Conclusion: Paris Olympics - Summer 2024

Gold Medalists Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Tara Davis-Woodhall

It's been a ride!  

I've always paid attention to the Olympics, but I'd describe the approach at League HQ this go-round as "laser focused".  We took off, I think, only one or two nights to do other things, but still caught what we were trying to catch via replay.

Here, at the end of more than 14 days of sport - 16 days from open to close, plus preliminary rounds - I feel a bit like a kid at the end of camp.  It's a brief, intense experience, and you want to hang onto the vibe.  But part of that vibe is knowing:  be happy it happened v. being sad it ended.  I don't think I could live in a world where the sport I was watching was interrupted by diving coverage for 45 unwanted minutes every day.*

The Weird Phenomenon of Movie Reaction Videos

Over Lockdown, Jamie and I started watching a few different YouTube reaction channels, starting with music and eventually branching out into movies.  I'd say I watch 1-2 movie reactions per week.  

But I always walk away with the thought:  what am I watching here and why?

For those who don't watch them or are unfamiliar, the basic set-up is:

• One or more people sit down to watch a movie they at least claim they've not seen, or it's been a very long time since they've seen it
• With a split screen showing themselves and the movie as much as they can, given copyright law, they talk over the movie, reacting to it in real time
• They cut the video down to about 30 minutes of highlights
• The film itself is shown in short clips, often blurred.  It's hard to describe, but a lot is done to make sure they aren't going to get hit with a copyright violation.
• It's basically personality vlogging as folks have their catch phrases, somewhat predictable emotional responses, etc...
• There's usually a very brief preamble and a very short actual reaction to the film

The popularity of the concept mostly relies on the notion that you get to see someone react to a movie you've previously seen.  And to ensure the number of viewers is high, they more or less watch gigantic movie after gigantic movie - because what fun is it to watch someone watch some esoteric movie for the first time if you don't already know it?

The movies are often decades old, things Gen-X came up on which have persisted because of Gen-X's movie obsession and the 1980's - 1990's boom in cinema.

Sometimes the reactors haven't seen the movie because they're younger than the intended audience from the release date of the movie.   Sometimes it just wasn't on their cultural radar.  But for a lot of them, it just seems like movies were not a thing they did before they got a YouTube channel, which is horrifying to the film industry, but also not that uncommon.  Why these people decide to give up their day jobs and do this for a living, I cannot begin to guess.  But there's certainly people out there who are now making a living "reacting" to very popular music, movies and television shows on the YouTubes.

Well, I have the COVID

Did some socializing on Monday and on Thursday received the alert that one of the people I'd been socializing with had become sick and subsequently tested positive for COVID.  

I'm not shocked.  I figured these latest mutations were so transmissible, I'd eventually get it unless I continued to live like a hermit as we did for 2020.  We're careful-ish.  No movies, no restaurants.  I wear a mask in and out at work and shut the door behind me when I have to go in.  But, you know, when people can't keep their hands off bats, I guess. 

But, yeah, I tested positive Friday morning - not feeling great then and the coughing starting - and tried to work but by 1:30 hung it up.  I had a telemedicine appointment at 2:20 and got prescribed Paxlovid.  Normally I'm all about FDA testing, but I'd very much like to knock this thing out and not incur long COVID.  

Last night I ran an un-fun fever, but that broke after I went to sleep.  This morning, I'm coughing, runny nose and very run down.  If I have a fever, it's so low it's not an issue.

I'd argue my sense of taste is diminished but not gone.   I could taste the HEB Fruit and Grain bar I ate.  But my coffee, tragically, isn't the flavor wonderland I normally enjoy.  

I expect between the meds, the mild impact I'm hearing reported and experiencing, and good care, I'll be okay.  Jamie has tested negative and seems fine.  She was mostly stressed yesterday watching me just stare at The Meg as it played on TNT (that's about where I was around 8:00).  But she's also had her 4th shot, and even if she technically has COVID right now (and she hasn't tested positive) then there's a strong argument for getting your booster.  Of the two people we saw Monday, one of them also has not tested positive.  So.

The real kick in the shins is that I had planned to go to get a booster next weekend, but my timing was off.  I had stuff to do this weekend and didn't want to be down for a day dealing with any post-shot side-effects.  (sad trombone)

Look, I'm aware of the death toll of this virus and I'm not taking it lightly.  The world wide impact of the virus is well known and I don't need to tell it to you here.  But I'm also pretty sure my Tuesday I'll be right as rain.  

