Weekend Plans Post: The 4th of July and Stranger Things
Past me scheduled a doctor’s appointment for the Thursday afternoon before the 4th of July weekend and, when I realized that I’d need to take a half day on Thursday anyway, I also took Friday off. So, wow! It’s a long weekend!
Which is good, because it’s packed. I had to (got to) spend Thursday babysitting for a friend, Friday will be spent doing car maintenance and squeezing in a sesh at the climbing gym, Saturday is gaming night, Sunday is Money in the Bank (observed), and Monday is a day grilling meet over at a buddy’s (I should make those little aluminum foil mushroom packs with garlic and butter). Holy cow! I’m going to need a vacation after that.
But that’s all a lot less interesting than Stranger Things Season 2.
I watched all of Season One and was surprised to be enchanted by it. I really liked the kids, I really liked the grownups, I really hated the human antagonists, and I was really freaked out by the non-human ones.
Pulled up Season 2 and was surprised to find that I liked that one too. If I wanted to give a non-spoiler review, I’d say that the first half wasn’t as good as Season One but the second half was better (which surprised me!).
After watching Season One (but before Season Two), I casually mentioned to my buddies that I really liked it, but was troubled by the abandonment of a handful of unresolved plot points. They pursed their lips and told me to keep watching. Well, Season Two tackled the whole issues that I felt were unresolved AND HOW. We got our #JusticeForBarb! Kinda. (The hashtag is still going so there are several who believe that it has not yet been delivered.)
We met the new guy in charge of the lab. Paul Reiser! And we spent the show wondering whether he was Aliens 2 Paul Reiser or Mad About You Paul Reiser. (I admit to enjoying the reveal of which one it turned out to be.)
We had Rudy show up! And we were poised to not like him (or, at least, hold him at arm’s length) but the scene with the maps showed that, no, he was pretty awesome too.
We got a new kid in Mad Max and a new human antagonist in Billy (who I *HATED* but loved every scene he was in).
And Will, who was barely in Season One, STOLE THE SEASON! HOLY COW! The Spy storyline? The eviction scene? Man! I figured that he was left out of Season One mostly because he was the weakest of the four. Dangit, he was the reason to watch Season Two.
And the list of movies that we were made to flash back to was long… Children of the Corn, Aliens, Cujo, Ghostbusters, Goonies, It, C.H.U.D., The Thing, Poltergeist… man. I’m sure I left off a dozen.
And I enjoyed it so very much that I immediately jumped into Season Three.
Well… I’m not going through Season Three as quickly as I went through Season Two. For one thing, it feels like they picked up a couple of new writers who were big fans of The Office or Louie or Girls. “You know that thing where you make the viewers at home cringe? WE SHOULD DO THAT!”, it feels like they’re saying. Seriously, I winced about five times in the first episode. I don’t mind wincing once or twice, mind. But when it comes rapid fire like that, it feels like a deliberate choice.
That said, the moment where we visit the mall and it’s crowded? That felt delightful for a second and then I was sad for a few minutes.
I used to work at the Bazaar Mall in Mount Kisco, New York. You know the thing where Steve let the kids in the back hallway? I used to have to go through a similar back hallway to throw out the trash. Happy sigh.
I’m told that Season Three has some delightful moments in it (I like Steve and Robin. I like them a lot.) but it is, it is acknowledged, the weakest of the four seasons so far.
As such, maybe I’ll try to squeeze another episode or two of that in my weekend as well. (I hope it quits making me cringe so g-darn often.)
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is
#JusticeForBarb, indeed! Season 3 is, indeed, the weakest of the four, but in exchange we get Steve and Robin and we love them.
A lot of reading and doing nothing and avoiding social media for the weekend for me. A wrestling PPV (observed), you say? How would one get himself invited to such an event, pray tell?
Really looking forward to gaming tonight. I’ve been reading the book (which could be bad) and I like the game so much I bought a copy of it for oldest boy and his gaming group for his birthday (which is today). I’m going to take him out for his first “legal” beer after he gets off work tonight.Report
One of the things that I genuinely did not see coming was how Steve would become not just a recurring character but actually a big part of the showReport
The reluctant Paladin.Report
Maribou said that her favorite line of his was “I’m a crappy boyfriend but an excellent babysitter.”Report
Yeah, I thought that Steve would be locked into the Nancy/Billy storylines. Leaking out into the Mike/Will/Dustin/Lucas storylines was a pleasant surprise.Report
My own impression is that Steve’s character changed (as did Nancy’s) from Season 1, which is fine. I didn’t like those characters or their storyline. With such a large cast though, inevitably there are multiple storylines of varying quality/interest and characters might be stuck in the wrong storyline for most of a season. This is probably most pronounced in Season 4 so far. Someone could probably go through and identify each character’s peak storyline.Report
We’re picking up our son from the St. Louis airport this evening from two weeks in Ireland/UK with a school group. We’re going to the Union Station shopping mall which has a new aquarium that we’ll check out. I have not been to the Union Station for a long time, and thought it might have been in decline in terms of shops. Beautiful old building, with lots of restaurants/bars, but suspect putting in an aquarium to add to foot traffic still meant fewer shops. But we wanted a place to hang out in the area given we’re not sure if the planes are running on time. His plain left Heathrow on time despite a lot of articles about how its a mess there.Report
Oh, delightful. If I remember my last trans-atlantic trip correctly, he’ll either be sleepwalking or won’t be ready to sleep for two days.
