#177 - Entertainment and Eviction

I slept in an extra half hour this morning and sacrificed a breakfast at The Patrician. Which was easier to do after last nights big dinner and desserts.

I had two big cups of coffee last night and I was worried the strong brew would keep me from falling asleep, but it turns out I was more than tired enough. I did stay up until about one AM reading, because I refused to go to bed until I had read a least one chapter.

I was up and out the door by eight, catching an all stops train by eight seventeen. The train was good for writing, but unfortunately, I was not. I opted to close my eyes and get some extra rest.

I sprint-walked from the station up to King street, and as usual the streetcar was just laving as I arrived. Another one arrived a minute later, so I couldn’y get too upset about it.

I had a pleasant micro encounter with an East Indian woman on the streetcar as we boarded. Her card wouldn’t work, so I tried mine which worked, and then she retried hers and now it worked too. She said, “Now it works, because yours taught it what to do.”

And that was the encounter other that a smile of recognition as she departed. It’s a small thing, but little interactions with strangers like that give you hope for the world.

I wasn’t the first one to work today for once and I don’t feel bad about it at all.

After basically driniking a full pot of coffee last night, I decided to stay away from the stuff at work. I made myself an AG1 drink instead and I think that ended up being a good choice. One, it makes sure I continue my streak and two, it’s good for my stomach biome. At least it makes me feel better.

We were all working diligently today, getting some of the last background paintings approved and finished. No meetings or calls to distract me. I listened to an audiobook for most of the time I was there and just got some work done.

I had a can of Rio tuna with couscous, and some veg sitting on my desk and just had that for my lunch. There are super tasty and I don’t feel like I missed out on lunch when I have them. And again, after last night’s dinner, this was more than enough food.

I left my desk and sat on one of the couches in our lunchroom and just closed my eyes and tried to get a bit more rejuvenation. I set a timer for twenty minutes and just floated away.

It refreshed me until about three thirty, when I contracted a severe case of the yawns. I got up and made myself a tea help my get through the rest of the day. I often run out of gas around that time of day. It’s typically when I crave a nice pastry or a snack. But I didn’t have on at hand, and the girl who works reception and usually puts out the snacks wasn’t in today. Somehow, I made it to the end of the day unscathed, if a little peckish.

I spent an extra twenty minutes at the studio trying to get some software I helped create, to work for this new show. Unfortunately, I am not a coder, nor do I have access to the place where the code lives. I wasn’t able to figure it out.

This meant I missed my regular train home and had to wait a bit for the next one, which ended up being an all-stops train. This has some benefits to offset the later arrival at home. One being that the train is usually less busy and I can get some writing done and the other is that I have extra time to write because the train takes longer to get to my stop.

You have to find the silver linings in these things.

I ate some sourdough bread with butter for supper and then followed that with some tortilla chips and salsa with a chunk of cheddar. An odd dinner, I know. The crust on the sourdough was exceptional, crispy and crunchy with a soft fluffy interior.

Mmmm!

The kiddo and wife-oh left on a walk almost as soon as I got home, so after eating I watched some YouTube to relax. Mostly Four Keyes Books videos of him making little notebooks and another guy who was making an Indian chicken dish I had never heard of.

I did a bit of writing on the train, some of this blog and I added a whapping seventy-four words to my short story. In all fairness, I was adding in some details and refining a few sentences. Most of the refining involved removing words from the story to make it more readable. There was scene that I felt needed an extra bit of spice to make it more interesting, so I shook the spice shaker all over it.

I am contemplating getting up earlier tomorrow to make time for a stop at The Patrician Grill for some bacon and eggs. I’d like to get up early enough to get a bit of writing in as well. It seems like a good place as any to do that.

If it’s too noisy, I can go to work and sit on the couches to write until my workday starts. Time is running out on the mentor story, and I want to add as much as I can throughout the day. If I can write on the train, at the diner and at work at lunch and then again on the train home, it will all add up to quite a lot.

We are watching an episode of Paradise right now, and after that I’d like to read for a bit and then do an hour of writing on my story. An hour a day is really the minimum amount of time I should be spending on it. Ideally, I would get two solid hours in a day. Not impossible, I just have to make it happen.