Y'all be careful out there.  This thing is still floating around.  And we're all going to need to hard-ponder our new normal.  

PodCast 185: "Winter Olympics 2022 - Part 2" - Signal Watch Sports w/ Jamie and Ryan

For more ways to listen

Jamie and Ryan pick up after the 2022 Winter Olympics to talk about the back half, the mess that was women's figure skating, the trouble with the IOC, and Ryan picks a fight with at least two countries, the IOC and NBC. And Nielsen ratings. Join us as we plummet downhill, only to be launched gloriously through the podcasting heavens!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 185: "Winter Olympics 2022 - Part 2" - Signal Watch Sports w/ Jamie and Ryan

Music:

The Olympics Theme? - The Signal Watch Players 

Signal Watch Sports!

The Signal Watch PodCast · Signal Watch Sports

PODCAST 184: "Winter Olympics 2022" - Signal Watch Sports w/ Jamie and Ryan

For more ways to listen

Jamie and Ryan delve into the coverage of the 2022 Winter Games, what's getting a gold medal, what looks like the agony of defeat. We'll talk about the weird nature of the games, why it looks weird to us from below the Mason-Dixon line, and a host of other, rambly topics. Join us for the inaugural "Signal Watch Sports Talk"!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 184: "Winter Olympics 2022" - Signal Watch Sports w/ Jamie and Ryan

Music:

Laff-a-Lympics - Hanna Barbera 

Winter Storm - February 2021 Part 5

Well, Texas being Texas, it's now a high of 70-something degrees.  Skies are blue, and this is the weather people from out of state get duped into thinking we have all the time when they visit during the spring-times.  

Today is the first day that hasn't felt like a total disaster.  Yesterday I was still just sort of wandering around the house trying to figure out what to do and checking to make sure I wasn't spotting leaks or holes in the house that weren't there before.  And, the inside of the house was and remains a bit of a mess.  We've had a hard time keeping tidy during COVID to begin with, but add in our inability to just cook and clean with running, clean water, and it's all a bit of a mess.  

Jamie's dialysis situation is pretty solid.  She had treatment on Friday, and then again on Sunday.  And, today, Monday, she's back on her regular schedule at her regular clinic.  So, despite an ugly week of uncertainty, she's doing well, if a bit knackered.  She did some chores for about two hours yesterday and then tapped out, for which I could not blame her.  

I can't thank the nurses, technicians, social workers and others from Jamie's clinic enough.  While it was clear this was an improvised effort, she had multiple people calling her, giving her information and driving in awful conditions (and with minimal experience) to make sure Jamie and tons of othersothers could get the care they needed.  That's not nothing.

Austin Water has worked around the clock to restore water - and then drinking water - to the city.  Austin Energy did what it could, kept people apprised and got power back when possible.  Police, ambulances and firefighters stayed on duty.  And I have to assume university staff stuck around to feed the kids on campus.  I know there were also people on the UT campus keeping data centers going, keeping the heat on best they could - and power (UT has its own power plant.  No fooling.  It's at about 24th street).  

In my own neighborhood, people offered food, water, and.. maybe most importantly information and tips.  They helped each other out in countless ways that will be forgotten, but I was able to keep an eye on my own home and understand where we were at as the storm carried on as those in the know shared information about what to expect, what to do and not to do, how to deal with water heaters, how to care for pipes, etc...

Winter Storm - February 2021 Part 4

yesterday afternoon, the snow lost its charm

Well, Jamie finally got to dialysis.  You can read her account of the past week here.

With the water main breakages, etc... it's been all sorts of operations that have had to do without, and dialysis centers have been hit pretty hard.  She went from last Friday til today (it is Friday) when - normally - she's in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday every week.  

They were unable to run her for the full duration, as there are only a few clinics open, and this morning she was sent to the wrong clinic (at 6:00 AM no less) and then traversed the city on a path I would not have recommended with freezing temps and roads, but she made it, safe and sound.  Of her usual 2.5 hour run she did get 2 hours, so she should be good for a bit.  

Still, these are the 1,000,000 stories of "this went a bit beyond 'we shivered a bit'" that are going to be flooding out of this event.  

