Bryce Moore's Blog, page 74

Good News/Bad News: Grape Nuts Edition

One of the first things I do each morning is check my email. Usually it happens before I even roll out of bed. Is that healthy? Probably not. But I’m hooked on staying connected, so it is what it is. Typically, not much has happened in my email world over night. I mean, who all emails people at midnight? So it’s more of a quick check to see if all is right with the world.

As an author, perhaps some of you are under the mistaken assumption that I just get flooded with fan mail every day. Pages upon pages of people lauding my praises. Or maybe you think I just field complaints from the hordes of readers who are upset that I did X in a book when I really should have done Y.

The truth, I’m sad to report, is much simpler. I almost never get contacted about my writing. Ever. I will occasionally get a nice message from a reader or a teacher, and I’ve gotten some great thank you notes from classes I’ve done in-person or Zoom visits with. Those are always lovely. But despite the fact that my email is right here on my webpage, ready for anyone to see, I pretty much never get any correspondence through it.

Until this morning. When I got some good news/bad news first thing when I woke up.

The good news? I proved to myself once again that people can, indeed, write to me when they want to. A stranger reached out to contact me. Huzzah!

The bad news? It was in defense of Grape Nuts.

That’s right, folks. I’ve spent countless hours working on my craft as an author, and approximately 20 minutes of my life poking fun at Grape Nuts over the years, and I’ve had more emails about Grape Nuts in the past five years than I’ve had about my writing.

Maybe I really should start writing fiction about Grape Nuts. Maybe I’ll make Grape Nuts the main villain in my next book. Or it could just be the method of murder. Death by Grape Nuts would make a fantastic title, wouldn’t it? I wonder if I’d get sued for trademark infringement . . .

Really, when I made my pithy little post about the horrors of that “cereal” known as Grape Nuts, I didn’t know what a devoted legion of followers that excuse-for-a-pleasant-breakfast actually had. And reading it over again now, I have to admit that I’m still inordinately proud of the post. If I have to pick a hill to die on when it comes to the debate over morning repasts, I will gladly pick up my sword and go lay siege at the gates of Grape Nut fandom.

Any. Day. Of the Week.

I will not be silenced. I will not be cowed. I will stand boldly, nobly, and independent to declare to the world that most of its current troubles can likely be traced directly to the consumption of Grape Nuts. (Or at the bare minimum, that Grape Nuts are exacerbating the current troubles. I mean, name one thing that doesn’t automatically become worse if you’re eating Grape Nuts. Being sick is bad. Being sick and eating Grape Nuts? Worse. Riding a roller coaster is fun. Riding a roller coaster and eating Grape Nuts? Not nearly as pleasurable. This is basic logic, people.)

And let’s face it. Usually my Grape Nuts posts perform so much better than my other blog topics. Maybe I really need to have a nemesis, and I found mine sort of by accident.

Evil, thy name is Grape Nuts.

(The good news is that, despite its throngs of adorers, Grape Nuts is not sentient. (We believe. Scientists are still investigating a few bowls that were poured back in the early 1900s. They haven’t been finished yet (naturally), and the addition of milk to the solution might have had some strange side effects.) And as a non-sentient object, Grape Nuts (most likely) doesn’t mind my personal vendetta against it. Grape Nuts don’t care. They’re like the honey badger of the processed food world. And so, while it is true (as the email I received this morning pointed out) that my original post was “mean,” “nasty,” and “disparaging” to Grape Nuts, I’m not overly concerned about its feelings . . .)

If making fun of Grape Nuts is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Time to Ditch the Training Wheels

I love doing the New York Times crossword. I look forward to 10pm each night, which is when they release the crossword for the next day. Usually I have it done before I go to bed, because I guess I just can’t wait. And I’ve blogged in the past about my journey with the crossword: first about my decision to let myself Google information to find out answers, and then about my decision to stop doing that. Basically. I decided a while ago that I just wouldn’t worry about getting the gold stars anymore. Up until then, I would do whatever I had to to get a gold star each day.

