The Fall Television Schedule of My Discontent

     Last week, the preliminary fall network television schedules were announced.  I must admit that I was not that satisfied.  Now, I watch a lot of television, primarily on the major networks.  I watch cable as well, but my cable provider has been eliminating many of my once-favorite channels.  Furthermore, many cable channels don't follow a traditional seasonal schedule, meaning I have very little idea of what the few I still watch on a semi-regular basis will be airing later on this year.  I also don't do streaming.  Even if I had the money to afford the many different options, watching footage on my computer would mean less time for games, so a lose-lose situation.  So, network it is.  Or it was until the latest fall schedules were announced.  The word "bloodbath" was used to describe the massive cancellation of programming.  The CW lost around of half of it shows.  Shows were cancelled that had better ratings than some who stayed.  Comedies were reduced to barely half the airtime they had the previous year, not that I watching many of them anyway.  With the schedules now out,  I am realizing that I might not be watching that much this fall.  Even as recently as last week, I find that I'm leaving the set off for almost an hour some nights, rather than trying to find something I would like to watch.  Even the all-news channels are getting repetitive and boring.  Sometimes, if I just need some background distraction so I can concentrate of something else, I just leave the set on but muted.  Sad, but sometimes it is the only option.  I have made out a preliminary viewing list for the fall, and it is pathetic.  Almost none of the new shows look promising to me.  The main one that I was looking forward too, the Night Court update, is being held to midseason.  Many of my favorite returning shows (The Flash, Superman and Lois, Call Me Kat) are also being held back.  Still, aside from surprises on cable, here is what I'll be watching this fall.  First, Mondays are for NCIS at nine.  Nothing else before or after.  A competition cooking show of Food Network might be an option, but I won't know for sure until fall.  Otherwise, just national news at eight or early local news at ten.  I tried to watch the Hawaii spin-off, but I never got into it.  On Tuesdays, I don't think there is anything worth watching.  There used to be This Is Us, but that ended last night (I cried twice, once at the beginning and once at the end.). I have no idea what I will watch now.  Wednesdays should have The Masked Singer on at eight, but Fox hasn't fully confirmed airdates yet, at least not on the sites I have seen.  Crime Scene Kitchen will also be coming back, but I don't know when.  It was previously on Wednesdays, so I put here.  There is also Stargirl on The CW, but I'm waiting to see if it gets connected more to the rest of the Arrowverse before making a final opinion of it.  Thursdays will have multiple options for me.  NBC has the Law and Order block, although I really only like the first two shows on.  I tried watching the one on at ten, but I always seemed to watch something else.  CBS has Young Sheldon and Ghosts for the eight spot.  I don't hate them, but they are also the only comedies I even halfway like.  Late on, CBS will have CSI:  Las Vegas ( I hope I remembered the full title right).  I loved the original series and spin-offs, and I enjoyed the reboot.  Yes, I missed parts of some episodes, as I was still trying to remember it was on, but I really liked how the season's overall arc played out.  While some stars won't be returning, I am looking forward to how the new season will work.  Fridays are a dead zone, with the only thing I might watch are Whose Line Is It Anyway? reruns on The CW.  It is a pity on how Fridays are starting to lose interest to networks.  Saturdays have nothing.  Literally, it is mostly re-airings of regular programming, sports, or news.  At least there will be Saturday Night Live, at eleven thirty.  Sundays are mostly the same.  I used to watch some of the Fox cartoon Block, mostly The Simpsons, but I got out of the habit years ago and I am finding it hard to get back into it.  So, there is my fall viewing plan.  Just a few years ago, I used to watch at least a few shows on every network.  Now, I am having a hard time finding any on just four of them, leaving ABC out of the plan for the first time in years.  Well, at least I'll be saving electricity by leaving the television off more.

