Bryce Moore's Blog, page 82
August 26, 2020
Movie Review: Greyhound
My new iPad purchase came with a free year of Apple TV+, which meant I was able to catch the new Tom Hanks movie, Greyhound, last night. I’d heard good things, and I’m a sucker for a good submarine movie, so I was looking forward to the experience. Overall, the movie didn’t disappoint. Was it incredible? No. But it delivered a well crafted war movie, and it had an actual rare depiction of a person’s faith as a positive thing, and that earns some brownie points in my book as well. I gave it a 7.5/10.
The film’s premise is very straightforward: Hanks plays the captain of a destroyer, out to protect a group of transport ships from German U-boats as they cross the Atlantic. Surprise surprise: the U-boats actually materialize and are dangerous. It’s up to Hanks to keep it together long enough to protect the ships and get to the other side of the Atlantic.
As far as pacing goes, it was quite thrilling. I really appreciated the way they depicted the strict chain of communication that was in place to keep everything orderly. Coordinating all the different mechanisms that had to be in place in order to keep the pressure on the U-boats (and keep themselves out of danger) was a real dance number, and this movie did a great job of illustrating that. It’s cut together well, so you pretty much always know where the ships are, who’s in danger, and what needs to happen to escape it. That’s not always easy to do, especially when there’s so much chaos happening on the screen.
As I said before, the film also depicts Hanks as a religious man. Better yet (in my book), his religion is a strength, not a weakness. Too often today, religion seems to be a thing people tolerate in a person, as opposed to something to admire someone for. I understand a large reason for that is due to the people who use their religion to justify terrible actions, and I get that many terrible things have been done in the name of religion over the years. Ideally, religion gets us to be better people. (Though the real difficulty comes when you begin to demand a definition of “better.”) I know that personally, my religion gives me strength and guidance in troubled times, and it inspires me to care more for those who are helpless and in need. I don’t want this review to turn into a huge debate about the merits of religion, however. I just want to praise the film for depicting the captain as religious, but not crazy. That really does happen in the real world, people.
The film’s biggest flaw is its brevity, not something I say too often about an action movie. But in this one, they pay a little bit of attention to fleshing out the captain’s back story, and then they dive right into the action. Hints of characterization are provided here and there, but I think it would have been more powerful if we’d had a bit more time to get invested in the characters. Including the captain. As it is, the movie’s just a minute over an hour and a half. They definitely had time available to do a bit more justice to the characters, and that would have made it all more compelling.
But in the end, it’s still what I wanted to get out of a war movie. Thrilling chases. Tense moments. Explosions. Action. Is it worth the price of an AppleTV+ subscription? Sure, for a month or two at least. I still have to see if there are other shows on there that keep me coming back, though. For now, if you’re interested in the movie, go ahead and subscribe for a month and see how you like the rest of the stuff. You’d have paid more than that to see it in the theater, after all. (Though I was watching on my big projector screen. I might feel differently if I’d experienced it on a smaller scale.)
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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.
August 25, 2020
Writing Update
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on my various writing projects. No time like the present, right? Writing during social distancing was difficult for me. Not because it was trickier to write, but because it was a rough patch mentally. It’s hard to push through and get creative when I’m stressed about other things. That isn’t to say I didn’t write. I did, but there was more wheel spinning involved than I would have liked.
However, I feel like I’m getting back in gear now that I’m returning to my normal work routine. (Though things at work are still far from normal . . .) Getting up, getting writing done, making progress on various projects. It’s been tremendously helpful to have a writing group again. They’ve already given feedback on SILVERADO, and I think that story has a lot of promise when I find time to go back to finishing it.
