Tag Archives: movies

Quarantine Journal: July 13 2020

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Today is the four month anniversary of when I started my volunteer quarantine for this coronavirus pandemic.  I haven’t gone out much these last four months except to pick up deliveries and check my mail.  Been fortunate that I had a couple neighbors help with my laundry and apartment cleaning.  I am starting to get more mobile again as I have fewer aches and pains.  Even the mornings aren’t too bad if I just give myself a couple minutes to loosen my muscles after sleeping.

Haven’t had any symptoms of the virus yet.  There have been dozens of people in my town who have been sick.  Mentally I am sometimes stressed.  Glad I don’t have much for paranoia these days.  Summers can be tough for me to begin with, especially August and early September.  I think it’s helped that I limit my time on social media and limit my exposure to regular news.  I get most of my news online instead of regular cable channels.  I do occasionally watch Bloomberg online via youtube.  But that is more business and tech news than anything.

I keep in contact with friends and family on a daily basis.  Talked to my nephews and niece this afternoon.  They are visiting the grandparents right now.  I sometimes envy my parents being so close to the rest of the family and living in a larger area with more options for medical care, entertainment, etc.  But I probably couldn’t enjoy much of this as I no longer have a car.  I still have my drivers’ license but I haven’t driven in almost a year.  I just got too much sensory overload and I didn’t feel like I was safe operating a car.  Besides, I’ve rediscovered the joy of staying at home, eating home cooked meals, and hosting guests in my own home as a result.

Haven’t watched much new for tv.  Did finish Upload on Amazon a few weeks ago.  Been listening to audiobooks quite a bit.  Started a new video game, well new to me anyway.  Been working on Final Fantasy 15 for the last few days.  I like games like that and Skyrim.  They are a good change up from the Civilization, Total War, and Sim City games that are my usual fare.

My best friend from college and his wife are expecting their second child in less than two weeks.  They have a two year old daughter.  And my oldest nephew will be taking his drivers’ license test in a few days.  It’s fun watching these kids grow up and develop traits and personalities of their own.  Yet I am thankful I didn’t have children of my own, at least with my mental illness.  Maybe I could have made a decent father and husband had I never become schizophrenic.  I’ll never know.  I rarely dwell on the ‘what could have been’, certainly not like I did ten years ago.  The only times I do the what if game is when I am in a mental breakdown.  Glad those don’t happen very often, usually only a few times per year.  As it is, if I can’t be a father and husband, I can do the next best thing and be a great friend, a great uncle, and a great son to my parents.  Even as a middle aged man getting a few gray hairs in my beard, I will always be my mom and dad’s son.

 

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Readjustments, Halloween Movies, and Random Thoughts

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The weather is turning colder again indicating that winter won’t be too far away.  The leaves on the trees have completely turned.  Since I have lots of trees in view of my apartment windows, I can enjoy the autumn foliage and not even put on a coat.  I am still a little guarded about whom I socialize with, but at least I socialize a little everyday now. Somedays I’ll stay home most of the time, but I am not as afraid of traveling as I was even a few weeks ago.  I try to get outside at least once a day and I’ve been lifting weights for a week now.

I’m also attempting to readjust my sleep patterns to more regular times.  For weeks I have been sleeping in the mornings after staying awake most nights.  Naturally this messed up my social life and sleep patterns.  It also doesn’t help that I’ve been drinking more coffee and hot tea to try to warm up during these colder days.  I imagine that this could take several days as I am used to sleeping in the mornings and then being up in the afternoons and overnight hours.

I haven’t seen any family in person since the summer.  That will probably change in a few weeks as Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up.  I have usually been stressed during the holidays in years past.  Anymore I avoid going to the stores and malls from Halloween to Christmas just to avoid crowds and the sensory overload.  I don’t enjoy Christmas shopping or Christmas music.  The only truly Christmas movies I like are It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story.  I like the supernatural thrillers of Halloween better.  I can’t get into those slasher killer movies.  So I’ve been watching more supernatural thrillers lately in the spirit of Halloween.  I also enjoyed the old ‘War of the Worlds’ radio broadcast.  Youtube has a few recordings of that.  So I’ll be binge watching Halloween movies for the next couple days.