My colleagues from work are trying to fix things for a bunch of ungrateful college applicants, and we're having trouble on the IT side as - hey, there's no water for cooling our data center (why we aren't in the cloud - do not get me started).  There's *massive* spikes for electric consumers who were on flexed rate plans (I saw a story about someone who will pay $3800 for this week's bill alone), and the water damage to property is going to be flat out insane.

Winter Storm - February 2021 Part 3

Scout ponders the inevitable slowing of all atomic motion

If you're on the outside of the freeze occurring in our Southern States - and, in particular, in Texas, it's very hard to explain the insanity of the past week.  And, I imagine, you have to do a lot of intentional empathizing to care.  Texans have a semi-earned reputation for being natively hateable, and anything bad that befalls them is schadenfreude.  

The truth is - we *are* in fact dealing with the results of bad policy, hubris and a lack of foresight.  All the stuff you'd expect from the blowhards and braggarts who've run the state for decades.

And it's costing lives.  The closest I can compare this to would be - a hurricane or similar event taking out Washington, Oregon and most of California, including LA, but leaving San Diego just fine.  

Texas is huge.  It takes 12 hours to cross from Texarkansas to El Paso and 13 hours from Texhoma to Brownsville.  That's 29 million people.  Houston is currently listed as the most diverse city in the country (don't believe it?  Go hang around the Univ. of Houston campus), and while it's easy to think of morons like Rick Perry as the face of Texas, it's not the reality on the ground.  Good people and many kinds of people live here.  

We're in an unprecendented weather event - it's not just been record cold in intensity, it's also record cold in duration.  I assume the precipitation is also record level.  I've never seen more than a dusting of snow in my decades in this town.  If we can't see the grass, we think it's a blizzard.

One common misconception I've seen is that we just need snow plows.  Well, what that this were so. 

Winter Storm - February 2021 Part 2

the neighborhood pond is frozen over

Since I was in college, way, way back in the 1990's, I've heard nothing but how the power grid in Texas was outdated and needed overhauls, improvements and extensions.  Some of that has happened, but this being Texas, the loads has been focused on the load the state requires during the summer.   Texas summers can see weeks on end with temperatures in the 100's, and if you don't provide AC, we'd all likely die of heat stroke.  There's a reason Texas was sparsely inhabited by ingidgenous people and Mexican settlers when Anglos set their sites on Texas in the early 1800's.  

Anyhoo...  what we haven't worried about a whole lot has been extreme winter weather.  Most of the time, we get into March and say "man, it never really got all that cold this winter."  I mean, we've had cold winters, and icy spells that kept us off the roads, but it was never a question of "hey, why is almost half the state without power?  And why is it different street by street?"

Because, yeah, two streets over in my same subdivision, people had power this whole time.  Go figure.  And I have no idea why we currently have power and others do not.  

Anyway - hearing that Texas has an outdated grid isn't new.  Now add in Texas' booming population and energy needs.  We've added millions of people every decade for some time.  I believe the last two decades saw about 4 million new Texans for a total of, like, 8 million new people.  And not a whole lot of new sources of power.  

Winter Storm - February 2021 Part 1

Scout figures out snow

We're in the middle of a rough winter storm.  Polar vortex nonsense.

Click here for pictures

Honestly, it's been kind of rough.  We lost power Monday at 2:00 AM, it came back on around 11:30 AM Tuesday - so 30-odd hours without heat while the temperatures never got above 25 and dropped to 7 over night.  The house has done a better-than-expected job of retaining heat, but entropy is a sonuvabitch.  

Mostly yesterday I ate dry and snack foods.  I used the Moka Pot sent to me by Steven H for making coffee.  We cooked up some chicken sausage for dinner and got in bed at 7:00 under 5 blankets, wearing 4 layers each.  We finally decided to go to sleep at 10:00.  

Our plan was to lock oursleves in the bedroom with Scout, but she became very scared in the dark so we let her sleep downstairs.  I don't think she did sleep, because she's been sleeping today.  

The power came back on at 11:30, so I immediately lit our gas fireplace, which wouldn't light before without electricity (lesson learned on that one - light that one if there's a threat of loss of power).  One of our pipes had frozen, so I went to work with a hair dryer, and I think I fixed it.  