That’s the strangest things these days. Back when I was starting out writing, I preferred to have a book and work on it to completion. Now, other projects keep cropping up that always seem to interrupt what I’m writing. For example, at the moment I have XXXXX books in some stage of the drafting process:
MURDER CASTLE–Remember people! I have an actual book coming out next year. It’s been retitled to THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE, as the thought was that MURDER CASTLE might present itself as a fantasy book to readers, and this is very much more a thriller with horror undertones. I got my edit letter back on the book a couple of weeks ago, so this is where the bulk of my writing attention is going at the moment. I took the time to reread the entire novel. (I rarely reread my own work after I’ve revised it too much.) I hadn’t worked on this since November 2018, so I was able to really look at it with fresh eyes this time. It was great to see how strong the book is, and I’m excited about the changes my editor made. I think it’s going to be a really great read, and I’m excited to share it with you next summer.SILVERADO–My steampunk alternate history has been placed on the back burner for now. Not because I don’t like it, but because there are other more immediate projects that take precedence. As I said, my writing group has finished it, and they had some great suggestions. It’s a fun book, and I hope to return to it. The first draft is mostly finished, although I never wrote the climax, and when I return to it, I’m going to have to rework what I’ve got before I can move forward. I consider the first draft complete. The next time I work on it, it’ll be the second draft, or maybe draft 1.5. I was 90,000 words in when I stoppedHOUSE OF COWARDS–My epic YA fantasy has also been set aside for the time being. I was around 73,000 words into it, which is actually a huge problem. At that rate, the whole book would have been 250,000 words. That’s incredibly enormous for adult works, let alone YA. And it’s the first book in a trilogy? Yeah. I liked a ton of what I was doing, but I’m going to have to reassess it.MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET–My writing group is reading through this right now, and I’m thinking about editing it to make it more of an adult fantasy instead of YA. Which will be strange, as it started out Middle Grade and has just kept shifting older. We’ll see where it goes. I’m not actively writing it at the moment. Just wanted to get the feedback from the group.NEW ORLEANS–The project I set aside for THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE is where my focus will return as soon as I’ve got the revision done. This is the second book I’ll be publishing with Sourcebooks. At least, that’s the plan. I was around 24,000 words into the draft, but I’d identified some problems already that needed to be fixed. (The biggest one being that I switched who the main character was.) It’ll be the 19th book I’ve finished.
So there you have it. When I take a look at it from a wide angle, it all looks quite industrious. It’s amazing what you can get done by plodding along at 1,000 words a day. Yay for small goals leading to big goals.
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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.
August 24, 2020
Top Ten Reasons I’m Not Voting for Trump
Right right right. I know just last week I posted about how I wish people would stop sharing content that does nothing but antagonize the people who disagree with them while getting the people who already are on board to shower them with praises. But then a friend asked me on Facebook why I dislike Trump. She’s on the fence and is interested in hearing me out, and it’s been a while since I actually got to the nitty gritty about why I could never bring myself to vote for him, regardless of policies.
So here I am. I have posted about Trump approximately 50 times, whether it’s been directly or indirectly. (That’s searching my posts for “Trump” and limiting it to “Current Events.” There might be some posts outside those constraints, but I also might have used the word “trump” at some point when not referring to him. We’ll call it a wash.) My first post on the man was what I still remember fondly as a fun little humor piece. A fake news article announcing a new book he planned to publish called My Struggle. That was back on December 8, 2015. Suffice it to say, my feelings for the man never warmed from there.
I could point out all the different articles I’ve written, but I’m going to try and sum up here. Less reading for you. Yay! Here we go: top ten reasons I dislike Trump.
TEN: His demeanor leaves so much to be desired, words fail. Even his own admirers will readily admit they wish he didn’t say what he often says, or that he’d at least say it in a different way. “He didn’t mean that, he meant this” is a justification I’ve heard time and time again. But often he goes and then restates what he said, clarifying that yes, he really did mean it. Whether he’s pontificating on shit hole countries or how he’d like to manhandle women, he rarely misses an opportunity to further lower the standing of the office he was elected to. I don’t really think this is debatable by anyone, but it’s also far from my number one reason to dislike the man. If it were truly the only thing wrong with him, I suppose I might (in theory) be able to get beyond it. However . . .
NINE: He panders to the worst aspects of our society. I’m not going to say he’s responsible for those aspects, though he has certainly cultivated their growth during his time in office, much as a gardener isn’t responsible for the existence of tomatoes, but can certainly be given credit for the crop they’ve raised each year. His disinclination to call out racism and sexism when they’re staring him in the face. He gleefully revels in name calling and mudslinging when it suits his purpose, and then he suddenly becomes a connoisseur of nuance and hidden meanings and motivation when his flunkies are being scrutinized for their behavior. Which leads me to
EIGHT: He’s a hypocrite. Yes, I realize he’s also a politician, and so those two words often might seem synonymous, but Trump has raised hypocrisy to an art form. As a deeply religious person myself, I am beyond disturbed by the way he panders to people of faith, giving lip service to his faith while showing absolutely no evidence of it. He excels at calling people out on behavior he himself practices on a regular basis, and when he’s taken to task for that, he resorts to his knee-jerk response:
SEVEN: He lies. About everything and anything. Whether it’s the size of the crowd at his inauguration or any number of other items over the years. 20,000 lies and counting. And again, yes he’s a politician, but his willingness to embrace blatant lying as a political tool in such an overt, regular way is disappointing to me. I would never continue to interact with a person who lies as much as Trump lies in my personal life. Why would I tolerate it in my leader? He has lied so often about so many different things, those lies no longer register as important. By lying so frequently, he has made the country immune to those falsehoods.