And Now, a Berry Important Word from Our Bloggist

     New food products come out all the time, just as older ones return for limited editions.  Now, I like to try a variety of such products, as I really don't like getting my routine too stale.  I alternate things around as much as I can so I don't become bored with a meal to the point that I don't want to eat it again.  I think I might be a form of "super-taster," not a full-blown one, but somewhat discriminating.  This is one of the reasons why I don't really eat leftovers.  I can taste the difference from the first time, and I find it very off-putting.  Anyway, I tried some new foods this past week, and I wanted to give my opinions on them.  First off there is Dr. Pepper's limited edition 'Dark Berry' flavor tied to the new Jurassic World movie.  Years ago, Dr. Pepper had a similar flavor tied to a Spider-Man movie.  Back then, the flavor was described as a mix of blackberry, black cherry, and black currant.  When I first tried the flavor then, I didn't really like it, but kind of liked the second and third times I tried it.  I can't really remember how it tasted then, so I can't compare it to the current edition.  The first thing I tasted was blackberry.  The pop is very blackberry forward.  Now, I like blackberries, but this flavoring was not subtle, almost too strong.  I also detected hints of other flavorings in further sips.  I can't really place it as black cherry, another of my favorites, but I can't be sure it wasn't in there as well.  I have never tasted anything flavored with black currant, to the best of my knowledge, so I can't say that was one of the flavorings either.  The blackberry was just overpowering any other flavors.  I will try it again, but I doubt I would be a whole carton.  At least the light purple packaging clearly shows the relationship of flavor and color.  The last time this limited edition came out, I'm pretty sure the packaging was a somewhat darker purple.  Next, I tried the newest limited edition flavor of Kit-Kat bars, blueberry muffin.  No chocolate covering at all, unless the blue coating was white chocolate based, but then again, white chocolate isn't 'real' chocolate.  This isn't the first time that a Kit-Kat bar didn't include chocolate.  Last fall, there was a caramel apple flavor, maybe pie-based, I can't remember the details.  I never tried it, but I did this time because I'ma sucker for anything blueberry.  Well, almost everything.  Anyway, I liked it.  The blueberry flavor was pronounced, but not so strong or sweet to overpower the wafer.  The color was unusual, a light blue verging into a lavender purple, but it was appropriate for the flavor.  I don't eat candy bars that often, but I'm seriously considering trying it again.  Finally, I come to a product that I haven't tried yet, and I don't think I will be.  It is one of two Jurassic World tie-in flavors for Cakebites.  The one in question is the blueberry flavor.  For those who don't know the product, Cakebites are basically petite fours, except that two parallel sides are naked.  For the blueberry cake flavor, there is a blue coating with various sprinkles over the three layers of cake.  Two layers are blue, with a white one in between.  Whether that layer is blueberry flavored too is something I am not sure of.  The cake layers are separated by apple jelly.  Now, while I agree that other fruit flavors can work with blueberry (strawberry, yes; lemon, maybe but not greatly), apple isn't really one of them, to me anyway. I doubt I will try this berry product.  Buying a box of such a flavor combination is not something I see coming up.  I just don't think the flavors will pair well enough together, especially with the cake being blueberry flavored.  That is just not a traditional flavor.  I could work, but I think it could taste too artificial to me to ever be something I would like.  At least more than once, and that is not enough of a good reason to buy a whole box of them.  Now, if only someone could hook me up with cherry-vanilla Dr. Pepper.

