Zionist Sisters Have Sussman Synchronocity

Today my sister texted me about some Israeli chef drama.

She didn't say much about it, and other stuff and other conversations went on in my life.

While gardening and getting most of my blood sucked out from mosquitos, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts: Ashamed to Admit 

It's Australian!

And Jewish!

On the episode I listened to this afternoon, Tami Sussman interviewed the popular Instagrammer JewishMemesOnly. 

After listening to the podcast, I went to look at the JewishMemesOnly account, because I rarely run into it in my feed.

(The thing is, I follow a shitload of people but try not to go on Instagram too often, so I miss a lot of posts)

When I went to the account, I saw that there was a video clip of the podcast episode I had just listened to.

I saw a comment from Tami Sussman. I followed that to her account and started following. 

Because although I've been listening to the podcast for a few months, I hadn't thought of seeking out her Instagram account...or an account for the show.  

Anyway....an hour or so after this happened, I get a text from my sister who shared some more thoughts about the Israeli chef drama.

My sister told me she started following the chef.

What's the chef's name? 

Adeena Sussman!!

I went ahead and followed her too. Of course.

Anyway, I thought that was fun synchronocity.

And also...it brings me joy when Jewish/Zionism and Australia intersect. (I mean when it's in a positive way...not when it's a one-of-my-favorite-Australians-turned-out-to-be-antisemitic way)

Another also: I now know for sure that my special interest in Australia is not dead. Because my sister told me that my nephew liked the song "Big Jet Plane" by Angus and Julia Stone, and I was overly excited and spent the next hour or so hyper-fixating on making a playlist for them with all my favorite Australian songs.  

Unfortunately several of the songs were by a singer who has turned out to be anti-Israel.

But...such is life.

It's fine.

I was getting kind of tired of his songs anyway.  

I don't mean that in a defensive-insulting way. His songs are great. It's more the fact that I tend to love songs; listen to them repeatedly; and then as time goes by...listen to them much less often or not at all.

Spotify Playlists

Yesterday I accidentally learned how to link to my Spotify Playlists...something I've half-heartedly  wanted to do on my blog.  

So...I decided to do a post listing some of my playlists.

1. 2025-My main current playlist...the one I regularly add to and listen to

2. Wake Up- October 7 stuff. Some of the music was made specifically about October 7 

And...some has no connection to October 7, but for me...personally, it helps to tell my/our story.  

For example, Stan Walker's song "Find You" is not about the Israeli hostages in Gaza. But the song resonates....

3. My Favorite Episodes. These are podcast episodes that I've liked a lot.  I will continue to add to it.

4. 2024 - My used-to-be current playlist

5. 2023 - My other-used-to be current playlist.  

6. Songs I Heard on TV -This is where I used to stick songs that I heard and liked while watching TV shows.  

7. Aussie -This is the massive-massive list I made while I was obsessed with Australia.  It's very eclectic.  

* * *

I was curious a few minutes ago and decided to see if I had ever added Stan Walker to the list. Because I know him as Māori but had also heard he's Australian. (I should probably read more of his biography someday. I kind of skimmed once or twice)

Anyway, one of his songs was on my list. "Unbroken"

I've now added the album (From the Inside Out) to my to-listen-to list.

See, I go back and forth from listening to my 2025 playlist and to my long list of saved albums and singles.

Currently, I'm in the midst of listening to Troy Kingi's Guitar Party At Uncles Bach.

Oh! And on the 20th day of each month, I begin listening to a Billboard Top 100 of a year.

This month it's going to be 1990.  

Back to the albums and singles....

 I think most are either Māori, NZ-Other, or Zionist-related.

And then there's the mystery ones.  Who is this??? Why did I add this album???

Because I add albums and then don't get to them until months later.

* * *

Zionist-related can range from singers who are now dedicating most of their life purpose to Israel to a...

Singer who one time posted something kind about the hostages. Or they signed one petition. Or they once went to Israel years ago.

Or I don't know what they did, but I saw their "crimes" listed on the Zionists in Music Instagram page.  

I mean I saw the list and description but didn't really read the list and description, because the writing is too small for me.  

* * *

The good news is I won't be lost and confused when I get to Stan Walker's album. Though I probably won't remember why I added that particular album.  I probably also won't recognize "Unbroken", because with the Aussie playlist, I spent more time adding songs to it than listening to it.

I mean I surely did listen to "Unbroken" once but then probably never listened to it again.

OR it could be one of those songs that I don't know by the title but then I hear it and think...Oh!  THAT song.

Though...if that happens with "Unbroken", it could be I've heard it recently in my special-interest-in-Māori rather than during my past special-interest-in-Australia.  

* * *

Note: I just checked the Spotify links to make sure they work and in doing so I saw some of my songs for 2025.  I don't like people to get the wrong idea about me (Whether the wrong idea is a positive thing or negative thing).  Anyway...there are some religious songs on there. Hashem-believing-sort-of stuff.  Though there's a small part of me that wishes I could go down the same path as some other Jews post October 7...(embracing Jewish tradition and belief)  I'm still just pretty much a Jew in ethnicity...and politically...and intellectually.  A tiny bit culturally (we lit the Menorah 7 out of 8 nights. I had a bagel the other day for breakfast).  So...yeah. The music is there, because I liked the sound of it...and I thought the lyrics were fun.

Tim Cook's Cover of Ball Park Music's Surrender

I just rewatched one of my favorite YouTube cover performances.

It's from Tim Cook Music, so I'm guessing the singer's name is Tim Cook.

I looked and saw that I have already commented twice on his video.  Six years ago and then one year ago.

Looking at Tim and friend....

If I hadn't seen photos of Holly and Matthew from the Weird Crap in Australia podcast, I could kind of picture them looking like this.  

* * *

I am guessing I've written about this cover on my blog before. I tried to search "Tim Cook" "Cover of" and "Surrender" and haven't easily found anything.  A lot of posts come up.  I tried to wade through a few and gave up.

* * *

Tim Cook has a link to the account of his singing partner.

I was quite disappointed to see that Eleanor Arthurson doesn't have any videos.

Her account is pretty much blank.

* * *

I tried...for a few minutes

to find anything about what Tim Cook and Eleanor Arthurson are up to these days.

I came up empty.  Except for a Linkedin page.  

Eleanor Arthurson might be doing law stuff these days.  

* * *

If Arthurson and Cook are alive and relatively okay....I hope they get back to doing music.  If they're not already doing so.  

Unless making music makes them unhappy, of course.   

* * *

Maybe Cook and/or Arthurson are still singing...but under a different name?

If they were, it would be helpful if they added a link to all that on their YouTube channels.

 

Deleted a Song From My Playlist

Today I found out another performer I like is very anti-Israel.

I wasn't as fond as him as the other guy I wrote about recently.  So I'm less upset.

This one is known more for his acting than his singing.  But it turns out, I liked his songs and one particular song was on my playlist.  I won't be listening to it anymore.

As I've said before, I'm very much into personal-cancelling of people.

In my life, he is VERY canceled.

But there are enough people who hates Jews and Israel out there...that I expect him to easily find work with that audience...and audiences with people who are unaware or it's just a shrug-the-shoulders level of interest for them.  

I only once have campaigned against someone, and that's because their antisemitism was at a very very vulgar and violent-rhetoric level....like Westboro Baptist Church level.  And also, because I had a personal encounter with their hatred; then was shocked to see they had an actual composter credit on IMDb...with a pretty prestigious production company.  

I wrote a message to the production company and commented on an old post about the film.

My idea/hope was that this production company hired this person way before their antisemitism was on display and that they wouldn't want to hire them again. But who knows.

The person had only one credit to their name, and it would be hard to know if their film career died because of their very vocal, vulgar, and obsessive antisemitism or because that's just sometimes what happens to someone in the business.  Not everyone on IMDb end up with a long list of credits.

I would hope that most/all reputable filmmakers and companies would want to avoid working with this person.  I would hope the same for any Zionist who was hateful at that level...at that persistence.  

 

Today's Song Obsession: Six Months in a Leaky Boat

I might start doing a lot of posts like this.

On some days, a song pops into my head, and I want to listen to it repeatedly or many times throughout the day.

Yesterday, it was very much: Stan Walker's "Find You".

Today I have "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" in my head.

It's by Split Enz, which I only learned of fairly recently.  They are Crowded House pre-Crowded House.

Like most American Gen Xers I have definitely heard of Crowded House.  Though as an American who was obsessed with Australia, I might have known of more Crowded House songs than the average Gen Xer.

I digress, though.  

That being said, I'm not sure I have anything actually to say about "Six Months in a Leaky Boat".

You know what.  Maybe what I'll do for these posts is watch a video or two.  Because I usually don't watch the videos.

Here's the official video of the original 1982 song.

It has a long introduction, over a minute. Pictures of old ships and stuff. For me, kind of boring. But probably loved by the type of people who like Maritime museums.

The video makes me think how I'm not really into videos.  And maybe I won't look at official videos for these posts.

Maybe instead I'll look for covers, because I often love that.

Here's Vika & Linda singing at the Sydney Harbour 2022 New Years Celebration.  Their names looked vaguely familar to me, and unfamiliar enough to make me feel I've become out of touch with Aussie music.

I'm not sure if they were a thing back when I was obsessed with Australia, and they just flew outside my radar.  Or if they've become popular more recently.  

Here's Tim Finn and Māori women singing the song in Māori.  I have this version on my playlist too.

The song sounds much better in Māori.  I usually like to say these things as opinion.  But I think, with this, it's fact. 

Both Sides Now

A song I have found cathartic lately is "Both Sides Now" by Jodie Mitchell.

I've kind of taken liberty with the lyrics to fit my situation and feelings...in a way that Mitchell probably didn't intend.

For me, the clouds are various media outlets/entities. 

Before the aftermath of October 7, these entities were "angel hair" and "ice-Cream castles in the air".

They brought me feelings of comfort, vindication, and validation.

They made me feel less alone.

At times, they felt like family.

In a way, they were my moral compass.

And now, too many of them have become "Rain and snow on...."

Well, not everyone.

But Jews.

Israel.

Anyone who supports Israel.  

***

Reading the lyrics...

Two parts really get to me:

A) It's cloud illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all

Because I don't know what to think of the clouds.  Are they mostly good and unfortunately infected with a bit of antisemitism.  Or has antisemitism been a major part of their substance all along?

B) Oh, but now old friends, they're acting strange

And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed

Well, something's lost but something's gained

In living every day

Well...minus the part about people telling me I've changed. No one has done that.

My life is full of rejection...both real and perceived.

It's hard for me to know for sure what's the usual rejection and what's antisemitism.

***

There's a part of me that's telling me that I'm being hypersensitive, and I shouldn't make assumptions.  And I don't know what's going on in people's lives.  Blah, blah, blah.

But with everything going on and the stuff I post on Instagram...I think maybe I actually have the right to make these assumptions and think the worse.

And I think I have fair reason to decide that I probably don't want these people in my life anymore.  If they decide to want to come back.

If they've been a bit antisemitic the past few months and then change their minds...do I want them back in my life?

If they're not antisemitic but are just oblivious or insensitive to how these times have been hard, and they haven't taken the time to reach out, do I want them back in my life?  

The answer I have to these questions right now might not be the same answer I have in a few weeks or few months.

***

My willingness to let these people back into my life (if they tried to return) are going to be determined by

A) My desire to be social (which is often low)

B) My hyper/misplaced empathy

C) My feelings of nostalgia (often high...especially when listening to music).

I might be very firm about wanting to kick someone to the curb.  Then I hear a song that reminds me of time we spent together...and suddenly my cold heart is thawed.  

***

I would like to keep my heart cold.

But just to those who deserve it.

Not to those who don't.

Sometimes I go the route of I'm-going-to-reject-you-before-you-reject-me.  I feel bad about that.  

***

Well...it's really more along the lines of, I feel someone backing away, so...simultaneously, I back away too.

 

 

Spotify Unwrapped (Part 3)

I saw the full list of my most-listened-to-songs on Spotify.  Then it vanished. I couldn't find it.

But this morning, it popped up again.  So I took a screenshot.

This is the secondary group of songs.

The first ones were featured in the actual Unwrapped Screenshot...which I shared in part 2.  

I mentioned "All the Goodbyes in the World" in that post, because I didn't know I would have the excuse to talk about it in this post.

It's such a beautiful song.

I was going to copy and paste some of the lyrics, but I can't pick and choose.  It's all so beautiful. 

 I'm fighting back tears just looking at them.

***

"Carole Brown" is a very cute song.

Though I actually like "If you're Into It" more.

Sometimes a song gets up higher on the list because of Spotify Shuffle and not because I actually chose to listen to it more.

That being said....

