After seeing this book come up as a recommendation on Goodreads, Facebook and Tik Tok, I finally had the chance to read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.
I was on the fence as to whether or not I wanted to read it. I wasn’t sure I could get into the “sci-fi” of it. I kept seeing people saying how great it was and how it was the best book they had read all year, etc.. So when I saw it on the shelf at Goodwill for a buck, I figured I would pick it up.
It sat on my “To read” pile for a while before I began to read it, but I recently finished it. Before I give my thoughts, here is the Goodreads synopsis:
Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.
“Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
Is it this world or the other that’s the dream?
And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human–a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad book. It certainly held my interest and I wanted to see how it all wrapped up. At times, I felt the scientific jargon was a bit over my head. I found myself reading a paragraph twice a couple times to be sure I got what was being said.
Honestly, as much as everyone loved this book, I didn’t feel it lived up to the hype. I went into it expecting to really be blown away by the story. I wasn’t. I’m not saying it was a waste of time to read, I just expected more based on the reviews and suggestions. If I had gone with my gut and what I felt before seeing all the hype, I probably wouldn’t have read it.
If I had to compare it to something, I would say it is like comparing it to your favorite TV show. I love the Twilight Zone, but there are episodes that just didn’t live up to those classic ones. This would compare to the “not so good” episodes.
The above photo is one of many AI photos created to show “what Elvis would look like if he were still alive.” While it is interesting to see what AI comes up with, things are beginning to get out of control.
Scroll Instagram or Tik Tok today and you will eventually find videos that feature AI renditions of celebrities that have passed away. The ones that have come up the most feature familiar faces and the voices are very close to their real voice.
A forgetful Ronald Reagan lost in the halls of the White House
Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream that the ice cream machine would be working (among other things)
JFK riding in the Dallas motorcade saying, “This is so boring. Just shoot me.”
Rod Serling talking about the time traveling DeLorean
Elvis as Captain Kirk in Star Trek, Indiana Jones, and Han Solo in Star Wars
Mr. Rogers in a movie trailer that has him physically fighting painter Bob Ross
George Carlin standing in his grave doing jokes about the state of the country
One more that seems to be everywhere is Robin Williams. I’ve seen him hosting a podcast in heaven where he interviews Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix, and John Lennon; I’ve seen him walking a dog out on the streets of New York joking around with people; and seen him ordering a coffee at Starbucks while tossing out puns about coffee. The voice on these is so good, you’d think it really was him.
These AI creations are something that has caused Robin’s daughter to speak out. Zelda Williams posted on her Instagram page this week asking people to “just stop sending me AI videos of Dad.” She went on to say, “Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t,” she wrote. “If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse, I’ll restrict and move on. But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want.”
She finally said, “To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that’s enough’, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else’s throat hoping they’ll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.”
I think Zelda is right. Many of the celebrities have been gone for some time like Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein. There are still living relatives of many of the famous people in these videos. I wondered how they might feel about them. Zelda Williams cannot be the only one who feels this way about their deceased loved ones.
I admit, the first one I saw was an Elvis video. It was done to be humorous in that he says in one, “I can’t wait for AI to come along so I can stop acting in these dumb movies.” He says this while in a scene from his movie Spinout. I chuckled a bit when I saw it, because I had read somewhere that Elvis didn’t necessarily enjoy making all of his movies.
The more I thought about this, the more I wondered about the future. If these videos are close today, imagine how good they might be as the technology advances. We would be left questioning everything. How would we know that what we are watching is real? We can’t trust what we see on TV now, let alone if/when AI stuff starts being broadcast. This just scares me.
Remember that line from the X-Files? “The truth is out there.” The problem is going to be trying to figure out what is true and what isn’t!
Welcome back to The Music of My Life. I began this feature last May on my birthday. Over the past 11 months, I have featured 10 songs from every year of my life. The songs featured were released in that week’s particular year. It may have been a bigger hit the following year, but I decided to stick with the rules I had put in place.
