Alright, it’s been a couple weeks.  My schedule and drive had been kind of fucked up for a little bit.  I was working a job that was really good but the way my schedule was shaking out, I wouldn’t have been able to do things I’m working on.  Ya know, like post on here two times a week.  And then the other things.  So, I’m starting a new job this week that is more of “nine to five” but that should have me out of the apartment at the right times that I can hit a few open mics on the way home from work.  But I have been going to these monthly meetups and getting to know some local filmmakers.  That’s been a lot of fun.  Who knows, maybe I’ll find some way to get into stunt work after all.

     Now then, Pokémon GO.  They just had a big event this last weekend.  Some new forms for Zamazenta and Zacian, I guess some things from newer games I haven’t played.  I fell out of the Pokémon series when everything shifted to the DS system.  I have every generation of Game Boy up to that point but couldn’t afford to keep up with it at that time.  I’ll go back when I can…probably.  Moving on.  The thing I really want to talk about, though, is a particular reward from the timed leveled reward thing.  Anyone playing Pokémon GO has undoubtedly seen the Golden Bottle Cap by now.  Again, something from a game I haven’t played.  I guess in that game it helps build up the stats of whichever pokémon you give it.  I want to break down how it does this in Pokémon GO.

     It’s interesting how they designed this item for this game.  It increases the pokémon’s stats up to one hundred percent.  Pokémon have three stats; Attack, Defense, and HP.  

As you see in the first image, there are three cells to each stat which represents five points for a total of fifteen points to each stat.  Each point represents about two percent of the pokémon’s ultimate potential.  A one hundred percent IV, as it’s referred in meta conversation, is a ‘four star’ pokémon or one hundred percent IV, a “hundo” in slang terminology.  I’ve chosen this shiny charmander for my Golden Bottle Cap.  You see those weight icons on the stats, I have already completed some tasks to improve those stats.  And that’s the interesting component of this item, the training.

     The bottle cap initiates a training program to improve the chosen pokémon up to one hundred percent.  You’re given a series tasks to train your pokémon as your buddy.  The tasks are designated to one of three stats and completing each task will add one point to that stat.  You find this information in the buddy screen.  As you seen in the second, third, and fourth images.  And apologies about the images, I can’t seem to figure out if there’s a way to resize and insert the images into the body of the text like I intended.

     The catch is that you have three-hundred-sixty-five days to complete it.  I’m assuming that whatever progress is made is kept at the end but really, who’s going to invest any of this time and energy to not get their pokémon up to one-hundred percent but I know as well as anyone that shit happens but this is something you make a concerted effort.  Of course, if I’d known how this works before I probably would’ve chosen a one star shiny charmander instead of this zero star but cé la vie.  The only thing that would make my shiny “hundo”, or “shundo” and yes, I hate these stupid fucking make up words, is if it were also a shadow pokémon but one of the terms of the Golden Bottle Cap is that it can’t be used on shadow pokémon.  All the same, I’m going to love having a four star, shiny charizard.  Still my favorite pokémon.

     Anyway, I hope this was helpful to anyone who maybe didn’t know beforehand how it works and ideally hasn’t used their bottle cap yet and can now make a more informed decision.  I’ll do my best to remember to post updates on this little guy’s progress over the next year.

Let’s talk about some death.  Some big deaths recently.  The ones that hit me hardest are Loretta Swit and George Wendt.  Swit I didn’t make the opportunity to meet when she came up to FanX a few years ago.  I had big crush on her when I was younger.  I watched a lot of M*A*S*H most of my childhood.  Still among my favorite shows.  I haven’t watched the finale in sometime.  Last I checked it was ranked among if not the best series finales.  I just double checked, for twenty-seven years was the most-watched single broadcast in television history and as of 2025 is still the most-watched single episode of any television series.  According to the Wikipedia…also, this one episode of an eleven season series has a Wikipedia entry unto itself.  So, there’s that.

     Her character, Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Hoolihan was the head nurse at the 4077th.  She was tough and took no shit.  She definitely informed my concepts of ideal women.  She’ll be missed.  Another great loss recently is that of George Wendt.  One of the funniest people, probably ever.  I’ve watched Cheers, quite literally, my entire life.  A few years ago I watched through all of Cheers, Frasier, and Will & Grace and I noticed that outside of a handful of key, specific moments and elements, Cheers held up the best and was the least dated.  One of the greater reasons for this, I believe to be the storytelling and the sense of humor.  In no small part because of Wendt’s character, Norm.  With his witty quips introducing him into the scene, his dry reactions, and his cartoonish pavlovian response to beer.  When I was watching it then, I noticed how each character represented fairly specific components of the human psyche.  A paper I’m thinking I’ll write soon.  I’ve been meaning to watch Cheers again for awhile.

     I need to get in a nap before work.  I’ll call it here and looking at a a relatively easy work day tomorrow, I’m thinking I’ll be able to get going on some things tomorrow.