And that just felt silly.

So I decided to let go my fixation on gold stars and just enjoy crosswords. For the first few months, that’s definitely all I did. When I got stuck on an answer, I’d turn on hints and get unstuck very quickly. It was just a crossword. What did it matter? It wasn’t like I’d be able to figure it out with another hour of thinking or anything, right?

Except because I’m so goal-oriented, I started to wonder how many crosswords I’d actually be able to complete with a gold star (no hints). And I started to track how I was doing. In April, I had 15 gold stars. May: 13. June: 11. July: 17. August: 13. September: !5. October: 14. I think that was when I started to think maybe I could try to see just how well I could do. To start working harder at solving the crosswords without giving up as easily.

In November, I had 21 gold stars. December had 26, and in January I just got 29. Saturday puzzles can still stump me, and Sunday puzzles can trip me up because they’re just so big, and finding where I made a mistake can be ghastly. But I definitely discovered that as I put my mind to it and really tried, I could do a much better job on the crosswords than I thought I could.

Some of it is definitely due to having done them daily for so long, but I think a big part of it is because I finally made the decision to commit. To throw myself into the deep end and figure it out on my own. These days, with the internet always at the tips of our fingers, it can be very tempting to just give yourself an out whenever you need one. Not just with crosswords, but with any problems. Puzzles in a game, or finding a solution to a tricky AV hook up. I’m not saying we should ignore the help the internet offers. But at the same time, I think we might end up robbing ourselves of the opportunity to really grow beyond the need to always look stuff up.

If you constantly keep yourself in shallow waters, you’re never going to become a strong swimmer. I know two of my friends who ended up being very successful writers. For both of them, the change happened when they completely committed themselves to it. In one case, it was getting laid off of a job and having to write full time to try and earn money for his family that got him to the next level.

I’m not saying I’m planning on quitting my job. My goal isn’t necessarily to be a writer full time. Would I like it? Probably. But I also really love my normal job as a librarian, so I don’t think I’d give that up. Rather, I’m just saying it might behoove us all at times to see if there are some bumpers we’ve put up in the bowling alley to help us learn how to bowl, and to question if we really need those bumpers up. If the training wheels need to come off.

You get the picture.

I’m glad I started doing the crosswords all on my own. It’s turned them into a really fun mental puzzle that I hadn’t fully appreciated when I was just turning to Google to get myself out of a bind. That principle surely applies elsewhere in my life. I wonder what other training wheels I can ditch in the future.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

A Pandemic Groundhog Party

Normally I’d be gearing up for my annual Groundhog Day celebration tonight. Each year, we have around 15-25 people over for the party. These days, it usually consists of a groundhog themed potluck. Sweet and savory deliciousness, followed by a white elephant/Yankee swap (that’s ideally groundhog themed as well). The bar for a successful Groundhog Day party is blessedly low, of course, and I’ve found that in Maine, it doesn’t take much for people to feel like that had a fun time in February. The rush of the Christmas holidays are gone, and we need as many reasons to celebrate as we can come up with.

This year, we need that more than ever, of course. And we’re not going to get it, alas. I had hoped to be able to have an uninterrupted Groundhog Day, but it wasn’t in the cards. Thankfully, Mother Nature stepped in and gave the entire family a snow day, so we all had the day off. And while I can’t have friends over, I do have plenty of family in my house to celebrate with.

So what will we be doing? In case you’re looking for a way to party hearty tonight, here’s what we’ve got scheduled:

Livestream of the Groundhog prognostication. Denisa and I watched it live this morning at 7:20. Yes, he saw his shadow, and yes, it was a socially distant event. A far cry from the typical craziness. (When we told MC that meant there’d be six more weeks of winter, she was very disappointed. “I was hoping for eight more weeks,” she said. We’ve raised her right.)One on one time with each of the kids getting to choose what they want to do:Tomas and I will be playing a round of GloomhavenDaniela and I will be making groundhog cupcakesMichaela and I will be playing Minecraft togetherThere will be the annual Groundhog Games of Skill. This year, I think there’ll be some groundhog charades, and we might have a “draw a groundhog with your eyes closed” contest. Yes, there will be prizes.Denisa is making pizza for dinnerWe’ll have the annual viewing of the movie, as well. Popcorn will likely be involved.