Like last week, this week I will be focusing on two years because I couldn’t really come up with 10 songs from each year. As I went through the songs from the more current years, I found that the lyrics were just to raunchy, or I found myself looking at songs I disliked or had never heard of. Every once in a while, I’d come across a song or two, but it has become very difficult.
So today, let’s tackle two years 2018 and 2019. In 2018, life began to change for me. I had found my soul mate and we got married. In 2019, we found out we were expecting our daughter. Life began to get better and better.
2018
I was back at the country station in 2018. Honestly, I was not really liking the whole “Bro Country” scene. I felt that the format was steering too far away from its roots. I never understood why rap would need to be in a country song.
Florida Georgia Line was a duo made up of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley. They came on the scene in 2013 and had matured by 2018. This song came after each of them had gotten married. Their writing became deeper, yet simpler.
Simple is a song that I can relate to. It hit me when I was playing it on the air because of my new found love.
Simple
Down to the Honky Tonk is yet another country song from my days at the station. This one stuck with me every time I played it and for days after. Apparently, that was the intention. Jake Owen chose to record the tune as he suspected it was one that would easily get stuck in listeners’ heads.
“It’s a special kinda song. I think when people hear that song, it’s one of those that’s just like an earworm,” he said. “It’s something that connects, and I feel like in a world of a lot of music and art and ways to distract us and our attention, it’s super-important if you’re gonna put out any sort of content, that it’s content that grabs people’s attention.”
Personally, I liked the words and word play in the song. I think the chorus of the song fits me at a particular time in my life. I spent a lot of time in the bars in my 30’s.
I might not end up in the Hall of Fame With a star on the sidewalk with my name Or a statue in my hometown when I’m gone Nobody gonna name their babies after me I might not go down in history But I’ll go down to the honkytonk
Who’d want a statue of me anyway?
Down To The Honky Tonk
I never saw the remake of A Star is Born and I don’t have a desire to do so. However, I remember playing Shallow on the Adult Contemporary station and thinking that it sounded “out of place,” but in a good way.
(From songfacts.com) This dramatic duet features Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper (Who knew he could sing?). Gaga plays the rising star Ally, and Cooper the established musician Jackson Maine, who becomes her mentor and lover. Gaga explained that the song serves a crucial moment in the film. She told Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 Radio show: “It’s two people talking to each other about the need and the drive to dive into the deep end and stay away from the shallow area.”
The song was something special as it won many awards: It won the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song From A Motion Picture; It won the Grammy Award for Best Pop/Duo Group Performance at the 2019 ceremony; and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Shallow
Did you ever see a video that leaves you wondering just what the heck it was all about? My buddy is always sending me crazy videos and stuff, so when he sent this I didn’t know what to expect. I watched this and really couldn’t understand a thing I was watching. It is basically everyone doing this weird walk while moving their arms in and out.
It still perplexes me, which is why I include it on my list. It is by a Russian band called Little Big. According to Wikipedia:
On 26 January 2019, the music video won the category “Hype of the year” of the Ketnet award “Het Gala van de Gouden K’s 2018”, which took place in Belgium The song was also nominated for the “ZD Awards-2018” for “Trends of the Year” and “Hype of the Year”, which were presented on 28 February 2019. On 16 February 2019, the music video was awarded the “Chart’s Dozen” prize for “Best video”. On 10 April of the same year, the video was nominated for the awards for “Best video” and “Best Song in a Foreign Language” at the Muz-TV 2019 awards.
So, it is an award winning song that went viral. Little Big challenged fans to post their own Skibidi dance videos, which they called the “Skibidi Challenge”. I would imagine if I walked into work like this, they’d call and have me committed!
Skibidi
When I found my wife, I knew I had found my soulmate. The next song says, no matter what life throws at you and whatever money worries you might have, you’ll be fine if you have the right person by your side. It also is a great reminder that life is short, so “Make It Sweet.”