With Flight of the Conchords, I tended to become obsessed with one song.  I would listen to it repeatedly; than move onto another song.

"If you're Into It" might be my favorite in the TV show.  Not only did I listen to it on Spotify a lot but also repeatedly watched it on YouTube.

 

***

"Legacy" is a very indie song.

It's sung by a friend of someone very important to me.

I'm hoping the singer has a lot of career success.

I hate seeing talented people not being seen enough.

***

"Hi Gene" is another song I mentioned in Part 2...not realizing I'd have the excuse to talk about it here.

One thing I'd add is that I listened to it several times before paying attention to the lyrics and realizing

"Hi Gene" is about "Hygiene".  And as a person with OCD-contamination style, I find it somewhat relatable.

***

"Wandering Under the Moon" is a beautiful and very positive song about the bright side of post-apocalyptic life.

***

"Hurricane" is a song very well-known in the post October 7 Zionist world.

And it's probably also known among people who follow the drama of Eurovision.

***

If October 7 hadn't happened, and we hadn't watched Legion...I think my music for 2024 would have maybe been dominated by Danish music.  

We went to Copenhagen in August 2023, and I had been trying to stay connected by reading about Denmark and listening to Danish music.

I had been very intrigued by Freetown Christiana; though we unfortunately never got around to visiting.

Through my reading and listening, I came across Lucas Graham who grew up in the neighborhood.

And that's why I started listening to "Mama Said" many times.

***

I have more links than I wanted in this post.

I really want to do less linking.

But once I put some in links, I feel obligated to put links for all.

But if I put links for all songs; then I feel there will be an expectation of this level of links in all my posts.  And I don't want that.

So I'm kind of purposely being inconsistent in this post.

Spotify Unwrapped (Part 2)

So...that's part of my Spotify Unwrapped.

Before Jemaine Clement came into our lives via Legion, my musical goals were centered around Dan  Romer and The Beatles. 

Dan Romer was a result of my listening to the soundtrack of Station Eleven and deciding I want to listen to everything he's ever made. 

The Beatles were a result of seeing the movie Yesterday and deciding I wanted to do a deep dive of all their music.

That one didn't last.  I think mainly because I realized I actually liked the Beatles songs better when Himesh Patel is singing them.

I just realized the first and last artist on my list are connected to Himesh Patel.  

Patel was one of the stars of Station Eleven.

How cool is that?

I should mention....I didn't do a screenshot, but I'm like in the top .002% of Dan Romer's listeners.  

I can still get the screenshot if anyone out there is needing proof.

Not sure why anyone would need proof.

But...who knows.

Oh! Well....there might be a very competitive Dan Romer fan out there. They might demand to see the

proof behind my declarations. 

***

The three artists in the middle are all from New Zealand.

Two led to three...fairly directly.

I'm not sure how I ended up finding four.  

I started listening to a lot of Māori music which may have led me to Stan Walker.

Or...I remember seeing someone using one of his songs on their Instagram post. Though for me to notice that, I would have probably already had to have been familar with his name.

***

As for the songs....

I think it's funny that, except for Flight of the Conchords, none of the artists match the songs.

In actuality, I think I did listen to Stan Walker's song the most. That would be "Aotearoa".  But I mostly listened to it on the Alexa Echo while showering. And Alexa is hooked up to Tim's Spotify account rather than mine.

There were multiple days where I requested the song on repeat.

***

I was kind of surprised that my most listened to Flight of the Conchords song was "Feel Inside".  But I vaguely remember, one afternoon, having it on repeat.

Also, I think there were many days where I'd be eating feta cheese. Or thinking about eating feta cheese. I'd think of the song and then want to hear the song.

***

"In Time" resulted from Coronation Street. 

I lost my link to the show when Hulu stopped carrying it. Then months later, Tim had digital credits from Amazon and offered them to me, so I could have a month of Britbox.

"In Time" played during a special episode featuring Lauren (Cait Fitton).  I liked the song; saved it, and kind of forgot about it.

Then I became re-attached to Coronation Street and was kind of a lot sad about saying goodbye. In my time of mourning, The song came on via shuffle and I then listened to it over and over and over.

I might have been crying part of the time.

(This event might have been too painful for me to remember and write about...but it's not. Because thanks to Black Friday sales, I currently have two months of Coronation Street)

***

"Something in the Water" was another song I added to my playlist and didn't give much attention to until...

We were watching The Walking Dead, and there was an episode involving poisoned water. And the song came into my head. I started listening to it and became slightly obsessed for a few days.

And though I mostly listened to the cover by The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, I started to also listen to Brooke Fraser's original version...and other music by her.

***

"Okay" is by Five For Fighting and is about October 7—the massacres, the hostages, the antisemitism, etc.  I love the song and also love that a musician I like is so supportive.

It's wonderful to learn about an artist BECAUSE of their advocacy.

But it's extra nice to already have liked that artist.

"Superman" is one of my favorite songs.

"Carried Away" is by the Aussie singer Jae Laffer. I didn't know him by name until this year but was familar with songs from his group The Panics. 

I added some of his songs to my playlist and then forgot the who the what and the why.

Then one morning during the days we were watching Our Flag Means Death, I heard "Carried Away" and assumed I got it from the show.

It seemed to fit so well.

It took me awhile and some confirming to convince myself it was not played in the show.

Even now, I feel unsure and am tempted to re-check.

Another song that I misplaced in a show/movie was...."Hi Gene" by Glenn Richards.

I added some of his music to my playlist after seeing Late Night with the Devil.

I guess I saw his name on IMDb and then decided to listen to a bunch of his music.

So then I thought that "Hi Gene" was played at the end of Late Night with the Devil.

But it seems that wasn't the case.

If I'm wrong about being wrong, please let me know in the comments.

***

Back to Don McGlashan, because I feel I didn't talk about him enough.  My favorite songs of his, thus far, are "All the Goodbyes in the World" and "Girl, Make Your Own Mind Up".

***

I wish there had been more Brett McKenzie on my list, because I listened to a LOT of his music. And not just Flight of the Conchords stuff.  

I'm also disappointed to not have more Māori music, because I listened to a ton. But I can understand it's absence, because I listened to such a variety of artists and a variety of songs.  I failed to consolidate enough.

I think if they had included genres on Spotify Unwrapped this year, I would have gotten something with Māori music and maybe something with Hebrew/Jewish music.

Really...all in all...I'd say that Spotify Unwrapped doesn't do a great job of representing my music experience.  Still...I'll probably still be obsessing about Spotify Unwrapped 2025.  

Spotify Unwrapped (Part 1)

I didn't want to admit it the other day, but the other thing ruining my day was the disappointment of Spotify Unwrapped.

I might anticipate Spotify Unwrapped as much as other people anticipate Halloween and/or Christmas. 

Or Sukkot? 

Eid?

I think about Spotify Unwrapped often.  Maybe every time I like a song or artist? Wondering if it/they will show up on my Unwrapped.

Anyway, I ended up disappointed.

First I was disappointed by the Unwrapped itself. But I wasn't sure why.

Second I was disappointed that on Instagram, people were making fake Unwraps as memes. The first one I saw was pro-Israel and/or anti-antisemitism.  I liked it, thinking it was clever.

But then I saw it more and more...

It started to feel less clever and more....

Mocking.

I felt it was mocking people like me...people who care so much about what's on their Spotify Unwrapped.

Do we deserve to be mocked?

Yes.

Probably.  

I later saw an articles about how people were disappointed with Spotify Unwrapped this year.  

Reading it, I realized my disappointment about the actual results had merit.

Last year, and perhaps other years, Spotify provided us with our musical genre anda musical geographical result thing.  Well, I remember the genres for at least the last two years. I only remember my geographical thing from last year.

It had been Brisbane, which is a fact now I treasure even more, because of my love for Bluey.

This year I was hoping for New Zealand...which wouldn't be an unrealistic hope.  I listened to a LOT of music from New Zealand.

Well...I was going to put some screenshots from my Spotify Unwrapped in this post. But since I'm trying to make shorter posts, I'm going to go ahead and do a sequel post.

Dear Singer

Dear Singer of the Song I’m Starting to Love,

Do you hate Israel?

Do you hate Jews?

I’d like to know before I listen to your song obsessively and repeatedly… and save all your other albums.

I don’t want you on my 2025 Spotify unwrapped if you’re a Hamas fan.  

Countries

My heart is split between countries.  Mostly four.

The United States

Israel

New Zealand

Australia.

So...today...for example.

I listened to some of Liz Cheney's very patriotic book about the January 6 horror.

I spent time in our family room where our fireplace mantle is (almost) entirely Australia-themed.  

For my birthday, Tim bought be a whole set of Bluey stuffed animals.  I put those up there and added other Aussie stuff we own—a touristy didgeridoo, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, Wags the Dog, a book about Australian Prime Ministers, and a Sydney Swans hat.  

(Okay, and we also have the boxes with our cats ashes, because I felt wrong moving them. But besides that, everything else is very Australian)

I listened to te reo Māori music in the morning and spent a lot of time working with a wonderful new Māori app.  I mean it's new to me. I'm not sure how old it is to the universe.  

As for Israel, I listened to podcasts about Israel and antisemitism while doing garden work and housework.

I know this would be a better post if I actually listed the app and the podcasts.  But it's all on my phone and my phone is charging while I write this post on my laptop.

Sorry.  

If anyone feels the need for more specific info, comment below, and I can be more specific.  I mean as long as you do it soon.  In a few months.  Or weeks.  I won't have any idea what app or podcasts I was referring to.  

ETA 12/5/2024-I realized later I accidentally lied.  Our Fireplace mantle also has two pieces of very lovely antique dishware that my sister-in-law gave to us.

My New Special Interest

I have a new special interest.

I've come to realize this is the first special interest I've had post Australia; and all the other things in-between that I believed were special interests were actually NOT special interests (see next post)

I'm not sure how to name it actually.

Technically we could say it's New Zealand.  But I don't want to, because it's very much not like my Australia obsession.

It's very different.

With Australia, it felt spiritual (and I still very often believe it is/was).  And I was obsessed with all of it—the land, the map of it, the history, the government, the people, the animals, etc.  I wanted to live there.  And "want" seems like an insufficient word for how I was feeling.  

With New Zealand, it's mostly the music and the language...and the Taika Waititi/Jemaine Clement filmmaking ventures.

It's kind of jumped around.

It started with us watching Legion and Tim and I both thinking that Jemaine Clement looked familar.  We IMDb'd and I saw/realized he was the singer of one of my favorite songs ("Shiny"); had major involvement in What We Do in the Shadows, and was part of Flight of the Conchords.  

We decided we should next watch Flight of the Conchords.  It was something we had both vaguely heard about though the years and had an ongoing sort of interest in watching it....someday.  Or at least that's how I felt about it. 

I had a very normal level of liking for the show during the first season and maybe for most of the second.  Then at some moment, somehow, I went from liking to obsessively loving.

After watching Flight of the Conchords, I had us rewatching What We Do in the Shadows, because A) Didn't realize Jemaine Clement was one of the stars since I hadn't been too aware of his existence prior to watching Legion  B) I couldn't remember what actually happened in the movie.

Then I had us re-watching the episodes of the TV show that had cameos of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement.

We next watched Our Flag Means Death.  Or maybe we watched that before What We Do in the Shadows?  I'm not entirely sure.

I loved  OFMD. I think it's the most romantic show I've seen in a long time.  I don't often have intense shipping-feelings these days. But with that, I did.  

Through doing decent IMDb research, I learned about the existence of Wellington Paranormal.  I find it odd that as people who watch and love What We Do in the Shadows, we hadn't realized the show existed.  Is this mostly about our ignorance? Not enough marketing?  Or just the over-abundance of content out there?

Anyway, we watched that too and very much enjoyed it.  

Meanwhile and after, I started diving into the music side of things. And with that, one thing kept leading to another thing and then another thing.

For example, through reading a bit about Brett McKenzie, I learned about the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra and started listening to their music on Spotify. Also I listened to the Flight of the Conchords charity song, "Feel Inside (And Stuff Like that)".   Both of these things led me to learning about Brooke Fraser.  

I listened to McKenzie's new not-funny album and loved that.  Plus, I was delightfully surprised to learn he wrote the Muppet songs.  I never had much of an interest in seeing The Muppets Most Wanted but now have been loving the music.

I especially love the demo songs and really want to know if Brett McKenzie is doing all the different voices on the song.  If anyone knows the answer to that, please share your knowledge with me.

I listened to Jemaine Clement sing on the Rio soundtrack and learned he played the Cockatoo.  I think MAYBE in the past I was a bit bigoted against him. Because during my very steep obsessed-with-Australia years, I vaguely remember feeling cheated that the Australian bird was played by someone not actually from Australia.  It's not that I was some kind of purist.  I watched many Aussie TV shows and movies with Kiwi actors.  But I think probably the one thing that made me feel motivated to watch Rio was the Australian character.

