Going To Be A Long Season

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I have sat helpless for the last two afternoons watching the Red Sox lose 2 games to the Evil Empire, aka the New York Yankees. Yesterday they were shut out, and today they managed to score one too-late run in the bottom of the ninth. They currently sit on the bottom of the AL East with 9 wins and 15 losses. In the last 6 games they have scored 1, 1, 2, 8, 0, and 1 runs. I know it’s early and all, but I’d bet that their chances of making the playoffs five months from now are less than 30%.1

Back in the day I would add tidbits of info to the bottom of a post, like convertable top transistions or Moss Motoring Challenge points. Maybe I should add that Wild Card Chance percentage to the bottom of my posts going forward.

Red Sox chances of making the Wild Card round in the 2026 playoffs: 44.2%

 

Headwind Avoidance

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Got on the real bike today, and it was a few days past the first time I rode last year. I can’t remember the last time I rode, but it was probably near the end of October. So before I could go anywhere, I first had to wipe the cobwebs off the Trek and put a bunch of air in the tires. While I was doing that, I was also charging the flashing taillight; for whatever reason, the headlight still had some juice.

After all that, I set out on the path to my favorite coffee shop, Stomping Gounds, for a muffin and the usual latte. As soon as I turned east on Sandy Blvd, I was met by a mean ol’ headwind. I guess it was 10-12 MPH, so I quickly rethought my usual route, which involves a little over 3 miles of a paved trail going due east. Instead of getting on that, I just rode around some neighborhoods and through a wooded section of a local park before riding back uphill (traveling south) to breakfast.

When I got to Stomping Grounds, I checked my weather app, and sure enough, it was showing 10 to 12 miles per hour winds from due east.

Witchy Woman

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I think this started after I sent my immediate neighbor to the left a postcard for a thank-you card. She and I have been trading cutesy postcards in a flirty manner since the beginning of the year. This is what I was referencing in the This Is Tricky post from a couple weeks ago. I mailed her a postcard with the following sentiment last Monday.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago, on my way by your house to go check my mail, I sensed movement. I looked up at your left street window, and there was a black cat sitting there, watching me. For my next few steps we eyed each other suspiciously. Then the cat winked, not blinked, at me!

How many people in the community know you are a master of the occult and a shape-shifter?

We briefly crossed paths at yesterday’s CCC (community coffee clatch), me leaving and her going to; her first words to me were, “You’re the only one.”

More Black And White

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So, yesterday I watched Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, AKA Star Wars Episodes 2 & 3, again in black and white. First up was Attack of the Clones with its sappy romance between two actors with zero chemistry with each other and the sheer amount of screen-filling, fast-paced CGI just because they could. The lack of color did not help at all. After a dinner break I waded into Revenge of the Sith, where we get to watch the creation of big bad Darth Vader. Here is where Hayden Christensen did have chemistry; he really nails the angsty teen, pissed at the universe, persona. Still way too much excessive use of CGI to the point of distraction.

This afternoon I went ahead and cued up The Empire Strikes Back in B&W (remember I watched the OG Star Wars very recently). Stopped a little more than an hour into Episode five because the Red Sox game was starting. I’ll finish it after the game.

I wonder if I like this black and white thing because we didn’t get a color TV at home until I was almost thirteen?

Black And White

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Today’s post is about that weird little thing I did after finding the director’s cut of the movie “Justice League.” I had tried to watch the movie when it showed up on streaming, but just couldn’t get past about the 5-minute mark of the movie. While I enjoyed both of the Batman and Superman comics back in the day, for various reasons their movies never got close to those Marvel flicks of the 2010s.

While poking around HBO looking for something to watch, I saw that the Justice League director’s cut was now available in black & white. I thought maybe that would work for me because when Marvel released Logan in black and white, I enjoyed it more than the color version. As the movie started to play in b&w and in a television format of a 4:3 aspect ratio. Okay, when they get past the credits, it’ll surely expand to 16:9 like all modern TVs. Nope, I watched a little longer and quit pretty close to where I stopped the original movie.

This got me thinking: what movie that I have on disc might be better in black and white? I picked Alien. Opened the TV settings and took the color slider all the way left; ta da, no color. It was pretty good that way, not really better, but it did get me to rewatch the movie for the first time in probably a decade.

So today I tried another movie. Last week I had rewatched the original Star Wars movie. I really like the original three; the last three are tolerable, and the first three are way subpar. Maybe if I watched Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, without the vibrant colors, it would at least reach the tolerable level. Shooting for mediocracy, I nailed it. It also helped that I have the fan edit that tones down Jar Jar.

Poking Around

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Today’s post was to be about this weird little thing I did after finding the director’s cut of the movie “Justice League.” But as I started the first line of the post with “While poking around HBO looking for something to watch…” it triggered a memory of writing that same line in two other recent posts. I needed a few different ways to change it up. Uninspired, I asked an AI and received a ten. Like anything from an AI, some were meh, others were okay, and maybe I’d actually use one.

  • I happened to find this while I was browsing HBO for a different series.
  • I was just digging around on HBO and ended up finding this.
  • I discovered this show by pure accident while searching HBO.
  • I came across this while looking for something else on HBO.
  • I caught this show while scanning the HBO library earlier.
  • I was deep in the HBO menus looking for a new watch when I chanced upon this.
  • While navigating the HBO app for a different title, this show caught my eye.
  • I was aimlessly exploring HBO when I happened to land on this show.
  • I fell down an HBO rabbit hole looking for one thing and ended up finding this gem instead.
  • The HBO algorithm did me a favor; I found this while hunting for something else entirely.