BlackberryJam

Just finished Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare. It’s fine. I mean, nothing exceptional, but it’s fine. *sigh* I need something more entertaining.

I enjoyed Harlem Sunset but really felt like it was a mystery in the way I wanted it to be a mystery. The characters are great. The setting is fantastic. I just feel like the plot was letting it down. I’m looking forward to the third in the series. Books I started and then decided to skim to the end because they weren’t grabbing me: Ruby Red Herring by Tracy Gardner. Working Stiff by Annelise Ryan. The main character is a series of stupid decisions. This isn’t a spoiler, but if you find your husband mid-blowjob with another woman, why are you too scared to go back to your home to get your stuff months later? And being too scared to go to the bank to check out the joint bank accounts and use the joint credit cards? Yet, I’m supposed to think of her as a smart, capable woman who can be deputy coroner? Oh hell no. Making a character struggle financially without good reason to further the plot or as a reason for actions is just lazy writing. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. My sister and I decided to read it so we could discuss. It’d been 2 weeks and we are both dancing around talking about it, when finally she said, “I couldn’t get into it. It was so dumb.” And I was all, “EXACTLY!” Plague Doctor? Really? Ugh. Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty. Stupid twist. Books I finished: Amateur City by Katherine V. Forrest. I enjoyed this but a couple of real sour notes. I know it takes place in the 80s, but having the main character refer to people in her mind as “Oriental” made me uncomfortable. A few other things like that. I’ll give the next one a try though. Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza. I really enjoyed this one. Pregnant Jewish mother of four who gave up a career as a profiler and a disgraced Asian reporter, investigating a gas station murder in small town New Jersey. Funny and smart. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman. Second in the Thursday Murder Club. I really enjoy these senior citizens solving crimes.

How can I care about hosts dying when they’ll just be back next season? Bernard? So don’t care. Charlotte? Really don’t care. Maeve? Second death for her this season. Vitruvian William? We still get murderous asshole William. Christina, Caleb, Frankie? They can all go anytime. The only characters who made me feel anything this episode were Stubbs and Teddy. Edit, but I forgot Akecheta, but he’s not really there anyway.

I’m watching because I started it and I feel like maybe they were going to pull something out that would make it worth it, and I like an hour of reliable TV Sunday night to let me release my weekend and get mentally ready for work. However, what a shitshow. I hate Caleb so much I would have thought I’d have enjoyed so many dead Calebs, but no. I want Caleb excised from the show. And take his dull daughter with him. I like the wife. She can stay. I DO NOT care about Frankie and I hope she dies a quick death in the first three minutes of the next episode so she and her crap father can be off my screen forever. Except it’s WW and the writers have such a boner for this duo that they’d come back. Ugh. Give me more Clementine. I felt more in her brief scene with Charlores than I did in ANY of the Caleb/C/Frankie scenes combined. And what happened to Angela? I liked her. Stubbs is always a delight, but wow, Bernard is such a downer. I’m not saying he has to be the life of the party, but everything that comes out of his mouth is doom and gloom and dreary. Throw Clementine and Jay (that was Daniel Wu’s name, right?) into a scene together and I’d probably be intrigued and invested. Why is this show getting it so wrong?

You root for a character only for that character to turn evil. I'm bored with Charlores/Chrislores. The "using humans as furniture" seemed a tip to Succession, but without Tom Wambsgams, I just didn't care about that scene and felt bad for the actors. So the twist is, "they are all in the same timeline!" I enjoyed Stubbs, as always. I appreciate Teddy. I feel terrible for Clementine. I enjoyed Vitruvian Man (in Black.) I miss Hector.

Fuck that.

Jon Hamm. Dude creeps me out.

I’m so frustrated with this show being complicated for the sake of being complicated, that I’m expecting a GoT type ending, and by that I mean something like, Charlores keeping humans, and specifically Lee Sizemore, alive, because hosts are unable to write new stories.

GM has a bit of a teddy bear look about him, so when I saw the head thing, all I could see was Ewok! With so many other things going on in the episode, I thought it was a nice touch.

Maybe she's going to plug in all the humans and use them as batteries and this is all a Matrix prequel.

I liked Dead Dead Girls but it felt very much like a FIRST BOOK MUST GET EVERYTHING IN BECAUSE WHAT IF I DON'T GET ANOTHER! I am hoping this one is a little easier on that. I love the premise so much.

Finished The Murder of Mr. Wickam by Claudia Gray. It was a depressing, humorless slog. There were 8000 POV characters, and it felt like it switched POVs every 3 paragraphs. Killing off one of the biggest assholes in literature SHOULD have been fun and satisfying, but ugh. Hated it. Do not recommend. Moving on to Harlem Sunset by Nekesa Afia.

I love John Cho, and I’ve been missing my dad, so I gave this a go. So much of it was exactly what I was looking for. Especially the dancing, but that ending… Isaac and Cho are wonderful together. Their banter is natural and I felt their bond. Very sweet film and will definitely tug the heartstrings of anyone who is missing their parent.

