Year 50 Day 78

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Me standing in a parking lot outside the Highline College library, a very square, somewhat brutalesque 1960s-era building, on a sunny morning.

Day 78: Got to work and found that just about ten minutes before, the entire campus had lost power. The power company had been notified, but had no idea of the cause and no solid ETA for a fix, so it was back home for me! By the time I got home, campus was officially closed until 10 a.m., and we’ll see what sort of notices we get as the day goes by. Either the power comes back and I head back to campus, or I just work from home after ten.

Year 50 Day 77

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Me in our bathroom with a toothbrush in my mouth and a disgusted expression on my face.

Day 77: I don’t normally go directly to brushing my teeth immediately after coming home from work. But then, I don’t normally get surprised by suddenly getting a clumsy bug for an impromptu snack during an afternoon walk outside. Ew.

Year 50 Day 76

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Me standing in my office. The wall behind me is lined with white bookcases filled with books, plus various toys and knicknacks. The top shelf has Star Trek DVDs on one half, lots of stuffed penguins on the other half. In front of a closet is a grey chair that somewhat resembles the chairs on the bridge of the Enterprise 1701-D.

Day 76: Since back on day 61 I mentioned that I was having trouble finding an angle that didn’t show how messy my office was, I figured that since part of this weekend’s chores was cleaning up, I should provide evidence that I can make things presentable if I try hard enough.

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📚 Hyperion by Dan Simmons

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33/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1990 Hugo Best Novel

Still as engrossing as when I first read it, many years ago. Far-future space opera on a huge scale, but presented through a series of vignettes shared by members of a band of pilgrims (if this sounds rather like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, be glad you got a good education in classic literature) heading toward what seems to be an unpleasant fate for all of them…and possibly billions more. Amusingly, while I knew that this was part of a series (originally two books, then four) because I have all of them on my shelf, I’d forgotten that the next book is not so much a sequel as the second half of a single story. Good thing I can just head upstairs and grab the next book to keep going!

NOTE: Given Simmons’ descent into right-wing politics, including Islamophobia and publicly attacking Greta Thunburg, he has earned a space on my “milkshake duck” virtual bookshelf, collecting those authors whose work I discovered, enjoyed, and might still enjoy, before later realizing that they are what I consider to be rather horrible people.

Me holding Hyperion

Year 50 Day 74

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Me, wearing a black t-shirt with a print of Mickey Mouse smoking a cigarette, standing in front of a park playfield with a lot of people sitting in small groups enjoying the summer evening weather.

Day 74: Wandering around Capitol Hill on a nice warm summer evening as I wait for the Mercury to open its doors. Lots of people out at Cal Anderson Park enjoying a gorgeous summer evening.

🎥 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

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Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tom Cruise may be something of a bizarre personality, but he and the people he works with sure know how to put together a great, big, ridiculous summer action movie.

While I’d watched the trailers a while ago, I must not have paid that much attention to them, as I didn’t realize (remember) that both Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff were in this; both of whom, of course, I’m most familiar with from the Marvel universe. Both are fun additions to the franchise; Atwell as a thief who gets pulled into the general shenanigans, and Klementieff as a henchwoman whose absolute glee at the destruction she causes is wonderfully infectious.

The action set pieces, as promised, are a blast. There’s a car chase that even got my wife (notoriously unimpressed by car chases) invested, and a huge set piece on a train that was as close to literally nail-biting as I’ve seen in a long time. And the Big Bad for this film (and the next, since this is a two-part story) is a clever approach, and rather perfectly topical.

The M:I movies may not be “great cinema” — but (with the exception of the second in the franchise) they’re reliable fun, and easily one of the stronger action franchises going right now, and this one keeps it all moving quite handily.

Year 50 Day 73

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My wife and I in a nearly-empty movie theater.

Day 73: Movie time! We went off to see the latest Mission: Impossible film, and really enjoyed it. Tom Cruise may be a rather bizarre personality, but boy does he (and the people he works with) know how to put together a great, big, ridiculous, summer action movie.

Fun fact: This is the first movie I’ve seen in the theater since Star Trek: The Motion Picture!

(Of course, that was the 40th anniversary re-release of TMP, back in September 2019, not long before the pandemic shut everything down. But still! It’s an entirely true statement!)

For the mask-conscious: At this point, there were only two other people in the theater, and we were having some pre-movie snacks. Once we were done with those and more people came in, our masks went on. Even then, there were fewer than 10 people, including us, in this showing. Early Friday matinee showings are great, even for opening weekend movies!

Year 50 Day 72

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Me on a grey couch surrounded by purple, light green, light blue, and brown pillows.

Day 72: Nothing fancy today — just flopped out in a pile of brightly colored pillows on our basement couch watching this week’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, followed by silly reality television.