It's the End of the Game Line for You Kid

     So, this past Sunday, I started a game of Candy Crush on Facebook, only to discover that the 'team' I was on had unlocked a major bonus.  I wasn't really planning to play that much, but with an hour of a bonus, I had to play at least a little.  When I realized that I unlocked a second, half-hour more extensive bonus, I had to play a little longer.  After a few levels, I noticed something strange at the top of the screen. There wasn't any game there.  It turned out that I had almost reached the end of the game.  I thought that there were more levels than the five or six left.  In fact, I thought the game was a lot closer to 12,000 levels than it actually was.  Knowing that I was nearing a six-day winning streak bonus after the daily challenge reset that evening, I had to stop playing.  In fact, I was so busy that night and the next with other things that I was unable to play any new levels until last night.  Today, new levels are supposed to unlock, but they haven't appeared on my game as of this time.  Until they do, I am forced to just log in to receive my various daily bonuses that don't involve playing a level.  This was only the first of many game-related news I received this weekend.  Next, I finally gave in and downloaded my missing issue of Games World of Puzzles.  It was only after I bought the issue that I discovered that I didn't get to download the magazine, only read it online.  Turns out that only the mobile version of the service allows the downloading of the full magazine.  Not only that, but one can only print off two-page spreads from the website version.  This means that if I ever get to a printer, I will have a hard time printing any pages so that I can actually work the puzzles.  Sure, I might be able to take a screenshot of a puzzle to create a format that I could easily work the puzzles on my computer with Markup tools, but there would be major issues with sizing.  Besides, I prefer actually print copies rather than working a puzzle on a screen.  At least I got some good news Monday.  I was finally able to call someone at the subscription fulfillment center and found out that the missing issues were finally shipping, although I should have already gotten one of them over a month ago.  I might have to order a copy directly from the publisher again if I don't get that missing issue soon, as the new issue appears on newsstands next week and I don't think I would have time to get a copy from the nearest store in time before it is taken off the stands.  Then, I got conformation that the current publisher of a favorite RPG line no longer works through my bookstore's primary distributor.  This means that I will have to look to other places to buy any physical copies.  I just ordered one last December, so the change must have happened fairly recently.  For all of those who don't remember, one of the reasons why I chose to open a bookstore when my mother forced me to start my own business was so that I could a have a steadier supply of these products whenever I faced shipping problems from my local game store.  Wouldn't you know it, but my primary distributor when I opened the store didn't deal with that company, forcing me to continue trying to get products through my game store whenever I couldn't place an order with my secondary distributor in a timely manner.  Then, my game line was discontinued with a newer follow up.  This happened about the same time my primary distributor went out of business and I had to switch to a different one.  That one did carry my new game line, until the publisher decided to go with a direct online print-on-demand structure.  I didn't have a computer back then, so for almost a decade, I didn't get any new products, not even when the new publisher of the game lines brought back the original one for special anniversary editions.  I started downloading PDFs of those products a few months after I got my computer whenever I had the extra cash.  I'm almost caught up with the anniversary line of products, even with newer titles still being added.  Now, with a different company working with the IP of the newest edition of the games, I've been having to get the physical copies any way possible, with about half through my store and half through my local game store.  I'm already planning to order some of the new products through them, even though it will be more expensive.  Finally, I discovered that SongPop 2 is having a name change next month to SongPop Classic, with the next iteration of the game (3) that I haven't played because I don't think it's available for Mac facing a similar name change.  This leaves my wondering, whatever happened to version 1?  Anyway, I had been doing quite good on it recently, until last night.  I had managed to take first place in one of the daily competitions, with a little less than an hour to go.  I was planning to take a short break before coming back to see if I had to play any more, but I got delayed by chore, so I couldn't play again until after the competition ended.  Somehow, I had dropped to sixth place, but because I was short on time, I forgot to check to see how many points I had fallen back on.  I find it hard to believe that so many people managed to snipe me, but I have no proof about what happened.  Still, I will play on.  The best I can.