I don't even care about that. I just like looking at the muscles ;) My real point here is that, if we are using the wholly gross rating scale, women are expected to be happy with a guy who is a 3 on the hotness scale if he's got a great personality and is funny, but for men, the "floor" number is a 6, not a 3. Women have to put so much more effort into being attractive because personality isn't enough. And a woman who comes out and says, "yeah, that guy is funny and smart, but he's not hot and I'm just not attracted to him" is somehow doing something wrong. Whenever levels of attractiveness are brought up, women always jump on, "it doesn't matter what he looks like if he's funny and smart, I'm attracted to personality, not physicality". That is always, always, always what is expected. I'm saying at my age, fuck that. I want a guy way hotter than I am and he can just sit there and look pretty and rub my feet. ;) So to bring it back around to topic, Momoa is such a yes in my book. But dudes like Andrew Garfield are a damn hard NO.

I seem to care about individual scenes so much more than the overall plot. What a relief not to have to suffer through Chrislores/Doltina this episode. Loved all of the scenes with Akecheta. Zahn McClarnon is wonderful. I love watching Thandiwe Newton deliver one-liners, but dear GOD can we please kill off Caleb and everyone associated with him? I do not care about Frankie no matter how adorable she is. I didn't care about Maeve's daughter either. In fact, I'd be happier if this show had no characters under 30. It's not a kid show/kid centered show and all I was thinking when Caleb went to bust not-Frankie out of her box was "Oh great, let's put a child actor in a scene where she's going to pretend to kill herself while she's surrounded by other glass boxes of people who've just killed themselves." I do NOT want to see children in what I view as a very adult show. They aren't needed. They do nothing to move the plot. Sub out cute daughter for beautiful wife and there would be essentially no change to the plot, except that we wouldn't be "shocked" later on by the Frankie reveal. Anyway, I loved watching Stubbs eat his tuna melt, even though tuna melts are disgusting. He just looked happy for that ten minutes and that made me happy. Bernard going all terminator did little for me.

I'll say it. I want a guy who works out and has a great body. I mean sure, guys with great personalities are nice enough, and I enjoy their company. But give me a super hot guy with washboard abs who spends his days chopping wood and rebuilding my deck who is ready to rub my feet when I get home. ;)

That may have been me. Have you read the second book in the series yet? I felt like the first was just like…a Pilot episode of a series, and the subsequent books are going to build. I’m down for the books becoming an HBO series starring only women over 60.

I'm wondering if Mike has a daughter that we've not heard about before and that's who he is talking to. Because I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MIKE HAVING A LOVE LIFE. I like Mike, but there's nothing about him that makes me think multiple women would want to marry him. He's right exactly average, and that's something I like about him. I do not like shows where average dudes get love interest after love interests while the gorgeous female lead is played for laughs about how she can't get a man. I really enjoy Brokenwood and it doesn't need to add a new romance for Mike to the story. Count me on enjoying Chalmers as well. He's not being an ass to anyone; he's respectful of Mike and Kristen; he has valuable input and they haven't given him any weird quirks.

Sometimes it's not a mental illness. Some people are just assholes.

I've been looking at the score and thinking "fuck" every time. Doesn't matter who wins or loses, I hate it.

So...I listened to Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles by A.L. Herbert. The narration was good, but the book felt...off. You know that off you feel when a male writer is writing female POV and it's how men think women think, which has little in common with how women actually think? Well, it's not only a man writing a female POV, but it's also a white man writing a Black woman POV. I didn't realize that until I went to goodreads to see what other people thought. AVOID THIS BOOK.

Hiddleston as Magnus Martinsson or no Hiddleston at all!

Rafa has had some problem with his thigh, hasn't he? Drat. Is it wrong of me to want Kyrgios to absolutely melt down after being triple bageled by Rafa?

@Stats Queen I wanted to bring my reply over to this thread rather than the venting your spleen one. Small business ownership is hard. It's only the pandemic SBA loans which have given me a cushion, and I used a big chunk of that to improve the office with ergonomic chairs, risers on the desks so people can stand to work, a better refrigerator, laptops for everyone in case we needed to work from home, software for that as well, all of those things I'd been wanting to do. And now I have to pay that loan back, even if it's over 30 years. Previously any financial cushion I had was the equity in my house and my personal credit cards. Payroll is my single highest expense. Add into that the medical and dental that I pay (100% for employees) and the IRA contributions (2% of salary, no match needed) and that's 40% of my gross earnings. It is doable and fulfilling though. It requires hustle and some shitty work/life balance for a while. I have worked hard and at this point, I deserve to enjoy the fruits of many years of labor. I value my employees, but it's an unrealistic business model for me to continue the business if my employees earn more than I do and take twice as much vacation. Small business owners are in it to make money.

Get out of my head. I can't watch live, but I keep checking the scores. Grrr on this third set. So...Kyrgios being charged with assaulting his girlfriend. How shocking. /s