Anyway - we're all right.  But with two more storms coming, the roads are bad now and set to get worse.  The biggest problem is Jamie's dialysis, but I have high hopes we'll get her there and get it sorted.

In a Time of Virus: Hell of a Year for a Fourth of July

I think a lot about that grotesque video of Donald Trump hugging and kissing a flag.  It's the act of an insincere buffoon putting on a show for other morons.  Of the 30,000 things he did that should have been a red flag to anyone considering where to place their vote, that image surely could have summarized exactly why this half-assed con-artist should have been left dealing with lawsuits and trying to sell his shitty products and run out of a presidential race on a rail.

That's the same flag people say they would "die" for (I am aware that's a symbolic statement, as much as the flag is a symbol).  But it's also the same piece of cloth that I recall people having serious discussions about creating prison time for anyone burning or desecrating (missing that whole First Amendment business, but, then, when haven't we?).

The United States is on fire enough that as other countries have flattened the curve, they've watched the US's nightmare of a response and put us on lists that suggest it may be years before Americans go abroad.  And I'm not sure that decision is just about COVID.

Twitter and social media have changed the world.  The carefully polished image of America that the post WWII planet received in exports of movies and television has been stripped away to show cops murdering and beating our citizens.  Lipitor customers stalk their front stoops with guns and their faces full of an insane combination of utterly unwarranted fear and rage as Black people walk by.  Our President gives increasingly unhinged interviews and speeches, and refuses to do a single goddamn thing to slow the course of a pandemic that is going to bury this country for years, or longer  if he wins the November election.  And all of that flows outward to nations who had their own dalliances with similar maniacs who seemed like a good idea at the time.

But, yeah.

In a Time of Virus: The Dams Break

It started with protests in several cities in the wake of the George Floyd murder.  George Floyd was a Black man apprehended by police under suspicion he'd floated a bogus $20 bill.  For this, he was pinned to the ground by his throat beneath the knee of a man with a gun, who was supported by three of his fellow officers, as the suspect begged for air.  This went on for almost 9 minutes.

The murder, and it was murder, occurred in broad daylight and on camera, carried out by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  A lot of people will try to call what occurred as a police officer pinned a man's neck to the ground with his knee for 9 minutes something else.  Maybe they'll say it was unintentional (the video suggests otherwise), or just breaking some eggs to make an omelet.  But in the era of cameras everywhere, the past fifteen years taught us how to pay attention to how people are policed and how police do their work.  And how police officers do not police each other.

In a Time of Virus: Everything Out of a Can

People went crazy the last few weeks.

I don't really know how else to interpret the furious wrath of church ladies in JC Penny tops screaming about wearing life-saving facemasks.  People told their lives depend on distance and patience rushed to state capitols with rifles to stand elbow to elbow with strangers, their faces bared to cameras and virus particles, screaming hysterically about their right to...  expose themselves and others to illness and death, I guess.

It's now been going on long enough that we're getting reports of these people catching COVID-19, the occasional ironic/ cautionary tale of people's last facebook posts rants about the "hoax" of the virus before the person winds up dead.  70-odd people who went to an "open" rally in Wisconsin are believed to have contracted the virus at the event.  And today I saw something about a church in California that held Mother's Day services exposed over 180 people.

In a Time of Virus: Sunlight and Bleach

No amount of parody or nihilistic social commentary could have prepared me for what it's actually like to see the virus that's taken over the United States.

On Thursday (04/23/20) the President of the United States, who has taken to a podium on a near daily basis for weeks - blathering at length/ incoherently, and showing genuine signs of mental decline (pick your poison as to why) - stood in front of a room of journalists and said scientists should look into shining UV lights or very bright lights on or into people to combat COVID-19.  He also said we should be looking at injecting people with disinfectants containing bleach, I believe.  That bleach clears the lungs right out.  Which, in a way, is true.  You'll certainly be beyond caring about your COVID-cough when you are dead because you've got 20 oz of Clorox filling your lungs.

In a Time of Virus: Within Our Four Walls

From October of 2017 to August of 2019, I worked from home for, technically, Northwestern University in Chicago.  Really I was working for a larger open source software coalition 50%, and for a sub-group of that coalition 50%.  It was a weird and cool job, and I will always look back on it fondly.

