to talk about being a librarian or an author, no one seemed too keen on learning about being a librarian. (Surprised?) For the kids who wanted to know about being an author, their actual interest seemed to span a fairly wide range of “really want to know and ask questions” to “I have no idea why I came to this presentation in the first place.”

I did three different forty minute sessions for groups of 7th and 8th Graders. About a third of them had already read some of my books, and they all had nice things to say. (That’s far from a guarantee when you’re dealing with readers, especially kids. They’re not afraid to tell you exactly what you did wrong and why. Sure, maybe it’s a bit low on tact, but it’s often quite refreshing, especially since if they tell you they liked something, you know they’re usually not just being nice.) Doing three sessions like that back to back can be a bit dizzying, as I quickly forgot what I’d told one group and hadn’t told another. Still, they all seemed to have a good time.

As far as what advice I gave for people wanting to become authors for a career? Have a plan B. I emphasized authors typically don’t make enough money to live on, even if they’re relatively successful. It’s important to write because you really love to write, not because you think you’ll get published and become rich. Don’t just start to write books: finish writing books. Always be writing something new: don’t just rely on revising the same book over and over again. Have other people read your work and give you feedback, ideally from people who aren’t related to you. You can major in creative writing, but it won’t necessarily give you a leg up on being published, so it can be very useful to take classes in creative writing, but major in something else you’re interested in (hopefully whatever your plan B is).

All of these are basic questions I just take for granted people know the answers to, so it’s easy for me to forget not everyone does. I also went over the basic path a book takes to get published through the traditional route. All told, it went well, and hopefully some of them learned something. Hard to tell sometimes . . .

The post Career Day! first appeared on Bryce Moore.

Denisa vs. the Deer

We had another run in with a deer over the weekend. Well, by “we,” I mean “Denisa,” and I suppose this is her first run in with a deer, so saying it’s another one is also kind of off. But you get the picture. She had just picked up MC from a party, and on their way home, a deer decided it would be a lot of fun to jump in front of a car going 40mph or so.

Spoiler alert: I don’t think it ended up being that much fun for the deer.

The bad news is that it wasn’t much fun for our car, either. It’s the older of the two we have. A Honda Civic we picked up just after we moved to Maine. Actually, now that we started looking at things with the car’s damage, I realized that car is 17 years old. It’s a 2007. Trying to put that in perspective, when I first bought a car in 2000, the equivalent would have been a 1983. In other words, our Civic has done very well for us for a very long time. It’s almost never had any serious issues, living up to the dependability of the Civic name.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the car now. That deer wasn’t small, and the it managed to hit both sides of the car and the hood in its little stunt. We can’t open the hood easily to see what the engine looks like, but having had some run ins with deer in the past, I know how pricy fixing that damage ends up being. I’m not sure what the insurance company’s going to want to do, but I think there’s a fair chance they just throw in the towel on the car. If that happens . . . we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Suffice it to say that it would be right in line with the rest of the unexpected expenses 2024 has brought us.

The good news is that Denisa and MC are both fine, and we still have some money in the reserves to at least be a downpayment on a car, with hopes that we’d have enough in the near future to pay off any loans we have to take out. We bought the Prius outright, and I’d rather not take out a loan for a car, but I’m not sure we can really swing having a single car at this point in our lives.

Stay tuned.

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Trump’s Guilty: So What?

As everyone and their brother knows by now, Trump was found guilty on all charges yesterday afternoon. And while I was floored by the verdict, now that I’ve had some time to think it through, I’m not sure what, exactly, it does to change things.

Don’t get me wrong. I do think it mattered, particularly from an aspect of what would have happened if he’d been found not guilty. That was the outcome I was expecting, and as soon as that verdict came, fodder for the “it’s all a witch hunt” argument would have abounded. Why did I think he’d be found not guilty? Because this is America, and people who can afford very expensive lawyers typically end up being found not guilty. Let’s just say they have a very higher probability of it. It seemed like the whole case rested on Cohen, and I assumed Trump’s lawyers would find some way to make it all go away.

The fact that it didn’t says something to me. He went to trial, he had a hand in jury selection, and that jury still found him guilty. Of course, it’s now going to be appealed six ways to Sunday, due to those same high-powered lawyers, and I don’t think we’ll get anywhere near him actually paying/serving a sentence before the election.

