Today's Distraction

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Francis Bacon

Am I in a Francis Bacon kind of a mood this morning or a Jean-Michel Basquiat frame of mind? Hard to say but I believe I’ll be taking the day off from reading the news.

Do I have a good book to distract me from this hellhole timeline we’re currently wedged in? No, I do not. Having said that, Mr. Scalzi’s next installment in the Old Man’s War series is due out next month. Can I last that long? 

From review at Kirkus: 

Just like it says on the tin: Powerful and disgustingly condescending aliens threaten a fragile peace in the seventh installment of the Old Man’s War series.

Ten years have passed since the publication of Book 6, The End of All Things (2015), and the same amount of time has passed in the storyline, when the humans of Earth, the humans of the Colonial Union, and the aliens of the Conclave signed a treaty that halted colonization of new planets. So Colonial Union diplomatic analyst Gretchen Trujillo is fairly surprised to learn that the three political entities have jointly founded a secret colony called Unity on a remote asteroid space station in an attempt to determine if citizens from all three governments could manage to get along. What’s more surprising is that the space station and its 50,000 inhabitants have apparently vanished without a trace.
~~~
Classic Scalzi space opera at its wisecracking, politically pointed, and, somehow, fiercely optimistic finest.

I NEED some fierce optimism right now. Also, I LOVE the way Scalzi writes women characters. He writes them like regular humans, just like we fucking well are!

     An aside, happy birthday to President Barack Obama!

In other distractionization ... as you may (or may not) remember, I’m not much of a teevee watcher. That is, while I have regular teevee and movie watching days (AKA “Tea Times”) with Jen and Oni, I rarely, if ever watch on my own. Why? Cable or whatever it’s called – the thing where you pay to have television reception but then each channel costs additional mone ... yeah, that. Thanks, I’ll just read a book – it’s less complicated and the library is free.

The point of my story? Jen, Oni and I just attempted to watch Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (the 2010 version with Stephen Mangan) and it’s REALLY fun. Here’s the problem – despite J&O subscribing to and paying for whatever plan this is carried on, the show STILL costs extra. They gave us the first two eps for free but after that ya gotta pay. 

That’s a total hardcore drug dealer marketing plan – get the customer hooked and jack the price. Capitalism 101 really. OF COURSE we’re not gonna pay for more.

I’m gonna go hit up my library app now. I’ll read the damn books instead! 

ANYway, here are some nice pics from Jen and one that Ten’s son Jaxon took on his way to work this morning.

I hope you have good luck with keeping your morale up and flying today. I believe, in addition to a new book, I’ll be needing some dark chocolate. Maybe a cookie too.

Sun just beginning to rise in the Columbia River Gorge

View of Boston (in the far distance) from Nut Island