SIX: He’s dangerously ignorant. I readily admit no one knows everything, and I don’t hold ignorance against a person, up to a point. But when that person is in charge of a major global superpower, I’d like to expect they would be ready to become more informed and do their best to get up to speed on what needs to happen and why. Trump has shown little interest in doing the actual work needed to combat the ignorance he arrived in the White House with. Worse yet, he’s ready and willing to act on that ignorance, often to the detriment of our country. Whether it’s blithely wondering aloud in a news conference if drinking bleach would cure Corona or ignoring the findings of his own intelligence agencies, choosing to pay attention to what Putin has assured him instead of what our own efforts have brought to light, Trump has consistently ignored information that conflicts with what he’d like to do. As an information professional, that’s pretty antithetical to a huge chunk of my worldview. He has contributed to the tendency of so many to ignore experts, choosing instead to listen to the pundit of their choice.
FIVE: When Trump was elected, I tried to console myself with the thought that the Republican Party would help shield the nation from the worst of his tendencies. That he was just a single man, and that he’d be surrounded by experts who would steer him toward something resembling an okay future. But Trump has, instead, packed his Cabinet and his counselors with yes men and sycophants and people singularly unqualified to lead in their respective areas. Often he’s chosen to put people in charge who are vocal critics of the areas they are supposed to be leading. Yes, putting a fox in charge of a hen house might make sense, because foxes love hens, but it’s the wrong kind of love. He has insulated himself from any real criticism by sticking his family and past associates into key areas of government. They have responded in kind by doing damage to many of the things they touch. An easy example would be the way he has handled the Corona pandemic. It’s been one huge botched “solution” after another. A string of lies and half-truths to assure us the nation has it fixed, while it’s plain to see we do not. He talks about “Draining the Swamp,” but I think he understands that phrase differently. What he means is “Developing the Swamp.” Getting the most out of it he can, like some sort of two-bit real estate shyster. Can’t let all that lovely swampland just sit around idle, after all.
FOUR: He has ruined the Republican Party, a party I’m still officially registered in. I am incredibly sad to see so many people I am friends with taken in by this charlatan. I am disgusted to see the way the Republicans have embraced Trumpism instead of vomiting him out the first chance they got. (And they have had many, many chances.) In return for their tolerance of the man, they have gotten a number of their stated goals pushed through government, but it’s a scorched earth approach that is destroying the nation they supposedly want to help. I’ve seen a Facebook post making the rounds, summarizing all the things Trump has done for the nation. I’m glad there are items on there that people feel good about. There are certainly some to be proud of. (Though how many were actually accomplished by him or even during his time in office is most definitely up for debate.) I’m not going to pick the list apart item by item. I’ll just say that even if all those things were all to be placed to Trump’s credit, they would not counterbalance the effect he has had on this country or on Republicans as a whole. The ends do not justify the means. Whether it’s abortion or religious freedom or the conservative balance of the Supreme Court, none of those is worth what Republicans have had to sacrifice in return. It’s a Faustian bargain, but one so many of them seem unable to acknowledge.
THREE: He embraces an America of the past. He talks about making America great again, referring to a time period when many aspects of American life were truly broken. A more accurate slogan would be “Make America Great (for Some) Again.” But the “some” refers to straight white Christians. I prefer an America that is forward facing. That acknowledges we have made mistakes and that strives to continually improve. An America that realizes the fundamental thesis statement that started this country: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” An America that acknowledges that statement didn’t end up applying to all races or all genders, and that it should have.
TWO: He evidences many fascist traits. I realize “fascism” is an easy word to lob around these days. It seems to have grown to stand for “things we don’t like in politicians” in the way many people use it, but if you go through the actual characteristics of a fascist government, Trump has done much to try to bring America closer to that fate. His continued admiration for dictators on a global stage is disturbing, and his proven track record of using scapegoats to unite his base smacks all too strongly of Nazism. I’ve made multiple comparisons of Trump to Hitler, and I recognize it’s simple enough to dismiss those as “just another comparison to Hitler.” But a paranoiac isn’t paranoid if everyone really is out to get them, and just because Hitler comparisons haven’t been justified in the past doesn’t mean they’re not justified now.
ONE: Perhaps the thing I find most disturbing about Trump is the way his presence on the political scene in America has warped the political landscape. There’s this sense of false equivalency that’s cropped up, comparing Trump to Obama, and saying “Well, half the country didn’t like Obama, but they put up with him. Now the other half don’t like Trump, but it’s their turn to stomach him.” I voted for George W. Bush. I voted for Romney. I voted for Obama (when McCain picked Palin, and there was no way for me to support that choice). What I mean to say is I am not a Democrat by any stretch. (Though I hate that we’ve come to this: having to pull out our voting record to make it feel like we have a leg to stand on in this debate.) It is true that both Democrat and Republican parties have many issues. Things they do a bad job at. But to put Trump and Obama on two sides of a scale and to try and claim those two sides balance out is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. To try and repeat the practice with Biden and Trump is more of the same. Trump, to me, is a fundamentally different politician. He is dangerous to the core, and he never should have ascended to be our President. The sooner we can be rid of him, the better.