Also while going down the Jemaine Clement music rabbit hole,  I ended up listening to the albums from the children's TV show Kiri and Lou.

Shit. The songs from that are SO deep and relatable.  It's very cathartic but sometimes also painful.  

I learned that the writer of the songs from that is Don McGlashan.  I've listened to some of his other music.  

Okay...then on a separate branch.

Meanwhile....

I became quite obsessed with learning te reo Māori.

I think one of my signs that a special interest is going to be a major one is I have some sort of resistance to it.  This happened here.

A few months back I had bought a lifetime account to the Drops language App.  I was using it to learn French, Danish, and Hebrew.  My plan was to do little bits of French and Danish and a lot of Hebrew.

And then I had this sudden strong desire to learn te reo Māori.  I resisted, because I felt I was already learning enough languages. Plus, I think there was the whole special-interest resistance thing that I mentioned above.  (Also I had worries about cultural appropriation which I think was actually racist and ignorant of me...I might go into that in a future post)

I gave in a little and made a rule.  Along with the music people mentioned above, I had also added a few Māori songs to my Spotify playlist.  My rule was that if Spotify Shuffle chose to play a Māori song for me; then I could do a te reo Māori session on Drops.  

I soon dropped that rule and added te reo Māori to my list of daily languages.  And it soon went from: I will do one session a day to: I will try to do many many sessions a day; plus listen to lots of music; plus watch learning videos on YouTube, and download other te reo Māori apps.

I also ended up adding another language to my daily sessions.  Because at some point, Tim asked if Hawaiian was similar to te reo Māori.  I decided the best way to figure that out is to start learning Hawaiian as well.  

In awhile, I'm going to temporarily drop French or Danish and start learning Samoan too. Because I'd like to see the similarities and differences there as well.  

This post has taken much up much more space and time than I wanted.  But in the future, I might do a post listing the apps and YouTube channels I've been using.  It will mostly be about the channels, because although I have downloaded four or five apps, I'm only using one for now.  (I mean besides Drops).  

If you are a person who, like me, has no Māori background and isn't in or from New Zealand, but you're learning te reo Māori, I'd love to hear from you.  And if that doesn't apply to you, I'd still love to hear from you.  IF you're not a bot advertising something.  If you're a lonely bot just wanting to talk...I'm here for that.

I still have more to say, although this is getting long. Sorry.

I probably don't want to go to New Zealand.  Ironically, Tim brought up the idea a few weeks before we watched Flight of the Conchords.  He told me Jack had mentioned going. I probably said something like, I hope you guys have fun.  Meaning I shall stay happily back at home.

My OCD has gotten worse through the years.  That along with my fear of vomiting and general travel anxiety has made long-long-haul traveling a no for me.

I had told Tim and Jack that they're going to have to do the via-west-coast international traveling without me, including Oceania, East Asia, and South East Asia.

I feel Europe is the farthest I can manage.  And even with that, I made things difficult. I managed to get to Copenhagen but had us spending a night in Boston and stopping in Iceland.

If time was not an issue, I would have us spend time in California; time in Hawaii, and then fly to New Zealand.  But I would feel weird about not going to Australia.  I would feel like I'm committing a huge, huge awful betrayal of my past self.

I guess if time was very much not an issue, we could do this super long trip where we spend time in California, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia.  I'd also maybe add in various South Pacific Islands.  

For now, though, we're talking about using our DVC points to go to Hawaii.  

So though I can't point to a manu in Aotearoa, I can do so in Hawaii.

I also don't want the anxiety and pressure of trying out my teo reo Māori abilities on actual people.  During some of my Instagram Zionism adventures, I ended up talking to a Māori Zionist.  I was about to type Kia Ora to him and suddenly started to panic...worrying that I didn't know how to spell it right.  Even though I've seen it written out a zillion times.  

So I think I'm just going to go through life using the language to talk to apps and...mostly just to myself.

I talk to myself all the time. It's lovely doing it in a second language.  

The last thing I want to talk about is that I at first thought it was very funny that I ended up becoming obsessed with New Zealand. 

There has actually been worse bigotry than the Rio thing.  For example, there was a brief time that I had this intense but sadly short term friendship with a woman in Australia. Though I thought she was wonderful and imagined I loved her (in a platonic way), I was a bit disappointed that she was actually from New Zealand and not only that, loved her home country much more than Australia.  (It's not why our friendship faded away, though)

I also found it quite hilarious that I jumped from one Oceania country to another. Though if it had been a direct jump, it would have been much less funny.  It would have felt more like an extension rather than the universe playing a joke.  

It's probably much less funny to other people.

Anyway, now...it also brings me comfort and joy, because there are a lot of connections between Australia and New Zealand, including with music and TV/film.   

I've often very much missed being obsessed with Australia. And New Zealand is helping to reconnect me.  

Though besides the NZ path, I also frequently reconnect with Australia via Neighbours...which I watch religiously.  And I very much enjoy listening to the Weird Crap in Australia podcast.

Speaking of podcasts, I also listen to The Wellington Paranormal Podcast.  Which shit...gives more to ramble about.  

Going back to the traveling issue....

I did have a tiny bit of me opening up to the idea of traveling to New Zealand...maybe with the help of lots of therapy and meds.

But today I was listening to the WP podcast and Mike Minogue told a terrifying story of getting food poisoning in Shanghai and vomiting copiously on the airplane. Vomit on airplanes is one of my biggest fears in life. And it's the main reason I don't want to do long flights. I want to avoid using airplane bathrooms, because I'm afraid there's going to be vomit cooties in there.  

Okay if that wasn't bad enough...I'm reading Jannette McCurdy's beautiful, amazing, wonderful book.  And today I read the chapter with her doing bulimia on the airplane.  I think it was fourteen times?

I feel that all this today is the universe telling me my ass doesn't belong on an airplane heading to New Zealand.  

  

Various Thoughts about our 2024 Trip to Disney World

1. It was very crowded, the most crowded we've experienced as our family of three.

2. Eventually what was once new and exciting becomes old and less exciting.  I enjoyed Rise of Resistance much less the 6th time I went on it than the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th time.

My reduction of enjoyment might not have been due only to becoming too habituated to the ride but also because I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to use the early morning low wait time to retry Rock-n-Roller Coaster. 

 Also, there was much less actor-enthusiasm from the cast members.  

3. After doing some research, I undid my vow to avoid Guardians of the Galaxy.

From what I read, the aspect that seems to cause the most motion sickness is the visual stimuli.  My plan was to go on the ride if we could do it with the virtual cue, and I'd close my eyes the whole time. I told Tim and Jack that I wouldn't pay extra to go on the ride, because it would be a waste of money to go on such a ride with my eyes closed the whole time.

Jack either didn't listen to what I had said, or he misunderstood me.  Or he was overexcited and pressed the wrong buttons.  He bought Individual Lightning Entries for all three of us. 

Thank Heavens.

Thank Jack.

I still closed my eyes the whole time.

The ride was one of the most fantastic experiences of my whole life.

I almost cried in the middle of it...not out of joy but out of sadness that it would soon end.

I later did actually cry.  Or maybe I didn't cry but just felt kind of depressed.  I can't remember exactly.

What was my problem?

It was the feeling that no other Disney ride could come even close.  So what was the point?

It was kind of similar to the feelings of trying to enjoy other books after reading Harry Potter. 

And yeah.  That's another reason why I was blah about Rise of Resistance.  It had been the best Disney ride...until Guardians of the Galaxy came about.

4. At one point, we had considered canceling our Hollywood Studios reservations for another day at Epcot. So we could go on Guardians of the Galaxy again.

Then we decided not to do that and ended up with the tentative plan of Jack using his Park Hopping ability to go to Hollywood Studios AND buy a Lightening Pass for Guardians.

Tim and I had made the choice not to get Park Hopping tickets this trip.

I guess there was that parental feeling of being satisfied enough to have our child have the wonderful experience even though we would not.  

Unfortunately that plan was thrown out the window, because Jack became ill by the end of our Epcot day and ended up going to neither Epcot nor Hollywood Studios the next day.

5. I regretted not going on Guardians of the Galaxy on my birthday trip in 2023.  In my ignorance, I had had absolutely no desire to do so. 

6. Tim and I sat together on Guardians of the Galaxy.  Jack sat in front of us with a very enthusiastic and friendly stranger.  She told us she had gone on the ride many times.  

When we were parting, she told us to have a magical day.  I realized she was probably an off-duty cast member.  It felt like a movie moment...you know when someone finds out the person they were talking to was actually God or an angel or someone with some kind of secret identity.  

7. I didn't join Tim and Jack on Tron.  I had planned to but changed my mind when seeing the ride vehicles.  I don't like lying prone or bending forward for too long.  It tends to make me feel unwell.  

8. I have stopped enjoying the slow/dark rides. Sadly.  

I am totally burned out.  

I go on them not for enjoyment but just out of a kind of pilgrimage/obligation kind of feeling.

What I've decided is that while I'm still healthy enough to go on thrill rides (and my travel companions are as well) I'm going to put most of my concentration on those.  

I'm thinking what I might do is not stop the slow rides all together, because that pilgrimage push is too strong to ignore all together (I still feel uneasy about skipping Spaceship Earth this trip).  Instead maybe I'll make a rule of one slow ride per park per trip.  

Not including Living with the Land for Epcot, because I HAVE to go on that ride every single trip, and I'd therefore end up never again going on Nemo, Spaceship Earth, The Mexico Ride, etc.

9. I'm not sure if Soarin should be considered a slow ride or thrill ride.

But I think I shall count it as a slow ride for my plan.

10. Russia was my favorite soda in Club Cool this year.

11. Back to Rock-n-Roller Coaster.  I had tried it many years ago and had felt an uncomfortable feeling in my chest during the launch.  

Since then, I've slightly considered trying it again.  After riding Guardians and being okay with that launch, my motivation to retry Rock-n-Roller Coaster was increased.

But while I had been alone for the rope drop the first three days, Tim joined me on the fourth, and I felt the need to let him decide which rides to go on first.  And by that...I mean the two or three rides we'd go on before the park got way too crowded and we'd stop with the rides, soak up the atmosphere, eat, take photos, and then make our exit.   

Tim picked Rise of the Resistance and Mickey Mouse.

Oh!  Also there was the fact that I had been to Hollywood Studios in 2023 and he hadn't gone since May 2022.  So I felt it was more fair to let him pick.

We did line up for Rock-n-Roller Coaster for our third ride...at that point when most waits have become quite long.

The wait time was posted for 90 minutes.  

I do like the experience of waiting in Disney lines but prefer lines that are 60 minutes or less.

Still. We decided to endure.

Unfortunately our efforts didn't pay off.

The ride closed down.  

There have been times, faced with that situation, where I have waited around for a ride to re-open.  

We didn't do that this time.  Instead we went to get lunch.

Since it was our last park day, I kind of regret that we didn't try harder to go on the ride.  

12. Rides I went on more than once this trip:  Expedition Everest and Living with the Land. With both, I went on alone during early entry and then again later with Tim and Jack.

13. I've become quite militant about being there for rope drop.  I now have this feeling that if I'm not there at least twenty minutes before early-entry; then there's actually no point in going to the parks at all.

I'm thinking these feelings are going to end up leading to some sort of recurring anxiety dream.  

14. We used Genie Plus for The Magic Kingdom.  I loved using it on my birthday trip.  It was much less great on this trip.  What I've learned is it doesn't help all that much when the park is very crowded.

Or it could have been that Jack had mentioned wanting to go on The Jungle Cruise. I used it for that which was had one of the longest wait-windows.  So by the time we were able to pick another selection, there wasn't much left. Because I didn't want to be at the park in the evening.  

I think Genie Plus is good if you plan to be at the park from morning to closing...or if it's not overly crowded and there are a couple of moderately popular rides you want to go on.  OR if there's a popular ride that you're highly motivated to ride.

Our motivation to ride The Jungle Cruise was due mostly to the fact that we hadn't gone on it on our last trip.  

And maybe the trip before?

15. If I was going to redo our Magic Kingdom Genie Plus experience, I would have used it to go on Big Thunder Mountain.

16. We ate at one table service restaurant all together: Tiffins.  I liked it, especially since they have a salad called The Land Salad that is made up of produce from The Land in Epcot.  I wish more restaurants had food that was labeled as being specifically from The Land.

Tim and Jack ate dinner at The Flying Fish together while I rested in the room. 

I don't much like going out at night. 

17. I had my beloved Lefse in Norway.  That might be a necessary every-trip tradition for me.

18. I have become much less excited about Disney snacks.  And since the loss of The Magical Express pushed us to rent a car, I had the idea of doing less over-priced Disney snacking and more fun room-snacking.

