“I’m an air traffic controller. It gets very stressful, so once a year I flip out and punch my fist through a radar screen, and I get sent here.”

broderic on September 9, 2020

Bill & Ted Face the Music is the first movie that I have seen in a long while. I did not see it at the movie theater. I paid to watch it at home.

Paying for first run movies this way is going to be the wave of the future. We’ll never go back to sitting in the dark with a couple dozen strangers staring at the large silver screen. Who wants to laugh and then inhale someone else’s COVID-19? Sadly, I would as I think the experience of watching it at home on my television diminished the awe. It was literally watching television and not a film.

So the third installment finds Bill and Ted needing to write that hit song that would unite the world. They had spent 20 years not writing it. They thought they had, but it wasn’t it, so we got the sequel to the sequel. Again some time traveling hi-jinks ensue. Add in their daughters and more historical dudes and the phone booth, which is very anachronistic nowadays, and you have a righteous romp back to simpler days.

The film very much would like to make these troubling times better. It wants us to feel that we can overcome these roadblocks. It was written for us to have fun in the days of Trump, but now after it was delayed, it was written for us to smile in the Covid-19 Days. That’s what I felt. Some happiness to spend time with some characters that I sort of been attached to for most of my life. I need it. We need it. Bill and Ted make it happen.

3 of 5 stars.

Mai Channel

broderic on August 23, 2020

Although she’s all but graduated, Shiriaishi Mai has started a YouTube channel!

Hooray!

Her first video was a livestream last Thursday on her birthday. It was filled with lots of technical difficulties. Also, I didn’t understand anything considering that it was all in Japanese. I did sing along as we sang her a happy birthday.

This is her first video, and it’s well produced. Almost like the Nogizaka management spent some time and money into making this video. It definitely isn’t all in her hands. I hope this continues.

Maiyan was a softball player in middle school. She bats left and throws right. We are treated to ponytail Maiyan and sweaty Maiyan. She’s still beautiful though. I wonder if she practiced a bit more would she have been making better contact. I laughed when she was supposed to hit the 110 kmh pitch, but found out the setting was for 130 kmh. Fast! Too fast!

Anyhow, it’s a cute video. You should smash the like button and subscribe. You know I am.

Where A Mask?

broderic on August 22, 2020

I’ve been looking for the perfect mask in the fight against the rona. I have yet to find anything that satisfies me.

First, it was bandanas. I have a few of them because I like having them around. I wore them at the start of the rona, because face masks were tough to purchase.

Next, I wore neck gaiters. These are my favorite to wear. I’ve got a heavy thick one for winter, and I bought some recently that are for the summer. But these type of facial coverings are getting a bad rap. Still, though, I like these because they can be worn around the neck normally and quickly pulled on. I usually use these on my walks outside.

Now, I’m on the regular cloth masks. I’ve bought a few more. It’s like getting to be an expensive accessory.

$63 a Tee

broderic on August 21, 2020

Are band t-shirts sold at the tour venue pricey? I don’t know since I haven’t been to a show in quite a while, and the ones that I did go to, I did not purchase a shirt. I didn’t want to be that guy wearing the t-shirt of the band he’s gone to see!

Anyhow, I thought that they were always pricey considering that merchandise was one of the better ways for the band to actually profit from their music. Not much of the sales going to the record company, but going to the band. They’ll gouge their fans to make even on their work.

I don’t know where this is going. I guess I’m just here to brag about spending an exorbitant amount on Nogizaka46 paraphernalia. I got two tour t-shirts: one from last year and another from 2015 about $30 a piece. I also got Yamashita’s birthday shirt. This one from this year’s birthday last month. The markup was just about double the original price: $50. She’s a fave and the shirt is plain and boring, but wearable around town. I don’t look like a Nogi wota in it!

The items themselves were reasonably priced, but they were on the secondary market, and they all came from Japan. The shipping and handling made it all the more expensive considering that they would be shipped via the most expensive method: 3-day international delivery. There were cheaper alternatives, but the rona ruined them all. All told, it cost almost $70 to get them here!

I keep thinking about if I should be spending money like this….

The Scourge of Copyright Claims

broderic on August 15, 2020

They leave your blog with the dead gray tombstone of an empty YouTube video…

One of these days, I’ll go and clean them up. For now though, I’ll try to post a few more times to move them off the front page. LOL!

Consider this one my first attempt on a slow summer Saturday night. Move the dead on down a page or two.

Pizza Box Saga

broderic on August 6, 2020

This past Sunday I received an email from FedEx saying my package had shipped from somewhere in Virginia. I’m thinking to myself, “what did I buy?”

No idea. So I check the usual sights Amazon, Patagonia, Huckberry, to see if I had purchased something lately that was on hold.

Nada. I let it slide. “Hunh? Must’ve been something back ordered.”

Yesterday, FedEx rings my door bell and place a box on my doorstep. I wave to them as they get in their van. This is rather bigger than I am expecting. I thought it was going to be the replacement for a terrible gift from work mis-purchased.

It wasn’t. It was a box of boxes. Pizza boxes. The small size for when you’ve already ate most of the full size pizza. Eh? WHY?

So I go check on my bank accounts to see if they’ve been compromised. Nothing purchased on anything out of the ordinary.

Is this a joke? I search the internet for “pizza box pranks.” I seem to remember that there was one once, but that may be wrong. Receiving these boxes is definitely wrong.

This morning in my email there’s another FedEx message alerting me to another delivery. Again from Virginia. Oh, man it was a prank! And I’m going to get pizza boxes for the rest of the month! Nope. This time this delivery was something else. Thank kami-sama! It wasn’t pizza boxes! Maybe I have escaped…

Now do I send them back?

Bookstore Restore

broderic on August 1, 2020

It’s been a while since I visited the bookstore. I was there today and bought a book! (Actually, I went last week but there’s really nothing to report from then.)

First, they changed the layout of the store. I walked in (last week) and the shelves were moved around so that I don’t know where the genres were any more. I walked about re-familiarizing myself with a place I’ve been to hundreds of times.

I went for a book on BBQ. We’ve got a smoker. I want to know the best secrets into making savory smoked foods, so I picked out a BBQ guru, Myron Mixon’s book, BBQ&A with Myron Mixon. Hopefully, I learn his secrets and start making some yummy BBQ.

We start some ribs in the morning!