Happy Valentine’s Day! [DOT 14/2/22]

14/2/22 MegMegMcGee 27

If you want something else to celebrate today…

Was that so hard?

Key US-Canada border bridge to reopen after police clear blockade
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/13/canada-protests-bridge-border-us-latest-news

I loathe this guy.

The two sides of Youngkin: Virginia’s new governor calls for unity but keeps stoking volatile issues
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/13/virginia-governor-youngkin-seeks-unity-stokes-division/

Stonks!

Japan’s Nikkei plunges 2% as investors monitor Ukraine tensions; oil rises more than 1%
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/14/asia-markets-russia-ukraine-tensions-covid-in-hong-kong-currencies-oil.html

Sprots!

American Erin Jackson wins 500m speed skating gold at Winter Olympics after teammate gave up spot
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/13/sport/erin-jackson-500m-speed-skating-winter-olympics-gold-medal-spt-intl/index.html

Thanks I love her.

Mickey Guyton singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl is a triumph that was a decade in the making
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/02/13/mickey-guyton-super-bowl-national-anthem/

Have a great day!

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27 Comments

  1. Happy Valentine’s Day, my funny valentines! We’ve already celebrated as much as we’re going to. On Saturday we went to a high-end Japanese restaurant for lunch, then paid a visit to our accountant to have our taxes done. We are incurable romantics.

    And the fun doesn’t stop there! On Wednesday we are having a small group over for the first time in almost two years. The occasion? The signing of my will, so it will be my lawyer, Better Half, my three witnesses, and one of the witness’s spouses. Better Half insisted that I not make a big deal out of this, just wine and cheese, because he doesn’t want to entertain all night and plus the lawyer probably has better things to do. I put this through the Cousin Matthew translator so I’m assuming he meant wine = anything and everything alcoholic and cheese = any variety of party food I feel like conjuring up.

    • Just make sure the lawyer isn’t listing party time as billable hours.

      • Don’t think I haven’t thought of that! It’s already been reviewed and paid for, just need the signing, so if he wants to hang out fine but not on my dime.

  2. Oh, and plus also, as Sarah Palin used to say, and may have said recently during her testimony in her court case against the New York Times here in befouled Gotham, I read this morning that Bill Belichick watched the Super Bowl at Mar-a-Lago. I am beginning to understand the absolute hatred so many sprots fans have against the Patriots.

  3. Happy VD internet friends! We watched or tried to watch The Witcher instead of the sprots bowl, but only got through ep 3. We even jumped ahead to the one with the dragon – not very good. I can’t remember what any of you lovely folks have said about it(and I’m too lazy to look it up) – maybe my expectations were too high – but does anyone like this show? Does it get better? Otherwise – we’re moving on.

    • I watched the first two and couldn’t get invested in it. My daughter plays the games and loves the books but didn’t finish watching the show either.

    • Not sure what to say here. I watched it pretty avidly, but my wife was utterly uninterested. I haven’t read the books — I want to but I’ve lost my source of free books at the moment and am waiting to see if that situation changes.

      I have one of the games and have played it a little, but not much. So I guess I’m not super invested in the mythology from the existing media. So maybe that helps.

      I do think it gets better, because it moves to a more global storyline of wars between kingdoms and the origin of monsters and magic, so the scope becomes more epic. It’s much bigger than Geralt roaming about killing monsters.

      Other than that, I guess I’d note it’s one of my “exercise” shows that I watch while riding my stationary bike. So I need material on the regular, which may make me more tolerant. On the flip side, I don’t truly binge — I watch one episode a day, max. I honestly don’t think most streaming series should be binged. So maybe taking it in all at once isn’t the best experience? Dunno.

       

    • …it’s possible that I simply had low expectations…or that the various fantasy swords&dragons shows have started to blur together for me…but I think the witcher kind of smoothed out as it went along to some extent…or at least I’m pretty sure I made it as far as watching season 2…there’s also an animated variant I think I might have seen some or all of at some point…but if it isn’t your cup of tea I’ve been told that another thing apparently based on a video game that’s maybe worth a watch is castlevania?

      …& actually just the other day someone was telling me I should try watching something called vox machina…which like castlevania & one of the witcher things is animated…& technically is based on a game, too…but not a video game…there’s a thing that’s been running a long time called critical role where a group of quite funny people play through D&D campaigns…& as I understand it those people happen to be voice actors…& the vox machina thing is them doing one of the critical role campaigns as an animated show?