The guys from Old Dominion say writing it came easy, “…t he words just came tumbling out.” The next thing they knew, they had recorded “Make It Sweet.”
“That [final] recording is probably the second time we’ve ever played that song,” lead singer Matthew Ramsey said in an interview with Billboard. “You can kind of hear the excitement and the energy we have for it right there, because we had just created it and said, ‘Okay, let’s record it.'”
Make It Sweet
The older I get, the older I feel. Some days it is just hard to get up in the morning. The I read the story of how the next song came about:
(From songfacts.com) Toby Keith wrote “Don’t Let the Old Man” for Clint Eastwood’s 2018 film The Mule and it featured in its trailer. He told Billboard that he was inspired to write the song after a conversation he had with the 88-year-old Eastwood while the two played golf.
When Eastwood told him he was about to start working on a new movie called The Mule, Keith asked him, “How do you do it, man?” Eastwood responded, “I just get up every morning and go out. And I don’t let the old man in.”
Keith immediately started writing around Eastwood’s “don’t let the old man in” line and what he knew about his character in the movie.
The day he recorded the demo for Eastwood, he was sick with a bad cold. “I gave it the best vocal I could that day, and I sent it off,” he recalled. “It’s a real raspy, sleepy, tired, sick vocal. I said, ‘Well now you’ve got a reference, and I’ll go back and put a vocal on it for you.'”
Eastwood liked the recording because Keith’s raspy delivery fit the movie. “He wanted it sick and tired and dark like that,” said Keith. Clint didn’t want Toby to change his vocal and used that version for the movie.
The song took on a personal meaning for Toby. He performed it at the 2023 People’s Choice Country Awards after being awarded the Country Icon award. The performance was his first time back on red carpets and television after his diagnosis of stomach cancer the previous year. Keith said he chose the ballad because it inspires those who’ve been touched by his cancer journey.
Don’t Let The Old Man In
Let’s wrap up the week’s list by moving into 2019 ….
2019
The next song was one I played on both the country station and the AC station. It was a nice crossover hit. Maren Morris wrote The Bones when she was getting ready to marry singer Ryan Hurd. It is “a story of a long-lasting partnership where the couple have been through many storms together.”
When the bones are good, the rest don’t matter Yeah, the paint could peel The glass could shatter Let it rain You and I remain the same The house don’t fall when the bones are good
When the song came out the two were already married. The video features clips of Morris and Hurd during their vacation in Hawaii in June 2019. The couple split in 2023.
“The Bones” hit #1 in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and remained a big hit throughout lockdown. Morris said she feels it resonated as it’s more than just a love song.
“It’s kind of amounted to being this really medicinal cry for hope in a time where it’s a very unsteady and unpredictable time that we’re in right now,” she said. “I feel like the whole message of ‘if the bones are good the rest doesn’t matter’ has applied to this year of 2020 being a complete mess. A ton of fans had reached out and said, ‘This feels like a cry for the world right now. Like we’re in the homestretch of the hard times.’ So it graduated beyond earthly love to something broader.”
The Bones
The Jonas Brothers had broken up six years before, so it was a big surprise when they released Sucker in 2019. The song speaks of being a “sucker” for the love of a woman.
I’ve been dancing on top of cars and stumbling out of bars I follow you through the dark, can’t get enough
The song debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was their first ever #1 song. It was one that I not only played on the radio, but at some of the last few DJ jobs I did. It always made folks dance and I liked the sound of it.
It would go on to be the most-heard song on US radio in 2019 with 3.49 billion audience impressions. I guess I was a sucker for this song.
Sucker
You can thank Tik Tok for the next song. Old Town Road gained popularity as a result of memes on the social media platform, where users uploaded clips using snippets of the song, plus the hashtag #oldtownroad. Lil Nas X uploaded the song to TikTok himself, masterfully using the platform to launch the track.
On April 5, 2019, a remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus was released and the song exploded, going to #1 on the Hot 100. It was one of the few songs that was so popular, I’d have to play it twice at dances to make the audience happy.
