Well, dear readers, yesterday was a bit of a drag in many ways. For example, I dragged myself out of bed after six hours of sleep. I dragged myself to the computer and answered e-mails, as usual. When swallowing my throat was either fine or had a bit of soreness on the right side and that kept coming and going all day and night. Not too much coughing, though, but weird – I also had pain on the right side of my neck, so maybe that had something to do with it. I can’t even remember what I did after that, except try to ID some 1963 celebrity photos – I’ve been helping a very nice lady who found me via Facebook and knew I was really good at IDing LA photos. She got a box of thousands of slides and is slowly going through them – all dated and the celebs are all identified, but not the locations. I’ve really done pretty well – sometimes it takes hours to figure it out – some are at hotels, some are legit theaters (really good with those), some are at studios – I’ve written before about sleuthing a Charles Laughton photo that she thought was him going into a restaurant, but after an hour I found it was Columbia Studios main office entrance, which hasn’t changed at all. But that’s the biggest problems with identifying the locations – so much has been torn down and if there aren’t old photos of certain locations then there’s no way of knowing. This week’s photo was of Stuart Whitman and the building in the photo looks like it might be on Santa Monica Blvd. or Melrose near one of the studios but nothing I saw quite matched up, although ZIV, where they shot a lot of TV stuff is a strip mall and every building around it is post-1970. No photos of ZIV other than aerial shots. But it also could have been Hollywood, too. There’s the back of a gas station in the photo and there’s some kind of sign on top of the building but too blurry to read. These things drive me nutty. The closest I came was KTLA on Sunset because there’s a gas station there and from that angle there is a building next to it facing the right way, but certainly not the building in the photo. Nothing else comes close. Anyway, it’s fun. I decided on a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, but instead of Paty’s I got it from nearby Mel’s. Well, it arrived quickly but the damn bacon was undercooked, which made me want to vomit on the ground, so I removed all those sections, but by then I was so revolted that I could barely finish the tiny litte thing, which cost nineteen bucks. Paty’s charges fourteen. I don’t think any restaurant should charge more than ten bucks for a grilled cheese sandwich – that’s plenty of profit for two pieces of toast and a bit of cheese. Seriously.
It came with soggy fries – I ate about six and tossed the rest. Just awful. Then I did a few things on the computer, got the book flaps and spine for proofing – flaps were fine, spine I asked for my name to be a tiny bit bigger, so the title of the book didn’t completely dwarf it. He fixed that and sent it, I approved it all, and now he’ll send me a folder with all his stuff in hi-rez. After that, the guy in the back house got both vaporizers working – I guess I’m not good at this stuff – and I used the big one because it emitted the most steam. I sat in front of it for a few minutes, and that was good, I guess. It’s VERY loud. The personal vaporizer doesn’t really emit steam you can see, but I’m still experimenting with it. Chocolate licorice arrived and I saved that for a treat because clearly, I needed more to eat. I had some minestrone soup, so I heated that up. Progresso, which everyone thinks is the best brand for canned soups. Well, this was so vile tasting it was two spoonfuls and in the trash. I had some Uncle Ben’s ninety second rice – rice pilaf, so I made that and ate about a third of it, but it wasn’t too good either. I finally had a couple of chocolate licorices pieces and those were the first decent food all day. Unbelievable.
I did finish the final two episodes of Shooter, which have so little to do with the novel it’s based on, it’s ridiculous. And at the end, they kill off the most likeable character in the series. That character is present in ALL the Bob Lee Swagger books and does NOT die. And no, him killing the villain who did it, did not make the decision to kill the character off a good one. But that’s what they do in these series, one contrivance after another, the same scenes over and over again, so that whatever small pleasures you get from watching are small indeed. Then I fell asleep at eight while trying to scroll to find something to watch and didn’t wake up for three hours at which point I dragged myself the this here computer to write these here notes. See? A bit of a drag and I think we’ve had quite enough of that.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, but once again I think the order of the day will be resting my voice and hopefully not having any soreness in any part of my throat and having good tasting food. Then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be the same, I’ll lock in the show order and get the commentary done, and then this week I need to be 100% better – THAT is a must. And then we’re into the Kritzerland rehearsals.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, rest my voice, hope any soreness is completely gone, pray for another needed modern major miracle, eat good tasting food, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What series were you enjoying until they completely jumped the shark and you couldn’t even finish? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, needing no more draggy days.