      • I love The Witcher and its animated origins show. I don’t think skipping episodes is a good idea in S1 because SPOILER there are already time jumps happening without you knowing,  Christopher Nolan style.

        I love fantasy and the show checks off a lot of boxes, monsters, sword wielding, kingdoms at war, magic, kickass women, love interests, half naked men, and the costumes are beautiful especially Yennefer’s.

        Vox Machina is garbage but I watch it weekly. I hate the characters. I like the gore. The first episode is the worst one. They calm down on trying to get your attention after that.

      • Vox Machina is another one my daughter and her friends are watching. It has some good guest stars like David Tennant and Steven Root. I may get around to it at some point.

    • I was excited for Season 2 of The Witcher but 2 episodes in and I’m bored as fuck.

      • I found that season was not as great. I don’t give a fuck about princess Ciri and Yennefer takes way too long to emerge properly.

  4. I have an appointment this afternoon to get a lesion on my incisive papilla removed so that they can take a biopsy of it. Ah, well. The thing is pink, and if I bleed, it’ll come out red. So, . . . that counts for Valentine’s Day. . . ?

    Oh, and I got a message on LinkedIn yesterday from a guy I was friends with as a teenager. He said that recent events in his life had compelled him to make a list of all the people he’d wronged in his life and that he was apologizing for being an asshole to me and for all the pain that he’d caused me in those years because he’d acted out of selfishness and fear. The thing is, I have absolutely no idea what the fuck he’s even talking about because, as far as I know, he was never an asshole to me or did anything to hurt me back then. (And there were certainly people in my life who’d checked both those boxes, so I’d probably remember – at least if only in broad strokes by now.) Something tells me he’s facing down some kind of addiction or been diagnosed with a terminal illness, maybe. . . .

     

    • Might be AA steps:

      8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

      9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

      • Yep, that tracks.

        • Maybe he watched Billy Madison and is worried you’re Steve Buscemi’s character?

      • Was gonna say the same. I’ve gotten a couple of weird apologies in my life, including one from a middle school teacher, and it was always someone working through the 12 steps.

         

        It’s also worth noting that people can have WILDLY different perceptions about interactions in middle and high school. It’s a weird time for teenagers and there’s a lot of shit going on. My wife had an acquaintance in high school who was approached by the former “cool” kids (after they’d all been out for 10 or 15 years) for a memorial for another former student that died. Dude reacted with rage about the abuse he’d faced and told them all off. The former “cool” kids were totally bewildered — they thought they were perfectly nice to him. He felt completely differently about their interactions. None of this involved my wife — she just heard about it. An aside: Based on my very brief interactions with the guy, I believe him and so does my wife. The former “cool” kids are complete assholes.

        But something that you completely overlooked may have been looming large in this person’s memories all these years.

        • @bryanlsplinter

          It’s funny, because I’ve known several people to go through AA, and have never gotten one of those apologies.

          • Maybe they didn’t feel they’d wronged you, @lemmykilmister? I’m not super familiar with AA. The ones I got were for seriously egregious stuff. The middle school teacher failed me in her journalism class then quit and disappeared. Which is interested considering I’ve made my living from writing for the past 30 years.

            My mom (a teacher) raised major hell but the administration said they couldn’t change it. I had straight A’s and an F. The teacher came back a couple years later and sought me out to apologize. I was … less than gracious but I didn’t realize what was happening at the time, ’cause dumb kid and she didn’t get into the drinking (or whatever). I never did understand why she hated me and she never explained. Not that I would have listened had she tried. I wasn’t a disciplinary problem. She just took a major dislike to me. After the first time she humiliated me in class I never spoke again. Just did every assignment and turned them all in.

            I will say I did learn a valuable lesson from her. Sometimes people just take an instant dislike to me and there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I don’t know if that happens to everyone but it’s happened to me.

            My mom mentioned it years later and I told her about the apology and by then I had figured out that it was part of 12 step. My mom was still pissed.

            I got one from a former boss. That time I knew what was happening. One from a co-worker who got fired for being drunk all the time, so that one I also knew.

  5. Okay, thanks for all of the replies – we might give it another go then.

  6. I am all for celebrating the death of Capt. Cook.  My buddy that is related to Keanu Reaves loves to tell the story of how his great great great grandfather ate Capt. Cook.  They thought he was the God Lono & he tried to pull it off but when he returned they knew he wasn’t Lono because of teachings that he would never return.  You hear different versions of this through historians but that is how I grew up learning it in a simplified manner.  Here’s a really short summary…

    https://hawaiialive.org/death-of-captain-cook/

     

    • I … have no idea what I just saw.

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