Muppets, Movies and Cookies

I spent some time today setting up my remote computer for work. I had all the equipment still here at home since before the layoff. It was just a matter of updating all the software and implementing new codes and passwords.

I got to have a quick chat with my supervisor and get a few questions answered as well. So, it looks like I am good to have a smooth first day on Tuesday.

Tomorrow we are heading over to our friends Paul and Laura’s house to have a Valentine's supper. And as enjoyable as that will be, it means I must make sure I get my assignments done before we head out to their place.

They dropped of two large boxes of frozen cookies, chocolate chip and butter toffee. Mmmmm. Had to bake myself up a dozen of those toffee ones just for quality control purposes.

I have two assignments to complete. A scene for my mentor that has dialogue while an unrelated action is taking place. It could be something simple like washing the dishes. I’ve done an assignment like this in one of their Advanced Classes in the past. I think it was Advanced Depth, but I could be wrong about that. Have to look it up.

The other assignment is for the Sales Copy class, and I need to come up with ten words I could use to describe a story and three sentences describing a story. Sounds easy, but it often isn’t. Which is why I am taking the class.

Otherwise, it’s been a pretty calm day.  I had to catch up on yesterday’s quota for the word challenge. I have completed that and a bit more. But I want to get more writing done this evening as I still have today’s quota to fill out. My mentor assignment will probably give me a high enough word count to make up that quota.

I wrote the ending to the novella I was working on for the past few weeks. It came in at exactly 26,000 words. I plan to go back in and add some details to this story, fleshing out characters and setting, mostly. Maybe some reactions and emotional descriptions as well.

Overall, I am happy with the result. It’s the longest piece I have written to date. It’s hovering around 94 manuscript pages. A chunky little monkey.

The first episode of the revamped Muppet Show was on Disney Plus. I had to check it out and see how it compared to memories of the old original show. I think they nailed it pretty good. The only thing that seemed different to me was that the musical numbers seemed overweighted compared to the length of skits. Sabrina Carpenter was the musical guest, and I thought she did a great job.

I am looking forward to a Pigs in Space or a Swedish Chef skit. I’m trying to remember what skits I used to love back in the old days. They got the set right from the old show, or close enough for my memory. Seeing real people in the audience wasn’t for me. I prefer the idea of Muppets putting on a show for a room full of other Muppets.

My wife is sitting beside me, writing little notes to the kids on yellow Post-it Notes. She crumples them up into a ball and puts them into a mini popcorn bucket. It’s her little Valentine's gift to the kiddies. For us, she bought us a card we can give to each other and reuse every year. We aren’t that sentimental about the holiday so it’s our way of participating without really taking part.

My BYOK is now in the hands of Canada Post, somewhere in British Columbia. Hoping for a Tuesday delivery, since Monday is a family day here in Ontario, I doubt there will be any delivery service. One step closer to getting my hands on the device.

Tomorrow, I need to dismantle the writing cave computer. It was my wife’s; she lent it to me when her work had her use one of their machines. But since she needs it back, I’ll have to write soley on the laptop, which is fine with me. It is nice to type on, and I can still use my Nuphy Air 75 and 60 with it if I feel like it.

The one benefit of the Lenovo keyboard is it is very silent. It sounds noisy when we are in bed and I am writing, but compared to the Nuphys, its nearly whisper quiet.

As I still need to have projects to work on to keep my word count at the 2026 words per day, it might tbe time to start one or more of my novel projects. One is a Space Opera, one is a Historical Thriller, and the third is an Action Thriller.

I think the science fiction novel is the one I should start with. I know much of the detail, the roughed-out story arc and most of the characters. But I don’t know everything so well that it would be boring for me to write it.

I started a first chapter about a year ago and now I think I started the book in the wrong place. So, I’ll start from scratch on a fresh, empty manuscript page. I am both excited and daunted by the enormity of the task ahead. I think writing the 26,000-word novella has buoyed my confidence that I can write a longer tale. It was certainly nice to return to the same world and characters every day and see what was going to happen next.

And moving on.

As you probably know by now, I love to solve minor problems that cause me daily annoyances. The current thing that aggravates me is my Smart Mug lid. The little slider that blocks the sipping part, protecting your drink from escaping, is notoriously hard to clean. It can be removed, but it’s like wrestling a crocodile in water.

And that’s when I discovered some genius has already solved this problem with magnet slides. They come apart for cleaning with ease and still function just as good as the regular slides. I have two ordered from Amazon for next-day delivery. I love my smart mug, but it’s about to become even more lovable. Sometimes low-hanging fruit should be the fruit you go for.

I’ve mentioned before that I think 2026 will be the year we all go back to the movies. And the thing that will get us back is some really interesting movies.

This is a list of the movies I am looking forward to this year, in no particular order. (Also, I do not enjoy horror movies, so there won’t be any of those in this list):

1.       Project Hail Mary

2.       Odysseus

3.       The Grey

4.       Pressure

5.       Masters of the Universe (Maybe)

6.       Disclosure Day

7.       Super Girl

8.       Spiderman

9.       Super Troopers 3 (There was a 2?)

10.  Flowervale Street (rumoured to have dinosaurs in it)

11.  Dog Stars

12.  Digger (non-Action Tom Cruise)

13.  Focker-in-Law (Who doesn’t love a good Focker movie?)

14.  Dune Part Three

15.  Doomsday

16.  Jack of Spades

17.  Paper Tiger

18.  Klara and the Sun

19.  Enemies

20.  The Death of Robin Hood

21.  Animals

22.  The Uprising

23.  Tony (A movie about Anthony Bourdain)

24.  Fjord

25.  Here Comes the Flood

And that’s almost a movie to go see every two weeks. Not bad whe I think about the movie I didn’t go see in the theatre in 2025.

Okay, that’s a wrap.

Until tomorrow.