Biden would not be my first choice for President. But in this case, I view him as the only one. It’s like saying, “Would you like to slam your finger in the door, or would you like me to chop your head off?” Yes, they’re both not options I’m in love with, but it’s not exactly a decision I need to spend too much time dithering over. They are not two sides of a mirror.
So there you have it. A post I don’t really think is going to do much to move the needle for anyone. People who were going to vote for Trump will look at it and dismiss it (if they even read it at all), and people who weren’t going to vote for him will nod their head and move on. I find the whole thing discouraging, and the only thing I dread more than the next two months of the campaign is the next four years of Trump if he’s elected.
And I suppose that’s all I have to say about that for today.
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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.
August 21, 2020
Operation Poop Patrol
Things with the new puppy are proceeding nicely, more or less. He has enough energy to power a small city, but there are five of us, and we’ve been able to tag team it well enough to keep up with him in most regards.
But not all.
And that “all,” of course, refers to housebreaking the pooch. For the first few days, we were in sheer response mode. Do whatever we could to try to keep him outside when he had to do his business. I’m sure if any of us had housebroken a puppy before, this wouldn’t have been as big of a deal. We’ve talked to people who have, and I think once you’ve done it and know what to expect, it gets smoother. But none of us had, and so we might have known the theory, but not the practice. Still, we were holding our own during the day. There were some accidents, but we were getting better at figuring out when to take him out.
The night was a whole different story, however.
For the first few nights, we just sort of put him in his crate and hoped for the best when the morning came. Spoiler alert: the morning always held poop. Sometimes just on the bottom of his crate, but sometimes all over Ferris as well, along with a nice coating of pee to make sure it all stuck.
I spoke to my brother (who also got a puppy last month, and who’s about 4 weeks ahead of us on the training regime.) They were taking their pooch out multiple times at night in a system that even involved baby monitors. Did I really need to go to those extremes? Couldn’t Ferris just . . . learn to hold it?
After doing some more research, I confirmed that not only could Ferris not “hold it” for an entire night as a puppy, but the more he just pooped his crate, the more he’d get used to the process. Puppies have a natural dislike of sleeping in their own filth, but if you let them do it enough, they’ll adapt. I most definitely did not want to be training Ferris how to soil himself every night.
So we called a family council. After some discussion, we divided out the night. Tomas would take the first shift, taking Ferris out for a walk at 10pm (after putting the dog to bed at 8 or so). Denisa would get up at 2am to do the same, and I’d follow it up by getting up at 6am and taking care of Ferris for the morning until I had to go to work. We’d reconvene the next day to see how it played out.
Here’s the rundown: Tomas put Ferris to bed at 8, on schedule. When he went to take him for a walk at 10, Ferris had already pooped the cage. He cleaned that out and reset. When Denisa went to take him out at 2am, the cage was clean. When I went to get him at 6am, he had peed the cage. Verdict: failure.
But that’s why we make changes to our plans. Yesterday, we decided to tweak things. Instead of putting Ferris to bed at 8, we had Tomas put him to bed at 9:30. He walked the dog right before, but Ferris declined to poop. When Denisa got him (not at 1:30 instead of 2), the cage was clean! She took him out and he took care of all necessary business quickly. She put him right back to bed. When I got him this morning at 5:30, the cage was still clean! I woke him up, took him out, and he once again got full marks. True, trying to edit a manuscript was a bit trickier when my co-worker kept wanting to eat it, but we made do until it was time to get someone else to come watch Mr. Drooler.
Yes, there was a pee accident around 7:15am, but I’m still going to count last night as a victory. The first night we didn’t have a huge mess waiting for us at some point during the night. Now we just have to keep doing this every night for the next few months or so, and we’ll be kind of sort of good to go!
It’s a good thing the whole family loves this dog so much.
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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.
August 20, 2020
If You Can’t Say Something Nice . . .
Saturday morning, I was browsing through Facebook on my phone when I came across yet another thing Trump had done that irritated me. (Surprise surprise.) I immediately shared it, along with a snarky dig at any Republicans who still somehow still support him, and then I went about my scrolling session.
Except the share stuck with me. Why had I shared that article, along with the veiled insult to Republicans? What did I hope to achieve by it? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d pretty much done it for two basic reasons: to make a (somewhat) passive (and much more) aggressive swipe at those Republicans, and to get an amen from like-minded people who agreed with me. I didn’t think for a moment that this final piece of evidence would be the thing that finally made all the people who think I’m wrong suddenly start thinking I’m right.
