I had big plans for today's post but I just can't Monday today. Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong, and I just need to plug into Animal Crossing: New Horizons for a few hours and decompress.

And speaking of Animal Crossing...

My terraforming efforts to reshape my island into something I can live with is proceedingly nicely. This is an island map that I drew up last night in order to plan how everything fits together and so I could figure out where all my residents and buildings have to move...

I was originally going to build a literal Disneyland... which you can kinda see from the arrangement of my map. But without a train to circle it all, the endeavor seemed pointless so I went my own way...
      City of Daveport was Main Street
      Lord Dave Island was the "Hub"
      Brick Beach was Tomorrowland
      Dutch Gardens was Adventureland
      Cemetery was New Orleans Square ("Liberty Square" in WDW)
      Museum Square was Fantasyland
      Forest Park was Frontierland... etc.

And my original inspiration (which is actually "Magic Kingdom" from Walt Disney World)...

It's changed quite a lot since my original idea. You can still kinda sorta see where it was though.

And, with that, I'm off to Fantasyland. Or, er, "Museum Square" as it were.

It's funny the things you miss.

Today I had a massive craving for these date-filled soft oatmeal cookies I used to eat as a kid. I haven't had them in at least a decade... maybe two... I'm not even sure if they sell them any more. Usually I would hop in my car and head to the grocery store so I could see if I could find them. But I'm trying to be a good citizen and stay socially quarantined, so I just added them to my grocery list for when I'm out of food and am forced to go get more.

In lieu of the cookies I had some Eggo toaster-waffles.

It's weird to think that we're a month into quarantine and there's still weeks to go if we want to keep from overrunning our hospitals with people dying from the Cornavirus. Every time I turn around there's some promising news about vaccine trials or drugs that may help with recovery... but it's all hypothetical until it isn't, so it's not like quarantine is ending tomorrow.

The thing I find both surprising and totally not surprising is all these churches encouraging their parishoners to break quarantine and go to church. I guess filling that donation plate is more important than keeping people safe. It wouldn't bother me so much if we could somehow tag these people so that if they end up catching COVID-19 and need hospitalization they can be denied for being fucking assholes. That would free up hospital beds for those in need who didn't actively try to get infected.

Unless...

Well I guess that's all she wrote for the Coronavirus!

And it's about time. I really want some of those cookies.

I have tried and tried and tried to wear watches. Thanks to my bony arms, I just can't do it. They are bulky and uncomfortable and I never seem to be able to get used to having one on me. I have one watch that my sister gave me which I love and wear on special occasions, but that's it.

As you can imagine, this is incredibly frustrating because I would love to have an Apple Watch. They look to be an incredible tool and I am really interested in the heart rate monitor (which can detect irregular rhythms) and ECG functionality.

Problem is that I know what would happen if I got one. I would buy it... try to get used to it... fail... then end up selling it. Which is what happened with my Pebble watch (remember them?). That's an expensive experience to relive.

It might be easier if Apple Watch were thinner so it didn't stick up so much. Or narrower so I could bend my wrist without noticing it so much. But all that power comes with a need for hefty real estate, so that's probably not happening any time soon.

But I still want one.

Enter Wyze Band.

Wyze is a company that makes some cheap technology products which also happen to be very, very good. Their cameras are so amazing that they seem almost too good to be true. I have a half-dozen of them that I use to supplement my wired and wireless security system. And because they're just $20, they are the cameras I also glue to the top of the cat shelters I build so I can keep an eye on Fake Jake...

I also have Wyze Plugs (smart internet-controlled electrical plugs), Wyze Bulbs (smart lightbulbs), and Wyze Sense (motion and contact sensors for home security). If I didn't already have smart-locks on my doors, I'd absolutely be buying Wyze Locks. And that's not all... Wyze recently released a Wyze Scale (which I'll be reviewing later) and Wyze Band. And since it was just $25, I thought I might as well get it. If, for no other reason, to see if I could train myself to wear it so that maybe I'd be more confident in buying an Apple Watch.

As with all Wyze products, it's really good quality. It's thick, which I have trouble with, but it's also pretty narrow, which I like...

The Wyze Band itself has a clock (of course) plus heart, sleep, and activity monitors, a running monitor, Alarms, smart home controls, and Alexa built-in. For $25, it's pretty darn capable. And stylish. To a point. Unlike Apple Watch which is designed to be as smooth as possible, Wyze Band had all kinds of seams and nooks and crannies which can collect dust and dirt. The seam around the display is pretty big (relatively) and would have really benefitted from being made flush, as mine started getting dust in it almost immediately.

