frelling_tralk

1.) After watching the Knicks Ticker Tap Parade on the News this morning, and various outtakes on social media - I felt validated for choosing to take today off - and doing a doctor's appointment at 1 pm in Brooklyn.

Babs: Did you go in to work today? (Babs is still in Jamaica)
Me: Nope, and Breaking Bad took the day off too.
Babs: Good. The email said they expected 3 Million Plus.

I woke up a bit on the wobbly side with my equilibrium off, and it wasn't until now that I felt more in balance - due to sinuses (allergies). ( Read more... )

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Optometrist appointment went well. ( Read more... )

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My cousin is off on Safari (in Kenya and Nambia, and Tanzania). She's been posting photos of hippos, zebras, giraffs, rhinos, and now a female lion, on FB. ( Read more... )

Speaking of FB/social media - per FB - a few old Victorian Brownstones caught fire and burned - just up the block from my apartment complex. Thankfully, everyone is fine.

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Outside of these pesky health concerns, I'm doing okay? I made three bean salad tonight for dinner - basically used the beans for Chili - for a salad instead. ( Read more... )

I am getting tired of all the doctors appointments. But alas, they are necessary to monitor and keep my health in check. ( Read more... )

The barometric pressure seems to have elevated finally? No storms coming our way at the moment. Also the wind has died down, and we just have a slight breeze. (I can tell - I have a lot of trees outside my living room window). I no longer have the sinus headache and dizziness. Or the painful fullness in the ears. I actually had a vestibular specialist verify for me - that that is mainly what is causing my problems. So am relieved. I was worried about getting to and from the knee doctor for my injection tomorrow morning.

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Rather enjoying VOX Machina - partly because it has an intelligent slow burn romance, more than one. And is for the most part intelligently written ( a rarity with animated films - most of them are like video games, or crude situation comedies).

Also, listened to a podcast interview with a long-term soap/television writer - who goes back to the late 1970s. ( trigger warning about rape ) And damn, television writing is insane? Particularly for soaps? They have no time to correct anything or fix it - they are writing the next script as they finish the last one. And there's a head-writer who structures the story and gives it to the breakdown writer who breaks down the characters, plot, and where everyone is in the story for the script, the script writer who has to keep track of where everyone is in the story, what happened in the last script and continuity, and write the script, then there is the dialogue writer, and then it gets edited, and then looked at by the head writers, and gets notes from the network (sometimes) - and then it is sent to the director and the actors, about five or six hours before it is filmed.

Talk about convoluted collaborative processes. Not only that - it's rare to write for a television series where the network doesn't dictate casting, character, and plot. You can be tripping along happy go lucky with your storyline, and some network or studio head could turn around and drop a nasty bombshell on you out of the blue that derails the entire story or sends it scurrying in another direction. I don't know about anyone else? But that would drive me insane.

I think it's kind of miraculous good episodes come out of that at all (and there are few) but it's not surprising that continuity gets lost in the mix.

Oh - to get a job on this - you need to write a sample script - and it has to demonstrate that you know the pacing, genre, etc of the show. Each show apparently has its own footprint - and you have to demonstrate that you know the foot print. Apparently Steven DeKnight's audition script for Buffy was a Xander centric script - where Xander became the slayer for a day. Television writing isn't easy - it requires writing on demand, in a specific style, and knowing the characters that often someone else created. (I couldn't do it - I'm too much like my father - I write better if its about my own characters. When I write about someone else's it becomes my interpretation of their characters, which feels fake or not truthful somehow - and I can't quite get past that? While I can, when others do it, mainly because I'm curious about their take on the characters. )


Off to watch Vox Machina.

1. For anyone interested in the preparations for the NY Knicks Ticker Tap Parade up the Canyon of Heroes tomorrow - Go HERE.

( intel on their security measures for the Parade )

AHM (cubical wall mate): Are you excited for the Parade tomorrow?
ME: No. I'm staying home and going to a doctor's appointment in Brooklyn. I don't like crowds.
AHM: I'm thinking of stepping out to see it - or watching from a friend's office.
Me: I don't know how much you'll see - it starts where we are - but on the other side of Bowling Green Park and National Museum of the American Indian. Plus it's over 500,000 people.

They are closing White Hall Street R and W Subway Station - actually, I think it's the station I use to get to work. So, I'm glad on staying in Brooklyn. Commuting into and out of Manhattan tomorrow is going to be a nightmare - well unless you are taking the Staten Island Ferry? If I were a Knicks fan, lived in South Brooklyn and owned a car? I'd drive to Staten Island and take the ferry. Or just take the NYC Ferry, except the Staten Island ferry is free - and running every fifteen minutes.

Breaking Bad who up until 10 AM this morning was coming into work tomorrow, decided "screw it", and to stay home. ( Read more... )

And here's the Planned Service Changes on Mass Transit Tomorrow (actually that link should work for planned service changes at any time. I honestly think the folks from Staten Island have the best route to and from the Parade, also the best service to and from it. The City is like : "hey we're running Staten Island Ferry every 15 minutes and it's free, why are you complaining?" (Shame everything else isn't free or running that often.)

