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Bridgerton – Season 3 Thoughts
Series 3 is just as much brain candy as the previous seasons! I’m always surprised by how fun I find the show. I love the cheerful color palette and the ladies dresses and stately locales. Just so much fun!
Once again, the main story, the romance, was the most uninteresting bit to me. Most interesting stories in Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte for me have been those “relating to abusive households, forced/arranged marriage, pressures to do with financial ruin, trying to exist within oppressive gender roles that are crushing you” as someone put it. There’s just more meat in those stories than there have been in the romances.
I enjoyed the Bridgertons as a family very much again! I’d have loved to seen more of them as a family, but obviously as the main character was not a Bridgerton this time, that wasn’t possible.
Some random thoughts about series 3: Continue reading
The Friday Five For June 14
Friday 5 for June 14: A Wrinkle in Time – http://f.riday5.com/2024/06/14/friday-5-for-june-14-a-wrinkle-in-time/
1. When have you refused to do what (seemingly or actually) everyone else was doing?
I can’t remember actual details anymore, but when I was in my 20s, I absolutely refused to go into bars/night clubs no matter the occasion. Once when I was around 13-14, my school class organized a disco as a class celebration, complete with colored flashing lights and darkness and loud music. I totally refused to go into our class room while that thing was happening, and sat it out far far away in the hallway for the hour it lasted. (I… didn’t actually mind – I hated school and didn’t really care for the other kids and my friend was in the other class so it wasn’t like I was missing anything or anyone I liked! I had a book and I read and that was a far more pleasant activity than what school ever did. If they had asked me… I’d much rather the school day had ended an hour earlier that day than have some disco party.)
All of these refusals I did because loud music and flashing lights in darkness always trigger a migraine attack and always have, even when I was a kid or a teenager. Participating would’ve been pure suffering.
2. When have your faults been helpful?
Can’t remember.
3. Have you called anyone Uncle or Aunt who wasn’t related to you or married to a relative?
I’ve never ever called anyone Uncle or Aunt. I call all my Mom’s and my Dad’s brothers and sisters by their first names.
Actually now that I think of it, I don’t think anyone in my family calls anyone Ancle or Aunt but by their first names (or nick name if that’s what the person uses). The only person I’ve called something other than first name is my Mom’s mother – she was mamma or Alli-mamma (her name was Alli, and mamma is one of the Finnish words for grandma)
4. When did you last reread a book?
I reread books all the time! I checked my list of books read this year, and turns out I haven’t reread one so far this year – too many news ones coming from the library reservations all the time!
To answer the question: last year but I’m not sure which month exactly because I don’t record that information but it would’ve been in the last two or three months of the year judging by its place on the list. The book was the Finnish language edition of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun, and the I read the first time in the 1980s and this was the second time. Because I felt like reading Agatha Christie again and Mom wanted to get rid of some of her books and I took that one.
5. Honestly, if there is a battle between good and evil, which do you think is ahead?
Evil, sadly since the current far right goverment got into power last year.
The Friday Five for 14 June 2024 – https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/126858.html
1. What is the oldest object you own?
I’m not sure – a lot of my stuff are very old! I brought over many of the kitchen table and chairs, bed frame, utensils, plates and glasses from when we divided my childhood home stuffs when Mom and her SO moved in together in 1995 and then again when I moved into my own home in 1998 and we sold my childhood home. The kitchen table and chair and the bed frame my Mom bought sometime after Dad’s death so those things are about 32 years old. The plates and forks/butter knives even older than that because we had them when I was a kid as far back as I can remember. They might be anywhere from 1960s to early 1980s. I’ve never wanted replace them because their design is better than any of the newer ones I could have bought (my Mom jokingly complains that her and SO’s are much worse – they kept his when they moved in together and that she regrets letting me have them LOL). I also got a set of new forks and butter knives that were popular for free with some order or another years ago and they are terribly clumsy and unattractive. The ancient forks and butter knives and the plates all sit in hand so much better, and the soup plates particularly are great – when you carry them are much less likely to spill from while carrying them around full of hot soup than the newer soup plates I’ve been forced to use at work and friends etc.
2. What object have you owned the longest?
The same things listed in the previous question. But if I answer for an object that I’ve actually bought myself for myself… some book most likely. Some I bought as a teenager in the very late 1980s or early 1990s. No idea which of the books is oldest own, but it’s probably one of the Dean R. Koontz ones.
3. What is the newest object you own?
I think the newest notable object is the Lamy Studio Rose I bought in February when it was 25% off? I can’t think of anything newer that isn’t like tiny paper clips or food or meds or something like that.
4. Who is your oldest living relative?
Both grandparents are dead on both my Mom’s and Dad’s sides so I think it’s Mom’s SO, I guess significant others are considered relatives? At least of the ones I know well, it’s him. We’re not in close touch with relatives (my Mom has tried but it never took really and she’s given up) and I don’t know their exact ages on the various significant others/expanded family side.