It doesn’t take much to make the day feel different and special. (Though obviously the snow day helps, it doesn’t help as much as it might in a normal year. I mean, we’ve had pleeeeenty of time at home over the past year, if you know what I mean.)

Hopefully today’s Groundhog Day finds you all in good health and pleasant spirits.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Pupper Update: Groundhog Edition

It’s been a bit since I’ve dropped in to say how the puppers is doing, and today’s been a busy morning already (on what I had planned as a day off), so I thought now might be a good time to do that.

Ferris is now over 7 months old. By and large, he’s doing great. On typical day, he gets up around 7 or 7:30 in the morning. Tomas and Daniela handled two days of that, Denisa handles one, and I typically handle Saturday. (Since I can’t seem to be able to sleep past 6:30 almost ever, no matter how hard I try these days.)

Mornings are usually the best time to be on Ferris detail. He has to be taken out a couple of times so he can take care of business, but other than that, he likes to lie around a lot and just relax. He has to, because he’s saving up energy to go crazy when the kids get home from school or ski practice. He likes all the kids, though he seems most partial to Daniela. (Which might or might not have something to do with her propensity to be a bit more liberal in the treat department. With think he’s named her “Treat Girl” as a result.)

MC and he get along great most of the time, except when he’s just too rambunctious. At those points, it’s hard for a 7 year old to contain a dog who’s about as big as she is. (Our best guess at his name for MC is “Squeaker.”) But they like to go outside and play together, and he loves going on runs with the other kids. (His favorite thing to do is to get the leash tangled around his legs, so that someone has to go out into the snow to rescue him. We’re working on kicking him from that habit.)

There are times when he can be very attention-hungry. He has a few toys that he likes people to play with with him. A couple of ropes. A stuffed shark (that he just killed yesterday). Many tennis balls. And if you aren’t playing with him when he thinks you should be, then you might have a pretty tough slog to convince him otherwise.

All told, we’re still very glad we got him. (Even more important now, since our last Degu (Shooting Star) passed away from old age on Saturday. That was a doozy of a morning, but it really helped the kids to have Ferris around to play with to soften the blow. I just looked over at my post from when Shadow died. Hard to believe that was 15 months ago. Shooting Star lived a lot longer than I thought she would. Nine years! She was a good pet, and poor MC was heartbroken Saturday.)

Ferris does a great job of getting people out of the house and moving. True, people don’t always want to go out of the house, but he doesn’t let that keep him down. He also is Not a Fan of watching anything on television. He just doesn’t understand why in the world we’d all want to sit in a dark room when we could be pulling ropes or gnawing the faces off of sharks.

He goes to bed each night at 8:30 and still sleeps in his cage, though we’re debating freeing him up more at night at some point. We’ve also left him alone during the day for a few hours at a stretch. So far, so good.

And with that, someone’s demanding to go for a walk. Have to run!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

The Dangers of Herd Mentality

If you’ve been following finance at all the past few days, you might have heard about the shenanigans happening over Gamestop’s stock. In a nutshell, a group of 2 million people belonging to a subreddit called WallStreetBets (it’s actually up to 6 million members now) got together and decided that if they all worked as one, they could manipulate individual stock prices, driving them up in a way that would hurt hedge funds who had shorted those stocks. (I’ll leave it to you and Google to get to know the ropes of shorting stocks, as it’s not my area of expertise.)

They were, in a word, successful. Gamestop’s stock went from around $20 a month ago to as high as $469 yesterday morning. It’s gotten to the point that some companies are losing billions of dollars, and a lot of money is on the line. It’s attracting attention from all sorts of people who don’t really know the ins and outs of stocks, and (naturally) the more people who keep piling on, buying the stock, the higher the stock goes. And there are plenty of people around ready and willing to reassure everyone that the stock will only go higher.

