Watch nerd that I’ve become, I find myself alerting on wristwatches when I spot them in movies and TV shows. Donna, too. Last night, watching Troppo on Amazon Prime, we both sat up straight during a scene with a clear shot of Thomas Jane’s character’s watch … not the shot shown here, sorry … clear enough for us to rewind, hit pause, and make out “Citizen” on the dial. That wouldn’t have been possible before large flat screen HD displays.
Citizen, a popular Japanese brand, is a good choice for the character in this show … it’s the kind of watch a regular person would wear. I always choke a bit on the Rolex Submariner on Harry Bosch’s wrist, even though it’s explained in the script (Bosch once made a bunch of money as technical advisor to a movie studio making a film about one of his cases, which paid for a watch and house few cops could ever afford, and oh by the way the Rolex on Bosch’s wrist is actually the personal watch of Titus Welliver, the actor who plays him).
If they ever make a movie or TV show about me, I hope they’ll strap an old Seiko on the actor’s wrist. And that some fellow watch nerd, spotting it on the screen, will sit up and say “That’s a 6139-6005 Speedtimer from the 1970s, a real classic!”
I’m fine with Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. Trump, along with Republican lawmakers, openly promises to seek revenge on opponents, and I’ve no doubt he planned to harass Joe Biden through his son Hunter even after the election. I predict he’ll find ways to make life unpleasant for Hunter in spite of the pardon, probably through the IRS or something like that. Hunter Biden will be “going through some things” as long as Trump and Republicans are in power, just as Hillary Clinton continues to be over Benghazi (and as Joe Biden almost certainly will be over the withdrawal from Afghanistan).
The Supreme Court gave Trump carte blanche to do whatever he wants as president, probably assuming no Democratic Party president would ever take advantage of the ruling. I hope Joe Biden makes them regret that decision, and doesn’t stop with Hunter. Trump’s revenge tour is about to begin, and I can think of lots of targets for his anger, including Alexander Vindman and Jack Smith, probably Kamala Harris too. And how about overturning some prior political convictions, like Reality Winner’s? C’mon, Joe, there are only a few weeks left.
While I’m not fine with citizens gunning people down in the streets, I understand why the murdered CEO of United Health Care is getting so little sympathy from regular folks (the kind who wear Citizen and Seiko watches). The French invented the guillotine to deal with corrupt rulers; we chose the path of arming the citizenry. If we can take a break from shooting helpless children trapped in classrooms and start targeting the one percent instead, maybe we can turn things around before it’s too late.
Too harsh? Okay, how about universal health care instead? Give us that, you can quit looking over your shoulder every time you go out in public.
The open document on my PC’s desktop, a work in progress, is the 2024 version of the holiday letter we send out every December. Mostly we get it written and in the mail before Christmas; once or twice it’s been as late as early January (in which case it’s a Happy New Year letter). Seventy to eighty close friends and family members get a copy, and I like to imagine them saying things like “Oh, look, it’s the letter from Paul and Donna, it must be Christmas.” Probably it’s more like “Who are these guys, again? Oh, right.” Most of the people who have us on their holiday mailing list send signed Christmas or Hanukkah cards, sometimes with an enclosed note to bring us up to date with their lives. We skip the card and just send our letter, hoping it’ll do.
On both Threads and Instagram, I’ve been getting dozens of new followers every day, but they’re all chatbots, automated accounts that pose as attractive young women and try to lure men into thirst trap scams. Threads and Instagram are Meta platforms, run by Mark Zuckerberg as spinoffs of Facebook, which makes me wonder why the same thing isn’t happening on Facebook. There, I’m mostly unbothered by unwanted come-ons, but some of my woman Facebook friends say they get them all the time.
Anyway, I enjoy posting photos on Instagram, where I have a hundred or so real followers, so I’ve taken my account private. That’ll keep the sexbots from following me with a single click … they’ll have to ask permission now, which I hope will make it easier to screen them out. If you want to find me there (and ask to be my friend), click here.
Threads? I’m about to ditch it, as I earlier ditched Twitter. Bluesky’s more my speed, now that so many journalists have abandoned Twitter and migrated there. Bluesky is where I go to learn about breaking news, the way I once went to Twitter (regular and online media is where I go for day-old shit). Bluesky seems to have the chatbot problem under control … why can’t Threads and Instagram? Here’s where to find me on Bluesky, where I’m still public and no one needs permission to follow me.
Our live-in daughter Polly has finally started working again. Sort of. She got on with Costco, but it’s part-time and seasonal. She’s nominally in the bakery, but says new employees can be tasked with anything. She wouldn’t have this job if I hadn’t demanded she physically go to different employers around town, showing her face and asking for work. Enough with this “but I applied to X, Y, and Z on-line” nonsense … nothing ever comes of that.
And here’s the hard part about writing the Christmas letter: what to include about Polly that’s both honest and not hurtful?
Probably not the part where we called the authorities and forced her into a county behavioral health program. Her drinking was out of control and she’d become almost catatonic. After a week in the county facility, she started AA and quit drinking, but now she’s drinking again. Her choices are wrecking our lives, never mind hers. We hope having a job, along with being out of the house and around other people, will help … if it doesn’t the only step remaining to us (the only thing we haven’t tried) is to kick her out, job or no job, even if it means she’ll wind up in a wash with the rest of Tucson’s homeless population. Even if it means she’ll harm herself, as she has repeatedly threatened to do.
No, definitely not that part. But maybe she’ll read this post and realize how close she is to living on the streets.
Well, how’s that for ending a blog post with a dull thud? C’mon, Christmas spirit, we need you!