I Have Achieved Mediocrity

    Back in the 90s, I used to play video games somewhat frequently.  I didn't always complete the game, but I liked playing them.  I mean, I didn't really have much else to do for the second half of the decade.  Once I opened my store and had to move due to flooding, I had a lot less time to play.  So, for almost ten years, I stopped playing, save for the occasional online game while waiting for a car appointment to finish.  That was all before I finally got my own computer.  Now, I seem to be playing more than ever, just not the same type of games.  They are mostly short ones, where I can play for awhile and stop, as opposed to the longer ones I used to play that would take hours and hours just to finish.  Although, I must say that those few games I was able to get to an ending didn't always take that long.  Sure, I could get close, but I would stumble on the last few parts.  Other times, I could achieve the basic ending, but I wasn't able to get every little goal and it would frustrate me that I couldn't get the full experience.  Aside for a standard solitaire game that I downloaded, I only play three games competitively.  Currently, SongPop 2 is the one I'm improving in the most.  After I was able to play it again on Mac, after a seven month absence or so, new features had been added, including a set of goals (daily, weekly, monthly, and now even an overarching global one) for players to accomplish to earn more in-game prizes.  For instance, if a guess three songs correctly by an artist in a day, a get points.  When I get enough points, I get a bonus.  I get more points by watching an ad for fifteen seconds.  Yeah, not fun, but useful.  Unfortunately, many of the goals involve playing against my set list of opponents, many of whom are not helpful.  Some haven't been playing with me for months, and I'm going to be forced to trim some of these slackers and get new ones.  I also managed to finish the last of the in-game achievements, playing fifty matches against one player in a week.  All I got was a badge, but at least I finished the last achievement. Before you ask, it was against the free player that I feel is computer generated that every new player gets when they start, the one who never improves their scores, but always seem to play the same categories you do, even when it was only once for a challenge.  Also, the fifty games are technically twenty-five reciprocal  matches, so it isn't as many games as you might think.  The next game I've been playing a lot is Candy Crush Saga through Facebook.  I am nearing Rank 200 and quickly nearing level 12,000.  On the one hand, I am accomplishing so many in-game goals and challenges that I'm racking up super scores.  On the other, I end up burning through my stockpiles of supplies.  I used to have almost two thousand of one tool before I started to play more competitively.  Now, it is somewhere between seven and six hundred.  At least I have a technique where I can stockpile some supplies easily, but that could change at any moment, especially since I'm nearing the end of the game.  Even with new levels every week, I could race through up to thirty on a great run.  Many bonuses depend on winning levels for the first time.  With fewer levels, I have fewer opportunities to improve.  The last game I play frequently, also via Facebook, is Golf Clash.  To be honest, while I love the game, I think I may have reached my limit.  I know what to do and how to play well, but my fingers, brain, supplies, and internet connection don't always line up so I can win consistently.  I help others with my knowledge and experience, but that isn't translating into wins.  I guess what they say might be true.  "Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach."  I hate that saying, but I am reaching the point where it might be best just to take a day to just go through everything in a blaze of glory just to see how far I could go, leaving me in jeopardy if I fail.  I play a few other games, but nothing to competitive. Basically, I just play to get the daily bonuses and stop when the time runs out on them.  The fact that some of these Facebook games aren't getting all of the same features as the stand-alone versions make it less worthwhile to play these.  It's not fair that I'm not getting the same experience, but it does mean that I play some games less than fifteen minutes per day, total, for multiple sessions.  Now, if I only had something better to do with my time. 

Of Courses, Not, Again

     This spring semester, I decided not to take any classes for my Master's degree program.  None of the classes that were offered appealed to me or fit my plans.  Also, I wanted to study for my exit exam.  I was waiting through February to get my notification to schedule my test.  I knew that the test was to be given in April, but I wasn't getting the email about it. Finally, I decided to email my advisor about it, since I had only a little of a month left to try and study.  I had to check the spam folder of my university email account to get the right address, when I found the notification.  It had been sent to the wrong folder, and I hadn't noticed it since I rarely check that folder and it didn't have a notice of new emails.  At least none I could remember.  I had missed the deadline to schedule my test by one day.  I sent the email any way, with the reason why I was late.  The reply came back within the week saying I could still take the test if I hurried to schedule it.  Unfortunately, that was when I started having problems with the account.  Some days, my university account wouldn't even acknowledge that I had an email address.  By the time I could respond, I barely had a month left to study, so I decided to put of the test until the next available time this November.  Besides, the test would be given on Good Friday, so I didn't really feel that was the right time.  Since then, I have not had any new emails directly from the university, even the automatic ones.  This is in addition to the times my email doesn't even show up.  That is why I didn't get the notification that is was time to register for classes for the Summer and Fall semesters.  I only found out by checking the school calendar the day registration was supposed to start.  Fortunately, I was able to look over the available classes and their required tests in plenty of time.  Unfortunately, the classes are again not exactly what I'm looking for.  There are three available classes that I can take over the semesters, with the possibility of a fourth.  For early summer, there is a course on contemporary fiction, although not of the books are really recent or 'contemporary.' Two of the works are by authors I do not like at all, and a third is one that I never even heard of.  In late summer, the course being offered is on early twentieth-century American fiction.  This one was offered a few years ago for the short Winter semester.  Three books, all depressing.  At least reading them in the summer might make them somewhat more cheerful.  There is also a second course on the teaching of writing.  I don't know if I would be able to take this course, as it is more in the education field than English, but it could count as an elective, maybe.  However, the text for the course doesn't sound like it is about teaching or writing.  In fact, I can't find out anything out about it yet, save that it is available at the university bookstore.  Finally, there is one course being taught in the fall that I haven't taken yet, topics in literature.  For this selection, the topic is environmentalism.  No.  While I'm not against the environment, I don't want to be reading selections about how the field is dealt with in literature.  None of these classes suit me or my plans for my degree or interests.  I don't see any way I could find a way into any of these classes easily.  If I can't find a way, I just won't be able to get through them.  That's how I was able to pass many of my other courses in graduate school.  Yet, for these four, I don't see a way.  It's making me doubt if I even want to complete my degree.  It isn't the one I was aiming for, a MFA in creative writing, and I'm not even sure what I would do with this one, if I complete it.  I just don't know what to do anymore, and it is driving me crazy trying to find a way out.