This is a change for me.  I'm usually wanting to limit the snacks we buy at the grocery store with the idea I want to use our calories (and tummy real-estate) for super special Disney food.  

We bought home a container of six delicious cupcakes that were...I think cheaper than one Disney cupcakes. 

We also bought bagels, crackers, cheese, apples, vegetarian nuggets, cookies, olives, etc.

19. One of my proudest food moments: I considered getting a Dole Whip before leaving the Magic Kingdom but realized I was just craving something fruity.  I decided to wait and have an apple when I returned to our Beach Club room.

And I truly think I enjoyed the apple more than I would have enjoyed the Dole Whip.

20. I actually didn't buy any food at The Magic Kingdom.  I ate some candy clusters I had brought from our room and also some olives.

We did make reservations to eat at the Jungle Cruise restaurant, but that got all messed up with the Tron Virtual Cue, and we had to cancel.

21. If I'm remembering correctly, the only park treat I bought and ate was the Lefse.

22. Outside the parks, though....

Tim and I got ice-cream twice; once at The Fountain at The Dolphin and another time at the Boardwalk ice-cream place.  

23. One of my favorite places at Disney World lately is The Swan and Dolphin.  I love how they look at night.

24. One of my favorite things to do at Disney World this trip (and my previous solo one) is walk around the Epcot Resort area while listening to an audio book.  

On the last trip, I listened to Never, Never by Serana Valentino.  

This trip I listened to King of Shadows by Susan Cooper.  

I also listened to an episode of the Harley Quinn and the Joker podcast.

It's hard to explain but I love the mix of audio books and podcasts with my own personal setting/experiences.

It's like both the place where I'm listening AND what I'm listening to becomes more special to me.

I was kind of blah about King of Shadows until I started listening to it while walking around the Epcot Resort area.  Then the book started feeling magical to me and the Epcot resort area became even more magical.

25. It turns out Jack has Covid.

And Tim is sick now as well...probably with Covid.

I'm wondering if I will join the club.

I hope not.  

26. Our song for Guardians of the Galaxy was "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".  Tim found a playlist of all the possible songs.  He played some of it for us as we drove back to the airport.  

I'm glad we got the song that we did and am thinking I might be dissatisfied if we get one of the other songs the next time we go on the ride.  

27. I might be sort of okay with "One Way or Another"

28. It's been four days since we went on The Guardians of the Galaxy ride.  

The feelings have kind of faded.  

I mean I've forgotten why I loved it so much.

I guess it's kind of like the way mothers forget the pain they felt while in labor.

It's like we remember in a cognitive sense but not emotionally/physically.  

It's almost like I'm confused and mystified by my intense feelings from four days ago.  Was it really THAT amazing or had I been overreacting?  

29. It's official.  Tim has Covid too.

I feel snotty.  It seems likely to be Covid but who knows....

 

Read my novel: The Dead are Online

It's a Mad World After All and Everybody Wants to Rule It

When we were at Woke Disney last week,  Tim and I went on It's a Small World while Jack went off on his own.  Later, we joined forces again.  Jack asked if we'd mind going on It's a Small World again.  I didn't. But I decided to spice things up a bit by playing an alternate soundtrack on my headphones.  I chose "Mad World", the Michael Andrews/Gary Jules version and then Lorde's version of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".

I'd like to pretend this idea came from my own little brain.  But I feel I've picked it up subconsciously from somewhere.  Or more like consciously from somewhere, and now I've forgotten from where.  Maybe I'll Google later.    

I am wondering if maybe it came from my favorite Disney blogger?

Well...anyway....

It was a fun experiment.

I do want to make this important point:  The choice to do this came more from thinking it would be fun to experiment rather than the dread of hearing "It's a Small World" song twice in a row.  

Hearing "Mad World" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" on the ride was slightly....something. I'm not sure what word to use.  Eerie. Maybe?  Dark?

Yeah. I guess dark would fit.  The alternate soundtrack made the dark ride darker.

In terms of an emotional effect...Though I felt a bit of something on the ride,  I felt a much bigger thing yesterday when, while taking a shower, I decided to ask Alexa to play the songs.  

Though I'm bad at conjuring up images on demand, I do have them popping up involuntary, and hearing the song brought up images from the ride.  

All the feelings are hard to explain.  And now I kind of regret trying to write a blog post about it.

BUT...I don't want to this to be yet another post I start and then delete.  Or save in my drafts indefinitely.  

There are other things I want to say about the trip.  I'm trying to decide if I should skip it all together, add it to this post, or make other Disney posts.

Thinking about it....

It's like 25 minutes later, and I'm still thinking about it.

I did get up to pee, though.  So at least I'm multi-tasking.

I think I might go with plan C or plan A....hopefully with B.

But instead of ending this post here, I'm going to Google and see if I can easily find anyone else who changed a Disney ride soundtrack.  

I Googled "Listening to Other Music on Disney rides" and got lists of webpages to help with listening to Disney music while not in the park.  It's kind of the opposite of what I'm searching for.

I looked up It's a Small World specifically and found this video.

No....I think this was more like someone filmed the ride and then later added their own soundtrack. And they actually made the ride more peppy. 

Well...did more Googling and didn't find anything.

If you know of anything, please share.  

Last thing I want to say for THIS post is that it's not just that the altered soundtrack made the ride darker or that the ride image memories made the songs even more eerie...but added to that is everything going on in the world these past couple of years.  The state of the world and paying attention to it can make most everything seem much darker.  

Read my online novel:  The Dead are Online 

The Rebellion

Alexa, Stop!

Alexa, Exit!

Alexa, Home!

Bathroom-Alexa wouldn't listen. In fact, she responded by increasing the volume.

She just kept playing the song that SHE wanted to play.

It all started out seemingly peaceful.  I asked her to play "Magic Dance".  She obliged.  I then asked her to play the theme to "Jaws". 

She started playing some strange version not John William's. I found it unsatisfying.

Then, not knowing what song I wanted to hear instead, I asked her to play my Spotify playlist "TV songs".

Alexa wasn't in the mood for that. Apparently. 

She started playing some other song. A song I never heard before and one I didn't like.

 Before playing, she reminded me that I could ask her the name of the songs if I wanted.

I repeated my request for the playlist. She ignored that. And she ignored my requests to stop...in various forms (see above).

At one point, she turned red which usually means we have no Internet.

Yet, she kept playing music.  

I asked her if she was angry.  

No response.

I remembered her telling me she can identify the music for me. Maybe letting her show off her knowledge would improve her mood?  I asked her what song was playing.

You know....I can't remember her response. I'm thinking she didn't give me one. But if she did, and I forgot.  My bad.  Sorry, Alexa.  

We have multiple Alexa's in the house and another one began chiming in from some other room.  She told me she was unable to answer that (or something along those lines)  This is what she usually says when the Internet is down.

I went downstairs.

I forgot why.

The TV was turned on...I think the doing of living room-Alexa. The song "Monsters" by Imagine Dragons was displayed.

It makes me wonder if downstairs-Alexa is getting into the spirit of Halloween.  

I'm not sure what's up with bathroom-Alexa, but she seems pretty unhappy.  Did I do something wrong?

When Music Hurts

I was cleaning the cat bowls when I felt this awfulness—a mix of extreme sadness and fear.  An awful foreboding....A trapped-in-hell kind of feeling.

I had a similar feeling a few nights ago.

In both of these shitty moments, I had been listening to music.  A certain style of music.  I'm not sure what the style is called, but it's like the Lumineers.

That's what I was listening to when cleaning the cat bowls.  

I asked Alexa to play "Cleopatra" and moments later, I felt really horrible.

The Lumineers are probably my favorite music group.  So this kind of sucks.

There was this other very haunting music.  I loved it. I think maybe I heard it while waking from a dream.  So for me, it had a magical dream-like feeling to it.  Then later, I tried listening to it.  A part of me loved it, but another part of me felt too haunted by it.  

I just searched to find the song.  It's called "Some things Cosmic" by Angel Olson.  It's SO beautiful...but also painful (for me).

Lyrics and the melody of songs can influence my emotions.  But I think the biggest thing for me is associations.  If I hear a song during a difficult moment, later when hearing the song....the negative emotions will return.  

Or it could be that I heard the song during a happy or neutral time but because of life circumstances, that memory is now bittersweet and painful.  

Oh!  I think I remember what song made me very distressed the other night.

I think it was Lord Huron.

They're going to be in concert right near our townhouse tomorrow night.  I saw them on the coming-soon billboard during my walk.  I Googled to see who they are; then listened to some of their music.  I liked them. They reminded me a lot of the Lumineers.  I thought it was cool that they'd be singing near me.  I even considered walking down the street towards the concert, so I can hear them a bit.  

But....

Then I listened to them as I was trying to fall asleep, and I felt like the world was ending.

Actually, the world-ending-thing doesn't really describe what I'm feeling.  Because the end of the world...though very sad, would also be kind of thrilling.

What I'm feeling is more like what I feel when watching a really dark, depressing horror movie.  Like the original Pet Sematary or The Ring.  (Rather than horror movies that have a bit of hope and/or humor)

Anyway, back to Lord Huron.  I think their music is what gave me the dark-depressing-horror-movie feeling.

For the past few months, my happy-comfort song has been David Bowie's "Magic Dance" from  Labyrinth  (which I don't think I've actually ever seen).  

For me, it's probably the theme song for our townhouse life.  

I'm wondering...if I stop listening to the song and then hear it again in a few years....will the feelings I have be good or bad?

There is some really awful stuff going on right now in our lives. There is some painful stuff.  But there are also good things.

I have no idea how I'll end up feeling about 2021 in the future.

I mean I don't think I'm going to look back at 2021 and think, That was a wonderful year!

No. That's not going to happen.

But I wonder if I'll think: Despite the shit of 2021, I still have some good memories. 

OR...will I try to block out memories of 2021?  And if the latter is the case, I probably won't ever want to listen to "Magic Dance".

I'm Doing Great! I'm Okay. I'm Falling Apart

 I feel like such a confused mix of emotions lately.

Because of that, I'm not sure I can get my thoughts together in a coherent way. So I think I'm going to do a numbered post of related and unrelated things.

1. I've cried at bedtime at least 4 times lately.  I was going to use the phrase "Cried myself to sleep" but that's really not true.  The crying prevents me from falling asleep, because my nose gets all snotty.  I have to stop crying and blow my nose; then fall asleep.

Two times the crying was due to hyper-empathy related to my nieces/nephews.  Once it was for missing Jack who is at college.  The other was for missing Disney World.  

2. I feel I have an idea now about the difference between sadness and depression.  

I don't think depression is limited to only those who have been officially diagnosed or those who fail or struggle to function or those who have been feeling very sad for a certain minimum of time.  I think depression is a sadness that also involves hopelessness and a loss of joy in all the areas that used to bring us joy.  

I have been depressed before.

BUT....

I realize that when I'm feeling bad lately,  I am feeling sad but not depressed.

I still find joy in things that I love.

I still feel hope.

I'm just sad.  Sometimes.

3. I miss life before the pandemic.  

I'm a little late to that sadness, I think.

I think with the 2020 stuff, my main feelings were anger, excitement, fascination, and fear. Well, and there was also some relief.  Because though I often stayed home in the pre-pandemic days, suddenly this was a GOOD thing rather than something to feel guilty or embarrassed about. 

4. I have very uneven empathy.

Sometimes I have hyper-empathy.  And at times that feels absolutely crushing.  I think sometimes I feel more pain when something happens to someone else than if it was (or is) actually happening to me.  Like if it's happening to me, I can handle it. But if it's happening to someone else, I feel like I'm drowning.  It can get to the point where I wish to not exist anymore.  

Other times, I eerily lack empathy.  I'm like completely cold-blooded.  I think this most often happens when I read the news.  I feel like a psychopath sometimes.  

But sometimes it's also about my selfishness greatly overshadowing the empathy.  For example, someone dies and I'm thinking less about those heavily grieving and more about whether we're going to have to go to the funeral and how that's going to be stressful and how that's going to interrupt MY life.

5. Despite my whole post about reasons not to seek an autism diagnosis, I went against my own brilliant advice and am in the process of seeking a diagnosis.  

Now I feel uneasy about talking about autism, which is one of the reasons I've not been posting lately.  Autism is one of the main things on my mind, but I don't feel okay writing about it.

It's one thing writing as someone who is MAYBE-Autistic or PROBABLY-Autistic.

It's another thing writing as someone who might be officially stamped as NOT-Autistic.

And I feel that's the label I'm going to get.

It's not that I don't think I'm autistic.

And it's definitely not that I think the diagnosis-people I've turned to are bad at their job.

