Whiny Sunday

[susandennis]

Fitbit does not agree but I'm telling you, I had one of the best sleeps of my life last night. I had good and interesting dreams. Fibit says it was just a regular night. WTF does Fitbit know anyway?

It is really chilly in here this morning. I rarely turn the Dyson heater on but this morning, I need a bit of toasting, please.

No one has moved into the big fancy apartment across the street. It's still not showing as available on their website but someone lifted one of the blinds yesterday and left the light on so I can at least monitor progress. It is rather surprising how many of those apartments are available right now. WAY more than usual. Glad I'm not on their sales staff.

Today's plans include... nothing much. I do have a new knitting pattern/design to try out. And siobhan63's entry reminded me that I have never seen any Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I currently have a Hulu subscription mainly for sit coms like that - ones I've never seen (or want to re-enjoy) and so now can just binge through without commercials. I added it to my Hulu list.

I have kind of gotten out of control on my paid tv subscriptions. I have Hulu (ad free), Britbox, Acorn, Netflix and HBO Max. That's at least one HBO Max too many but every time I think about killing it, they announce some other cool thing I want to see on it. I've now decided to keep it until March when, hopefully, there might be some baseball...

It's frighteningly easy to sign up for all these services. Happily, it's just as easy to cancel. Except for PBS. PBS has this thing called Passport. You can get it for $5 a month and get access to most of PBS back catalog. But their app sucks. I mean really sucks. And most of their stuff I want to see is on Acorn or Britbox. But just try to cancel that $5 a month. It appears, so far, to be impossible. I've now written two emails requesting cancellation. I'e actually written more than that but the last two were for documentation so I can stop the charges at the credit card. Proof of trying with the vendor. ARUGH.

And, while I'm bitching, here are some thots that just need to be let out.

• More cases, more hospitalizations, more deaths than ever before. Hospitals will soon be at capacity.
• Not enough front line health workers.
• The vaccine is coming.
• You won't get it, probably till Spring.
• Trump lost. He won't concede. He's tweeting lies.

I skim the news daily from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN headlines, and on TV - NBC, ABC and on weekends, CBS - local and national.

Those headlines have not changed in weeks. Not even a little. I wonder if news people are even generating new words or just re-arranging the adjectives on the current ones. It is amusing to me how, particularly the TV people spout off these now cliches as if we should all be surprised and shocked.

Yo, dudes, that ship sailed a long time ago.



Ok, now it's time to quit whining and get into the shower - I need to wash this attitude right out of my hair.

Comments

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

They Hacks on Tap guys used to say that a lot. NOTHING has changed but we still have to talk.

That appears to be the problem. There is so much vacuum that has to be filled. The social media binge has created a huge balloon full of noise that MUST be regenerated every hour.

Fortunately it does not take long to scan the news looking for something new and I really enjoy not being on FB or Twitter or FBigram or any of them. Unfortunately I do live with someone whose personality has changed over the past couple of years of being on Facebook. It is an addiction not only to the platform but to the noise.

[susandennis]

I do watch Twitter but I unfollow everything that isn't interesting so my access is really limited. And on Instagram, I have deleted everyone except knitters, crocheters and one woman with triplets. And I'm close to just killing the whole thing.

But it's not just them. All news now is just noise.

I'm thinking there are crooks and scalliwags getting away with murder since no one is paying attention.

[epiphyta]

I don't know if you were aware, but my son is a leasing agent for an apartment complex in Bellevue. We discussed his day yesterday:

Morning! How's it going?

Good! It's not bonkers busy yet.

Do you normally have a lot of people moving in December?

Usually, no.
But the construction, pandemic, and rental prices have driven people out of cities: our occupancy is really low.
We have a lot of apartments available, so our prices are really low.
And everyone and their dog's brother is offering heavy concessions; we're constantly booked for tours, even though most people aren't planning to move until sometime next year, and they think that we can hold apartments for months at a time.

Oh, as ever, dear

The other thing is that we're a luxury, so there is going to be less demand overall in our current economy.
We had a good ten years, so now we get to have a bad ten.
Yay, capitalism.

And your amenities rooms are still closed, yes?