So have I plunked all my money into Gamestop? Nope. Here’s the thing: I know enough to know I don’t have any idea how what’s happening is happening. It’s arcane magic, as far as I’m concerned. If I’d gotten in back when the stock was $20, I might have bought some, because a $20 bet is much less than a $330 bet (which is where the stock is at the moment.) But now that it’s so high (and relatively stable right this instant), I tend to think it’s treading water by a combination of people piling on the bet, and an equal number of people running away from it. But I don’t really know, and I don’t feel like losing money at the moment based on a bet.

Could I be missing out on a chance to make money? Sure. And I’ve missed out on many of those over the course of my life. That Square stock that I was so proud of for selling at five times for what I paid is now selling at 18 times what I paid. If I’d have held on, I would have made a bundle. Likewise, if I’d invested heavily in stocks when they all tanked at the beginning of the pandemic, I would be sitting pretty right now. I didn’t, because I thought it was too risky, and . . . I paid the price? I suppose so, if “the price” means that I still have all my money and continue to live comfortably.

(Short aside. I’m a fan of looking at the bigger picture when it comes to big changes or risks like investing lots of of money, or moving, or changing jobs, etc. Thinking about what you’re risking with the change. How happy are you with the status quo, and what are the odds it’s better or worse? I could put all my money into stocks, but what exactly would be the benefit? If I lose it all, I’ll be much worse off. If I win, how much better off will I be? While I could always use some more money, I feel like I’m happy and provided for at the moment. I can do many of the things I want to do. Not all of them, but I don’t know that I really need to do all of them, you know? That swimming pool full of chocolate pudding would probably get pretty gross after the first dive . . .)

The thing is, with online communities like Reddit and others, it becomes easy to feel like you’re an expert on something, or that at least you know people who are. In many ways, this is a great thing. You can quickly solve problems, you can find people who can help you, and you can find a place where you really feel like you belong. On the other hand, it’s also easy to find a place where you trick yourself into thinking you know everything about a topic, or at least everything anyone would want to know. It’s easier to dismiss “experts” in favor of the connections you already have.

We’ve seen this with QAnon, and we’re seeing this with WallStreetBets, and we’ll see it in other areas as well. There’s a balance between skepticism and credulity you need to learn to walk to be successful in life, I think. And it’s always important to remember that just because it feels like everyone is doing something doesn’t mean that it’s something worth doing. Especially these days, where “everyone” can just be the people around you. I think of the mob that rushed the Capitol, and how secure they all looked walking through its halls on television, taking selfies and livestreaming their actions. How public they were about it, and how at the time it must have felt right and proper, because everyone they saw was doing the same thing.

That hasn’t worked out so well for them after the fact. I’ve got a feeling it’ll do the same with WallStreetBets. But what do I know? I’m the chump who kept saying Bitcoin was going to tank, and told people to sell sell sell when it was $20,000. Now it’s worth over $30,000.

Maybe I should go buy some Gamestop stalk after all . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

To the Backhoe Loader that Woke Me Up at 4:30 This Morning

Dear Backhoe Loader,

I know times are tough out there for a backhoe. It’s the winter, and it’s not like you can just go around digging trenches and scooping up dirt left and right. I understand that a backhoe gotta eat, and so you have to pay the bills somehow. So I just wanted to say how thankful I was to hear you stay so chipper about your work this morning.

Really, there’s nothing I’d like more than to be woken up by your persistent “beep beep beep”ing as you drive around my entire house in reverse. I mean, reverse is a much more fun direction to drive. I get it. Boring people drive forward, and you’re anything but boring, right?

Right.

And I expected nothing less from you than to keep that beeping going. Mustn’t let any of the woodland creatures out there at 4:30 in the morning somehow wander beneath one of your tires. We all know how air headed those squirrels can get, and I’ve always had a soft heart for groundhogs. I’m sure your OSHA mandated alerts did their job. Well done.

