Good Omens 2

LC and I finished watching this last night. Going in, I had serious misgivings - partly because the first series exhausted the first book, partly because sequels are just never as good, and partly because the Pratchett/Gaiman pairing had a certain magic to it that Gaiman alone necessarily lacked.

So...

Yeah, it's good. It's not as good as the first series, but then I don't think anything really could have been. But Tennant and Sheen are now a well-practiced double act and they're both clearly familiar with their roles and also clearly having fun. And the series is just that - fun.

Ultimately, I do recommend it, and I'm finding myself looking forward to the third (and, I think, final) series. It might not work out, of course, but it has been left in a good place (from a storytelling point of view), and there's a lot more fun to be had.

Good stuff.

Still Counts as One

One of my goals for the year was to repaint the painted sections of our main bathroom and downstairs toilet, to hang some pictures in the hallway, and to replace the hallway carpet.

Over the weekend, LC proceeded to paint the downstairs toilet, and also to purchase and fill some picture frames that I then duly hung. Consequently, that goals has taken some massive strides forward.

I do need to stress, of course, that almost none of this was my achievement - all I did was hang the picture frames (and not terribly well!). Still, the goal has taken a big step forward, and it still counts!

#10: "Crucial Conversations", by Grenny, Patterson, Switzler, and McMillan
#11: "Bond: With a Mind to Kill", by Anthony Horowitz

Secret Invasion

There is no MCU TV series that I have looked forward to more than "Secret Invasion". I'm a big fan both of Nick Fury and Samuel L. Jackson, and so a series starring both was almost perfect for me. Plus, the notion of a spy thriller within the MCU, and especially one involving shapeshifting aliens who can look like anyone, with all the tension and paranoia that that implies, is just great.

There is no MCU project that has left me more disappointed than "Secret Invasion". After three really slow episodes of build-up, the series then did very well with episodes four and five, or so I thought, only to blow it with the final episode.

Ultimately, I'm afraid this takes its place as yet another underwhelming MCU project, a tag that applies to most things post-Endgame. It seems that the big plan just came to an end, they've been left with a load of ideas and dangling plot threads, but ultimately they just haven't had any vision for how to build to another climax. Add to that a real-life tragedy that derailed "Black Panther" and a real-life scandal that has left them with huge issues with their new Big Bad, and they have problems.

Sadly, with Lucasfilm also having big failures on all fronts, Pixar largely seeming to have gone cold, and Disney seemingly more interested in dire live-action remakes than in producing the animation they're famed for, it suddenly looks like Disney+ may not be the juggernaut it seemed just a few months ago.

Time for Phone #6

Smartphones have many great advantages, which isn't exactly a surprise - who would have thought carrying around an extremely powerful web-enabled computer at all times would be a definite boon? However, they do have one distinct disadvantage, which is that like PCs they become less useful with time. This takes three forms: the same general slowdown that computers suffer as they are patched and repatched successively, a degradation in the battery life between charges, and storage that becomes increasingly and unavoidably full. All of which means that a smartphone probably doesn't last as long as a non-smart mobile, nor indeed as long as a PC (at least in my hands).

The upshot of all of this is that I've now reached the point where it is time to upgrade my phone again. The previous one has lasted six years after all, which is a good run by any standard, but it has now basically had its day.

Obviously getting a new phone is now much like getting a new PC (though perhaps less confusing, since there's very little by way of an upgrade path once the phone is bought - just the possibility of a Micro-SD card to provide more memory). Which means that having the new phone will be great, since it will represent a significant improvement in performance, but it also means a fairly long and annoying process of getting the new phone set up.

On the plus side, I'm keeping the same SIM, number, and contract, so much of the basic functionality should just carry over. On the downside, I have no idea what my Whatsapp login details are...

Day 200: Update on Goals

Time for the latest update:

• Books: I have recently finished the second of three books from the List. I haven't yet started on the final book, but should still finish by the end of the year (just barely). As anticipated, I have read very few other books this year.
• Blogging: By day 200 I should have completed 67 posts here, plus a further 33 or so on The Imaginarium. I was quite a bit behind at the last update, but managed to catch up in between. I'm now a little behind again, but not by a great deal - with luck I'll be up to date in both places by the end of the month.
• Redecorating: No progress here. I did have to make another small repair job on Funsize's wall, but that doesn't really count.
• Other stuff: Nothing to report here.

