In Alphabetical Order what I'm looking forward to

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip
All Creatures Great and Small
And Just Like That...
Andor
The Bondsman
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
Conan O'Brien Must Go
Daredevil: Born Again
Doctor Who
Douglas is Cancelled
Holland
Ironheart
The Last of Us
Long Way Up
Ludwig
Mayfair Witches
Mid Century Modern
Miss Austen
Pee-Wee as Himself
Percy Jackson and the Oympians

I realized something when watching Beauty and the Beast. Gaston is basically the Prince before the Witch cursed him. The Prince was forced into body dysmorphia in order to empathize with others. His isolation made sure he was surrounded by those rightfully blaming him for their situation instead of being fawned over. However, by having Gaston be the villain and go after the Prince directly. It's like his past literally catches up with him instead of just running out of time with the rose. So often, we have this past sense of self haunting us or sabotaging us from moving forward and this was done in a literal way with the fight between the Prince and Gaston. The Prince even appears dead, but with his past lying dead below, and Belle's part in the curse fulfilled, he's able to finally move on to be a whole new person.

The next day after that post, I went to work only to find all these cars lined up next to gas stations like it was lane to pick up their kid after school.

None of these stations actually had gas then. The cars would line up in the HOPE that gas would arrive at some point. They needed gas for the generators and because most people were charging their phones by running their cars. People no longer use radios to find out about the outside world, only their phones. The day after Milton, I immediately turned to the radio once I could find something that worked, but our local radio station; our record-winning radio station for playing 3 million songs in a row without a commercial and working on 4 million. Now it was just gone. The tower was collapsed on power lines and the power lines were wading in water over five feet deep. Around six weeks later, they're hoping to have it up by Thanksgiving.

I don't know if it's because everything is social media based and that was unreliable or just plain incompetence, but people didn't know where to go or who to call. Everyone felt so alone even as neighbors and strangers tried to help. On Saturday, the helicopters started. The sound is so uneasy as it is. Are they delivering someone dying or looking for a criminal on the loose? Now, they were heavy duty military birds, and they were plucking people from the water. At the parking lot of the park I'd walked to all my life, was World Central Kitchen. They go to War Zones and extreme catastrophes. The Daily Show had begged for donations for them while discussing Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti, and there they were, World Central Kitchen, just a mile from my house.

Another charity, Operation BBQ Relief, was here for weeks. If you donate, do them. The others are tight-fisted with lots of rules and personal bias. People are mostly back to normal, but some are still in their cars. There have been two Town Hall Meetings, but they were about navigating FEMA, not discussing what people want to discuss: that most of this flooding wasn't from the storm, but man-made from incompetence. Waterways that have existed for hundreds of years were ignored or filled in. Developers made their new construction flood-free at the expense of existing properties.

People just want reassurance that it'll be fixed, that it won't happen again, and the local government won't do that, probably because it knows they have no intention of fixing it and it will happen again. Nine days after Milton, we had a corporate visit at work. I thought they wanted to make sure we were okay, and whether we needed anything. They wanted to make sure we were all set for the holiday buying season...

"Florida!!!
Is one hell of a drug
Florida!!!
Can I use you up?
The hurricane with my name when it came
I got drunk and I dare it to wash me away
Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine
Well me and my ghosts, we had a hell of a time
Yes I'm haunted, but I'm feeling just fine"

Someone on TUMBLR suggested that George Lucas watched the War Games serial of Doctor Who and it influenced Star Wars. The argument was flimsy; basically, the glasses technology that works the same as the Jedi Mind Trick.

From a factual standpoint, War Games aired in Britain in 1969. Doctor Who was already airing in the United States. Tom Hanks has stated he was already a fan at this point, and Walt Disney died in 1966, but not before trying to make an American Doctor Who film. It's plausible although Steven Spielberg claims he was introduced to Doctor Who by Tom Hanks.

However...now that I've watched War Games, there are little things like the use of "Empire" and "Rebellion" and little things that make me wonder if they're right...