Personally, I disliked the song, as I felt it fell into that rap/country category. However, I did laugh at the 2020 Super Bowl commercial for Doritos. It featured Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott. They line up for a duel, and when Elliott says, “make your move,” Nas busts out a dance move, triggering a dance-off. Billy Ray Cyrus appears in the kicker, saying “I ain’t dancing.”
Old Town Road
The deaths of my grandparents devastated me. They were so important to me. So when I was at the country station and played the next song from Riley Green, it hit home. It’s about more than grandparents, though, it is about those great things in life that end a bit too soon.
I wish high school home teams never lost And backroad-drinking kids never got caught I wish the price of gas was low and cotton was high I wish honky-tonks didn’t have no closing time And I wish grandpas never died
It, like a few other songs on my list this week, was thought provoking.
I Wish Grandpa’s Never Died
So that wraps up this week. I know many of my readers are unfamiliar with songs after the 2010, so apologies to them. For those familiar with new stuff, what did I miss that was your favorite from 2018 and 2019? You can drop it in the comments.
Next week, believe it or not, we will wrap up the feature, or at least this aspect of it. Looking ahead, I was able to go through 2020-2025 and come up with a few tunes. That sort of tells you how I feel about the last 5 years of music. It will be a short list next week. I hope to see you then.
Sometimes I just have to chuckle. Apparently, my life is still of interest to folks from my past who have yet to move on. Let me explain.
I had one of those Tik Tok pages a while ago. My coworkers sit and watch videos at work when they get a break. One of them suggested I join. When I created my account, they obvious thought they’d know what kind of content to show me. “Let’s see, here is a guy in his early 50’s….lets show him girls with big breasts.”
I swear, I asked my coworker why she would tell me to get in the app. “All they show me are girls with big boobs! I don’t want to see that and I certainly don’t want my kids to be playing a game on my phone and accidentally see that garbage!” She told me in order to get what I want to see I have to search things like “great golf shots” or “funny cats.” I told her I could think of better things to do than to just watch “Tit Tok” and deleted the app.
Fast forward about a year. My wife Sam watches Tik Tok and get’s ideas for games with the kids, She gets recipes. She gets book ideas. She sees funny posts about marriage and having toddlers.
She began to forward me videos on Facebook. I told her I couldn’t see them because I didn’t have the app. She encouraged me to download it again so I could see what she sends. I told her why I didn’t want to, but I ended up getting it.
The only content I have posted was Detroit Lions things. I haven’t posted anything personal. I may have posted a silly picture from the internet, too, but that’s it, My posts are kinda boring. That didn’t stop a bunch of foreign folks from following my page. I don’t know who they are, A couple friends found me on their and added me, too.
One thing that I like about Tik Tok is that I will get notifications saying who looked at my page. Naturally, it wasn’t but a week after I started my account back up that I got a notification: (Ex-wife) had viewed your profile. I laughed. She viewed it a few times after that, too.
Then I got one: (Former Sister-in-Law) has viewed your profile. They are like two peas in a pod. Then another one popped up: (Ex-wife’s friend and former coworker) viewed your profile. Really?!
I suppose I am the Most Interesting Man in the World. Maybe I need to do a few more beer commercials?
Anyway, I thought about calling them out on the page, but why bother? I truly don’t know what they want or what they expect to see. So I just posted a photo of a woman looking into binoculars with the song “Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell” playing. Oh, and I wrote, “Nothing to see here, please move along!”
Will they get the hint? Probably. They’ll create phoney accounts so they can keep looking. I promise, my page will be very boring. I can assure you, there are people who are more interesting that me that you can stalk….
I’m not trying to rush into Fall, because Lord knows most of us want to enjoy what is left of Summer! This is that time of year when you start seeing the posts about summer not being over and to stop talking about pumpkin spice lattes!
I was looking for a specific photo this week for another piece and stumbled on some early Ella photos. I probably blogged about this when it happened, but it is worth a repost for those newer followers.