Ok, I just finished watching How I Met Your Mother again.  I was considerably more emotional this time ‘round.  A lot of it I’m sure is having to accept that I’m not going to have certain things in my life that I’ve always wanted, like a family.  As fucked as things are right now, I can’t so much in good conscience ask a woman to have a child with me.  Being back home now and seeing the things I could’ve been doing over the last twenty-five years instead of shuffling through my exile in utah and wasting my life in a series of dead-end, no-paying jobs trying to fix the damage that artie did to my name and credit, just to barely almost get by.  I often struggle with the thoughts of what might’ve been weighed against the reality of what is.  I fully understand I wouldn’t be the man I am had my experience deviated from the path I’ve been walking but I’m confident that I still would’ve become a good person with just the dead dad and not necessarily with the decades of being ground under foot by my shitty “mother” and jackass siblings.  I still could’ve developed my work ethic by going to college when my teachers said I should have as opposed to working two or three jobs at a time and not be able to pay my bills let alone save any money.  I’m pretty sure I still could’ve developed empathy by learning from other peoples’ experiences and not being stuck in a know-nothing burgeoning theocratic nightmare of christians denying Christ at every turn.  But who knows?  Multiversal  cognizance is a big enough pain in the ass without developing such an understanding in my teenage years and having so much time through the years of menial labor to intellectually map out my personal history and retrace the causal cascade that brought me here to now, writing this…DOODY.  Ha!  That’s never not funny.  In any case, How I Met Your Mother is still a great show.  

     This time watching through I was going through episode by episode on IMDB and reading up on the Trivia and Goofs as I watched each episode.  A lot of the goofs are fairly standard continuity things where a director or DP most likely decided in the moment “Hold this in that hand instead so you face this way.” and things like that.  A lot of things though are actually pretty interesting observations.  Things like different actors wearing the same shirt or specific jewelry that in retrospect would speak to someone remembering their personal experiences and connecting key details to multiple people in our lives.  For example, at one point while Ted(Josh Radnor) is with Stella(Sarah Chalke) and in one episode she is wearing a specific and unique necklace.  In the next episode they’re broken up and then Robin(Cobie Smulders) is wearing the same necklace.  The necklace, a gold pendant on a simple chain, similar in style to the locket that later, Ted works so hard to find for Robin when she marries Barney(Neil Patrick Harris).  An interesting detail that keen observers may have seen and anticipated the ultimate conclusion of the series.

     One of the biggest things for me in this show is the episode Bad News, s06e13.  The countdown is of course, ever compelling and the conclusion of the episode has always been hard for me to watch.  In particular, Marshall’s(Jason Segel) reaction.  In the Trivia section of that episode on IMDB, he wasn’t given that page at first.  Alyson Hannigan got that page before filming that scene, Segel reacted cold and raw to that line and then improvised the response “I’m not ready for this.”  They filmed the one take and that was on the screen.  I haven’t confirmed this but if I ever get the chance to talk with Jason Segel, I’m definitely going to ask him about it.  And then the next episode, Last Words is especially painful for me.  I don’t remember my dad’s last words to me.  

I’m working out scheduling to get things done.  This weekend I’ll know what my work schedule will be and then I can start doing everything else.  I don’t totally get why I can’t seem to things done when I don’t have a job but now that I do I should be getting this apartment put together.  The biggest thing pissing me off right now is that I have a hard deadline to submit two scripts for a writing program and I still haven’t written them.  I only have a couple days at this point and have to write about a hundred pages between them.  Surely I can write a hundred pages in a couple days.  How hard could it possibly be?  I know.  I’ll get it done.

     Now then, among my not getting shit done, I have been watching through How I Met Your Mother.  I’m almost done with season five now.  So, I’m coming up on the heavier parts that always get me.  The episode Bad News hits hard and too close to home.  It’s very close to my own experience and the last time I watched it had still a very strong reaction to it.  This’ll be the first time I watch that so close to where my experience initially happened.  Every other time I’ve watched that episode, I was a thousand miles away from here and now I’m just a few blocks away.  We’ll see how it works out, I’m guessing this weekend given my pace.

     Alright, I need a nap so I can try and get on some kind of a schedule for the next couple days.  Until next time.

First things first, bad news.  A renowned writer passed away the other day.  Peter David is probably best known for writing numerous comics over the years and he wrote a few dozen novels.  Most of his work was in science fiction.  A number of people whose opinions I trust in the field were big fans of his.  I’m not personally familiar with most of his work but he did write a couple parts of the DC/Marvel crossover in the mid nineties.  I had gotten my hands on the trade paperback around 2000 or so.  I really enjoyed that story.  That’s where I consciously started to understand multiversal theory and how to conceptualize analogous characterization.  Skills that have clearly served me well all these years working in retail.  

     I think I’ll need to make this a short post.  I fell behind working on things around the apartment and started writing this later than I planned.  And then I started watching TV again.  I had noticed the other day that my baseline existential dread felt considerably lower than usual and then I realized that I haven’t watched through How I Met Your Mother in the last two quarters and haven’t in turn been reminded about my life dreams and ambitions so long ago ripped away from my grasp as my youth was flushed down the cosmic toilet by circumstance of my finances and stolen opportunities…have I mentioned lately how happy I am my “mother” is finally dead?  So, just so happy!