My favorite films of 2023
Movies must be seen in a proper theatre between January 1, 2023 at 12:01 AM and December 31, 2023 at 12:00. Movies cannot have been included in a previous list. Thus, Jurassic Park was ineligible. Films are graded by merit and artistic triumphs as well as how much I desire to ever see it again.

1. Godzilla Minus One
2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3
3. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour / Renaissance; A Film by Beyonce
4. Haunted Mansion
5. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse
6. Elemental
7. The Marvels
8. Barbie
9. Wonka
10. The Creator
11. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
12. Wish
13. The Amazing Maurice
14. Asteroid City
15. Five Nights at Freddy’s
16. Trolls: Band Together
17. The Color Purple
18. Blue Beetle
19. Oppenheimer
20. A Haunting in Venice

Unanswered questions from Goldmember:

When Nigel know Dr Evil was his missing twin?

Did he purposely encourage the school to have Austin and Dr Evil be roommates?

Is MiniMe Austin's twin, brother or nephew?

Also, I finally finished Loki...

I was just remembering the time that my nephews found out that Loki gave birth to Jörmungandr and other children.

hehe

Now, with our quilts, we just display them on furniture in the living room, but this is a whole different situation.

I'm the current custodian of a 50 year old band banner until a better place happens. It's hand sewn, including tassels and fringe. We haven't had any problems with moths in the house and we've lived here over 40 years.

However, how do I store to keep it in best condition? It was folded, but I noticed some edges of the letters were bent wrong so I have it rolled now.

"In the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet"

Well, there was until Nicole's eye disintegrated into a red band of mega-rain. The lack of pelting rain and banshee winds made me wake up, lol. Then, it all started again.

So, as you know, Facebook has a feature to Mark Yourself Safe from various dangerous events so not only close friends, neighbors, family knows, but people in other states and countries that care about your well-being. Today's event was called "Hurricane Nicole in Eastern Florida".

It became a thing, a thing of drama. Yes, if we're being precise, it wasn't a hurricane by the time it reached Pasco or even most or all of Polk County. Yes, Polk and Pasco aren't "Eastern Florida" but that was the only option, Mark Yourself Safe the way it was listed or not at all. It seemed better to twist the truth a little...

Well, that didn't work for some people. There were legitimate complaints about people nowhere close to the eye, and most destructive areas of her path, but there were also people complaining that a Tropical Storm didn't people freaking out or closures, just a normal day like it used to be.

That pisses me off. In the old days, we also played with mercury and ate with lead plates. Now, we know that shit was stupid, just like not using modern meteorological technology to prevent unnecessary deaths is also stupid. First of all, people drive horribly, and they do that when the weather is NICE! Add in rain and I have to be on constant guard to suddenly stop or have to swerve from a hydroplaning car like last night. The vehicles are different than they used to be, too. We used to have heavy metal cars that could double as tanks or demolition derby entries. Now, they're plastic/fiberglass/aluminum...lightweight and aerodynamic for better gas mileage, but also perfect for lifting up, being pushed over, etc. Apparently, there was even a bus crash around 1992 from high winds...which is about the time that the Crystal Springs bus crashed, but I can't remember exactly when that was or what caused it.

There's also the flooding issue. Of course, sources claim East Pasco's original name, Toadhaka, actually meant "muddy water" because of all the swamp. In times like these with a lot of rain, it even had a clear river of grass, going for miles to the Hillsborough River, but we fucked all that up. Now, there's flooding even in places they don't recall flooding before because the all the construction messed things up. I stayed home, but a friend confirmed rampant street flooding, like always.

The schools were closed, the government buildings closed, Universal Studios closed unless you were a hotel guest...
But I had to ask to be left off early last night so I could leave before the high winds started in. I wasn't scheduled today, but they were having a conference call at 8 am, but they wanted to open at 9:30 AM and it turns out Village Inn was open since 6 am...

Whatever, I really hate...I went through it and survived so everyone should have to, too...