I’m roughly six-feet six-inches, or about 198 centimeters, tall. Every once in a while I wonder how tall I am in terms of other, non-established, units of measure. For example, I’m 20 Twinkies tall, which would add up to 1,980 calories, 86 grams of fat, and 1,800 milligrams of sodium.
In mid-May I was called for jury duty for the third time in my life. This time, it was at 111 Centre Street, which looks like a normal office building with extra security. I showed up half an hour early, and had to wait 10-15 minutes to get through security before being able to head up to the jury room. Once in the jury room, we had to watch an orientation video that seemed to be produced in the early 90s but had contemporary information, and submit some forms including parts of our jury summonses. We were told the rules, and then the fun started.
(I’m going to change specific details of the trial I was on)
I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.
In 2014 I watched over 200 movies, coming close to doubling my yearly average. I blamed that on the fact that there wasn’t much to watch on TV. In 2015, I watched 112 movies, which is one off from the yearly average. I attribute the sudden decline from the prior year to the fact that I did, in fact, watch a lot more television, especially shows that had been recommended to me after having been on for a few seasons, like Vikings, Death in Paradise, Shetland, DCI Banks, etc., and watching all of the seasons of The X-Files in anticipation of the 10th season. Additionally, I did not commit myself to watching all of the movies in a series like James Bond or Aliens/Predators, etc. (I say that as I’m just finishing up watching all of the Harry Potter movies).
I think the standout new movie from 2015 was Ex Machina.
When I saw that someone had made a candle that looked like Toht melting from Raiders of the Lost Ark, I had to get one! And of course, I had to make a time-lapse video of it melting…
My thoughts on the newest Star Wars movie (with spoilers up the wazoo).
The above cartoon was published on page 73 of the November 9, 2015 issue of The New Yorker and was drawn by Danny Shanahan.
I’m not sure what’s going on over at that once fine publication, but clearly their fact-checking department is failing them.
Everyone knows that Bruce Wayne, along with his mother, Martha, and father, Thomas, were walking through an alley after attending a showing of Mark of Zorro when they were accosted by a thief who attempted to rob them. While it’s unclear if Martha was shot or had a heart attack when Thomas was shot, one thing is clear: she died as a result of the robbery. Bruce, heartbroken, decided that he would wage war on criminals; he trained extensively in martial arts, mastered detective skills, and adopted the persona of a bat to prey on the fears of criminals.
How could they get it so wrong?
Also, Bruce Wayne doesn’t have a sister.
I didn’t start off the year wanting to watch more movies than any other year since I started keeping track of my movie watching in 2001, but apparently there isn’t a whole lot of anything good on television, so it just sort of happened.
Let’s get one thing straight: The Xmas season starts AFTER Thanksgiving!
Period.
Like everyone else (I hope), I am sick and tired of the over-commercialization of the Xmas season, but I put up with it because there are some positive aspects to it. However, I firmly believe that we should celebrate one holiday at a time, so, as in previous years, I will be boycotting retailers who start the Xmas season too early. Unlike previous years, I will be publicly shaming them for doing so.
I recently binge-watched the second seasons of both House of Cards and Orange is the New Black on Netflix. While doing so, something started to bother me: the opening credits are annoying long.
Several years ago I received an iHome iD91 alarm clock radio as a gift, and it changed my alarm clock life forever. When it died, I had a heck of a time finding a suitable replacement, mostly because the features I was spoiled with, but now considered a necessity, didn’t seem to exist in any one alarm clock radio on the market.
“Josh, why wouldn’t you just get another iHome iD91 or another iHome device?” you ask. Well, the iD91 died in such a way that it made me want to look at, if not give preference to, other brands. Everything on the iD91 worked great except that the upper 50% of the digital display just stopped working. In this day and age, how does half a digital display stop working? It was never dropped or hit or abused; I live in NYC and we really don’t have power issues, and it’s connected to a surge protector anyway. LCDs don’t just go bad on their own…they’re either caused by physical trauma or by power issues, and in this case it would be an internal issue caused by bad manufacturing…possibly slightly less voltage than necessary, amplified over time.
So, I figured I would shop around, see the wealth of different options I had, and choose the best for my needs.
Boy was I wrong!