I’ve been informed that on Saturday the kiddo is using our house as a film set for a class project and there will be kids and actors around. We have been asked to be “Not There” for the filming.

Pretty sure his mother and I still own the place.

So, I’ll either be down in the writing cave or searching for a quite place to write. I’ve tried to write in cafes and never found it all that productive. I’d be better of in a library or somewhere with more comfortable chairs. Cafes never have comfortable seats. Even the ones that look like they should be nice aren’t. I suspect they want you to buy your drink and leave as soon as possible.

If the weather was nicer, I might head to the park with a camping chair, but it snowed yesterday and today. So nope! Not happening.

The installer is coming tomorrow to get our oven up and running. I might be able to make a healthy meal for dinner tomorrow if all goes well. The stainless-steel backsplash piece arrived via Purolator this afternoon. I unboxed it and just put it in place, no screws or anything, just to see what it would look like. And it looked fantastic. Of all the ideas we had to finish the area behind the stove, this ended up looking like it was planned.

The stainless finish looks right with the stainless stovetop giving it a designer look. It should be easy to clean as well. One of the things I am interested in trying is the air fryer setting on the oven. I have never cooked anything in an air fryer and will need to learn the basics. I suspect my YouTube channel is about to be inundated with air fryer recipes in the next little while.

I do like me a good crispy chicken tender. Now I am thinking about food again.

I think I’ll be able to finish the current audiobook I am listening to tomorrow while at work. My dilemma is whether to read the second book in the series or try something new. My inclination is to listen to the Sara J. Mass book, simply because I am interested to see why her books have become so popular, but the current book will still be fresh in my mind if I pick book number two.

There are worse problems a guy could have.

Through the grapevine, the grapevine being my wife, I heard the producers of Arcane is deleveloping an animated Wheel of Time series with plans for a movie and a pc game. Arcane was very successful and garnered admiration from the animation community as a whole. Having the WOT IP in the hands of people who know how to make a good product with interesting stories and characters is a great sign. Fanatasy seems to be making a comeback, the Brandon Sanderson IP deals with Apple TV and others as an example.

Even Disney/Marvel released having another Dare Devil series with all the old faces returning is what the fans want. Surely the recent success of “The Hail Mary Project” at the box office must have had some effect on the bean counters who think they are movie producers.

There are so many good fantasy and science fiction books out there for the movie and TV industry to tape into. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the Matt Dinnamin series  “Dungeon Crawler Carl,” was getting its own movie either. Seems like the perfect product to print cash.

And then I see movie adverts for the He-man movie, and I realize the movie huys still have no clue. Of all the movies to reboot, you chose that one? Surely, there were better and more relevant IPs to tap into.

I did hear they might be filming Artemis, the second novel by Andy Weir. But by my estimation, that is his weakest novel and is not likely to get the crowds to the theatre the way “The Martian” and “The Hail Mary Project,” have done.

I am hoping that Apple TV continues with the “Foundation” series by Issac Asimov. I thought they did a great job with the material. And they are continuing with another season of “For All Mankind,” an alternate history that explores what would happen in a space war instead of the Cold War. Even the short episodes of “Murder Bot” were fun.

It gives me some hope that the entertainment industry is going to right itself. There are rumours that there might be a writer’s strike sometime at the end of spring or the middle of summer. If that happens, we may see productions moving to European countries or massive delays in production. And that’s the last thing we all need in the entertainment industry.

I don’t think I’ll have the time or energy to read tonight and that means my reading streak didn’t even make it into the double digits. But that’s okay, I’ll just reset the counter and start again tomorrow. Such is life.

Not all streaks are going to work out.

And sometimes you need a couple of false starts before you find your rhythm. I do know, that the longer you maintain your streak, the less likely it is you will allow yourself to break the chain.

Tomorrow is going to be another long and drawn out day. Up early and on the train to the studio. Hopefully the oven gets installed and we can cook dinner. I’ll make myself write on the train in both directions.

If I have any chance of achieving that I need to get to bed in the next few minutes. It’s twenty past midnight and the alarm goes off at seven AM. I miss sleep.

So, I’ll end things here and say good night.

I hope all is going well for you in your life, wherever you are in the world reading this.

Good night All!