My wife is the Tik-Tok-er and Pinterest-er in our house. She is always saying “I saw this great idea on Pinterest” or sending me Tik-Tok videos on how to do a home project. That being said, She had seen a baby photo shoot on Pinterest and thought we should do it with Ella. We needed apples, small pumpkins, a tub, and milk.
Ella is about 7 to 8 months old in this picture.
We have this huge tree in our yard, which allowed for the “fallen leaves” look on the lawn. We filled the tub with warm water, added a splash of milk for the effect and floated some apples and gourds in the water. This photo is one of my favorites from this session.
I have to be honest with you, I’m having a really rough time this week. I shouldn’t be, as I have been through this twice before with my two oldest boys. My brain just can’t comprehend that Ella is starting pre-school next week. How did this happen so fast?
Wednesday night, she was awake when I got home from work. I’m not sure if she had a bad dream or what, but Sam told me to go check on her. When I walked into her room she was on her tablet. Mommy had told her that I was close to home and that she could wait up for me.
She smiled when I walked in. I crawled into bed next to her and asked if she was ok. She told me she was and asked if she could finish what she was playing on her tablet. I told her she could play for 5 minutes and then it was time for bed.
When I told her that her time was up, she turned off her tablet, snuggled up close to me and asked me to hold her. I kissed her on her forehead and she asked me to sing songs for her. Her new thing is to hold my hand while I sing to her. I sang all of her favorites: The Alphabet Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Mr. Golden Sun, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, You Are My Sunshine, and our song, Vieni Su. She was still awake and asked for more, so I pulled out some other ones that I used to sing to my older boys: Cruising Down the River, Watching the World Go By, On An Evening in Roma, Bouna Sera, Blue Shadows on the Trail, and more. I think I had to go back to sing songs from the first list again before she fell asleep.
As I sang those songs, I was painfully reminded that my little girl is becoming a big girl way too fast. I am still blessed that she wants to snuggle with me, sit on my lap, and hold my hand. All too soon, those things slip away. As I laid there next to her, I took in the love that was in her eyes every time she opened them to look at me. When she fell asleep, I continued to hold her and thanked God for bringing four amazing children into my life.
The emotional state I am in may or may not have been kick started by the barrage of “First day of school” photos on social media this week. My old radio boss posted a photo of his daughter who is now in 5th grade and talked about how he couldn’t believe it. I wrote under the picture, “With each passing year, Kenny Chesney’s song Don’t Blink takes on a whole new meaning.”
As I posted that, I realized that I wasn’t just saying that to him, I was reminding myself of just how precious time is. I was also reminding myself of just how fast time can fly.
This week’s Friday Photo Flashback is brought about by my wife. The kids both have bikes with training wheels on them. We’ve had them outside a few times on them and Andrew seems to get how to pedal, but Ella needs a bit of help.
My wife is what I would call a “Tik Tok-er.” Between that and Pinterest, she always seems to be coming up with creative things for the kids and projects for me. She video called me this week and said, “The kids want to show you something.” She turned the phone around and there were my two kids on their bikes – in out living room!
The bike’s training wheels were each lodged inside a tennis shoe. This does two things 1) the bike doesn’t move and 2) it raises the back tire up a bit so it spins while they pedal. Brilliance! They will be pedaling in no time outside!!
It made me think to when I first learned how to ride a bike. I remember being terrified when my dad took off the training wheels! Today’s photo shows a very proud Keith on his first ride without falling!
This historic event took place at the first home I lived in. Isn’t it amazing that I can remember the entire address and phone number from this house and have trouble remembering where I left my wallet on most days!?
At the time our house was the last one on the block. There was a field next to our house. There was a pond that we’d catch tadpoles at in the summer, and play on the ice in the winter. They have since built a bunch of homes where the field was. about 10-15 years ago, I DJ’d a wedding out that way and had to take a drive by the old house. I was really surprised at how much had changed.