Once I came to that realization, I went back and deleted the post. It just wasn’t worth my time and attention, and it wasn’t going to solve anything.
I’m going to try and follow that patten for future shares. I have a tendency to come up with pithy comments about things in the news, and I like to share that snark with the world. “Ooh! That’ll make a great Facebook post,” I think, and five seconds later it’s a reality. And then I get to sit back and bask in the Likes as they pour in.
But these days, with both sides as entrenched as they are, I don’t think pithy comments and sharing news stories is really going to move the needle at all, except in the “Rage” category. Think of it this way: when a Trump supporter shares something that they’re very proud of, how much does it make a non-Trump supporter really think? These days, you dismiss it due to the source, or the slant, or any number of reasons.
Yes, I might have a lot of deeply held beliefs about information sources, and I might feel like those beliefs and opinions are worth more than someone who’s not a trained information professional. But just as I have those opinions, that Trump supporter has deeply held opinions about the veracity of that article. The blunt fact is that at this point, I think the *only* way those opinions have a chance of changing is through a lengthy discussion. Pithy Facebook posts just don’t cut the mustard in those situations.
So will I still state my opinions on my blog? You betcha. I can really delve into what I think and why I think it here in a way a pithy post can’t capture. Possibly some of what I say at length might be able to do what that short share couldn’t.
This is something I would encourage both “sides” to do. Stop posting things that do nothing but enrage you or the opposite “side.” Because the more we start thinking of ourselves as opponents, the more set against each other we’re going to become.
And yes, I realize that you might well feel that your pithy posts are not only justified, but necessary. That there’s so much Wrong out there that you need to fix by reminding everyone of that Wrong at every turn. The thing is, we’re at the point in an argument when people are no longer listening. If you were having this debate in person, you would have given up a long time ago. Facebook just lets that argument continue . . . forever. Because Facebook makes money off it. They’re like the Sith that way. Feeding off your anger and hate.
Be more like Yoda, people. Like with any debate, if we could have a cooling off period and approach this all with fresh eyes and minds, then maybe we’d have a hope of coming together and reaching some actual solutions. But who am I kidding? What are the odds of anything cooling off before November, or even after that?
Zero, as long as the rage-shares continue . . .
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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.
August 19, 2020
AirPods Pro Review
I bought some ear buds a while back, thinking they’d be an excellent way to listen to music on my iPhone. (I get an Apple Music subscription free with my Verizon account. Actually, starting next week I’ll also be getting Hulu and ESPN+ for free, in addition to Disney+. I don’t know how long these deals will last, but I’ll say I really love taking advantage of stuff that comes to me for free when I’m paying for something anyway.)
In any case, the ones I got were middle-of-the-road Jabras. Not super expensive, but not cheap ones either. I tried them out some and they were . . . fine. I didn’t like how outside sound seemed to echo in my head when I had them on, and I listen to enough different devices through the course of the day (my laptop, my phone, my iPad) that switching between all of them was a real pain. In the end, I stopped using them that much. They were nice, but not enough to get me to start listening to music regularly again.
This is surprising to me in many ways, since I used to listen to music all the time. I would go everywhere with my portable CD player and happily listen to music all day. I still listen to music plenty in the car, but I had stopped doing it throughout the day, just because it felt like too much of a pain, I suppose.
With the shift to online learning at the university, Denisa has needed to use my iPad more and more for her classes. (Along with the Apple Pencil, she can use it as an on-screen whiteboard in Zoom classes.) It’s a year and a half old, so old enough for me to justify buying a new iPad and just bequeathing my current one to her so that she can use it whenever she needs it. And when I went to buy the new iPad, imagine my surprise to see Apple was doing a deal for educators: buy an iPad, get AirPods for free. For a bit more money, I could upgrade to the pros. I’ve loved my noise canceling Bose headphones on planes. If these worked the same way, without cords . . .
I bought them. I’m a sucker for technology, and I hoped the Apple reputation for ease of use would make the difference.
I’m very pleased to say that it did. The sound on them is really impressive, and the noise cancellation is fantastic. There’s an easy way to switch between letting the outside noise filter through and tuning it out, and changing from listening on one device to another is also just a few clicks away. I can go from listening to a Zoom on my laptop to listening to my phone as I walk around campus without any real effort. Siri works well on them, too.
Consider me a happy customer. (Though since I paid half off for them, it’s not like it was a huge bar to pass.) Would I still be happy if I had paid the full price? I think so. I could see me using these on planes instead of my Bose headphones. (The one drawback is that they might get uncomfortable after 4+ hours of being in. Not sure on that yet. It seems for now that I’m getting used to them. But then there’s the issue of battery life. Recharging them halfway through a flight might be a pain. Does it override the smaller travel footprint? If I ever get to fly again, I guess we’ll find out.)
