Week in Review 2024-10-07 — The Dog Days Aren’t Over
It seems repetitious to complain about the heat yet again, but here we are in autumn and the temps have been in the upper ’90s. Is it climate change? I don’t know. Most likely. What I do know is that as someone who grew up on the east coast, I genuinely miss autumn. It was my favorite of the seasons. The cold, crisp air in the mornings. The subtle change from shorts to pants and then from short sleeves to long sleeves, and eventually the donning of jackets late in the season. We don’t get that here in my corner of Southern California. It’s either warm (or too hot nowadays) and dry or rainy. And the heat lasts longer than it used to, even from 10 years ago.
Whatever the case, it doesn’t feel right to have Halloween decorations out when it’s 99 degrees outside.
These kind of temps are often referred to as earthquake weather around here, and the ground so far hasn’t disappointed in this regard. It’s been awhile since we’ve had this much rumbling around the Southland, including a series of quakes in the Inland Empire where the earth is typically quiet. Of all the natural phenomena I’ve experienced, earthquakes still freak me out because you can’t see them coming.
We experienced them on a weekly basis when we lived in Japan, but I still never got used to them. You can see hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and floods coming, but when the ground starts shifting back and forth out of nowhere and you have no idea how long it’s going to last or whether it’s going to get worse, you get an immediate and conclusive reminder of how small and powerless you really are in this world.
With the purchase of a folding chair with padding, the little hobby area in the garage is complete and ready for use. I moved all of my model-making and paint equipment down there, and after about three trips carrying boxes, I discovered I still have about a dozen models left to build. My previous excuse was that I needed to make my own little area to paint & assemble them instead of using the kitchen table or my computer desk, but I’ve successfully removed that excuse, so I guess I’ll need to come up with another one.
The second season of Rings of Power concluded this past week and it was a vast improvement over the first season. I wasn’t even going to watch it, but I saw some buzz online from the types of people I respect and decided to give it a shot. I’m glad I did.
There’s still issues with it, especially concerning Hobbits and the Stranger, but I got the sense that even the producers wanted that whole thread tied off, so thankfully it wasn’t given much focus and mostly served as a means of revealing the Stranger to be the character everyone thought he would be.
The Numenor storyline was mostly just table-setting, so the emotional and narrative heart of the season took place in Eregion between Sauron and Celebrimbor and the knock-on effects their efforts had on others, most notably the nearby Dwarves in Khazad-Dum. It was genuinely satisfying, especially the portrayal of Sauron as master manipulator, deceiver, and gaslighter.
Plus, whoever was working visual effects was absolutely feasting this season. Just absolute high-fantasy art and set-pieces all over the place.
I was inspired to make a couple of short videos, one of King During taking on the Balrog that looked like it was torn from a metal album cover, and another inspired by the online community’s thirst over Hot Sauron.
The creation of the hobby area and subsequent clearing out of a bunch of models and miscellany allowed me to access my old stereo system once again. I have an old JVC CD player that I can use as well to play all the CDs I’ve been buying over the last few weeks as well. Cleaning: It Makes Things Better!
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♻️ ThunderOwl