Random Ramblings on Hollywood Movies

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I’m going to go off tangent for this post and write on some random thoughts I have had over the last few years.  I’ll try to keep this more light hearted than some of my previous posts.

Why are space aliens in the movies usually such jerks?  The aliens from ‘Independence Day’, the foes of Sigourney Weaver from ‘Alien’, the large bugs from those campy ‘Starship Troopers’ movies (I actually liked that movie as I had a thing for Denise Richards in high school), the ‘Predator’ series, and the Empire from Star Wars are key examples.  Even Star Trek got in on less than pleasant aliens with the war loving Klingons and anal retentive Vulcans (though I absolutely loved Mr. Spock as the perfect compliment to Captain Kirk).  Only occasionally are there cool aliens featured in Hollywood like Superman, E.T., Yoda, and the Avatar aliens. And that’s about it, besides the trippy aliens from ‘2001.’ You would think any species that is advanced enough to master deep space travel would have abandoned their violent and animalist natures centuries before they set out to ‘boldly go where no one has gone before.’

Why are most movies about the future dystopic?  Most movies about the future are like the Terminator series, the Matrix trilogy, Equilibrium, Gattaca, Brave New World, etc.  Even H.G. Wells presented a real lousy future in ‘The Time Machine’ clear back in the late 1800s.  Can anyone show me any movies about the future where the future isn’t hellish?  I can think only of Star Trek and it’s various spinoffs and Futurama.  But even Futurama features immoral crackpot scientists and alcoholic robots who want to “kill all humans.” Seriously Hollywood, come up with some futuristic movies where the future doesn’t suck.

Why is it rich people or large corporations are always villains in Hollywood movies?  Who decided that having money makes you evil and being poor is virtuous?  Yeah I get that the Bible said “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven.”  But the Bible, like many ancient works, is full of metaphors.  That’s how people get ideas across.  I use raging torrents of metaphors all the time.  If there were no metaphors there would be no music, no poetry, no religion, no philosophy, no literature, and no culture.  But I have known enough poor people, enough rich people, and enough middle class people to know that having money, or not, does not make or break your character.  All social economic classes have their share of jerks, saints, sinners, humanitarians, cranks, heroes, and losers.  Why are companies dumping toxic waste into rivers and supposedly holding back future technologies getting award winning documentaries made about their evils and the companies that develops life saving medicines and better yielding crops get maybe a thirty minute snippet on the Discovery Channel?  Seriously, where is the good news from big business version of Michael Moore?

Why does Hollywood feel compelled to roll out remakes of movies from the 1980s that usually weren’t that good to begin with? How many sequels do we really need?  I’m just waiting for the suits at the studios to roll out remakes of ‘The Princess Bride’, ‘The Breakfast Club’, and ‘Platoon.’ I heard a few days ago they are doing another Indiana Jones’ movie.  Harrison Ford has got to be in his seventies by now.  How much treasure can his tired old bones carry? Once again Hollywood, you’re running out of good ideas.  Maybe you should just let movie goers submit suggestions at the theaters or your Facebook pages.  Really, how many remakes of campy 1980s movies are we going to get subjected to before movie goers revolt in mass and just subscribe to Netflix or Hulu?

I have to admit I haven’t been to the movies in almost two years.  Most of the movie watching I do is on my computer with Netflix or Youtube.  I haven’t gone back because it just seems too much hassle to fight traffic, pay for a ticket, buy overpriced sodas and treats only to watch the same worn out story line over and over while the kid sitting behind me kicks the back of my chair as someone’s cell phone rings every five minutes.  Maybe I’m getting picky in my old age and not being hip or keeping up with the young people.  But I wasn’t hip even as a young person.  I love watching movies, don’t get me wrong.  I just love watching them at home.  In movie theaters they get kind of picky about people eating pizza and hot wings while having a beer during the show.  But I love the freedom of being able to watch movies at home.  Long live the Internet.