I know Apple gets a lot of disdain from some, but there’s a lot to be said for how easy it all works together when you’re all in the same ecosystem, technologically.
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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.
August 18, 2020
Back to School: How Long Can We Last?
Higher ed chatter lit up yesterday with the news that UNC Chapel Hill, which had started up in-person classes last week, abruptly transitioned to online only this week when 177 of their students tested positive in that first week. And of course the big question on everybody’s lips (masked lips) is “Do you think we’re going to last any longer?”
I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit, and my thoughts (as usual) run longer than a simple Facebook comment would give enough room for. Though the easiest answer for me to give would be “It’s complicated.”
UNC Chapel Hill’s master plan for in-person classes was to have all their students, staff, and faculty to pretend they were already infected and to take extreme precautions. Clearly, that didn’t work. I don’t think it would work for any school of UNC’s size. 30,000 students? If even .1% of them have COVID when they come to classes, that’s 30 students, which seems like a vey manageable number. Except it means 29,970 of them did *not* have COVID, and telling all of them to “pretend that you do” just isn’t going to cut it. Not in real life.
COVID falls into the treacherous territory of “It probably won’t do you lasting damage and very probably won’t kill you.” Why is that so treacherous? If it were any worse, then more people would be genuinely afraid of getting it. In that case, more people would self-isolate and wear masks, which would result in the virus going away much more quickly. But people know that the odds are in their favor, and like the Hunger Games, it’s much more fun to go out and party with the District 1 crowd than it is to actually be in the arena fighting for your life. But as long as you’re not the one in that arena . . . sit back and enjoy the show, right? (Seriously. If there’s one thing this pandemic is teaching me, it’s that all the dystopian books out there vastly overestimate the amount of people who are really going to rise up in rebelling if anything terrible happens. That said, I suppose we’re still in the lead up to a true dystopia, and all the dystopian books start with that dystopia in full swing. Maybe we just have to wait a few decades?)
Ahem. Where was I?
Right. UNC’s approach was destined to failure, because enough people aren’t really worried about getting COVID. (That’s a topic for a later date.) But the big question is what will happen at other universities?
By and large, I expect most large universities to follow UNC’s path. Be open for a while until it’s proven that they just can’t cut the mustard against the COVID fight, and then head online. Some of this will depend greatly on the region and the size of the school in question. If they’re in a spot with relatively low rates, then I think they’ll be able to go a lot longer without hitting crisis mode. Basically, each school is a boat, and the infection rates and student population size are holes in that boat. If the holes are small enough, you should be able to theoretically bail it out and stay afloat. If you’re in the Titanic, on the other hand . . . Better go look for a suitably large door to float away on.
What does it mean specifically for my institution, however? Well, UMF is small. 1,700 students, give or take. We’re also in a remote part of a state with one of the lowest infection rates in the country. Theoretically we should start the semester with low rates even if we did nothing. But we’re not doing nothing. We’re testing all students who will be living on campus, all students who are from out of state, and all student athletes. All of them get tested and have to quarantine until they get the results in three days. Then a week into classes, they all get tested again. From then on, some of them continue to be tested, at random, every week. If a test comes back positive, the student has to quarantine for 2 weeks. Contact tracing happens. Other people quarantine to prevent spread.
Is it a perfect approach? Not entirely. I mean, compare it to Colby’s, where they’re testing literally everyone on campus every week for the entire semester and not letting anyone in from outside that bubble. That would be as close to “this will very likely work” as you can get, I would think. But not every school has Colby money, sadly. I think ours is about as good as a state school is going to get. People are working very hard on keep students, staff, and faculty safe. I’ve seen a lot of that work first hand, and I know how committed everyone is to it.
But will it work?
I think it will definitely work for a while, but there are too many unknowns to figure out what will actually happen. IF case rates stay low in Maine, then that will be huge. Anyone who leaves the state has to be tested when they return (assuming they don’t like about leaving the state). IF people consistently wear masks and social distance, any cases that do arrive should wither away. (Though we know from experience some students just aren’t going to do that off campus, at parties, etc.) IF the onset of fall and winter don’t make cases everywhere shoot through the roof, that will be another point in our favor.
Lots and lots of ifs.
I tend to think we’ll make it through September without difficulty. I would like to think we can get through October as well. Thanksgiving is just a few more weeks after that . . . If I were a betting man (and I’m not), I would say we’d make it long enough for students to feel like they had a solid in-person school experience. (Though an admittedly very different one.) Generally speaking, I like our chances. I think the bulk of our students will wear masks. I think our remoteness will work in our favor. Even on campus, we’re typically spread far apart even in normal circumstances. That has to account for something.