But it also meant I got used to the rhythms of working from home long before all this mess started.  Waking up, showering and having a ten second commute is not uncharted territory.  But, man, the days of just sitting in the same chair all day can get to be a bit much.  Especially as it's all-screens all day, tied to video conferencing with colleagues.

Since getting sent home, I have not been getting up early to walk the dog, as my preference is to do it to unwind after work if I've been sitting in my chair all day.  Scout is an easy walker, and doesn't pull toward other dogs.  She just wants to stay within 4 feet of me as we go about our business.  We talk to neighbors from about 15-20 feet away.  Sometimes I linger, sometimes I keep on going after waving hello.

PODCAST: Quarantine Media 01 - "Love is Blind", "Tiger King", "McMillions" and more - w/ Jamie, Maxwell and Ryan

Watched:  I mean.. kind of since March 13 - April 5
Viewing:  Firstish
Format:  Netflix, HBO, etc...
Decade:  2020

Things have gotten really strange as we've sheltered in place in our homes. Life is upside down, and we're all worried for the state of the world. But in a time of existential crisis, it doesn't mean we aren't watching some TV. Maxwell joins us to talk "Tiger King", "Love is Blind", "McMillions" and whatever else we're watching as part of our self-care regimen. Or what our kids are putting on, at least.

In a Time of Virus: Days With No Meaning

I'm not writing these posts so much for all of us going through this *now*.   When this is over, I'd like to remember what...  happened.  Because, like any trauma, we're going to collectively want to block this out.  And what there is to remember will be so vague and weird, and our timelines will be skewed.

We all kind of laugh about how days lose all meaning in that period between Christmas and New Year.  At least once a day, someone will ask "what day is it?" and sometimes you may have to think about it.  With nowhere to be, no one looking for you and the weekends looking like a weekday, it takes no time at all.  And while we have weekends, when you're looking at the same walls and people, days do sort of lose their meaning.  Last week on Friday, I had to be told at least once it wasn't Thursday.

In a Time of Virus: That First Week in Lockdown

We've been in some form of lockdown since March 13th.

In some ways, this hasn't been entirely different from the nearly two years when I worked from home when I was at Northwestern University.  I wake up, I shower, make coffee, eat something and sit down and get to work.  I use my office, which is also my "collection room", ie: The Fortress, which I had decommissioned for work when I went back to UT.

When we were sent home from work, the home office was full of "stuff" all over the floor, making the room unusable.  We'd recently had a remodel of our bathroom, and to make room for the contractors, I'd cleared things and just dumped them in my office and shut the door.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Honestly, what I piled in there was sitting on top of things I hadn't yet cleared away from Christmas, waiting for some time when I'd have some downtime and clean up, which I usually do when we're set to have company.

The first weekend, starting on the 13th, we just sort of blanked out.  There was a run to HEB Saturday morning, buying food for a full week or more.  The store was busy, but not hectic.  Jamie and I put on nitrile gloves before going in - and I never saw anyone else with them on.  No masks.

In a Time of Virus: Start of Lockdown

The first thing I remember hearing was that people were hoarding toilet paper.

It had a "man bites dog" element to the news - for whatever reason, they'd realized they might run out of toilet paper, something they'd never previously considered, I suppose.  And, so, people were buying mass amounts of the stuff, leaving those super market shelves empty.  That was early, during the week of the 9th, before the employers sent anyone home .

In a Time of Virus: Not Seen In Generations

Sometimes you read about World War I or II and you wonder what you'd have been like in those circumstances.  What would it be like to be sitting in Austin, Texas one day and boarding a boat to cross the English Channel a year later, pretty sure you were being used for cannon fodder?  Or being ordered over the wall and into No Man's Land?  Over and over?  Day after day?  Could I get back in a B-17 and fly back over Germany and drop bombs *again*, uncertain if *this* was the time I was shot down?

It doesn't need to be the threat of war and violence.  We've had plenty of other creeping horrors around mankind in recent and living memory.

But my generation, maybe the one before, maybe those that have come after... we sat in classrooms and heard how the Commies wanted to drop nuclear bombs on us because they hated our Capitalist ways.  But mostly that's an existential threat - if it was going to happen, it was going to happen.  And I wasn't old enough to be part of the AIDS crisis, but am old enough to get cross-eyed hearing about "dating" apps as someone who came of age just after Magic Johnson taught us suburban kids about how we *all* needed to be careful.