The thing is, I tend to think most people agree that Trump did the thing he just got found guilty of doing. He’s pretty much not argued that he didn’t. In the same vein as when he called Ukraine to twist arms to try and get them to do something mean to Biden, he’s very upfront with the things he does (once he’s caught). He just has the old tried and tested way of fixing them by saying, “Yeah, I did that. It was totally normal and there was nothing wrong with it.” Almost all of his supporters seem fully ready to believe him no matter what he says, so . . . how would this change anything?

I suppose/hope it might have a bit of an influence on independent voters who were still up in the air. Will they hesitate to vote for a convicted felon? Or will they agree the trial was rigged? When we’re approaching an election that could honestly come down to a few thousand votes here or there, those sort of things do matter. I just don’t know if they’ll matter enough.

I miss the days when the entire Republican party thought Trump was a laughingstock disgrace to their nomination process, and they all assumed he’d just get thrown out on his ear. Remember that? We’ve gone from there to here, which is where the Republican party all bought Trump t-shirts and MAGA hats, because apparently that’s the only way they have a chance of staying in power.

Bah. I’ve wasted too much time writing about this guy, with too little to actually show for it. The one bright spot I can see in all this guilty verdict is that it showed at least for a little that he’s not inevitable. Everything doesn’t always go his way, though this still might end up going his way once it’s appealed. But does it matter?

I tend to think it doesn’t. It doesn’t change the minds of any Democrats. It doesn’t change the mind of any Trump supporters. For the Republicans who are just going to vote for Trump despite the fact that they don’t like him, I believe they see this as a vote along ideological principles. A vote for the party, not the person. And if they were already going to vote for someone with the long, proven track record of allllll the things Trump has done (not just been accused of, but which he’s admitted and even at times bragged about), then I don’t see this being the thing that changes their mind.

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Movie Review: Dune Part Two

Back when I first watched the newest version of Dune, I was left dissatisfied for a variety of reasons. It lacked a consistent source of tension, it had too many characters, and it felt like all build up and no actual climax. I’ve since watched it two more times (once right before watching the sequel), and I believe it works better than I first gave it credit. The third time through, it was much clearer that the visions Paul keeps seeing are symbolic more than literal, and that’s something that whizzed right past me in my first watch. Knowing the characters and the plot more, I was better able to appreciate what was going on. It’s definitely a movie that gets better with repeated viewings. (Then again, I’m not sure how much of a compliment that is? If a movie starts as an 8/10 and becomes a 9 or a 10 the second or third time, then great. But if it was more of a 6 or 7 out of ten, then there’s a good chance I’d never give it another shot.

In any case, I finally watched the sequel over the weekend. As a reminder, I haven’t read the books. Yes, I know. Blasphemy. But at least you know I’m coming into the movie with no knowledge of the plot other than what I’ve picked up along the way and what I watched in the Sting Dune years ago. (Yeah . . .)

No one can accuse the second film of lacking explosive climaxes. There are tons of battles, and it’s much more of an action movie than the first. The effects continue to be incredible, and the sheer scope of the movie was impressive. It’s a very well executed film.

Despite all that, I’m still not sure how much I really loved it. A big chunk of that seems like it’s because I’m not sure how big of a fan I’d be of the source material. The way the plot resolves makes total sense, but it’s also a resolution I’m not really happy about. I get it: all movies don’t have to have happy endings, but on the whole, I prefer movies that do. Maybe it’s because I have to deal with an awful political climate every day, so sitting through an entirely different awful political climate for 2.5 hours isn’t exactly walk in the park. There’s a whole lot of bleak to the second movie, and I prefer a bit more hope.

That’s a matter of taste, however. I’ll likely watch the movie again when Tomas comes back from his mission, but I’m not sure it’ll go into my regular rotation of movie viewings. Then again, perhaps it will grow on me. Once I know not to expect certain things from the film, I might well like it more. We’ll have to see. For now, I’ll give it an 8/10. I love the fact that serious adaptations of science fiction films are coming out, and I’m hopeful to see more in the future. But this particular one wasn’t exactly for me, if that makes sense,

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