Monday Metal, (Supplemental): Just three more days till we see Iron Maiden. Oley, oley, oley, oley...Maiden...Maiden. It's been a dozen years, far too long. That night we screamed our head off and had to teach the next day. Totally worth it. And Maiden is still going. Metal will go forever. Because it must.
We did our back-to-back gym days on Sunday and Monday. We're feeling the ich for the four miler again. We shall see.
So Kanye West, or whatever he calls himself bought, Parler. We used to post there. We checked yesterday and our account still active. Again, we shall see.
The Times of Israel reports: 'Jerusalem has reportedly been closely monitoring Russia’s deadly launch of Iranian-made suicide drones at the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, fearing that similar weapons will be directed at Israel in future wars on its northern border.' Stroock's Books is reminded of Hitler's buzz bombs. They killed thousands*. Here's an interesting thought. Are the Iranian suicide drones big, flashy, targets meant to draw Israeli resources away from other targets? The IAF drove itself made hunting down Hezbollah missile launchers in 2006. By the way, the Israelis are still refusing to give Iron Dome to Ukraine. Smart.
Gradually we see national party preference polls tilting in favor of the GOP. Just as we always said. The NYTs just published one such poll with a +4 GOP edge. When the times says the GOP is +4... Joe's approval is in the high 30s, or low 40s at best. This is a terrible environment for the Dems, reminiscent of 2010 for the GOPs. The Dems will suffer gravely.
Ace talks about the She Hulk disaster. We've never watched. We're not into comic book movies and have barely seen Iron Man. Ace makes an interesting point. 'If I had to write a romcom, I wouldn't try to "subvert the audience's expectations. " I wouldn't make fun of cliches like the woman always falling and tripping when she first sees the guy she likes. I'd ask -- why is that cliche here? Is it here to represent, visually, how someone feels so terribly awkward when they first fall in like with someone? And I'd try to think of something else to show that, something not as cliched, but which serves the same emotional point.'
Men, we've been married for 24 years, and there's little we don't know about women. Lemme tell you young fella's something. Women like that all scrambled up feeling inside, romantically. So naturally they'll want to see it in their movies.
It's easy to bash cliches and tropes, but they exist for a reason. Cliches are sign posts. They're easy and clear ways to transmit information and move things along. In The New American Order, we just wrote 'dog eared' referring to a book. Yes, it's a cliche. But it also tells the reader what we want them to know. In post nuclear war America, books get passed around, sold, traded, read and reread. The cover gets dinged. The pages get creased. You know, the book gets dog eared. We described the book in two words. Bam.
In the military sci-fi we read when we were much younger (Jerry Pournelle comes to mind), the female love interest was often the sexual initiator, or at least doing things to show she was really interested. Men like that? Who knew?
In Israel Strikes an Israeli armored company takes a position above a Syrian highway and see's vehicles in every direction. 'You're too weak to defend,' the general tells the CO. 'Then we'll attack,' he replies. Hey, the last two World War 1990 novels have NATO tankers waving flags in the air, shouting charge, or Anavallan or some such, and launching a crazed counterattack. Are these cliches? Probably. Are these recycled? Certainly. But they work.
Why? Because it's fun. Because it's uplifting. Because we've all sat at our desk filling out TPS reports and fantasized about saying things like, 'Oh well. Who wants to live forever. Diiiiiiive!' Because we've all wanted to pop that Spencer Davis Group cassette into the player and say, 'Chappie, this one's for you.' Because everyone has wanted to surmount the crest of a ridge, draw a sword and shout, 'Rohirrim! To the king!' Hey, I got laundry to fold later. Can I have a little fun first?
Commercial break: Anyone who was around back then will be able to hear this post. Who else remembers the last Polaroid commercials from the late 90's? Basically, Polaroid tried to offload their inventory and maximize profits before digital cameras put them out of business. These clever commercials were everywhere. And yes, younglings, people really did shake the pics. Not sure we didn't realize doing so was unnecessary till we saw these commercials. Interestingly, the tech has gotten cool in a retro way, and our daughter has a Polaroid.
*Our mother's father shot them down in the 407th AAA battalion, the 'Buzzbomb Kings.'
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