But of course, how could I focus simply on your backup blares? You took such care to put your front loader to use as well, using all the skill of a drunken three year old to move snow around. I could tell you took extra pleasure in thumping it to the ground over and over.

And over.

It was so thoughtful of you to do all of this well before the sun rose. I know only too well that it could have been done, say, at 9 in the morning. Or even 8. But I overslept yesterday, and so you were only thinking of me. Sadly, waking me up at 4:30 somehow made it more difficult for me to get a full night’s rest, but I’m sure that’s a flaw on my end. Don’t let it trouble your little mechanical heart.

You do you, backhoe loader. You do you. Don’t mind me for a moment, and definitely don’t feel bad about the bags under my eyes this morning. I prefer them there. Who needs a full night’s rest when he can listen to you gettin’ it done in the early AM?

You should really charge admission next time.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Board Gaming Online: Board Game Arena

I’ve always loved board games. From the hours I spent playing Monopoly as a kid to the hours I spent playing Risk as a teen to when I was first introduced to Settlers of Catan in college. I still play a fair number of them, and I have a self-confessed hoarding problem when it comes to them. And of course, with the pandemic raging everywhere, one area I thought I would really end up suffering in was in the opportunities I had to play board games with people outside my family.

That’s what happened for the first while at least. But then a friend of mine introduced me to boardgamearena.com a month ago. It’s a web-based platform for playing a wide assortment of games. Carcassonne, 7 Wonders, Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy, Through the Ages, Stone Age, Hanabi, Backgammon, Can’t Stop, Hearts, and more. They don’t have literally all games on there, but they have an awful lot. Many of them are available for people to play for free, and all of them are available to play if at least one person in the group has a paid subscription to the service. (That costs about $28/year.)

Once I knew the ropes of the platform, I started using it to play with family members across the country, as well as friends in different states. I plunked down the $28 without hesitation, since I’d spend three times that much on a board game. This lets me play a whole slew of games I’d always meant to try but never got around to, and all of them are included in that one price.

While Zoom isn’t my favorite thing in the world, since I have so many hours spent on it every day, it does do an awfully good job of connecting people regardless of where they are. I have a Zoom room through the university, and I can set up meetings on the fly for as many people as I want. It’s very simple, then, to have everyone in the Zoom room be on boardgamearena, and suddenly you’re gaming almost the same way you were before the pandemic.

In some ways, it’s better. I mean, I’m playing with people I usually can’t game with more than once or twice a year at most. That’s lovely. And the ability to pick something up and learn it is great, since the platform keeps track of all the rules.

In other ways, it falls short. As much as it can be no fun to keep track of all the bits and pieces of a game, it’s also . . . fun to have them in front of you. And the social aspect over Zoom fails to get the same level of connection you get when you can take a break and go grab a bite to eat together. Being in person is just different than being on Zoom. Duh.

But it can get me to a 7/10 experience. Maybe even an 8/10 if it goes just right, and for the middle of the pandemic (or hopefully the end of it), that’s nothing to sniff at.

Anyway. Just wanted to put that out there, in case some of you were in the same boat I was. I can heartily recommend the service, and I’m looking forward to them adding even more games in the future. Anyone else out there already using it?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Unpopular Opinion: Bridgerton Edition

Bridgerton has really been drawing a lot of attention since it came out on Netflix last month. While I might not seem like I’m squarely in the target demographic, there were a number of things about it that intrigued me. First off, anytime something’s getting that much attention, as a maker of pop art, I want to check it out and try to see what the appeal is. Add to that the fact that I was a big Downton Abbey fan, and I don’t think it’s a huge leap to think I might have liked the show. So I gave it a shot.