Controlling all the Wyze Band functions is pretty straight-forward. You use swipes and taps to move between apps, and there's a small "home bar" at the bottom of the screen which is used to exit apps (short press) or activate Alexa (long press). The Alexa integration is pretty incredible if a bit flaky (it uses your phone's cellular data connection to get to the internet). I can tell Wyze Band to turn on a light at my home when I'm away... it will work just fine and I can see the light turn on... but it will respond with ""Sorry, I don't understand" even though it obviously did. I have no idea why the feedback is so poor when the implementation is working great, but maybe that will be addressed in an update. Regular Alexa functions... like asking a question... works flawlessly every time...

There is a "Shortcut" feature which allows you to bundle a bunch of actions into a single command. Right now you don't have a lot of options here... it's only other Wyze products which can be input... but I'd imagine there will be more options in the future.

The heart rate monitor seems capable, though I can't really vouch for its accuracy without having an actual heart rate monitor to compare it with. I have a relatively high resting heart rate (I seriously need to start exercising) so this feature is appealing. Though I don't know if there are any alerts if there's a problem. You can measure your heart rate on demand from Wyze Band, or look at your reading trend all graphed out on the Wyze iPhone app.

The "Steps" feature will count the number of steps you take... kinda like a FitBit. I'm not terribly interested in this (though I should be!) but it seems kinda-sorta-accurate from what I can tell. Wave your arm around enough and you'll be getting "steps" without getting up from the couch, but the margin of error for stuff like that is probably small if you are actually going for walks and such.

There is a "Find" feature which will play a tone on your iPhone when you can't find it... though you have to (obviously) be in bluetooth range for it to work. You can also use your iPhone to find your Wyze Band, but it's almost useless because all the Wyze Band can do is vibrate since it doesn't have a speaker. No idea how you're supposed to "hear" a vibration happening between the couch cushions, but it's there if you want it.

The last function for Wyze Band is a weather app. At first I found it pretty useless because I had to scroll through several other apps to get to it, but once I found out that I could rearrange them, it was a lot more useful. If there were a way of displaying the time on the weather app, that would become my default screen. It seems silly that this isn't an option, because the main clock face has a huge swatch of unused space in the middle! A big blue worthless blobby thing that could be displaying information! (I customized it to be a photo of my cats instead of the blue blob). I dunno. Maybe there's a way to make this happen and I just haven't found it yet?

There are some down-sides, however. First of all, I've read that unless the Wyze app is running on your phone, the Alexa integration fails. Since my iPhone doesn't seem to have a way of forcing an app to stay running in the background, I'm assuming that iPhone will close it out due to inactivity at some point, and Alexa will be gone until I restart. Another problem is that Apple Health integration was promised to work out of the box. But after failing to figure out how to make this happen, I see that it's "coming soon." Well, BOOOOOOOOO! I'm increasingly loving how Apple Health integrates with my health chart at my doctor's office so he can monitor my activity any time he thinks he needs to do so. Adding the heart rate data was a big selling point for Wyze Band to me.

Another down-side is the iPhone app. On the tiny screen of the Wyze Band, the visual interface is pretty good. Easy to navigate and operate. But on my iPhone, which has a much bigger screen and touch-surface area, they decided to not take advantage of any of that real estate... instead they inexplicably just blow up the watch's interface...

This makes absolutely NO sense. Just give me my damn data! Don't wrap it up in a cutesy interface that has no damn business being on a phone! There's is no reason... absolutely none... for Wyze to have done this other than they could. It makes no logical sense why you would force people to swipe and tap through all this crap when you have plenty of room for something better, and I hope to God that they revisit this in an app update.

In the end, Wyze Band is a fairly impressive product for just $25. More of a FitBit competitor than an Apple Watch competitor, it's good at what it's designed to do and yet another feather in the cap for Wyze. Considering a FitBit is minimum four times the price, it's hard not to recommend Wyze Band if you're in the market for "smart band."

Will this lead to me eventually getting an Apple Watch? That's the goal. Right now I am mostly able to ignore Wyze Band, which is a good start. Whether that will be the case long-term I honestly don't know.

I worked extra hours over the weekend and through Wednesday so I could take the rest of the week off. It's time for my seasonal cleaning ordeal to prepare for Spring houseguests. This year, thanks to COVID-19 quarantining, I won't be having any houseguests until June or July, at earliest, but I still want to get a jump on my filthy home.

Well... it's filthy to me. It's not like I ever let my house get overrun with dirt and grime. It's just the little things that bug me. Walls need to be wiped down... rooms need to be torn apart so I can scrub the floors... books and furniture needs to be pulled out and cleaned... windows need to be washed... that kind of thing. I decided today I would jump on the kitchen when I fed the cats at 7:00am, then work my way to the living room.