Doesn’t it?
I feel in many ways like Wile E. Coyote running into thin air. As long as I don’t look down, I can’t fall. Right? 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.
August 17, 2020
The Puppy Has Landed
That’s right. Saturday morning we were a dog-free family, and by the afternoon, that had changed forever. As we were driving to pick up Ferris, the only real comparison I could think of was when we were going to the hospital for Tomas to be born. Yes, I realize Tomas is a human and Ferris is a dog, but still, some of the principles were the same. We’d read up on how to handle a dog. We had some of the theory down, but the nuts and bolts were still very much blurry. Particularly because we’d be having a puppy come home with us, not just a dog.
I had several dogs growing up. I love dogs, and l wasn’t worried about the dog aspects at all. You feed them. You take them out to do their business. You can train them or play with them or do any number of things with them. But they already know what’s what and who’s who. Puppies, on the other hand, definitely do not.
And sure enough, it’s been quite the ride this weekend. We’ve set things up in our house so that he can be in the kitchen, and that’s it. There are dog gates and doors in the way of everywhere else he might want to go. We’re working on crate training and housebreaking him at the same time, which is a real bundle of joy. He’s very well meaning, but he’s got no clue in the world what he’s supposed to be doing. (Which is to be expected. He’s an 8 week old puppy transplanted into a new house with new people.)
I spent Saturday morning reading How to Raise the Perfect Dog, and that was a great book to give me a basic foundation of what I’d want to be doing with Ferris. Then again, it all seems so straightforward in the book. “Housebreaking is easy. I just do this, this, and this, and the dog is good to go in three days.” I have no doubt housebreaking is easy for someone who’s already done it multiple times. That would be like me saying “Writing a book is easy.” Because it is, more or less. You write some every day, and after a while, the books is done. Ta-da! But so much of the ease of that process comes from having done it so often. Sure, you can get to the point where you can look back and it all seems to simple, but when you’re there in the trenches for the first time?
Not so much.
It really helps that the family is all helping out. Tomas and Daniela are taking turns taking Ferris out to pee. Denisa and I are tag-teaming getting him out in the morning and watching him during the day. But for now, it really feels like a full time operation. Keep an eye on him. Try to get him to go outside before he goes inside, if you get my drift. Thankfully he’s sleeping a ton, which gives us plenty of breaks. Even still, the whole weekend felt like one big blur to me as we tried to stay on top of all of this. It’s a good thing we’re doing it well before the kids have to head back to school and Denisa has work. In theory, this should be better in a few weeks. At least relatively. Right? Right?
In the meantime, I suppose I can be grateful I’m back at work on campus. 
August 14, 2020
Top Ten 80s Cartoons
It’s been a long week. I don’t have another current events post in me, so I decided to turn my attention to something far more pressing. I’m speaking, of course, of 80s cartoons. Not the newer stuff from the 90s. Tiny Toons and Animaniacs? They’re not going to appear on this list. I’m talking about my tried and true go-to’s for when I was growing up. Prime “Kid Cartoon” fodder.
I watched my fair share of television in the 80s, and more than my fair share of cartoons. There might be a few on here that I’m missing (because the 80s is a long time ago now, people), but these are the ones that came to mind, so . . . they must be the ones that really matter, right?
Anyway. Enough with the preamble. That’s about as worthless as commercials. Let’s get to the good stuff!
10–The Smurfs: Yes, you can’t get any less cool than the Smurfs. Not really. They’re a bunch of tiny blue creatures running away from a cat. Plus, they showed a real lack of imagination when it came to their naming. Brainy Smurf. Papa Smurf. Smurfette. Everything was Smurfy. That said, it lasted a whole long time, and I watched a whole lot of the show, so in the end, I guess I was a Smurfed as the rest of them.
9–Inspector Gadget: Another of the highlight shows I enjoyed on the younger side of the 80s. A screwy detective who’s somehow part robot, and he fights crimes against the evil Dr. Claw? I mean, what’s not to like here? It was a bit too light hearted for my later bloodthirsty preferences in animation, but for a good long while, I looked forward to seeing the show any time it was on.
8–Garfield and Friends: If this were straight up Garfield, this would be higher ranked. But it had those “Friends.” Sort of like when you ask a cute girl out on a date, and she brings her cousin along that you don’t really like. This isn’t what you wanted out of the evening. That said, the Garfield specials that came on in the evening were always a highlight, so there’s that.
7–Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Yes, some people will undoubtably have this higher. I loved the turtles, but not to the point that I was buying their merchandise. I mean, I played a fair bit of the video games, but those came later, didn’t they? Maybe I just couldn’t connect with a bunch of amphibian martial arts specialists the same way I could relate to robots or scantily-clad barbarians. I don’t know. It’s not you, TMNT, it must be me.