Mostly. The coffee bar is open, people can use the clubhouse for an hour at a time, and the roof terraces are available.
The gym is closed.

*nodding*
So to sum up: you have lots of people coming in to look, telling you that they're thinking of moving next summer, and you get to smile politely while thinking "Thank you for wasting my time"?

Haha. Yep.
It's a waste of their time too, since I have no idea what I'll have around then.
But, hey. I guess it's a thing to do during a pandemic...? 🤣

[susandennis]

I did not know that about your son and that convo is so exactly like I think the marketing people across the street are having with their mothers! Thanks for giving me a peek into what it's really like. Wow.

And, p.s., your son has a fabulous attitude! What a delight.

[epiphyta]

Couple of other things he's mentioned previously: with the current rent/eviction moratoriums, people who really like living there are gleefully renewing their leases as soon as they can at their current rates, and there are folks who've been living there for months without paying any rent at all who can't be removed unless they're trashing the place. So the non-local company that owns the building is losing money hand over fist.

Meanwhile, anyone with any sort of money/ a job that no longer requires an in-office presence is looking at the loss of most of the cultural amenities that brought them to a large city and at least weighing up the notion of going somewhere cheaper: if there's good internet available and they can find a house with a garden? Unless there are close social/personal connections, there's a case to be made for leaving. Goodness knows P. and I plan to leave Bainbridge when our lease is up - median house price over here broke 1 million in September.

[susandennis]

Really interesting. I do think first about the landlords when they talk about that whole eviction thing. Especially the small building ones but also the ones whose businesses are really being trashed. I had not really thought about the amenities thing. What a time.

Since I own, I'm not really in tune with the whole rental thing, plus I am too attached to consider living anywhere else but I can absolutely get it for those who aren't.

[epiphyta]

P. and I moved to the PNW - wow, nearly seven years ago - to be closer to friends as P. tried to find work. (DS followed us out six months later after his long-term partnership ended.) How it shook out: the company P. works for is based in Denver with a physical office in Vancouver, BC, and all of our (lifelong Seattleite!) friends have either left the city or are planning to leave.

We chose Bainbridge because it was quiet, not too far from Seattle and not a complete nightmare to reach the airport if P. needed to go somewhere for work. Now we're thinking "It's probably going to be another year before we can do things like attend the symphony at Benaroya, everyone at P.'s company is remote at least through July, Dear Friend S.'s oldest is looking at the university near fufaraw and the whole family is planning to move north to get out of Olympia, and even if the housing market completely tanks, we are never going to be able to afford a home here. This has been great, but we need to do some long-term planning."

Thank you for letting me take up your comment thread! *g*

[susandennis]

anytime!

[amw.livejournal.com]

I think if i was an editor of a newspaper i would make a rule that you can't report on the same story two days in a row. Or maybe, you can't take up more than half the front "page" (space above first scroll) with the same story more than three days a week. There's clearly lots of other stuff happening in the world, but the American and "international" papers have gotten so hung up on corona and Trump adjacent stuff for years now i just want to smash my head on the wall.

Here are some fun papers to mix it up a bit...

https://www.nst.com.my/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/
https://www.mmegi.bw/
https://dailyguidenetwork.com/
https://thenassauguardian.com/

[susandennis]

that's an excellent list!

[amw.livejournal.com]

Every now and then i throw an imaginary dart at a small country in the Anglosphere and take a look in on their local media. It's a good reminder that no matter all the sturm und drang being reported internationally, there are still lots of very ordinary bits of local news happening. I try to look in on local newspapers in North America too sometimes, but that's a bit more challenging because a lot of them pad out their coverage with syndicated national news, which is same old same old.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that Fitbit doesn't monitor your dreams, and therefore can't include that data in its estimate of how well you slept.

[susandennis]

I'm not sure about Fitbit and dreams. It monitors a lot o' shit and I'm sure only tells me half of it but... you could be right.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of people who love Always Sunny but I find it about as funny as getting run over by a truck. (shrugs)

[picosgemeos.livejournal.com]

I only have Netflix and I find it hard to decide what to watch! My list is constantly growing... I'd probably not be able to choose anything if I had as many subscriptions as you. :)

[susandennis]

that's exactly the problem. way too many choices!