Tag: amerivision

Marith had to get her mouth fixed today, so I went along to keep her from wandering into traffic when they threw her out still full of anesthetic. It was all fine, just time-consuming. I managed to do a little work before going over to Ayse and Ken’s for the Amerivision finale, so I guess it all worked out, or something.

Eaten: Sushi! Apparently I joined in the grand tradition of ordering too much.

Watched: American Song Contest 2022 ep 8: What are these juries smoking?! Or perhaps better asked, who are they to be so out of touch with America? (10 regional juries assigning 12/10/8/… points like Eurovision, then 56 states/territories doing the same thing and almost turning the list upside down.) We were all very sad when the 70s soft-rock guy from Washington topped the jury chart, but then AleXa won with “Wonderland” because every K-pop stan in the US voted for her or something, so it was all okay. They had the regional jury representatives videophone in to announce who got the 12 points, just like Eurovision. Not all the reps (all previously-eliminated contestants) had the proper Eurovision spirit, but it made me happy.

Played: Living room soccer.

Read: Beyond The Eyes Of Mars (Glynn Stewart): 12th in the series where FTL, stealth in space, and antimatter production are all literally magic. The heroic Martian navy is still cleaning up breakaway factions of the great revolt, and still learning increasingly horrible things about the rebels (which possibly should have been obvious to readers, but I don’t think was telegraphed at all). Also something that came up as being extremely important about 6 or 8 books ago was finally mentioned again, although none of the viewpoint characters knew the significance.

Written: FAIL.

What the fuck, Democrats? We elected you to stop this shit, not stand around wringing your hands and pretending bipartisanship has been a thing in this millennium!

Did some work to keep the capitalist machine feeding blood to its fascist masters. But I didn’t enjoy it!

Eaten: Tasty Vietnamese food.

Watched: Amerivision semifinals part II, up until the point where Nonny threw a temper tantrum about not getting to stay up indefinitely late. We’ll have to watch American Samoa’s entry and the final jury results another time.

Written: Continued FAIL.

The new system is in place at work. Eventually it will even be complete!

Watched: Amerivision semifinals, part 1. Since we are watching at the time of transmission (I don’t think it’s “broadcast” any more), we get to vote, although only Ayse has an NBC account, so we only got one vote for the whole party. Our rule was “no haters” so we didn’t give anyone anything below a 5, but only “New Boots Goofin'” and “Wonderland” got the coveted 10.

Eaten: Cronchy chickens. Also fancy shortbreads.

Played: Not so much twirling, fortunately.

Words: FAIL.

The cleaners were here at 7:00, so since I was already up, I bit the bullet and walked to grocery shopping, came home, took a shower, and got lunch, all before 13:00. Unfortunately there was then chaos so I didn’t know what to do next for a while until visiting got planned, but it was still a productive morning.

Watched: Amerivision ep 5, final round of the qualifiers. Finally we got California’s song, which used the power of sexy young women but was somehow defeated by Michigan’s teenaged singer-songwriter. I think we’ll come back in the popular vote, though. Semifinals start on Monday!

Eaten: Santa Maria tritip, pinquito beans, rice, salad, corn with peppers.

Played: Spinning. So much spinning. Possibly ill-advised after the eating, but all’s well that ends well, right?

Read: Spy x Family vol 7 (Tatsuya Endo): I’m not entirely comfortable with a secret policeman being a sympathetic and even comic character, but then the leads are a James Bond-style “spy” and a professional murderer, so it’s not like the violence isn’t inherent in the system.

Words: 517 kitten words.

Even earlier meeting. Customers. No brain.

Watched: Amerivision week 4 (which is actually last week, because last week we didn’t watch). Double Washington action! Laser-dispersing bodysuits! Twins! The 70s!

Eaten: Greek food.

Read: False Value (Ben Aaronovitch): Peter vs techbros with what even Douglas Adams would have said was an unhealthy fascination with Hitchiker’s Guide.

Read: Tales From The Folly (Ben Aaronovitch): A collection of short stories and vignettes, which are cute but don’t necessarily add much.

Words: FAIL.

Watched: Amerivision, part 3! I liked Louisiana’s entry the best, but perhaps I was the only one who did. Nonny has very definite opinions on what’s rock vs mere pop-rock.

Eaten: Korean delivery.

Played: Basketvolley? Maybe just monkey in the middle.

Read: Dragonbreath: Revenge of the Horned Bunnies (Ursula Vernon): Summer camp with jackalopes.

Read: Dragonbreath: When Fairies Go Bad (Ursula Vernon): Christiana is surprisingly okay with traveling through Faerie. “It was an hallucination” is an all-purpose excuse, I guess.

Read: Dragonbreath: Nightmare of the Iguana (Ursula Vernon): The inside of Wendell’s head is actually pretty much what you’d expect.

Read: Dragonbreath: The Case of the Toxic Mutants (Ursula Vernon): Diplomacy!

Read: Dragonbreath: Knight-napped! (Ursula Vernon): Just because knights and dragons are both endangered species doesn’t mean they get along.

Words: FAIL.

Eaten: Delivery sushi, which is not as great as fresh sushi, but still very luxurious.

Watched: Amerivision, part 2! I think agree with Dave that the songs this week were slicker than last week, but the Oregon guys had proper Eurovision spirit.

Read: “Girl Oil” (Grace P Fong): Social expectations about Chinese diaspora women + magic beautifying potion with side effects = tragedy.

Read: “The Last Truth” (AnaMaria Curtis): A thief has to sacrifice her memories to open locks. Funny how her contract is almost up at the same time there’s almost nothing left…

Words: FAIL. No time to write, must get up early tomorrow.

I took off work today, because my managers keep telling me to take more time off, and it seems as good an excuse for a holiday as any. Ayse insisted on taking me to kittens and lunch; how was I supposed to resist? The kittens were very rambunctious, which made it hard to befriend them, but they were adorable anyway.

I went home to vegetate for a while, and then went to Ayse and Ken’s for delicious Thai food and friendship and non-cursed frogurt and then Amerivision. It was actually Eurovisiontastic, despite our worries! Not all the acts understood how to use the stage, and there were a probably excessive number of half-dressed backup dancers, but overall it was properly campy and had a good variety. Oklahoma K-pop was good, the pink one with the keytar solo was good, fire was good, cowboy boot rap was just weird. There were some technical difficulties and I stayed up too late, but it was lots of fun. Nonny also got to stay up late.

Words: FAIL. I meant to do some writing during the afternoon, but instead I did pretty much nothing. It was not an auspicious start, but it was very on-brand.