Daughter checked her carry-on bag. All these years of lessons and examples for naught.
I have also failed as Alpha Dog in this house, because Scout feels free to liberate items from the countertop when no one’s around. Lanky long dog that he is, his snout has the reach and capability of those small robots James Cameron sent down to poke around the Titanic wreck. When I got up from the nap today there was a bag on the floor and crumbs around it. You may have heard that dogs have such short memories that they do not remember what they did and hence show no guilt. They don’t feel guilt at all; they just react to your body language. Well. I displayed no threatening postures or vocalizations. I merely showed him his handiwork.
He’s on the sofa he trashed with puppy claws, which is why the cushions are reversed until we can replace the whole thing.
One pound of sourdough bread. It was bigger than his head. He ate it all, and why not? He might never eat again. It could happen. Carpe diem.
It snowed today, because we were happy last week and came to believe that things would be good. Odd snow - big frozen dots that looked like the stuff you sprinkle to melt the snow. Miserable wind. So I took to the skyways to wander around and think after I turned in a piece, and reacquainted myself with the neighborhood on the second floor. Mind you, some people do not want this option. They believe that the skyways suck the life off the street, and if there were no skyways I would be wandering around on the pavement looking in windows and engaging in spontaneous urban moments. I did get down on the sidewalk for a while to shoot some pictures; the wind made my eyes tear up and a sign mounted on springs to absorb the breeze whacked me in the hip while I was trying to steady my hands for the shot. Autofocus could not settle on anything because the wind gave me weather-related palsy.
Up in the skyways, a constant flow of people past shops and cafes. It is all inauthentic because it should be one floor down.
I had an inauthentic retail experience with a young saleswoman at Pink, which is not the Victoria’s Secret brand. It’s a men’s retailer. British in origin, with a few English flourishes in some of the tie patterns. Clubby atmosphere, everything quite bespoke, to use a word I hate. I don’t know why, but I don’t like it, although I wish for the chance to confront some git in a beautiful tailored suit and sputter all Daffy-Duck-like you’rrrrre bespokable. The ties were $135, something I did not realize, or I wouldn’t have taken her time. But there weren’t any other customers and I like ties, and was genuinely interested in why they had laid out the most hideous color combination I had ever seen.
Shirt with pale pastel plaids. There’s part of the problem. The other was a lurid green tie. Using the images on their website, I believe I can recreate it:
This is objectively ugly. I believe the science is settled. I don’t see how any of this possibly works together, but I tend to choose ties and shirts that do not seem like veterans of a long, contentious marriage that has settled into mutual dislike.
Since I started working in the new place I wear a tie every day. Also a shirt, which is probably appreciated by my co-workers. It is time to look sharp, or at least look a bit sharper. The dress code at the old place was Slumpy Baggy Whatever, and I am well aware that some days I rolled in looking like I was forcibly togged by items in the bottom of the hamper.
No more! Why, I have an event with the Governor on Friday - but that’s for later, and reminds me I have to storyboard some stuff for an event. That’s the job: finish the architecture column, then confer on podium placement and shot selection for an event with THE GOVERNOR. It’s a great life. Slap me when I complain. (Unless it’s about the weather.)
Anyway, about those skyways: I wound around through the old Foshay, now a dim hip Westin, and went through the TCF atrium to get to the long long dogleg skyway that took me back to the office. Passed through the saddest public space downtown. It used to have a fountain; it used to have a fishtank in the wall. There was a cafe. There were public seating areas. The architecture of the joint is bad, bad, Leroy-Brown-level bad from the late 70s, and the space is begging for a rehab. But it sits there forlorn, a big crypt.
The can lighting! The round brick patterns1 The Globe Lamps! It's unfixable; it must be gutted. But for a while it was chic. For a while it was up-to-date and women in Quiana blouses strode through on their way from Accounting to Sales. Now it looks like the place where you'd put a glass casket for the person who invented Rust-Colored Shag Rugs.
Commando Cody has been spiffy as all get out the first two eps; I'm really hoping they didn't front-load it with the good stuff only to have it taper off into the usual cliches. Of course, that's what it will do. Of course, it's already been nothing but standard serial stuff, but it's well done. I think. Maybe I'm just impressed by the good print.
Tag-team recap:
As the molten death sauce poured down the hallway, our heroes saw an escape tunnel nearby. They ran away, secure in the knowledge that once the camera cut away, the molten rock-juice would not follow. You can't spend too much time on evading the cliffhanger, because you have another one to get to in 14 minutes.
So we're still on the moon. Our heroes go back to the Moon Car and throw a grenade at it, in case the bad guys thought they'd died in the cliff. Wise move.
Says the fearsome Moon soldiers:
Whatever Moon President Retik is paying those guys, it isn't enough.
Back at the ship, everyone says "you know, this might be a good opportunity to leave the moon, having alerted them to our presence and revealed our knowledge of their plans. But "Scout Seven" has already found them:
Artisanal helmets! Hand-cut.
So the people on the Moon have to wear space suits, but Earthlings don't. Good solid science there. Cody finds Scout Seven, maybe because his stupid helmet makes it easy for people to blindside him because just about everything is his blind side, and there's a brief fistfight that's not particularly satisfying because no one can punch the other guy in the face.
Cody has one hell of a lethal shove:
But a Moon Car spies them, and they have to escape. The FX are good. It actually looks like a real ship taking off.
Really, that's pretty fine work for a serial; all hail the Lydeckers.
They're headed for Earth . . .
. . . which lives in the clouds and has a drop shadow.
Retik - that's President Moon, remember - tells the one guy on earth who's helping plot the invasion to stop Cody, and entrusts a bomb to the quisling criminals (in hats). The bad guys wait for the ship to land, then fire guns wildly, hitting no one; our gang escapes in a car, so there's a car chase. Got that? Fight, gunplay, chase. All the boxes checked. But why did the crooks shoot it out, when they'd been given a bomb? Because they're stupid. They remember they have the bomb and put it on the bridge.
And so:
Spectacular! Love it. Next:
Ah, the obligatory plane-crash entry. Or so I hope.
That does it; have a fine day and I'll see you in the usual places.