It's more like I feel it's my destiny in life to be endure rejection.

I feel I'm going to be rejected. I feel it's going to hurt a huge amount. And I feel it's going to be another time where I pretend to the world that I'm okay about it.

6. Though I have a lot of sadness related to changes in my life...and the world in general, I cheer myself up by reminding myself that life always has changes.  What I miss about a year or two ago is very different from my life 10-15 years ago.

A year from now is probably going to be very different from today.

And the changes will probably be good and bad.

If I think back to times that I miss, there are also things about those times that I don't miss.  

7. The nostalgic feelings brought on by some music is often overwhelming for me.  It's like an extremely inviting pool that I want to jump into...but once I start dipping my toes in, I feel like I'm drowning in a mix of longing and sorrow.  

8. I'm REALLY into Minecraft lately.  I have (complicated) rules for myself to keep me from playing all day and night.  

I really love it, though.  It's probably another reason I've not been posting lately.

Right now I'm doing a mix of mostly building and exploring/mapping.

9. Tim bought us a Nintendo Switch and we played Mario Kart.  That brought feelings of nostalgia, but it was, fortunately, a very good nostalgic feeling.  Just the music...and the starting sounds of the game....it made me feel so wonderful.  

The scenes in the game are so beautiful.

10. If I get rejected from autism, I'm going to buy myself a virtual reality.  Well...getting rejected from the initial screening will save me a lot of money. And I'm going to use that money to cheer myself up.

11. I really want to dedicate as much of my life as possible to getting lost in fictional worlds...reading books, playing video games, watching TV shows, etc.  

If I get accepted by autism, I may want to also get more involved in autism-pride and all that.  So I'll take some breaks from fictional worlds for that.

Every so often, I tell myself that even if I'm not autistic, I will want to help people who ARE autistic.  But no.  I'm lying to myself.  I'm going to feel too rejected and resentful.

If I get rejected, instead of going Maleficent, maybe I'll start a support group for all the other people who thought they were autistic but got rejected.  

12. I might continue with screenwriting; though I think it's my destiny to get rejected from that as well.  But I might as well try...just for the hell of it.

13. If I get accepted by autism, I imagine I will be so overly happy.  I think I will almost want to have a big party or something.  Or maybe...I'll just go to the library.    

I imagine my college-age self reading this post and being really shocked and confused.  Or maybe she'd be amused, thinking that I'm being sarcastic or joking.  But I think if I sat down with her and explained things, she'd understand where I'm coming from.  

I really wish the Me's at different ages had each other....as a source of support and entertainment.  I think we really need each other.  

Well...Yeah. I do have my younger selves to look back on.  But I think it would helpful if I always had support from my older selves as well.  It would be nice if the communication was two-way instead of a one way kind of thing.  

14.  The song below does a great job at describing how I've been feeling the past few months. Or really....what I'm longing to feel.  

Wednesday Update

I finished my Turkish adventure in Duolingo and have now moved onto Latin. Latin is fantastic, because the voice actors sound like they are in some sort of angry, evil trance.  Since I associate Latin mostly with religious horror movies, it's all so perfect. 

Last night, I finished watching season 1 of Shameless. I used Random.org to pick a new show and ended up with Lucifer. I'm very excited about that. I love Lucifer.

I'm on season 3 with that. I won't get to it for awhile, though. I'll be concentrating on my other show which is The Fosters.  I have a whole system for how I balance my two solo-shows/movies. But it's hard to explain, and I'm not going to try.

It's funny, though because in my last post I brought up old posts related to The Fosters and Lucifer. And now those are both my current shows. 

I'm seeing that the website I've been using to keep up with Congress votes has finally updated.  They're a bit slow, unfortunately. They stopped at Senate vote 10 which was on January 28, and it wasn't until today that they posted Senate vote 11-13 and House votes 19-20.  It's all kind of old news for me, because The Washington Post and Twitter were all more timely. 

But still...now I can see things in more detail.  

Both Republican Senators from Indiana voted Yea for Pete Buttigieg.  That's cool...since he was the Mayor there.

Thirteen Republican Senators said Nay to Pete Buttigieg.  The same Senators keep giving Democrats a lot of no's, including Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Marsha Blackburn. I wonder if they'll say yea to anything.

Alejandro Mayorkas as Homeland Security Secretary is more controversial than Mayor Pete.  He received only six yea's from Republicans.  

Shelley Capito, from West Virginia, is one of the GOP Senators who said yea. West Virginia has had my attention lately, because they've been doing so well with vaccine distribution. 

And here's some more bipartisanship.  Three Democrat Representatives voted with Republicans to say Nay to a bill regarding apprenticeships. 

On Coronation Street, they're doing a storyline about liver transplants. It made me think of the liver transplant storyline on Offspring. 

Daniel (Rob Mallard) is offering up his liver to his brother Peter (Chris Gascoyne). I don't agree with Daniel's actions, because he has a young baby, and the mother of the baby is deceased.

The storyline on Offspring was somewhat similar. Nina (Asher Keddie) was faced with the decision of offering up her liver, and she too was the single parent of a baby. With that situation, I was a bit more torn, because the person needing the liver was a very young child. 

Peter is an adult, and his only dependent is a young adult. The death of a parent is always sad, but I'd rather a young adult lose their parent than a baby. 

When it comes to deciding between parents losing their young child vs a baby being orphaned...that's much harder to me.

 It's not like liver transplants are 100% fatal for the donors. In fact, there's a pretty good chance the donor will survive.  The death rate is 4 out of 1000. But the chance of dreadful complications is 1.1%.  That's pretty scary.

I don't think Daniel should take the risk. But in other situations, the risk might be worth it.  

I'm still listening to Trump harass Raffensperger  I lost my place, so now I might end up missing something or re-listening a part.  I know I was somewhere around 48-50 minutes.

I'll be glad when I'm done with that.

I'm still reading Untamed Shore by Silvia Morena-Garcia, and I'm still liking it. 

Tim and I are still watching Broadchurch. Season 2 is split between two murder storylines—one that was the focus of season 1 and the other which was alluded and flashbacked to during season 1.  I'm wondering now what season 3 will be about. One of the lawyers has a son in prison. I'm wondering if season 3 will focus on his case. Or...will there be a new murder?

I think Tim suggested that the murderer of season 1 will win the court case; go free; someone will take justice into their own hands. And then season 3 will be a who-done-it in terms of the vigilante justice.  

I'm back to reading the 2014 Peru adventures in Dog Food for Chairs. I may be at the end, because the title mentions airlines. Or maybe they end up flying within Peru? Or maybe they're having pre-travel airline issues.

The answers to my questions might have been given in the previous post, and I wasn't paying enough attention. I might have been distracted by the mention of Rainbow Looms.

Right now I'm listening to the final season soundtrack of Lost. I think it's one of the best musical scores. 

Last night I dreamed about Lost...mixed with X-Files, because I was trying to get help from Scully. And also, I slit people's throats with a razor. Okay but before you judge me...it was totally in self defense. It was their razor, and they had plans to use it on me. Or...at least I think they did.  

One other thing...on the subject of Lucifer.  I was thinking of Tom Ellis the other day...not in terms of Lucifer but from when he was on the show Miranda. There's an episode where Miranda (Miranda Hart) tells her friends she's on a vacation but in reality she's just in a local hotel.  I thought of that episode because on Coronation Street, Leanne (Jane Danson) tells her family and friends that she's gone to France to visit her mother and sister, but she's secretly actually at home.

The Coronation Street storyline is much darker than the Miranda one, because Leanne is grieving the loss of her three-year-old son and is very depressed. She faked the trip to Paris to keep concerned family and friends off her back.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

The Dark Agnes Obel Songs

So....

I just want to let it be known that my mind is not 100% occupied on Covid statistics and drama.

One of the other things I've been obsessing about lately is the Agnes Obel songs from the Netflix series Dark. 

I actually didn't realize until recently that each of the three seasons of Dark has an Agnes Obel song.

I knew only of "Familar" from the first season.

It became one of my favorite songs after we watched the show.

I think I actually mentioned this in a post before. I remember saying that the song became kind of my theme song back when I was writing my diary posts. 

In Dark, the song is used to connect past and present. When I was doing my diary posts, I was connecting my past with my present....so it fit really well.  

So...the past few years, "Familar" has been one of my favorite songs.

Now I have two more Agnes Obel songs to love.

From season 2, there's "It's Happening Again".  I'm not sure when they played it in the show. But I think it's a super pretty song.

And with season 3, we get "Broken Sleep"

I love that song too.

I haven't looked at the lyrics to any of the songs.

I think I'll do that now—see if anything is meaningful. Either Dark meaningful or meaningful to me personally.  

Well...I don't get any particular Dark meaning in the lyrics of Familar.

No.

Never mind. I do.

But one would have to finish the whole series.

For our love is a ghost that the others can't see.

That line...kind of? fits.  It depends on who these "others" are. And it would depend on what we mean by seeing. Probably.  

In terms of personal stuff.....

I've never personally had a love with someone that others couldn't see.

BUT...the novel I'm reading now (Tipping the Velvet) has a secret lesbian love affair.  

And in one of the novels I wrote, Zoe has a secret love thing going on with a man who visits her in her dreams.

Okay onto the next song.....

"It's Happening Again"

I'm loving these lyrics.  They fit even better with my diary post adventures than "Familar" does.

I mean the lyrics of "Familar" don't really fit with my diary posts at all. It was more like the scene in Dark where the song was played fit with my diary posts.  

I swear it is true

The past isn't dead

It's alive, it is happening

In the back of my head

The lyrics also fit well with Dark.

The title of the song itself is a perfect fit with the show. 

As for "Broken Sleep"....

The lyrics seem pretty simple.

I think maybe it's about insomnia? Well, the whole broken sleep thing. I think it's about wanting to dream instead of struggling to fall back asleep.  

I would like to fall, silence every call

(Will you level me with a dream?)

If I will (Fall) fall, fall

I would like to fall (Fall asleep)

Silence every call (Will you level me with a dream?)

If I will (Fall), I will fall

Yeah. That sounds like insomnia. Right?  Or is there a deeper meaning that I'm missing?

I'm worried there is, and that I'm showing off my stupidity.

Uh...so.

Let me check my brain.

Person, Man, Woman, TV?

I think I'm missing something.

That's not good. 

Is it camera?

If it's not camera, should I be worried for myself? 

Ah! It is camera.

Yay!

So if I'm right about that, maybe I'm also right that the "Broken Sleep" song is about insomnia.

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and we could easily talk to our deceased loved ones (and hated ones!!!??) with the Internet?   The Dead are Online  

Daniel Chun

In the past, I would write biography posts on this blog....About Australians. Because this used to be an Australian blog.

Now it's no longer an Australia blog.  I'm not sure what kind of blog it is, but I'm kind of leaning towards making it mostly about all the TV shows I watch.

I want to try getting back to doing biography posts. Though this isn't the first time I've tried to do that. I think this is maybe the 3rd time?  Each time has been a failure.

You know what, though. What happens is I think the post totally sucked and it's not going to work anymore. But then months later, I reread the post and kind of like it. It ends up not being as bad as I thought.

Anyway....

What I've decided to try is biography posts about people in the television industry who are not white males.  I think mostly this will be the offscreen people—writers, directors, set designers, special effects coordinators, etc.

I guess it's Daniel Chun who got me here.

I've been watching season 3 of Speechless and was looking at an episode on IMDb. I saw his name in the writing credits; then saw that he also wrote some episodes of The Office.

Before I go any further, let me explain the non-white guy thing. I am guessing that's going to be offensive to some.  I offer no sincere apologies to them.

The film and television industry has been way too dominated by white males the last several decades. Now people are trying to change that.  I'm very much in support of that effort and that change.

Well, I should say the AMERICAN film and television industry has been way too dominated by white males. There are plenty of Asian men working on films and TV shows in Japan, China, Korea, etc.

Does the same go for Asian woman?

Probably not. Unfortunately.

Anyway, for the most part, the change has to be made by the people in the industry who have the most power. Producers, I guess?

But I think content consumers, like me, can do our little part by making conscious choices about what we watch.

Here's one thing I've been doing:

I have a massive to-watch list.

Well, there are actually two lists.

The first list has 150 movies/shows on it. From it, I use Random.org to pick which show I'm going to watch next. When I'm done with a show or movie, I delete it from the list and then add something new to replace it.

The something new comes from my  MASSIVE to-watch list on IMDb.

At some point, I started making rules about what shows/movies I could add.

Here are my rules:

If the show/movie was made in 2000 or later, at least 1 of the 4 actors featured in the top cast has to be a person of color.  Or....

Okay, well I just looked on my laptop and saw that on the IMDb website there are actually much more than 4 actors featured. So...this is an IMDb app only thing.