We have two malls here in town. One is the Mos Eisley Cantina and the other one is Canto Bight.
Which is sort of depressing because, back in the 90’s, they were both the bomb diggity.Report
We labeled the malls as such: The south mall is the “enlisted mall” while the north mall is the “officer mall.”Report
Whelp, it turns out that the aquarium swallowed the mall. The facility seems to be doing well, it’s just that it used to be a mixed use entertainment/shopping venue (more for out-of-towners really), but now its just entertainment and dining. Aquarium was nice, but not Mall of America nice.Report
1st: Going to see Kurt Elling sing at a small venue tonight. Very excited about this.
2nd: Working on the Adirondack chair
3rd: Dinner with my former bandmates, and still good friends
4th: Family picnic, which I’ve been going to for as long as I’ve been alive. Then coming home and listening to my neighbors blow up money.Report
Kurt Elling with his Superblue group was incredible. If you get a chance, buy a ticket.
All chair pieces rough cut.Report
The Big Big Big boss (I suspect after seeing the data on Time-Off and Churn over the past two years — see, we have ‘unlimited’ vacation which amounts to passive aggressive: not as much vacation) announced that Sales will get an extra day off each quarter. The other Big Big Boss declared it to be this Tuesday the 5th … so 4-day weekend!
I gave my team the afternoon off (not because I can) but under the Aristotelian theory of Virtue that it was better for their souls for me to give them what they would otherwise take.
We don’t have anything planned… hoping the weather holds to sit around the pool, do minor projects, and maybe a little property maintenance.Report
Funny, NO one took vacation during covid at my last job. Mngt was so concerned that in ’21 there would be MASSIVE waves of people taking two or more months off and that production would grind to a halt. They were almost panicked.Report
Yeah, under our old vacation policy, ’20-’21 would have been a great way to bank 8-12 weeks of vacation time for the future.
But that’s what’s ‘cool’ about unlimited vacation, when you don’t take any you aren’t owed any… but hey what’s there to owe, you have UNLIMITED VACATION (not including the fine print).
Which is why I find that the mandated ‘extra’ day off is funny (in a good way) because if we’re all taking the day off, then you too have to kinda take the day off too. It’s a micro FORCED vacation – which we all probably need – have you seen the churn and time-off data from ’20-’21?
I took one week in ’20-’21 (last August) … and will take one week later this July… but given my seniority, I really should be taking two-weeks; that’s two weeks per quarter. But other than the Camino trip in 2019, I’ve never taken more than 8-days in a row. Maybe in 2023.Report
One of my friends had an experience with “UNLIMITED VACATION”, in practice, was that people would just take a 3-day weekend whenever they felt they needed one and then, on top of that, feel *ENTITLED* to a week off at Christmas and a week off in August! Well, management put the kibosh on that. It was quickly established that it was Two Weeks unless you’d been there for long enough that it was Three Weeks.
AT WHICH POINT DEVELOPERS STARTED QUITTING
My job still has you accrue vacation in one bucket and sick in another. I couldn’t be happier.Report
Atlanta Swim Association championships. Church picnic. Hiking. Neighborhood bike parade. Watching fireworks with friends.
Ain’t that America. ❤️Report
Kicked the weekend off with an impressive 45-minute thunder, lightning, and blowing sheets of rain show last evening. (Got a total of an inch of rain, which we could use. Yay, early monsoon.) Did 20 miles on the bicycle this morning. It felt like there’s some chance my legs will eventually get back in shape. A different route overall — sometime in the last year Fort Collins, Loveland, and the county built a mile-and-a-half link connecting the trail systems in the two cities. It’s a holiday weekend so the whole city is full of RVs owned by people that think they’re going to find a space to park up in the mountains.Report
You live in someplace what seems like forever, and you still learn new contemporary things. One of the largest junior/senior high school girls fast pitch softball tournaments in the country is being played along the Front Range for the 20th year from June 27 to July 4. >800 teams, >16,000 players, >600 college coaches scouting. Uses 150 diamonds at 40 different parks/facilities.Report
Stranger Things has the longest TV episode of all time (over two hours long). This bodes well for Season 4.
They botched the brick joke, though — in rather hilarious form.
If you like Stranger Things, I’m recommending Stein’s Gate — and Dark, if you can stand the German.Report