Three Hundred Posts on the Blogcast, Three Hundred Posts in All

     Today marks the 300th post on this blog, or blogcast as I prefer.  I'm trying to create a new word here, and it is taking awhile to make it accepted.  It has almost been six years since I started this little thing as a way to get back into writing.  Since I started this blog, I started a second blog for my store that was co-hosted here on Blogger (that blog has pretty much ended as I didn't have enough new material about my store to keep it going).  I started a third blog just for my literary pursuits.  That one is about halfway through my second novella/short novel.  Sure, it is just a first draft, but it is successful.  I had my store join Facebook, with my own joining initially secondary.  I now share my blogs with links there.  I also have my own YouTube channel.  I've posted over seventy videos there, shared with my pages on Facebook and LinkedIn.  I haven't created a social media juggernaut, yet, but the structure has been set up for it.  I didn't have a computer the first few years, so most of those early posts had to be short, as I usually only had fifteen to twenty minutes most weeks.  This is also explains why I'm missing the occasional week in my posts.  Other missing weeks are due to posting on the wrong blog and losing the posts before I could paste them in the right spot.  Those were replaced at a later date, so there still is about one post per week.  It took me some time to come up with the best topic.  Supposedly, this blog focuses on puzzles and games, but I am prone to digressions.  I have even posted many of my own puzzles.  Just last month, I ended a four week span of new puzzles.  Those last two weeks took extra time to finish, but those were two of the best puzzles I ever came up with.  I could barely stop with them, as I kept wanting to come up with more of them.  Even when I don't talk about puzzles, I frequently use wordplay in the post titles.  Puns are most common.  For instance, today's post title is to be sung to "Bottles of Beer on the Wall."  Sometimes, I place hidden messages, either in the title or buried in the main text.  I hid a message in the first letters of the words in a title just last December.  You just might find it, in the end, if you traffic luck, that is.  Entertainment is another common theme, mostly about what I find fault with, more so than what I really like.  I also talk a lot about animals.  One of my first posts was about an emu at house I drive by on my way to work.  Alas, the emu/s were sent away shorty thereafter, but that doesn't mean the animal fun has ended.  Just last week I mentioned bunnies, as part of an Easter post. I also talk about my own problems, probably too much personal information, but I can't help it.  This blog is a part of how I deal with and air out my grievances.  I rarely use tags any more.  It is just too hard to come up with new ones some weeks, or just rehashing the same old ones.  I don't post too many picture, either.  I just have problems getting them how I want them to look on the page.  Links are the same.  Cutting and pasting is just tiresome, at times.  I don't even have links to the posts I mentioned here.  While I now have my own computer, I still try to keep my allotted time to thirty minutes or so.  This keeps my posts tight and easy to read.  I have no idea how much longer I will keep this blog going.  I usually get my ideas a week or more ahead of time, so I currently have no plans of changing my schedule or discontinuing this.  Here's to everyone who has enjoyed my thoughts and words for the past six years, almost, and here's to many more.