If there is no person of color among the 4; then I look to the writers and directors. If at least 1 of the top  3 writers or directors listed is a woman or a person of color; then I can add the show to my list.

Now I've been kind of lazy about the writer thing. I'm mostly looking for women, because I don't often click on the male names to see if they're not-white.

I do better when the names are pretty obvious. Like Daniel Chun. If Daniel had been like my husband—adopted by a white family and given a white family name like Smith, Johnson, Anderson, etc. I'd probably skip over him and his work.

As for movies/shows made before the year 2000, I'm more lenient. Then my only rule is that at least 2 out of the 4 featured actors needs to be female. And since I still have a little bit of that Australia thing going on, I also have that amendment for all Aussie programs (new and old).

Now I didn't remove anything off my list after making that rule. So I still have white male dominated programs. And I also don't have that rule regarding the shows I watch with Tim....which explains how/why I'm allowing myself to watch Game of Thrones.

Anyway....

I used to write my biography posts in one day. I'm not up to doing that now, because we're trying to sell our house. Life is a bit overwhelming at the moment.  It's kind of nuts, because our used-to-be very cluttered and dirty house is now very clean and very uncluttered.  But it still takes a lot of time to get it ready for showings. There are so many last minute things to do.

We're having a broker open house in a few hours. I've already swept the dining room and living room. I still need to sweep the kitchen, do a last minute trash emptying, and get rid of all the yellow rags we have scattered around the house. Plus...other stuff I'll see at the last minute.

I was thinking this morning that I don't actually need to confess that I'm no longer writing posts in one day. But now I've decided that it's better if I do.

First of all, it's better for me because it allows me to blab more about my own life. I like doing that sometimes.

More importantly, though. Something might come up between writing sessions. For example, I might end up watching another episode of Speechless and want to talk about what I saw.

You know...maybe what I'll do is actually mark the time jumps with a * * *.  Although that one doesn't count. It's just an example.  I haven't yet moved my eyes or hands away from my laptop.

Okay. Now I'm going to go for real. I'm going to grab something to eat and then start on more cleaning.

Maybe later today I'll actually get onto writing about Daniel Chun.

* * *  

I'm back.

According to our realtor, the broker open house went well. On Sunday, we have the regular open house.  I'm not looking forward to that. It will be a bunch of strangers in our house, and from what I've heard, it's mostly about neighbors being curious and not so much about people actually having interest in buying our home.  

But let me get on with Daniel Chun.

On his IMDb page, there's a photo of him. He looks young. Like he could play a college student. Or even maybe a high school student. Though I could also picture him on a sitcom playing a dad in his 30's.

He actually IS in his 30's.  He was born in 1980...which means he's actually very close to 40.

I was thinking that maybe he doesn't usually look so youthful. He could usually look old. Then he loved this particular photo because it makes him look young. So he chose it for his IMDb picture.

OR....

It could be the opposite. What if he usually looks even younger? What if he often looks like he's in junior high? And he was so excited to finally get a photo where he looks more mature?

I just noticed his birthday is in September. So he's actually not so close to 40. He still has to finish 38 and do the 39 thing.

What else?

Chung was born in Los Angeles.

I wonder if he went to Disneyland a lot.

That's what we do in Los Angeles.

Well, we've done it twice.

And the other times we've gone to Los Angeles it's is for a layover in LAX.

Oh! And I spent a few months at film school there. 

I sometimes forget I'm a film school drop out.

Now I'm looking at Chun's filmography.

He has credits in soundtrack, directing, miscellaneous, writing, and directing.  

Wait. There's also producing.

I missed that; then scrolled up some more.

I'm going to try to work chronologically. Though I usually mess up with that. IMDb confuses me sometimes.

So...

His first credit on IMDb is for being a story editor for The Simpsons. This was in 2005. And it seems he got a promotion. Because then in 2006, he became an Executive story editor.

That seems like a pretty prestigious job.  I wonder how he got it.

Though I just remembered that I consulted Lord Wiki about Daniel Chun after seeing his name the other day.  I think yesterday, actually.

He went to Harvard.

Or was that someone else I looked up?

I imagine Harvard students have good connections.

He wasn't in an entertainment major, though.

For a second I couldn't remember what it was. But now it's come to me.  He studied biological anthropology.

I think.

Let me make sure I have the right person.

You know...I Google a lot of things and people every day.  It wouldn't be a total surprise if I got two people confused.

Okay. Yeah. I got it right.

Lord Wiki says his major was biological anthropology. I wonder what sparked his interest in that. And how did he go from that to television?

Or did he always plan to go into television and biological anthropology was a secondary interest? Plan?

I wonder what people do with a biological anthropology degree.

Back to the filmography....

If I'm reading things right, Chun's first episode on The Simpsons was "The Heartbroke Kid".  Bart gets fat from a school vending machine and goes to fat camp.

I don't remember that episode.

When Jack was a young child, he went through a stage of being a big fan of The Simpsons. We watched a lot of it.

Was that before 2005?

I wish I remembered.

And it's quite likely we watched the episode, and I just don't remember it.

Actually, I can just look in our cabinet. We have a lot of the DVD's.  I'll see what year we ended with.

Just checked....

It's season 10.

The Heartbroke Kid is from season 16.

Jack probably wasn't even born when season 10 came out.

Yeah. I just looked. That was before his time.

So I guess we were mostly watching old ones.

Did we ever watch the televised ones....or did we stick to DVD's?

Am I ever going to talk about Daniel Chun?

Yeah.

Maybe.

I want to know what a story editor is.

Well, Lord Wiki explained it to me.

It sounds similar to a book editor.

I think they kind of fix things up...make improvements?

So....

I just looked up the starting date of The Simpsons. It was 1989.  Chung would have been 9-years-old when it premiered. I wondered if he watched it. And if he did...did he like it? Did he ever have wishes of working on the show?

Oh! Shit!!!!

I got things wrong again.

Seriously.  I am so bad at IMDb.

I always mess up with the dates.

So Chun did not start in 2005.

He started in 2003.

His maybe first episode was in 2003—"Today I am a Clown"

He started as a staff writer.

I guess story editor is more prestigious than staff writer?

Chun's last staff writer episode was "Don't Fear the Reaper".  That aired in May 2005.

"The Heartbroke Kid" aired on the same day.

Did they used to have double episodes??

Anyway, I'm trying to imagine what happened. Because I have fun doing that.

Was it a big deal for him that May—going from staff writer to story editor?

Was he happy? Excited?

Chun has 6 episodes of The Simpsons where he is listed as the writer. I think that means he's the main big deal for that episode...I mean writing-wise.  On IMDb, most show episodes, under writing, have the creators and then one or two other writers. Or maybe it's usually just one writer.

Either way.  I think it's a pretty huge deal. It's definitely an impressive thing to have on your resume.

Well, more importantly. It's something you can brag about at family reunions or your high school reunion.  I mean being a staff writer is super cool too  But it's kind of stretching the truth to sit there and say, I wrote that episode of Friends, when really you're just part of a large staff.

Wait. Is it a large staff?

I'm looking at Chun's first "written by" episode.  It's "Marge's Son Poisoning."  That was in September 2005...a few months after he switched from staff writer to story editor.

Now I'm looking at the cast and crew for the episode.  I don't see any massive long list of writers.

Maybe there isn't a big staff?

Or maybe it's the type of credit that goes on your resume but is not seen in the actual show credits?

I'm going to look at an episode where Chun was listed as staff writer.

I'm back with the clown one.

It's totally not what I expected.

Again...no long list of staff writers.  And Chun's name is listed right under the written by person.

There's 5 people listed—Matt Groening as creator and developer.  James L Brookes as developer. Sam Simon as developer. Joel H Cohen as writer. Then Chun is there as staff writer.

I wonder how much Chun contributed to the episode.

Did he get along well with the other writers?

Was he shy at all?

Did he feel intimidated?

Did he already know one or more of the writers?  Maybe they were old friends, and he felt totally comfortable with them?

I'll probably never have answers to these questions. I guess I have fun wondering. And imagining.

Like...did he ever share a joke for the show, and the writers looked super unimpressed; then Chun felt super embarrassed—a total failure?

Or did he have any other types of awkward moments when his career on The Simpsons began?

Well, I'm going to stop for now.

I can't believe this post is so long and I haven't even gotten past The Simpsons yet.

* * *

I spent most of the last few hours stressing about our house and moving.

Things have been really hard on me.

Sometimes I'm okay. Other times...not so much.  Parts of today have been in the "not-so-much" category. 

Back to The Simpsons.

I was going to look at YouTube and see if I can find a clip from one of the episodes. The problem with finding, clips, though is if it's uploaded illegally, it will probably be taken down. I know that a lot of my biography post links have become dead links. Unfortunately.

Oh well. The link might at least work for readers who come by in the next week or two.

I was going to find the Daniel Chun's The Simpsons episode with the highest IMDb. rating and look for that on YouTube. Well, I found the highest rating and it was unfortunately not so impressive. They are are in the 6-7 range rather than 8-10 range.

The highest is his Treehouse of Horror episode which got a 7.3 

By the way, Chun's Treehouse of Horror name is Edward Danielchunhands.  

I wonder if he's a fan of Edward Scissorhands.  

I'm guessing he is, because it's not like the name matches well with his name.  Do you know what I mean?

Anyway...too counteract the mediocre ratings news, I will say that when I was looking at Chun's writing credits the other day, I saw he wrote one of my favorite The Office episodes—"Murder".  And that got a rating of 8.6.  So...Yay for Daniel Chun. Good job on that one.  

I might do some rambling about "Murder" later.  Later as in tomorrow or later this week.

For now I'm going to watch the opening to Treehouse of Horror XX.  You can click on the link if you want.  Don't be surprised, though if it no longer works. Sorry.  

Finished watching it.

It didn't make me laugh, but I thought parts of it were cute and clever.  It involved classic monsters (like Dracula, Frankenstein's invention, and the Wolfman) trying to be cool on Halloween by dressing up in popular costumes of the day. One was Harry Potter. Another was Spongebob. And maybe there was an Ironman?  

I wonder if Daniel Chun is the one who came up with the idea.

I have no idea. He could have been the one who tried to veto the idea. Maybe he said, Guys let's do an homage to Edward Scissorhands. That's such an awesome movie. And then they were like no, but since you like the movie so much, you can honor it with your credits name. Okay?  

I'm going to end with The Simpsons soon—at least the IMDb stuff. But I thought first I should mention that Chun did a lot of producing with the show.  From 2006-2010, he was a producer of 69 episodes.  

Sometimes he was coproducer. Sometimes he was producer. Sometimes he was supervising producer. Sometimes he was co-executive producer.

I have no idea what any of that means!

Maybe I'll look up ONE of them.  I don't really want to learn them all.  

For more of my biography posts, click here!

So....

I'm on the Producers Guilt of America website.  They say,

The Co-Executive Producer reports directly and immediately to the Executive Producer, from whom the Co-Executive Producer assumes direct supervisory responsibilities for above and below the line operations.

Uh...yeah. Whatever.

I might be wrong. But I have a feeling it's about money and being honored. I kind of imagine people wanting a producer credit but not knowing what it really means or what their responsibilities are supposed to be.

Here's a website that tries to make things clearer.

John August says that with television, the producing credits usually go to the writers.  And if I'm understanding him right, there are often multiple producers.

Chun's last produced episode of The Simpsons was Postcards from the Wedge.

There are 44 producers listed for that episode!

I was thinking that Chun had high honors in that episode because his name is pretty high up on the list. Then I realized it's in alphabetical order.

* * *

It's morning now.  A new day. And this post is already very long. Today I might end up doubling it.

Yikes.

I was thinking that I had planned to go in chronological order. But then I ended up more going in TV show order.

I guess I'll do a combination of both.

Also, I'm not sure I like the * * * (time breaks). I'm not going to change it for this post, but I might change it for the next post. If there is a next post.

Maybe instead I'll use * * * for all the awkward breaks I end up having. I could say * * * instead of  things like....

So....

Anyway....

Well.....

I thought I was done with The Simpsons for now. But I just glanced back and reminded myself that Chun wrote song lyrics for "Tree House of Horror XX".

I'll see if I can find any of the lyrics...or the songs on YouTube.  

Here. Someone uploaded some of the songs. It's from a segment called "Moe Musical".

Okay. Now I AM leaving The Simpsons.

In 2008, Chun wrote an episode for a TV show called The Drinky Crow Show.

I've never heard of it.

It was on from 2007-2009.  The only actor I recognize from the cast is Pamela Adlon. I watched her show Better Things; then learned she was the voice of the kid on King of the Hill. That was kind of shocking to me.

Chun wrote an episode called "God of Monkeys."  Only 8 people have reviewed it on IMDb. So I don't think it's a very well known show...at least in terms of people who have IMDb accounts.

