Flow State

Random Notes….

• Jon Bernthal plays the same guy in every movie or TV show I’ve ever seen.  In interviews and podcasts, it’s Jon Bernthal.  He has no range.  Sorry, Jon.  I enjoy your work, but it’s Seth Rogan-ish.
• Chicago traffic sucks ass.  Driving back from Utah, I couldn’t get the math to math on Waze.  I knew how fast I was going and how many miles I had, and I kept calculating that I’d be home an hour earlier than the ETA.  Duh, I forgot that as soon as you hit the Chicago area, you stop moving more than 10 mph.   That was the extra 51 minutes.  Traffic.  I hate this place.
• Also, the difference between shoppers at my local Chicago grocery store (Kroger-owned) and my Utah grocery stores (both Kroger-owned) is night and day.  Utah?  Easy peasy, in and out, all good.  Chicago?  Everyone blocks aisles, stands talking on their phone, and has out-of-control kids running around.  Again, I hate this place.
• Saw The Odyssey this weekend.  It was fine.  Just fine.  Not to sound like a snob, but I liked the book much better.  Also saw the new Spider-Man movie.  I liked that a lot.
• When I was a freshman in high school, I was in the War Games Club.  We’d play all sorts of games, mostly produced by Avalon Hill.  I loved that club.  Sure, it had nerds (like me) who were making their own chain mail, but we’d play Diplomacy, Jutland, Squad Leader, and other games.   I miss those games.  I saw that I can buy those old games for cheaper than I thought on eBay, but I’ll never play them because nobody I know does.  But I think I might buy those just to have them again.
• My wife wanted to revisit one of our favorite shows: Sports Night.  We watched the first two episodes on Amazon Prime, and it has not aged well.  Not in the “woke” way, just in the cliché way.  It’s an Aaron Sorkin show, and it’s obvious.  The banter/writing style (sort of Mamet-esque), the walk and talk, and the earnestness of a situation (guy wakes up his kid to watch some guy break a track record as the entire studio is watching breathlessly).  It’s corny and stale.  Kind of a bummer.  I watched two episodes of Justified the other day (one of my favorite shows), and while it isn’t corny and stale, it didn’t seem as amazing as the first time I saw it.
• Still laid off.  In fact, I received notice of the reassigned teacher pool mandatory meeting next Monday.  CPS and the union (of which I am not a member) claim they are still working on reversing the layoffs, but I haven’t heard anything.  Since there is nothing I can do about it, I’ll let the anxiety flow out and go about my life.