I went back to bed after feeding Jake and Jenny, then slept and lounged aroud until 10:00am. Then ate a late breakfast. Then read a book on world mythology.

I wanted to beat myself up over wasting half my day, but I so rarely get time to do what I want that I decided to congratulate myself instead. Cleaning can commence tomorrow.

Originally I was going to have my Quarantino Double Feature be Tarantino's Grindhouse: Death Proof with Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse: Planet Terror (since they were originally released that way), but I was anxious to get to Inglourious Basterds, so I resisted...

Now, Death Proof is just an excuse to have a car chase with tons of stunts worked into it. There's not a lot of brainpower that the viewer has to summon. Kurt Russell is a sadistic bastard who picks a fight with the wrong women. Zoë Bell, cars, and violence ensue. Surprisingly, as is the case with most of Tarantino's films, dickhead reviewers based their critiques on what the film WAS NOT instead of WHAT IT IS. Go in with the proper mindset, and it's just a fun thrill ride that's a terrific movie experience to have. Go in expecting Shakespeare and you're just an idiot. Not my favorite Tarantino flick, but I do like it a lot.

Inglourious Basterds, on the other hand, is escapist revisionist history cinematic genius. I love this film to an unhealthy degree. I've seen it at least twenty times. After Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, it's likely my favorite Quentin film. But there are days I like Basterds better than both of them. From the gorgeous cinematography and brilliant performances to the fantastical story and crackling dialogue. It's the complete Tarantino package all wrapped up in a war movie, and an experience I never get tired of. God bless Christof Waltz for giving Quentin his movie.

And God bless us all as the Coronavirus death toll keeps climbing. Due to our complete lack of preparation and our government completely ignoring and denying what was happening, the deaths here in the USA yesterday were double the worst daily death toll from the flu. And we're just getting started. The highly contagious nature of COVID-19 along with extended incubation period and overall lethalness... not to mention dumbass governors who are still not quarantining the public at large to prevent spreading... are all going to make sure of it.

My mom loved peanut butter. She would be happy to eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and dinner every day. When her memory was failing her, I saw her eat them for breakfast on more than one occasion. Whenever she was bored and hungry, a peanut butter sandwich was her go-to snack. I once remember her laughing while reading an article out loud to me which had somebody saying that peanut butter breaks down after three months and shouldn't be eaten. For a jar of peanut butter to last her more than two weeks was a rarity.

After I had to move her out of the house, I threw out a jar with a few spoonfuls left in the bottom and stopped buying peanut butter.

That was almost four years ago.

Yesterday when I was buying groceries for a friend's mom, one of the items on her list was peanut butter. It sounded delicious after so long not having it, so I bought a jar. Mom preferred creamy JIF, but she would buy Extra Crunchy JIF too because she was happy to eat it as an occasional change of pace and knew that it was what I preferred.

And, oh yeah, that loaf of bread I bought yesterday? I thought I would try the new Franz "Keto" bread in case I couldn't find flour to bake my own. But before I stuck the loaf in the the freezer, I pulled out two slices and put them in a baggie to give it a try with lunch today. People were raving about the stuff, so why not? Well, to start with, there's the $6 price tag. Secondly, the loaf is a small.

Turns out there's a third reason why not... it tastes like crap.

Maybe it's because I'm used to the delicious breads I bake, but this dry, tasteless, boring "Keto" bread was awful. Don't get me wrong... if you can't have carbs, it's definitely better than nothing... but I will not be buying it again, that's for sure. Even when loaded with tons of Extra Chunky JIF peanut butter I had a tough time choking it down.

As tonight is my third night of Quentin Quarantino I watched the next two films in his catalog... Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2...

Likely one of the most stylish revenge flicks ever put to film, Kill Bill features Uma Thurman hacking her way through her former fellow assassins until she gets to her former boss, Bill. It's a brilliant and bloody spectacle with amazing fight sequences. The movie features cool wire-work which gives it a magical quality... but not so much that it feels surreal. The dialogue is pure Tarantino and, because he decided to cut the movie in two rather than cut down on the dialogue, it makes for a good balance.

Like the balance between my delicious homemade bread and this here JIF peanut butter I'm eating while blogging.

Can't believe I waited four years.

Today I was discussing an article about how Hollywood predicted a pandemic happening a decade ago. "Ten years seems like a lifetime ago. I don't even remember what I was doing back then... do you?"

The first thought that entered my head was "I barely know what I was doing a week ago!" The second thought was "Finally! My blog is actually good for something!" Because all I have to do is call up Blogography on my iPhone and there it is... on March 26, 2010 I was in Prague visiting the Hard Rock Cafe. And boy was that a great trip. Prague is one of the most beautiful cities on earth and I'm really grateful to have been able to visit...