5. Who is your youngest living relative?
No idea! Like I said above, we don’t keep in touch much and while I know my cousins have children, some of whom are now young adults and might have kids of their own now too since the last I heard from them.
Friday 5 for June 7: Aural examination
Answers to today’s questions at f.riday5.com 😀
1. What kinds of non-music sounds do you like falling asleep to?
I prefer the quiet sounds of my neighborhood. The sounds normal to the area I’m living are such as a bus or a car or a motorcycle driving past every now and then, people pulling suitcases when coming home or leaving for a long distance travel, high heals clacking sometimes, elevator door clicking shut, some quiet or normal voice conversation while passing by my bedroom window… those are all okay and don’t bother me at all. But sounds like neighbors having a party with loud music or drunkards, usually teenagers or people in the 20s by their voices and music choices. Those things tend to wake me and/or prevent me from falling asleep. There are no bars etc. in the immediate vicinity – just homes and very few businesses most of which are home businesses such as hair dressers. There’s also no pass through traffic – if you come here, it’s because you live here or have come to visit friends/family. It’s usually quiet at night in my neighborhood.
2. Besides alarms, what sounds do you associate with a particular time of day?
Always and forever: when I watch a Miami Vice episode and the opening credits come on, it is Saturday night and time is about 20 minutes past 10pm. Because that was the day and timeslot in the mid-80s when Miami Vice originally aired here. It in actuality might be 1pm on a Wednesday but it does not matter – by brain and bones say it is Saturday and 20 minutes past 10pm whenever Miami Vice opening credits video comes on the telly.
I don’t usually hear this anymore but – the 12pm test of the general alarm system (that’s to be used in the event of a huge disaster/war/bad event etc.) that happens on the first working Monday of every month. This is an alarm technically, but I’ve never heard it used for actually alarming so far – only the test run for as long as I’ve lived here in my current neighborhood. For 20+ years now! I never heard it anywhere else I’ve lived. First several years that I lived here, I heard it every time – even if I was asleep I’d wake up to it. Now? I don’t notice it almost at all anymore! Sometimes only if I’m outside at exatcly 12pm when it’s tested, but if I’m inside I just don’t notice it it!
I don’t associate any other sounds with particular times of day.
3. What sounds (of any type), unliked by most people, do you like?
I don’t think I have a like like that? I don’t like to have sound on in general, most of the time, since my migraine went chronic in 2008. And even before that, I only really liked my own music on and preferred silence to most other stuff. But I used to be able to tolerate random sounds better than now when the sounds can actually make my head pound if they’re loud enough and go on long enough. I’ve always been sensitive to sound, just like my eyes have always been sensitive to light.
4. In your downtime at home, what is usually the predominant sound?
Now: silence.
Before chronic migraine: my music. I used to always have my music on, and would very rarely turn it off when I really, really, really needed to or wanted to concentrate. Most often I turned it off during school years, when I had to read for the exams. Otherwise I always had my music on in the background.
5. How do you feel about the sound of your own voice?
When I’m speaking, it’s okay. Although sometimes I think it feels and sounds like like I might run out of voice in the middle of a sentence/word. I have sometimes thought it might behoove to get some training in using my voice and speaking – certainly would arrange for some if I wanted to participate in something like politics where I’d need to speak, or needed more flowing speaking ability for work.
When I listed to a recording of myself, I sound a complete stranger.
Star Trek: Discovery Series Finale & Whole Series Thoughts
So, that’s all she wrote for DSC! End of the series.
I don’t feel much of any kind of way about not seeing these characters in new adventures.
As a season finale, I suppose the episode was okay? Typical DSC fare. I was very bored by the early episode fights Burnham had with the Breens and Moll. The fights were too long and often looked very CGI and fake. Moll remained one-note, predictable and unlikeable to the very end. Her and Lak’s entire relationship felt like they were in love because… the plot needed it. There wasn’t a single reason to care about them as individuals or as a couple. And, it’s possible I missed it, but I don’t think we were shown or told why Lak is so different from the other Breen? More relaxed and open minded enough to fall in love with a non-Breen? I don’t think he got any character work, actually, beyond “I’m in love with a human”. Moll at least got some development, even if it didn’t make her any more likeable or changed her nature in any way.
Also, I don’t understand why, if Lak is the scion of the Breen emperor without whom no-one can be the new emperor, then shouldn’t Lak become the new emperor?? Why didn’t he? And why was it treated as a given that he wasn’t the new emperor and that his uncle or whatever he was, was totally entitled to be the new emperor as long as Lak was alive and in the uncle’s control? And it was fine and dandy for the uncle to treat Lak awfully and nobody cared, but when his uncle tried to destroy Lak’s dead body when there was still a chance of revival by a god device, suddenly half of the uncle’s own troops turned against him?? Just. I remain unconvinced by the whole Moll/Lak thing and all the Breen royal succession things. Continue reading