I know that I am riding toward our driveway in the picture. I probably fell off that bike countless times and fell on our neighbor’s lawn while trying to figure out how to balance. I don’t remember much about the bike except that it was black and had big fenders over the tires. I also notice from this photo that it would seem to be a girl’s bike – URGH!
My folks must have known I would fall and scrape my knees, so they picked an extremely ugly pair of plaid pants for me to wear for the occasion. Brown shoes, plaid pants and a mustard colored shirt – I am a style ICON here, huh? It appears that I am either holding something in my left hand OR that just might be that Rrraw Power thing that made the motorcycle noise. I honestly don’t remember. I think it would be weird for me to try to ride my bike for the first time while holding onto something, though.
I don’t really remember much from the neighborhood, but I remember that big white rock at the corner across the street from me. I want to say that the owner used to edge his lawn with a really wide edger. My bike tire got caught in it once and I fell against that rock. FYI for all the adults reading – kids on bikes HATE lawns that are edged!!
It’s kind of fun to see that old blue and white Suburban in that driveway. I wish I had more pictures of the many old cars my folks drove. One thing you can barely notice (and this is where I wish old photos were clearer) is what looks like a Big Wheel on the sidewalk between the parent on the sidewalk on the kid on the bike in the street. I could be dead wrong, but it sure looks like those 1970’s yellow Big Wheel handlebars to me.
We moved from this house in the winter of 1976. I truly wish I had more pictures of the outside and inside of that house. I’ve often thought about going to the house and explaining that I used to live there and asking to have a look around. In today’s society, I highly doubt anyone would let that happen!
The past week has been one of change and challenges for me. I am usually not lacking things I want to write about, but the past few days have been … well, busy. I’ve jotted little random thoughts in my “possible blog” notebook but none of them really warrants a full blown blog. So I decided to throw many of them all together for you. Consider it a Blogging Smorgasbord.
(Mental note: Use Smorgasbord in a sentence today. Check!)
Afternoon Adjustment
One of the biggest changes for me has been the switch from midnights to afternoons. Things have been very busy at work and I know that there are a lot of things that I still need to learn. However, I’ve sort of settled in and have taken care of reviewing patient charts, scoring records, helping techs with hook ups and whatever else is needed.
It’s weird to see the “day people.” We see their names in e-mails and on orders, but to actually see them … it’s just weird. There is a small window of time between when the day folks leave and the night folks come in where the building is strangely quiet. It’s almost too quiet. I have had to make sure that I turn some music on in order for me not to get distracted by the silence.
My entire eating schedule is out of whack, too. I’m used to lunch at 11pm and dinner at 3:30am. Now, I am eating on what you would call a “normal” schedule. I also have to deal with the never ending supply of sweets and snacks from the day staff. It seems that there are always some kind of goodies on the break room table.
The best part has been being able to crawl into bed and hold my wife at night (when one of the kids isn’t in our bed!). In just one week, I feel like we have talked more like when we first got married. Both of us are rested, get up and have coffee together, and have breakfast and lunch as a family. It really is wonderful.
Date Night
Sam and I have a date night coming up this weekend. If there is ever any question as to whether I love her or not, this should prove that the answer is a resounding YES. Look, I’ve seen a few episodes of the Golden Girls here and there. Sophia reminds me of my Italian grandma. However, I wouldn’t go out of my way to see a “Golden Girls” stage show – unless my wife wanted to see it. She does and we are.
I don’t know much about the show. The Golden Girls – The Laughs Continue. I heard it is a bit “raunchier” than the actual show. My co-worker saw it tonight and said it was good. He promised to not give away any spoilers. He took his wife.
We were talking about how some people really got into it and were dressing up to go to shows like this. My wife has informed me that she has something for us to wear to the show. If I wind up in a wig and a dress, I will be sure to share pictures.
Did You Ever ….