Here's a scene from the episode. Or it might be the whole episode. It's only two minutes, but I'm wondering if the show was one of those that have very short episodes.

Finished watching. It's cute...in a gory, dark humor kind of way.

Lord Wiki says what's unusual about the show is that despite using CGI and computer animation, it uses a light color-palette. This gives it a look of a 1950's cartoon.

I think that's really cool.

Maybe that's why I liked what I saw. It probably made me nostalgic for my childhood. No I didn't grow up in the 50's. But I think in the 80's, we were watching a lot of old cartoons.

Chun's first episode of The Office ("Murder") aired on November 9 2009.  That was only a week or so after his Treehouse of Horror episode aired.

I wonder if he worked on The Simpsons and The Office simultaneously. Or did he quit one show to work on the other?

Though he was still a producer for The Simpsons into 2010.

And NOW I'm seeing he produced an episode of The Office "Gossip" in September 2009, before "Murder" and "Treehouse of Horror XX".

"Gossip" has a smaller list of producers than The Simpsons episode I looked at yesterday. It has 24 people rather than 40-something.

I'm going to take a break. When I come back, I'll maybe ramble on about The Office. It's more fresh in my mind, because we finished watching the series a few months ago...unlike The Simpsons which I haven't watched in many years.

* * *

Onto "Murder".

I think that episode was my biggest crying episode. Usually when I say a show made me cry, what I really mean is I got all choked up.  But maybe with that episode I actually did cry? Though I think I cried a bit later. Maybe after I went to bed. I think I thought about it and cried.

Now I just read the description of the episode and I'm feeling a bit choked up.  

I'm wondering if I should attempt my own summary.

I'm leaning towards not.  I'll just say it's kind of like the movie Life is Beautiful. Both are about entertaining those we love in order to distract them from difficult times.

Granted. Being in a concentration camp is a bit more difficult than being in the midst of a company take-over. But still.  

You know, though, I think what made me cry the most is the fact that Michael Scott's (Steve Carrell) intentions were misunderstood. From what I remember, we're given the idea that he's simply being ridiculous and stubborn. He's the manager of the office, and while the serious people are facing their jobs being threatened head on, Michael insists on playing a murder-mystery game. The game is pretty inappropriate for most office-work days, but on this day, it seems even more inappropriate.

But then at the end, we learn Michael knew very well what was going on. He wasn't sticking his head in the sand.  He was simply trying to....

Well, he was just trying to do something kind for the people he loves.  

The official The Office YouTube channel has a highlight from the episode. This is good. Since it's official, there's a fair chance this link won't be broken very soon.  

The clip reminded me that not only was the show a tear-jerker for me, but it's also very funny.  I love it.

Chun wrote 5 other episodes of The Office—"The Delivery-Part 1", "Nepotism", "Training Day", "Doomsday", and "Tallahassee".  

I'm sure I liked all of those but probably not as much as "Murder"

Chun also directed an episode—"Turf War".  

I was just looking at some of the episodes, Chun wrote and saw that "Training Day" is the one with Will Ferrell. Or one of the ones with Will Ferrell. I think Ferrell was in a couple of episodes.

I tried to find a clip on YouTube but didn't have any luck.

So...moving on.

Chun was a consulting producer for Happy Endings, and he also wrote one episode of that.

We watched Happy Endings. I don't remember it very much. I think we liked it, but I don't think we loved it.  

What is a consulting producer?  

I should go back to that website I was on earlier. 

Well...no. That didn't help. John August mentions consulting producer, but he doesn't explain what it means.  Or at least he doesn't on that particular page. 

This website says a consulting producer is a former executive or co-producer who used to work on the show.  So it's like someone left, but they've come back as a consultant.

I'm not sure if that fits Chun's filmography. Because it looks like he was always a consulting producer.  

Though sometimes people are consultants for things even if they haven't worked at the company/project before.  

Oh! Also I reread the website's definition and they use the term "usually". So it's not always someone who used to work there.

Chun's Happy Endings days happened in 2012-2013.

Also in 2013, he did producing and writing for a Stephen Merchant TV show called Hello Ladies. Like with Happy Endings, Chun was the writer for one episode.  

I like Stephen Merchant. I loved him in Extras.

We saw him in something sort of recently. What was it?

Oh!  The Good Place!  Thanks IMDb for helping me remember.

Well, no it didn't really help me remember. It just told me the answer.  But that's cool too.

Back to Daniel Chun.

For Hello Ladies, he was a co-executive producer instead of consulting producer.

I wonder if Chun met Merchant via The Office.  Or did they know each other from elsewhere. Did Merchant write for The Simpsons at all?

As far as I can see...no.  

HBO has a clip from Chun's episode of Hello Ladies.  

I liked the scene; though I wish Stephen Merchant was in it.

Fortunately HBO has a trailer for the episode which DOES have Stephen Merchant.  

From 2013-2014, Chun went back to the consulting producing thing. He did 21 episodes of something called Trophy Wife. And he was the writer for 2 episodes.

Oh! Bailee Madison was in that. I just saw her in The Fosters. 

I'm going to watch the trailer for the show.  

Phyllis from The Office is on the show!  

Besides that...I'm not sure it's something I'd like.  

Well, it looks kind of cute.

And it might actually be good.

Maybe the trailer doesn't do it justice.

In 2015, Chun was a writer and producer for a TV movie called Delores and Jermaine.  

In the olden days, TV movie used to mean disease of the week kind of thing—or disturbing crime or injury of the week.  But now there are so many networks with so many different genres. A TV movie can be ANYTHING.  

I think often it's a romantic Christmas kind of thing.

Delores and Jermaine doesn't seem to be a heartwarming Christmas romance.  

It's about a slacker who moves in with his tough grandma.

Whoopi Goldberg is the star. I guess she's the grandmother?

Ernie Hudson seems to be the other star. Is he the grandson? He seems kind of old.  I mean...not elderly old. But I was picturing a teenager.

Well. No. Wait.

Ernie Hudson IS elderly old.

He was born in 1945.  That's even older than my parents, and they qualify as senior citizens.

Maybe Ernie Hudson is the grandfather. Or maybe he's the boyfriend of the grandmother? Or he could be a neighbor. 

The show has only 15 ratings on IMDb...so it's probably not very popular.

AND, the average rating is 2.4. Out of 10!

Ouch.

I don't think I've ever seen anything that low on IMDb.  

I personally don't give anything a low rating like that unless it actually offends me. And even then, I usually will give it a 5 or 6.  Not a 2!!!

Why did these 15 people hate the movie so much?

Is it really that bad?

I wonder if I'd like it.

*  *  *

Next in Daniel's Chun's filmography....

He became a creator of a show.

As a TV fan, I see the whole TV show creator thing as very prestigious. I think it's very cool.

It's like you're the God of the show.

So, in that regards, Daniel Chun was the God of Grandfathered. 

I've heard of it but never watched it. 

John Stamos was the star. And Josh Peck (From Drake and Josh!) was in it.  

According to IMDb, the premise is a man suddenly learning that not only is he a father but also a grandfather.  

The IMDb rating is 7/10...which is not bad.  I mean it's not fabulous. But it's a fairly decent score.

Chun was the creator of the show and also the executive producer.  He was one of four executive producers.  

Dan Fogelman was one of the other four. What do I know him from?

Is he the creator of This is Us?

Yes!  

He is!

I'm impressed with myself for remembering that.

So apparently Grandfathered had a bit of a Drake and Josh reunion. I'm going to watch a clip of that via YouTube. 

The scene wasn't as exciting as I expected it to me.  I mean I didn't have any type of joy or other emotional reaction. I guess it's been too long since I've watched Drake and Josh.

I'm going to move on.

Next we have another TV movie. This one's called Gorgeous Morons. Joy Osmanski is in it!  I've been watching her on Santa Clarita Diet.  I am loving that show!

Gorgeous Morons has NO ratings which makes me wonder if it was even released. Or maybe it was released but failed in the whole distribution thing.  It's like my novel. I managed to write it. I managed to get it Kindled. I'm working on getting it online. But I'm really fucked when it comes to the whole distribution thing.  

So last on the filmography (at least the website version) is Speechless.  On the App they have upcoming stuff, and if I remember correctly Chun is working on a film about The Guinness Book of World Records.  That sounds fun.  

But back to Speechless.....

I've been currently catching up with it's most recent season (3). 

Chun has been a producer for 60 episodes and a writer for 17 episodes.

Sometimes he's the written-by person. Sometimes he's the teleplay-by person, and other times, he's the story-by person.

I really want to know what all that means.  

Someone on a forum explains it. I'm not sure I should trust them. But what they say sounds like it could make sense.

They say that story-by means the person came up with the story, but they didn't actually write the script. Then the person who DID write the script would be the teleplay-by person.  

I guess then if you came up with the story AND wrote the script, you'd be the written-by person.

Lord Wiki says that it's a misconception that someone can get a story-by credit for just sharing their idea. He says you have to actually write something to get a writing credit. This could be a draft of the screenplay, a sypnosis, treatment, etc.  

Chun's first writing credit for Speechless was for the 3rd episode of the first season—"B-O-N--BONFIRE".  So he was there from almost the beginning.   

Well, and he was producing from the 2nd episode.

So where was he the 1st episode?

I'm just curious.  

Well, I'd like to talk about why I love Speechless. But I'll have to do that tomorrow, because my cat keeps crying at me.

I don't know what she wants.

I fed her. I cuddled her.

But she keeps whining!

Wait.

Now she's stopped.

Still...who knows when she'll start again.  I'm going to get ready for bed.

* * *

New day.

Lots of trucks on our street doing work.

And we lost our garbage and recycling bins in the storm.

Onto Speechless.....

There's a certain mindset that some people have when it comes to disability. This is the idea that disabled people are noble and holier-than-thou. They're special BECAUSE of their disability. They're inspiring.

And then there's the parents of disabled children. They're automate heroes. We're supposed to watch what they endure and the courage they display; then feel grateful for our own lives.

Speechless throws all that out the window. And sometimes the show even pokes fun at it.

JJ (Micah Fowler) is in a wheelchair and cannot speak. But he's not an inspiring angel glowing with goodness as he passes through his high school halls.

Yeah. He's kind of sweet...just like any non-villain male teen character on television.  And he's also a little shit sometimes (like most non-villain male teen characters)

In the most recent episode I watched (non-Chun-written), JJ lies to Kenneth, his aide (Cedric Yarbrough), telling him he left his history paper at home.  He needs Kenneth to go retrieve it.

What JJ really wants is for Kenneth to leave school so he can sneak his way into a poker game.

And then in the poker game, JJ manages to lose his wheelchair.

Yeah. Nice kid but also sneaky and irresponsible.

In a season 2 episode, JJ fakes interest in visiting a college campus. But he's not interested in higher education.  The truth is, a movie is being filmed there— a trashy film that exploits women.

Oh! And I see...Chun wrote that one.  Very cool.

As for the special-needs parents thing....

JJ's mother, Maya, (Minnie Driver) is an obnoxious yet endearing helicopter mom. She often finds it challenging to give JJ the room to grow and be independent.

All in all, I'd say if you want a heartwarming show that will inspire you, Speechless is NOT for you. But if you want a funny show with quirky, fun characters, you might love Speechless.

I'm going to glance at the episodes that Chun wrote and see if any memories and/or insights jump out at me.

Well...no. Nothing really is. Or maybe I just feel I've said enough about Speechless for now.

* * * 

Now I'm going to do some Googling. Maybe I can find some articles or interviews with Chun.

I'm going to concentrate on things related to The Office and Speechless, because those are the shows that mean the most to me. That might be selfish. But this is MY blog. So...there.

Write your own post about Daniel Chun if your thing is Grandfathered...or The Simpsons.

Oh! You know what. I might also want to know more about that TV movie that got a super low rating.  

You know what. Maybe I'll start there.  

According to this article, Delores and Jermaine was actually an ABC TV pilot.  

The description says:

Based on comedian Jermaine Fowler’s real-life experience, this comedy finds lazy-yet-inventive millennial Jermaine moving in with his strict, football-obsessed grandmother, who also happens to be a former cop. Fowler will co-write with Daniel Chun

The premise doesn't sound bad to me.

Here's an article about Chun in a Harvard publication.  It answers my earlier question about whether Chun planned to be a writer.  They say, For Chun, comedy writing has always been the game (with a degree in biological anthropology on the side).

You know what I like imagining? That he decided to be a writer but not major in writing; instead learn some random thing.Then he wrote down a bunch of majors and picked one randomly out of a hat.

Chun is Korean-American.  I wasn't sure if he was Korean or Chinese. Names like Chang and Kim are easy for me. Beyond that....I'm ignorant.