6–DuckTales: You can jam this together with the other Disney block of shows. Talespin? Rescue Rangers? Gummy Bears? They were all high caliber viewing experiences. They didn’t quite have the impact on me as the higher shows on this list did, and they sort of blended into the 90s in many ways, so they just don’t stand out to me as the epitome of 80s cartoondom. But they were tons of fun anyway. DuckTales was the best, hands down. Who knew a show about an elderly billionaire duck living with his three nephews could be so captivating?
5–Voltron: I think I would have liked Voltron even more if I had ever been able to watch it all the way through. But I would always miss weeks and episodes, and so it never made complete sense. Plus, there was the vehicle version of Voltron, and the lion version of Voltron, and that really made a kid scratch his head and wonder what was up with that. Not too much, though, because sci-fi lion robots are cool.
4–GI Joe: Yeah, yeah. It should probably be higher, but in my day, you either liked GI Joe, or you liked Transformers. You had to choose. And I was a Transformers fan, through and through. So while I watched the show and had a great time, I never really embraced it. That was for my brother. Plus, who needs the constant PSAs after every episode? Yes, Duke. I know I shouldn’t play with fire. Just let me watch my cartoons in peace!
3–He-Man: The show had it all. Cringer. Castle Greyskull. Orko hiding out in each episode. Skeletor! Lady Teela. (It also had She-Ra, which I deeply resented for reasons that made sense at the time. Probably because I didn’t want girls getting anything cool. What can I say? They had cooties?) I had a load of He-Man merchandise. The Castle Greyskull was particularly awesome. Dungeons! Skulls! What’s not to like?
2–Thundercats: This isn’t a terribly complicated show to understand. There are people that look kind of like cats, and they fight a guy who looks like a mummy. Also, it’s science fiction. With swords! It also had Cheetara, which was a definite point in is favor. (Then again, it also had the twins. I didn’t like the twins at all. They were annoying. Kind of like Snarf.) But in the end, it’s that sword that really set it apart. Who doesn’t want an extending sword that will blast a Thundercats signal into the heavens? (We will not do a Freudian reading of this show today, folks. In fact, we will never do a Freudian reading of it . . . )
1–Transformers: The flat out most awesome cartoon for me back then had to be Transformers. I mean, giant robots that turned into everything from tanks to dinosaurs? What’s not to like about that? I was a huge transformers fan, and I had a ton of the toys. I would happily sit there switching them from robots into airplanes and back. Transformers was epic. (And it’s a shame what Michael Bay did to them. But I won’t go there.) When I think “watching cartoons in the 80s,” the first thing that always springs to mind is this show.
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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.
August 13, 2020
Teeth Grinding Extravaganza
I’m a teeth grinder. At night, I have to wear a mouth guard, because I do my darnedest in my sleep to grind my teeth into oblivion. I grind so much, I literally ground through my first night guard. Had to upgrade to a harder one. The theory was that I would only need to wear that one for a half year or so to “train my mouth” so that it stopped wanting to grind at night.
My mouth turned out to be about as trainable as a rabid badger. A hungry, rabid badger with really sharp teeth. (Because that’s what happens to your mouth for the first while when you grind your teeth. Or at least, that’s what happened to my teeth. My canines got sharper. This makes biting my lips sometimes particularly painful . . .) Longterm, of course, grinding your teeth eventually wears them down, and that’s no good at all.
But anyway. Teeth. Grinding. Me. You get the picture.
Over the course of the pandemic, it appears I’ve begun to take teeth grinding to eleven. Somehow, I’m grinding my teeth during the day now and not even realizing it. I know I’m doing it, because I know how my teeth feel after I’ve been grinding. Usually I’d have that feeling after a night when I forgot to put in my mouth guard. (Hardly ever happens now.) Now I’ll discover myself with that feeling after a few hours of working on the computer, being really focused.
I’m not entirely sure what to do about it. Maybe take more deep breaths? I’d go on a vacation, but . . . that’s not really happening at the moment. For now, I’m trying to be mindful of it and remind myself to take frequent breaks and calm down. It’s not that I feel really wound up the whole time. I mean, I’m stressed, but I’m handling it, right? Except I must not be, because my mouth tells a different story.
I have to continually remember that this pandemic is really affecting people in ways that you just can’t see by glancing at a person. That so many people are carrying around extra mental baggage because of it. The more we can treat each other civilly and choose not to get bent out of shape over things that don’t matter, the better. (Or even not getting bent out of shape over things that *do* matter, honestly.)
Maybe that’ll help me not break any teeth in the near 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.