This doesn’t happen often, but have you ever started a book with the impression that it was going to be good only to find it slow and not what you expected? I am listening to an audiobook that I borrowed based solely on the title. The unabridged audio book is just over 11 hours. I am three hours in and I am just now feeling like it might be starting to get interesting, but I’m not sure. I debated whether or not to just stop listening.
I suppose it is my fault. I usually read the synopsis before deciding on reading a book. I never did for this one. Prior to blogging, I read the synopsis and afterward asked myself, “If I had read this before adding it to my ‘to read’ list, would I have actually wanted to read it?” I’m guessing not. I will probably listen a little longer just to see what, if anything, happens. At some point, though, I need to decide whether I want to finish it or not.
I Don’t Get the Hype
Someone posted the above on Facebook and I had to steal it. I truly don’t know how to take the hype surrounding the Barbie movie. My first thought is that Hollywood’s creativity is at an all time low and this was the result of someone scraping the bottom of the barrel for a movie idea. “Oooooo! I know! Let’s make a movie about Barbie and the various versions of dolls!” How does this idea even make it up the flagpole!?
Sam actually wondered if it would be something that Ella might like. Most people who did see it said it was probably not something to take kids to. It seems that this movie is made for adults who used to play with Barbie dolls or something. Urgh.
This leads to my second thought – adults are actually willing to pay big ticket prices to actually watch this in a theater. THIS is what the general public sees as “entertainment.” At what point do they just throw together two hours of 2 to 3 minute Tik Tok or Snapchat videos and market it as a “major motion picture?!” Sure, you can watch that crap on your phone, but if they did put it in theaters, you can bet that people would flock to see it. Next thing you know, some idiot Tik Tok “star” will get an Academy Award!
It has been a LONG time since there has been a movie that has come out that I would actually want to pay to see. I’ve been fascinated by the story of Hiroshima, so the Oppenheimer movie might be something I’d go see, but the reviews are mixed. I will probably do what I usually do – wait to stream it or rent it.
New Bluey? Yes, I Will Watch!
My wife says to me today: “Have you watched the new Bluey episodes yet?”
I shout back, “What?! Are they one Disney + already? I didn’t think they were airing in the US yet!”
Yes. There are new episodes. Yes. I will watch them by myself.
I learned a long time ago that it is totally ok for an adult to watch cartoons without kids. It keeps me young!
We have a gal at work who talks about the funny stuff she watched on this TikTok App. Another friend will occasionally send me text messages with a link to some TikTok video. When this happens, I will watch it on the web and not in the app.
Well, recently, someone sent me a link to something and it said, “Would you like to open this in the App?” Well, usually this makes things easier. The app was already on my phone, I just never used it. So I created an account and it suggested friends from Instagram or my contacts who had accounts. Once I finished setting up the App and following a few friends, I watched the video that was sent to me and I closed the app and that was that.
The next time I opened up the app, I was bombarded with videos of big breasted women in revealing outfits, videos suggesting some sort of sexual act, or scantily dressed women lip synching to movie lines. It was ridiculous.
The next time I saw my co-worker I asked her, “Just what the heck kind of videos do you watch on that TikTok!?” She told me she gets animal videos, silly videos, and stuff like that. I told her, “I swear, all I get are boobs!” She laughed and thought I was joking. I opened up the app and literally kept swiping from video to video and she couldn’t believe it.
She asked if I had liked any videos yet. I told her I hadn’t, because all that had popped up were ones like the ones I showed her. Occasionally, a friend I follow would pop up with a video, but the majority of the stuff coming up was that trash. She told me that once she started liking videos the app’s algorithm started showing her more of the stuff she wanted to see. She said, “It probably sees that you are a 50+ year old male, so boob videos come up!”
So … I have been stereotyped? The algorithm is set specifically to show all 50+ year old males these types of videos? Yeah, no thanks. This app is one that will be deleted. I don’t need to see this stuff.
What bothers me the most is wondering what kind of things the algorithm is picking to show kids! I don’t even want to think about that …..
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 