As per my policy, I don’t review things I don’t finish. And I’m reviewing Bridgerton now, so obviously I liked the show enough to stick around to see the end. That said, I loved the first two episodes, then grew increasingly frustrated with the plotting and characterization of the show the longer it went on, plus its insistence on just shoehorning sex in whenever possible. I realize that “I didn’t like this steamy soap opera show because it had too many random steam scenes and was too much like a soap opera” is a pretty idiotic criticism to make. (Kind of like saying, “I didn’t like that chocolate ice cream because it tasted too much like chocolate ice cream.”) But hear me out.

Those first two episodes were a lot of fun. They were setting up characters, setting up conflicts, and it all seemed to be going in a nice straight boy meets girl sort of a pattern. It was light and amusing and very different from any of the darkness kicking around current events, and so I appreciated it for that, and I was really excited to see it continue in that vein.

In many ways, this is the same thing that attracted me to Downton Abbey. I always felt that show was at its best when it was just presenting the lives of the characters through a historical lens. Showing what they thought was important and how they dealt with it. I became most frustrated with the show when it chose instead to delve into the soap opera story lines. The murder accusation was the worst offender that I can remember at the moment. In my opinion, the show jettisoned character for plot in those instances. Sure, anyone can have something “shocking” happen at any point in a plot. But throwing in shocks for the sake of shocks is just too much of a blunt instrument at some point.

Four episodes into Bridgerton, things started really going off the rails. I won’t spoil anything in particular here, but I’ll just say that characters stopped behaving like rational beings. They stopped being consistent with the people we got to know the first few episodes, instead choosing to do stupid things that (to me) felt like they were done simply because the writers wanted them to happen. It’s cheap theatrics, and it’s disappointing. For example, one of my personal big pet peeves is when a conflict would be easily solved if only the characters would take five minutes to talk to each other. I understand that sometimes people refuse to talk to each other, and that can make for problems. However, people need reasons not to talk. They can’t just decide not to talk because because. Bridgerton had huge swathes of conflict that relied heavily on this. So in many ways, my disappointment was heightened because I liked the first two episodes so much.

This is all setting aside the sex scenes, which really, really didn’t need to be what they were. If any of you out there are thinking about watching Bridgerton and just fast forwarding through the sex or closing your eyes or whatever, save yourself 8 hours and just don’t watch the show. (Well, maybe you’d only save 7 hours, because you’d be skipping about an hour of the show already.) What did Bridgerton feel like? It felt like Game of Thrones meets Downton Abbey, with more of the flaws of both than the strengths.

All told, I give it a 4/10 for the season. There were still glimmers of things I enjoyed, and those first two episodes were great, but it was a show that made me want to keep checking my phone or do a crossword while I waited for it to finish things that were stupid so that it could get back to the few things I still wanted to find out about. I don’t believe I’ll be punching a ticket for the second season, and unless you’re a big fan of steamy soap operas, I recommend going elsewhere for your diversions. I know it’s gotten a lot of great reviews. I just think they’re wrong.

(I understand that there’s a fair bit to like in this show. The costuming and set design are both really solid, and there’s plenty of drama to feast on. I think the 4/10 is more a response to my disappointment of what might have been, and that’s okay I suppose. Not all shows out there are made for me. I’ve learned to live with that fact, even if it makes me bitter from time to time.)

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

COVID Semester: Take Three

The semester started back up again here at UMF today, the third semester we’ve had that’s been affected by COVID. And true to form, it feels like another semester that’s different from any of the others that have come before it. The first semester (last spring) was dominated by a sudden switch to full remote classes. That was a doozy and a half, trying to figure out what we were doing on the fly, as we all scrambled to solve a zillion problems and obstacles that came up.

But we got through it, more or less. And it was followed by an entire summer where I stayed in my home pretty much the whole time. The good news was that we also had plenty of time to plan for what was going to happen in the fall. Heading into that semester, I think most people thought all our carefully laid plans would prove fruitless, and so it was no small surprise when we made it through the entire semester, and most of it went according to plan. It felt like we’d done the work ahead of time, we were prepared for it, and the work paid off.

In many ways, then, I sort of assumed this new semester would be easier than the two that preceded it. We all had experience handling all of this, after all. How much worse could it be?