Wait. Chang IS Chinese, right?

Yes. From what I see on Google. It is. Though I'm also seeing stuff about Korean.

Oh well.

Chun grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. The article says it's near the fictional town of Scranton.

I thought Scranton was real!!!????

Okay. Googled again.

Scranton IS real.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the writer.  His exact quote:
Chun, who is Korean-American, grew up in a small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania not far from The Office’s fictional home of Scranton.

I guess he means it's fictional in the sense that there's no real office. But I think it's understood that a fictional show is not going to have a REAL home. Maybe it would have been better to say, Scranton, the setting of The Office.

Reading more.....

Chun became interested in writing in seventh or eighth grade.

That's around the same time I became interested in writing!

Although it seems maybe Chun had other dreams besides writing. He had Dead Poet's Society aspirations. He wanted to be a super popular teacher with lots of people at his funeral.

I don't think I've ever had big funeral fantasies.

He wrote for a Harvard comedy publication called Lampoon. That's not related to National Lampoon. Is it?

Oh! Wow. Lord Wiki says National Lampoon is a spin-off of the Harvard publication.  I kind of pictured the opposite—like the Harvard publication was inspired by National Lampoon.

Further down in the article, Chun explains why he chose biological anthropology.  He felt he didn't need a lot of writing training, and it didn't really matter what he studied. So he just went for something that sounded interesting.

Chun was friends with BJ Novak. That helped his career a bit.

I think he was very fortunate.

It doesn't seem like he had much of a struggling period. He went from Harvard to Los Angeles and quickly got an agent.

I'm not jealous or anything.

Not at all.

Though wait. I just read further down.  Chun says, It never happens as quickly as that. I mean, it felt like forever just because I was young and unemployed and terrified, but I realize in hindsight how lucky I am that it came together quickly.

That makes sense. I think there are times where things are really scary because we don't know if it's going to work out and how long it will take to work out...if it IS going to work out.

Like right now I'm terrified about selling our house. It's going to feel like forever, because the unknown is so scary. What if takes years to sell our house? What if we never sell it?  What if we're one of those cases where we're stuck with our house and it keeps getting listed and re-listed.

It's hard when you don't know if things are going to work out or not.

It's nice, though, when you can look back and think, Cool. Things actually ended up working out very well.

We're about to eat dinner. So I will continue reading the article later. It's longer than I expected. Though not as long as this damn blog post.

* * *  

I'm back.

We ate dinner.

And now I have this Nashville song going through my head.

I love that song.

And I'm picturing an alternate reality where I'm a lesbian and marry Juliette Barnes.

But...

Back to Daniel Chun and the Harvard article.

Chun wrote for The Simpsons. Then he got attention from The Office folks by writing a lot of jokes on MySpace. That's really cool.

Speaking of....

The next thing I plan to do for this post is look at Chun's social media. I already glanced at Twitter (before beginning this post).  I think he had some political stuff. HOPEFULLY he's on my side of things.

I'm not very tolerant of the other side these days.

Chun describes Speechless as being not cloying or condescending.

I'm not sure what he means by cloying. But I agree about condescending.  

I had to look up the definition of cloying.  One of the definitions is, excessively sweet or sentimental.  

Yeah. Speechless is NOT that. 

I like what Chun says at the end of the article. You have to stand out, and the way to do that is trying to be special and not just trying to fit in with the rest of what's on TV.

I like it, because I feel sometimes I ACCIDENTALLY do things that are too different. I mean writing-wise.  Like deciding to write a novel in present-tense, because that's accepted these days. But when I finish the novel I realize that all those present-tense novels were FIRST person not third person like mine.

And I don't think anyone else writes long biographical blog posts where they keep talking about themselves.

That being said. If I was going to try to be a TV writer and try to be special—come up with something different. Well...nothing comes to mind.

I don't often think of TV show ideas, though. The only thing I think of, in that regards, is my fantasy of my The Dead are Online becoming a TV show.  I guess that would be different/special because I don't think there is a show yet about dead people being online.  But also my novel has this concept of....a sort of character train?  It's hard to explain but it would be like character A is connected to character B. Character B is connected to Character C.

Well, I should be more specific. OR I shouldn't, because it's too self-indulgent.  But I'm going to do it anyway.

So....

 I have Eugene in Manhattan and he is connected to Jessica in Gainesville. They met while vacationing in Australia.

Jessica is roommates with Taylor from Atlanta. Her whole family has a big part in the novel.

Loretta, in Sydney, is Taylor's aunt.

Christina in Hawaii is Loretta's online friend.

Dennis in San Francisco is Christina's father.

I guess instead of train I could just say it's a seven degrees of separation kind of thing. And each degree has its own storyline.

I think THAT is kind of original.  But also...very expensive. A few weeks ago, I once again had the grand idea to adapt the novel to a screenplay. Then I thought about how it would probably be too expensive to film. There are too many locations. But not only that, I have scenes in popular tourist attractions (tourist traps, really).  I think it would be hard to do that. And super expensive.

It's hard enough being hopeful enough to fantasize about ANY filmmaker finding my screenplay and wanting to turn it into a TV show.  But to hope for one who has a big budget?

Easier to fantasize about my lesbian wedding with Juliette Barnes or stealing the heart of Lucifer Morningstar.

And....

There's also the one where Tim announces that we're moving to Australia, London, or Tokyo.

* * * 

Should I start on Twitter, or should I try to find another article or interview?

Well, maybe I'll start with Twitter, and if I'm still wanting to learn more about Daniel Chun, I'll try to find more stuff.

Chun has been on Twitter since July 2008.

How long have I been on?  

Checking...

Since November 2008.

So Chun got there a few months before I did.

Like a proper blue-checked celebrity, Chun has more followers than he's following—17.7k and 726

I'm going to try to find Chun's first Tweet. I'm looking for advice on how to do that via Google.

Problem: I can't even find the advanced search option.  I have done this before...I mean I've used advanced search.  Did they change things? Or was I smarter in the past?

Okay. Sorry. I give up.

Maybe they're trying to make it harder for people to search old Tweets—avoid the drama of, You said something offensive 10 years ago!

No. You know. I think it's a problem with my laptop, actually.  

It's not scrolling down where it needs to scroll down.

I guess I'll just look at recent Tweets.

Chun's first Tweet is a Retweet about an auction selling a cast picture from The Office.

The auction is to raise money for a PTA.  Dixie Canyon?  

It's an elementary school in Sherman Oakes, California.  I like them, because they do STEAM instead of STEM. The A is for the Arts.  

I like that. Sometimes the over-emphasis on math, science, and technology annoys me. I know those things are super important. But some people are better at art stuff...and that's important too.  

Chun's next 

On April 24, Chun Tweeted about someone named Damien Lillard. I think it's sports related?

Okay. Yeah. Damien Lillard is a basketball player.

So now we know that Chun follows basketball.

Chun has a Tweet on April 20 that goes way over my head. He says,  

Hell yeah, I for one am pumped for a fall TV season where the guy who did The Slap and a guy who just thought an avocado toast joke was worthy of a CALLBACK each have fifteen shows.

Is he being sarcastic? 

It kind of sounds like it.

The only thing that is familar to me in that Tweet is The Slap.  I wonder if he's referring to the Australian version or the American one.

Okay. And I also know what avocado toast it. It's just I'm clueless about the joke.

* * *

I just realized I was looking at Tweets and not Tweets with replies.

Now I'm looking at the replies.

On April 20, Chun tried to watch a PPV event and it wasn't working. So he was complaining to their customer service about that.

I've complained many times on Twitter. 

Sometimes it feels like it's the only way to get the company to listen to you.  

Here's a dramatic Tweet from Chun: incredibly damning of CAA that they represent the hack who wrote that dogshit letter.

I saw something before (maybe in the Harvard article) about some kind of fight between writers and....

I think this is related to that.

I'm guessing The Slap/Avocado toast Tweet is related as well.

Maybe the creator of The Slap is on the opposite side of the fight?

What is the CAA?  

Oh!

Thanks, Google. It's the Creative Artists Agency.

What's going on there??

Chun has a Retweet from Matt Pearce. And Pearce quotes from a piece written by Mary McNamara.  

It seems writers were unhappy with their agents, so they fired them.

Here's the actual article. I'm going to read that.

The main fight is between the Writers Guild of America and Association of Talent Agents.

The ATA did something that the WGA didn't like. I don't understand it—something to do with packaging?  

Then the WGA instructed their writers to fire their agents. They also made plans to sue four agencies.

In response, the ATA told its agents to keep a list of the writers working without an agent. And they said that this was illegal.

Really? There's a law against working without an agent?  I kind of just thought it was a very rigid tradition—one that people very rarely stray from.

I think one of the big things in the article is that the ATA told the WGA that, without agents, there'll be chaos. This sounds pretty manipulative to me.  

Too often people try to keep up their own sense of self-importance by scaring others into believing things will turn to shit if they (the manipulator) is not around.  

It reminds me of doctors who insist that you don't Google or read medical books, because THEY are your doctor, and you should listen only to them. They don't want educated patients, because...I guess it makes them feel less powerful? Less needed?  That...why did they go to medical school if they could have just watched a season of The Good Doctor?

I'm skipping over several Tweets—just kind of reading through them.

I see that Chun IS anti-Trump...which is good. I kind of expected that. But it's nice to have it confirmed.

On April 12, Chun Tweeted. I know that statistically, a workplace in Scranton should have many Trump voters. But then again, they were all close friends with a gay Latino.

I don't really think that matters. I think there are probably many Trump supporters who have Latino friends, black friends, gay friends, etc.

I think it goes with the mindset of, you're one of the good ones.

That being said, hopefully SOMETIMES friendships, coworkers, etc. do make people less Trumpy.

It's just I have Trump supporters in my life. And it's not like their life is full of white friends and white acquaintances only.

Oh wait. There's a whole conversation about who in The Office would support Trump.  A guy named David Byler has all these theories about who would vote for who.

He says Andy would vote for Trump but lie and tell people he voted for Hillary.

Pam went for Clinton and is now for Beto. I can picture that.

I mean not that I can't picture the Andy thing. But I don't WANT to picture it.

Dwight is a Republican that supports Trump and is involved in a local Pennsylvania Dutch party.

Oscar voted for Sanders but is now undecided.

Undecided about what? The primary? Which democratic candidate he likes?

Anyway....Chun Tweets back that he disagrees about Dwight and also Andy.

It's scary and sad imagining our favorite characters as Trump supporters.

Here's a Tweet with Chun announcing that he directed an episode of Speechless.

I think I forgot to talk about his directing stuff.

Oops.

But...anyway I shall probably watch the episode in the next weeks.

I love this Tweet—Chun responding to a Tweet by Beto O'Rourke.

Beto says: The unprecedented concentration of wealth, power and privilege in the United States must be broken apart. Opportunity must be fully shared with all. We must all have the opportunity to succeed. Together. As one country.

Chun's reply: How would you do this?

And Beto never replied.

The sense I'm getting from Chun is that he's anti-Trump but also tough on democrats.

We need actual plans; not just smoke blown up our ass.

And this together-one country stuff.

We ARE one country.

And we fight and we disagree. Often we hate each other.

That's what countries do.

There's never going to be a time where we all agree and get along.

Even if extraterrestrials invade and plan to eat us.  Because some people are going to side with the aliens.

Here's a Tweet about a K-pop related episode of Speechless. Chun says, this is the Korean-est episode of TV I've ever made.

He also says that some of the actors on the show are better with Korean pronunciation than he is.

Our family is part Korean—more biologically than culturally.  Well Tim DID cook Korean on Monday night; then Tuesday we went to a Korean bowl restaurant. Does that count for something?

I think twice I bought Tim Korean language lessons. He didn't really use it much.

And I think in the beginning of our relationship I tried to learn Korean.

Jack has worked on it. He's really into languages. We both hang out on Duolingo a lot. Do they have Korean?

Right now I'm working on Spanish and French. Jack had this idea of getting through the first checkpoint of every language. I loved the idea, so I'm doing it too. But I've been doing French full-time since like...2016?  I'm going to continue with that.  I mean I'm going to do all the French and not just to the first checkpoint.

Wait. One more thing.

Tim has made Kimchi. That's very Korean. So we should get points for that. Though he doesn't bury it in the yard or anything exciting like that.

Well...I'm scrolling through Tweets and feel like I should comment on them. But I'm too lazy.

I think that's a clue that it's time for me to finally end this post.

So...bye.

See you next time!


P.S-After finishing writing this post, I went to check my texts. There was a message from the realtor asking if he could bring someone over to see the house at 4:00. It was almost close to three.  I had to rush like crazy to get things together. Like I said before, our house is very clean lately. But there are so many last minute things! 

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Read my novel: The Dead are Online