They sent us an email with the information and the links at work today.

2. I've yet another new doctor to add to my collection. A new Optometrist, who is a doctor. They usually are. And takes my insurance. Why? I couldn't get in fast enough with my NYU Langone Opthamologist. Earliest is August 31. And I'm worried about my right eye. So I scheduled an appointment with the new doctor for tomorrow afternoon around 1 pm, I tried for the morning but the doctor isn't in tomorrow morning for some undisclosed reason.

Why? On Sunday? I started seeing a weird strand like a cobweb strand but it was a light, in my peripheral vision. ( eye issues )

3. Laguardia delayed flights again. (If you plan on flying in and out of NYC in the foreseeable future - might I suggest JFK?). The reason? That sink hole they found on runway 4 has re-emerged as a depression which is raising safety concerns and they've decided to work throughout the night to fix it, and then hopefully open up the runways again this morning.

See this is why it is important to invest in infrastructure. Although to be fair - Laguardia is built on a landfill. It's on an island.

To get to the World Cup - they suggest mass transit. Alternatives include Citibike, Shuttle bus, ride-shares (not recommended), and ferry. Apparently the buses are sold out. I don't know about the transit tickets. They've set up an entrance and kind of passenger tunnel on sixth avenue to Penn Station (it's located near sixth avenue) for just World Cup passengers. There's no parking at the stadium - you have to park across the street at American Dream Parking Garage - and parking spaces are going for about $225 a space.
You can't drop anyone off in front of the Stadium, you have to drop them a mile away. So rideshares are not recommended.

Honestly? Just stay home and watch it folks. Or at the various watch parties scattered across the city. ( Read more... )

Currently reading Withered Hill by David Barnett - which is best described as British Folk Horror. It's a psychological thriller that is kind of in the same vein as Harvest Home and the Wicker Man?

I'd tried reading it over a year ago. Put it down. And now have picked it back up again.

Here's the synopsis from Amazon:
( Read more... )
It's not that gory? Although there is gore and violence in it? It's mostly being stuck someplace - reminds me a little bit of From and Harvest Home.

Kind of slow paced, and a lot of jumping about in the timeline. It has a dual timeline narrative, but it jumps about in the timeline, and has departures from the timeline and Sophie's (protagonist) perspective. Most of the book is told from Sophie's perspective. [Sophie is a twenty-something living in London, down on her luck, doing temp jobs, until she eventually lands a job at a mysterious data center - and that's when she begins getting weird messages about Withered Hill.]

At least the author tells you about the departures from Sophie's perspective and timeline. And the point of view is a kind of first person distant, which is my least favorite. Where you have a narrator telling you what Sophie is doing and why, but from a distance - which makes it hard to emotionally invest in the character. It's why I keep giving up on it, I suspect? First person distant doesn't really work for me? Also, I find Sophie a tad on the annoying side. She's kind of passive, lets things happen to her, and an addict. I'm not sure I'm supposed to like her? Which is kind of interesting to me.

At any rate, after reading the synopsis (which I don't remember reading) - I'm reminded of why I picked up the book to begin with - and will most likely plow through.

I'm on a horror kick at the moment. I prefer horror novels to television shows and films, mainly because I've a visual memory - and once I see something, it's hard for me to forget it? And horror for some reason or other sticks in my head. Plus I have sleep issues, nightmares, and I do not need help staying awake. To this day, I regret letting people persuade me into watching Nightmare on Elm Street. (I knew the plot, my brother had spoiled me on it - already. He'd see horror flicks and tell me the plots, because I found watching them difficult at times.) It's the scene where the bed grinds Johnny Depp into hamburger meat and spits him up onto the ceiling that I'd very much like to forget? I saw it over thirty years ago in 1985, and I still remember it. I also remember all of the Shining, all of Carrie, all of Halloween, all of Aliens...I can rerun the flicks in my head. Most movies live rent free in my brain, in particular horror movies.
Yet, I've a strange curiosity about them? So instead of watching a lot of them - I read the reviews, which isn't very satisfying. Mainly because the plots of horror films tend to be nonsensical or like reading about somebody's bad acid trip. There's a lot you can do with film - that let's face it - cannot be translated to the page.

Oh speaking of films, apparently Ryan Gosling got fired from the Lovely Bones at the age of 27, for putting on weight for the lead role. He gained 60 pounds drinking Hagen Daz ice cream like water to prepare for the role of the grieving father - which he assumed would have gained weight as a result of his grief. But alas, the director, Peter Jackson, completely disagreed, and fired him on the spot. As a result he was unemployed for a bit, and struggling to find roles. His mistake wasn't checking with the director first, although Jackson isn't necessarily known for his communication skills. Jackson said a mistake was made in initial casting, and quickly remedied. They hired Mark Walhberg instead. I've read the book and seen the film - the Lovely Bones, it's not worth the price of admission. Neither are memorable. Both are slow as molasses. And I didn't care about anyone in it. It was a book club pick and I struggled to get through it.
The book is much much better than the film, which kind of dumped everything that worked in the book.

Off to watch Vox Machina, then bed.

Oh picture from today's walk around Battery Park, another NY oasis.