Breaking the schedule

I am definitely too old for this.

The season finale of Loki aired yesterday. Being intrepid followers of the show, my friends and I decided to watch it at midnight, right when the episode becomes available on Disney Plus. That meant gathering on Tuesday evening and hanging out until we can watch the finale.

Sounds great and doable for the college kid, but for a fully-realized adult who goes to sleep at 10:00 PM, I have to say it’s was a struggle. Yesterday - Wednesday, the day after staying up to watch Loki episode six - I felt like crap the whole time because of insufficient sleep. I don’t exactly regret hanging out with friends, but as with everything in life, there’s a trade-off.

Getting a consistent eight hours of sleep, going to bed then wake up at the same time every single day of the week is something I try to follow as best as possible. This is to ensure maximum recovery and energy for the next day. Any (nexus) event that breaks that cycle is something I try to avoid. Just this Monday I was invited to an 8:45 PM movie showing and I declined because I would be breaking my sleep schedule.

Then why did I break it for Loki? Simple, really: the gather was upstairs from when I live. Right after the finale was over, I went directly downstairs and straight to bed, having already showered. Thought it would stave off some of the next-day drowsiness, but the answer was no.

Remember when we could stay up Into the wee hours and then not feel any adverse affects the next day? Those were the days.

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City of Angels.

Oscar party 2019

Much like the Super Bowl, the annual Oscars ceremony is a special occasion for me and my friends to sit in front of the TV and hang out. Of course we haven’t actually watched many of the movies nominated; that isn’t the point. The point is to be together with friends, eat food, and view the telecast with an eye towards humor. Who’s wearing something absurd? Whose acceptance speech went too long and the producers turned off the microphone?

This year’s Academy Awards also had a bit of suspense, because there was no clear front-runner for the Best Picture category; a succinct lack of a La La Land this year (that’s the joke). Heading into the evening, any of the eight nominated movies were liable to win, except for Black Panther, because pandering to popular, culturally-relevant super hero films has its limits. Fans of the MCU should be just happy it got nominated, and nothing more than that.

The surprise was palpable both live in the Dolby Theatre and at our gathering when Green Book was announced as winner of Best Picture. My money was on Roma, and that bet was going swimmingly as the movie won a few of the awards - including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron - throughout the event. I think I can safely say no one had Green Book in their betting pool, and it seems the producers of the film themselves were not expecting the victory.

The response on Twitter was swift and hilarious. People couldn’t believe such a mediocre movie won Best Picture, while so called ‘Black Twitter’ were fed up with being pandered to by old, white Academy members voting for “white savior” movies. Green Book broke the camel’s back because of its historical inaccuracies and the fact the family of the main character portrayed have publicly denounced the movie. Perhaps this would have been a good year for the La La Land - Moonlight mix-up.

Nevertheless, kudos to the guy who won for Production Design: his realization halfway through his partner’s acceptance speech that he wasn’t going to have any time at all to recite his own. What was likely the absolute height of his career and yet not one word in, other than shouting out his crew as the camera cuts away to commercial. Top man.

Also kudos to the winner who wanted to thank her two kids, but only managed to name one. It necessitated her husband to interject and say the name of the other child, who henceforth will forever know - along with anyone that’s watched the Oscars this year - that he is not his mother’s favorite.

There shall be no mistakes.

Boring Super Bowl was boring

Well, that was bit of snoozer, wasn’t it? I’ve been watching the Super Bowl since the ill-fated trashing the Oakland Raiders received at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in 2003, and I cannot think of another game that was less entertaining than the one played last night.

If I’d watch the game by my lonesome, I seriously would have wished to have those four hours back.

But of course I didn’t watch it alone; a huge joy of the Super Bowl is hanging out with friends and or family, and indeed that time spent together is worth its weight in gold, no matter how utterly disinteresting the game may be. Because the game comes secondary, especially when the two teams playing in the Super Bowl are not of your particular rooting interest.

So I had a splendid time chatting with friends, eating some fried chicken, and debating the sordid details of the many Super Bowl commercials (the Microsoft one was the absolute best). I was semi actively rooting against the Patriots because haters are going to hate the most excellent team of this century, but I’m not overtly disappointed at the end result.

If the game could have just been a bit more exciting, honestly.

Best quote of the night award goes to Rams offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth; after the surely displeasing lost in the Super Bowl, he threw out this particular golden nugget:

“At the end of the day, we’re all gonna die.”

Memento mori. Death is the greatest equalizer ever invented. No matter the volume of achievement or depths of downtrodden, it is absolutely guaranteed that we will all end up in the same place: dead. Neither you or I are superior or inferior in that regard. It’s not morbid thinking, but rather motivation to continue on living, no matter the circumstances, like losing the biggest game of your career.

Keep calm and carry on, as the British like to say.

Vine star.