Thursday Roundabout

Took Youngest Daughter to the pool yesterday. Heck of a workout, three days in a row. 

The Stroock family begins preparations for our second trip to LBI this season. 

Political thought: the more Stroock's Books sees of Pennsylvania, the more optimistic Stroock's Books becomes. Word is getting around that Fetterman is a privileged rich kid. You've all seen the Fetterman photos, you've probably seen his awkward appearance last weekend. The man is just weird looking. I'm sorry, but there it is. Again, do pundits and pollsters really think Dr. Oz, whose barnstorming the state, doesn't know how to connect with people? He's a carpetbagger you say? So was Hillary. 

A PA/NJ thought. Reader(s) from other parts of the world shouldn't get it in their heads that Pennsylvania and New Jersey are similar states with a lot in common because of the long border. New Jersey, at least the northern part, has more in common with New York, though neither wants to admit that. Eastern Pennsylvania is mountainous and agrarian and was founded by Germans. One can tell as soon as one crosses the border. There's a vast middle filled with farms and rolling hills. Western PA is more or less Midwestern. The place just feels a lot different than New Jersey.*

What Will's Watching: 13 Lives. Remember those Thai kids stuck in a cave for three weeks? This is their story, and wow, what a picture. 13 Lives is a disaster/rescue movie like Apollo-13, which makes sense because Ron Howard directed both.  Howard once again proves himself to be an excellent director. There must be an hour of cave diver footage in 13 Lives, it's claustrophobic and breathtaking. Howard and his cinematographers deserve Oscars for this effort alone. Howard also gives us a strong element of faith, Buddhist faith and it's wonderful. Great performance abound, from the many Thai actors in the film to Viggo Mortenson and Colin Farrell portraying a pair of British cave divers. We'll say it again. Wow. 13 Lives is the best film of the year. 4/4

Thursday Downer: We were going to slowly get off the new meds, but we want this stuff out of system ASAP, screw the withdrawal symptoms. Didn't take any last night, fine this morning. Mood feels fine. 

An interesting review of Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea:

Yeah...eight years and totally overtaken by events. Imagine Tom Clancy doing Red Storm Rising II in 1994. Here's one issue. In 2014 there still wasn't an Iron Dome, forget Iron Beam, and forgot all the anti-tunnel tech. We had plans, probably a massive war with the Muslim Brotherhood run Egypt. Like we said, OTBE. The story ends with War of the Red Sea.

*Kentuckey and Tennessee always felt similar to us. We didn't say the same. We said similar. We're not confusing the Vols with the Wildcats or anything. Western Kentucky has a lot of cultural and economic connections with Western Tennessee.