I remain optimistic about completing the three goals by the end of the year. The most doubtful, I think, is the redecoration, which we'll know about by the end of October.

For Our Fallen Gondorians

 Back in April, while doomscrolling on Twitter, I saw someone joking that they'd changed their band's signature tune to "For Our Fallen Gondorians". The bagpipe sheet music for this was included in the tweet.

Since then I've never been able to find this sheet music again, no matter how I searched.

Until today. It turns out that my phone quietly saved the file in a secret location, and when I found my phone once again slowing down due to a critical lack of storage, and thus began a purge of old data, I happened to find it.

Which is nice. Now I just need to learn it, remember it, and contrive a good time to sneak it past someone as a lament...

Oops!

I was speaking to a pollster a few minutes ago, and one of the questions I was asked concerned the most pressing burning political issues at the present time. I gave two answers that I thought were fairly non-controversial (the economy and Brexit), then gave a third... and promptly had to clarify what I meant.

Because the third answer I gave was "immigration", at which point I immediately realised that (I think) most people who give than answer mean stopping immigration, which is certainly not what I meant.

On the contrary, I think the way this country is treating people who want to build their lives here, and especially those unfortunates who come here desperately seeking refuge is shameful and is (or should be) damaging to our standing on the world stage.

Indeed, one of the biggest problems we have as a country is that no senior politician (at UK level) is brave enough to stand up and say clearly that immigration is a good thing. Not just because of all the necessary jobs that immigrants appear to be willing to do and nobody else is, not just because they pay in far more to our economy than they collectively take out, but simply in terms of being here.

Diversity is a good thing. It's a shame our politicians can't acknowledge that.

(And if my answer ends up getting lumped in to some Daily Mail headline about immigration being one of the big concerns of British people, I am truly sorry. I should have thought more before I spoke.)

#9: "A Woman of Substance", by Barbara Taylor Bradford (a book from The List - one more to go!)

Minor Annoyances II

Our council are in the process of changing the day for our bin collections, which is absolutely fine. This has, however, led to a big gap between the final "general" bin collection of the old cadence and the first "general" bin collection of the new cadence. That's rather more tricky, as the council have deliberately set the picks ups right on the edge of what people can manage. Still, since it's a necessary change, we could probably be a bit clever and thus cope - it's only another five days wait.

Except...

The council wrote to us offering an additional pick up of the "general" waste bin last week - just put it out, leave it out, and it would be collected. We therefore put our bin out. The council therefore did not collect it.

And that, of course, means that we didn't carefully adjust our behaviours to stretch the additional five days, and now have a bin that is absolutely rammed with almost a week to go before it is collected.

It's fair to say this is a minor annoyance at worst. But those are the worst kind.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Five-spice Chicken Wings

My Birthday BBQ was on Saturday, and in addition to the usual burgers and sausages, this year's flourish was these chicken wings. The method came from Tom Kerridge's "Real Life Recipes" - a book I've used once before with disastrous results.

The good news is that this was a much more successful effort. The chicken just needed put into a bowl with a quickly-assembled marinade, well rubbed, and then left overnight for the flavours to develop. Then a reasonably short time in the oven, turn, another short time in the oven, then five minutes on the BBQ to finish. Oh, and the application of some sesame seeds to complete.

And the chicken was excellent - well cooked, full of flavour, and just generally nice.

The BBQ as a whole was a great success, despite being madly over-catered (I'm not actually sure how that happened - I think some people must just have not eaten as much as expected). We were even lucky with the weather, which had featured showers earlier in the day, rain later in the day, but a dry spell just when it was needed.

All in all, that was a big success. We'll definitely be having these again. (Probably not at the same time as the Firecracker Chicken we've had before, which was also excellent, but there may now be a chicken dish as a mainstay of BBQs for the future.)