The Rabbit Leaps Tonight

     I love rabbits.  In fact, the rabbit is my primary spirit animal. (I have a few others, but I usually keep those secret. Mostly as a test for those who claim they can know this type of thing.) This time of year just seems to intensify such feelings, seeing so many rabbits everywhere as decorations.  Sure, the living animals can be cuter, but I don't get to see them in the wild too often.  Then, there are the numerous videos.  Watch one short rabbit video on Facebook, and soon the feed is flooded with them for the next week or two.  I don't mind it though.  Anyway, Easter.  This was one of the first holidays that stopped being a childhood tradition with me.  Halloween and Christmas would last a lot longer as special, but once I was too old for baskets, the holiday lost something.  Things changed in the mid-to-late 90s though.  I started to get back into getting marshmallow Peeps and chocolate-covered eggs.  This was the height of the regular Peeps, when there were still seven colors.  This was just before the flavored marshmallow varieties debuted.  A few years later, strawberry- and vanilla-cream eggs showed up, with orange-cream soon after.  Then, the flavor boom took over, as regular Peeps were whittled down to just five colors.  Now, there are almost a dozen different flavors, especially when exclusives are taken into account.  Some flavors even stay around until early summer. This year, I only got one box of the "Sparkling Berry" bunnies and nothing else.   Many of favorites are no longer being produced, not even for other holidays.  For instance, a few years ago, Peeps had cherry marshmallows with a chocolate drizzle for Valentines Day.  They only lasted a few years, but they were great.  Peeps didn't even have Valentines Day varieties this year, although both Halloween and Christmas had full line-ups.  Then, there are the chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs.  About the same time I came back around to Peeps, I started trying the eggs again as well.  My favorite brand as a kid (maybe Luden's, I really can't remember after so much time) was no longer to be found anywhere.  I used to get boxes of them at a time, and eat my way through them fairly fast.  Each wrapper was it one of four colors, but I might be remembering it wrong.  I'm still looking for them, or any trace of what happened to them.  Anyway, I tried other eggs.  These were flavored, beyond just marshmallow.  My favorite was eating a strawberry and a banana one together, the eggs split in half and then taken together.  For a very short time, there was even a mixed chocolate and vanilla cream egg.  It was wonderful, but it was discontinued after just a year or two.  Even banana was stopped for a few years, before it returned as a whip filling instead of a cream.  Not as easy to mix and match anymore.  No one local even carried it this year.  I was lucky to get a few on a trip back in February.  I will be eating my last one this Easter, another tradition I started back in the 90s.  I would eat them in the afternoon while watching a favorite Easter movie, Night of the Lepus. TNT used to show it back when they aired movies that were over twenty years old on a regular basis.  Anyway, the plot of this cheesy, B- horror flick is fairly simple.  A town was being overrun by a rabbit population boom, threatening their crops.  A scientist was brought in to come up with a solution, basically bunny birth control.  The scientist's daughter wanted a bunny of her own, so she was given one of the control subjects.  However, she liked another one better and switched them out.  Before she could get the bunny back home, a mean teenage boy knocked the rabbit out of her arms, and it fled into the wild.  Flash forward, and the town is now being overrun by a stampede of giant rabbits, bigger than elephants. Close-up footage of slow motion domestic rabbits hopping were used for the stampeded.  The town's solution was to flood the way into town and take down the power line, thereby electrocuting the poor things.  Actually, I kind of liked the movie up until that point.  I just have a thing for giant growth. The final scene almost implied that the remaining regular rabbits might still have the altered genes for this to occur again.  TNT stopped airing the movie on Easters decades ago.  For awhile, they showed Bible movies, which were appropriate and fairly good.  Now, they don't show anything special, or it they do, I don't watch.  But, I still have Peeps and chocolate eggs.