Well, I didn’t anticipate the way COVID continually warps the norm. One big difference is that the presence of the disease in Maine is significantly above where it was in the fall. It’s been declining recently, but I think the huge uptick made many more students hesitant about coming back to in-person classes. (As with all things COVID, there’s a very wide range of ideas around what the best course of action should be. You’ve got everything from “no one should go anywhere ever again” to “nothing should be different at all.” And when you’re trying to bring all those differing opinions together in one place to reach the common goal of educating students, it can get tricky.)

I don’t feel as prepared as I did heading into fall. The whole day has felt kind of off to me, in an unsettling way that I didn’t anticipate. There are more students who want to be fully remote, which means there are more classes where you have to pay equal attention to the folks in Zoomland and the folks physically in front of you. There’s the uncertainty around how many cases might actually be on campus, as testing runs its course. There’s uncertainty around what our budget might be like, and what the future holds for education in general.

Basically, each time I think I’ll have more certainty X months from now, and each time X months rolls around, I discover I don’t, in fact, have more certainty. That’s frustrating, and it leaves me feeling off balance in general. All it takes is a few poorly timed events (like Denisa’s car running out of batteries. Twice.) for the day to feel like it’s spiraling out of control.

I know it’ll get better. I know I just need to push through things, but on days like today, I really look forward to being on the other side of them.

In any case, welcome back, Beavers. And good luck to all the rest of you out there, whatever your COVID experiences might be. Here’s hoping these vaccinations pick up quickly, and “normal” comes sooner than we think.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: Wolfwalkers

A while ago, I’d heard good things about Wolfwalkers, an animated movie on Apple TV+. I filed that away, since at the time we had plenty of other things to watch. When I got my new iPad, it came with a year’s subscription to Apple TV+. Thus far, I’d only used it to watch the Tom Hanks battleship movie (Greyhound), so I was excited to be able to put the freebie toward another something in the future.

We watched Wolfwalkers as a family a few nights ago, and we really enjoyed it. It’s a story set in Ireland, about a city that’s plagued with an infestation of wolves outside its walls. The people are scared, and they’re doing their best to kill all the wolves, but they’re failing. It turns out the wolves are being led by a Wolf Walker–a woman who’s a wolf when she sleeps and a human when she’s awake. Except she’s disappeared, and her ten year old daughter is running things in her absence.

I won’t give away more than that. The story echoed Brave in many ways, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, it had a few things that really impressed me. First off, it’s a gorgeous movie, with a hand drawn animation flair that draws attention to the sketch quality of the art. The style was fantastic throughout, and I really enjoyed just looking at how beautiful it all was. The music was also a standout. The story itself was good. Though it dipped into predictable waters at times, it also had some solid developments.

Honestly, one of the things I liked most about it was that it wasn’t done by Disney or Pixar. We watched Soul a while ago as well. I really loved the movie, but at the same time, it feels like Pixar has got its formula down and really just keeps spinning off variations of the same. Of course, if you like chocolate ice cream, and someone makes your favorite chocolate ice cream, it seems kind of petty to complain that they keep making it, but what if there’s a flavor out there that you don’t even know you love yet? If all you do is keep eating the same chocolate ice cream, you’ll never find it. And worse yet, too much chocolate ice cream can make that lovely deliciousness get kind of boring. Variety is a good thing. Soul was very much more chocolate ice cream. Wolfwalkers . . . was more like rocky road. In many ways it could have been another Pixar movie. It’s definitely working in the same basic flavor. But it had enough significant differences to make it a new experience.

I feel like there’s so much room in animation, but these days the films seem to be dominated by the Pixar or the Dreamworks approaches. You’ve either got heartwarming movies with a Message, or farting ogres and neurotic squirrels. True, you’ve got princess movies thrown into the mix, but I would love to see more flat out adventure movies, or mysteries, or even dramas. But maybe that’s just me . . .

In any case, if you’re looking for a good family movie, and you’ve got Apple TV+, I heartily recommend this one. 8.5/10.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.