Meanwhile, back in the plague-ridden future of today...

I've been pleasantly surprised to see the many authors, artists, filmmakers, and other creative types releasing their works to the public so everybody has distractions to keep them occupied while coronovirus-quarantined. One of my favorite discoveries has been a "Free Movie of the Week" over at Oh You Pretty Things. Last week was the documentary Helvetica, which was great. And now they are streaming Objectified through Monday. It's a documentary about designers and the objects they create for us. The draw for me was Jonathan Ive (formerly of Apple fame), but everybody in it is interesting. And the little stories around the objects being discussed are fantastic. You can watch it for free through Monday. Highly recommended.

Stay safe, y'all.

My life has become a delicate balancing act between taking enough Benadryl to keep post-nasal drip down so I'm not coughing my head off... and enough caffeine to stay awake so I can work. Too much Benadryl and I'm unconscious. Too much caffeine and I won't be sleeping at night. Not enough of either and I'm non-functional. It's a tough spot to be in, I tell you what.

Any time not spent trying to stay awake enough to work is spent trying to stay awake enough to catch up on television and play Animal Crossing: New Horizons (a game I think I've played long enough to comment on in a semi-review post on Friday). And hang out with my cats, of course. But that's something they feel they can do while I'm asleep. I keep waking up to find them sleeping next to me. Awwwww.

I maintain that cats have a sixth sense and know when something is wrong. Whether they are looking to be comforting or are looking to be comforted doesn't really matter... I'm awfully glad to have my furry companions at a time when I'm living my life in a Benadryl-induced haze while trying to self-isolate.

Not that I'm knocking my Benadryl-induced haze, mind you. It's dulling down the horrors of a world gone to shit, and that's kinda nice.

As I celebrate my birthday in self-imposed isolation, I've decided that I'm too old to learn new stuff. And definitely too old to remember old stuff. I'm just going to stick to the bare minimum of stuff I need to bumble through life in the now.

I came to this life-changing new direction as I was talking to a friend who called to wish me a Happy Birthday. I was trying to remember the word "blender" and ended up saying "The thing that goes BZZZZRRRR BZZZZRRRR... you know, the drinky mixy upper thingy!" And then... THEN... I got to "clothes steamer," couldn't think of it, and ended up calling it "the PSHHHH PSHHHH thingy."

Welcome to my new onomatopoeia life.

"Onomatopoeia" meaning that you name something by what it sounds like.

So from now on, Jake and Jenny will be called "meow meows" and Alka Seltzer will be called "bloop-de-bloop fzzhhhhh." Which is pretty much what it's called anyway thanks to those "plop plop fizz fizz" commercials.

See? We're halfway there!

Now, if you're excuse me, I am going to celebrate my special day by playing games on the "pew pew bloop bloop."

Happy Birthday to me.

I think I've completely given up on being worried about what the future may bring. I'm just going to roll with life day to day and see what happens. Worst case scenario is that I die broke, penniless, and alone while living on the street. If I end up with anything more than that, I'll consider it a gift.

Because, in all honesty, do I have any other option?

No. No I do not.

So why waste my sanity worrying about it?

I'm exhausted from being exhausted.

As I probably mentioned once or twice... or a hundred times... I have killer seasonal allergies. They are pretty harsh in the Fall when all the vegetation is rotting. Summer is marginally annoying, but I don't notice it any more. Winter is my least favorite season, but the absolute best time for my allergies.

Spring... what's happening right now... is my favorite season. I love Spring.

But my allergies are at their absolute worst.

I survive it by taking more Benadryl than is probably healthy. It's the only thing that works despite it making me drowsy. Every day at work it's a fight between the allergy meds putting me to sleep and the caffeine in Coke Zero keeping me awake. At home I stop taking pills and happily cough my head off.

Today I left the office early to work at home because I was already tired, and taking another Benadryl would have done me in. I managed to work through the coughing for a couple hours before my lungs ached and I finally took a Benadryl and a bunch of cough syrup...

...and fell asleep.

Until the alarm to feed the cats... as well as the cats themselves, of course... woke me up at 6:00pm.

After making sure they had their food, I sat down with a grilled cheese sandwich to tide me over until my pizza dough defrosts for dinner. I turn on the television and this commercial is playing...

Isn't that an amazing ad? It's like a Hallmark movie in 30 seconds... but less sappy and more sweet. Man, I love great advertising!

And speaking of Hallmark... I see that they are airing a Christmas movie marathon so people who are self-isolating can re-live memories of a happier time. I've already seen them all, of course, so I'll spend any free time I have playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which releases tomorrow. OR... at midnight tonight, I'm guessing? Yeah, no. The last thing I need to do is become addicted and stay up until 3am playing a game.