Wriphe.com: The Blog 2021

I'll be spending Valentine's Day with the person I love most.

I sure look happy to be held

(Yes, that's the cutout of me that took my place at Georgia football home games during the unusual, COVID-abbreviated 2020 season. Well, for one game of it, anyway. UGA Athletics allowed FanCutouts only for the last two season games, the second of which was ultimately canceled when Vanderbilt could no longer field a healthy team. So even at only one game — a 31-24 win over Mississippi State on November 21 — that $55 piece of corrugated plastic spent more time in Sanford Stadium in 2020 than I did. Lucky guy.)

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On February 6, I complained that my horoscope calendar was horribly wrong. I need to retract that post. It seems the calendar wasn't wrong; I was.

See, I had mistakenly turned the page to March instead of February. Both months start on a Monday, and I simply didn't realize I'd made the error until today. (Why didn't the stars warn me?)

So everything I wrote on February 6 should instead apply to March. The real February doesn't have 8 different days telling me I should be buying a house or falling in love. It actually has 10, including February 14:

Happy Valentine's Day! Wedding bells may ring for many Scales in love. Others might get engaged, It's also a favorable day to buy a house.

I love having options.

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Unity means you all must do what *I* say!

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The latest visitor to my yard:

Welcome to my neighborhood

For this one to work, it had to be recognizable as the late, great Fred Rogers.

The paintbrush adds 10 pounds

I'm not great at portraiture, and I think it's barely passable. However, I know that Mr. Rogers would tell me not to be too hard on myself because I tried my very best.

It's okay to be sad

We could all stand to be a little more like Fred.

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From today's horrorscope calendar entry:

Try not to take risks when working out. You're extremely accident-prone. Also, don't speed when driving and don't lift anything that can throw out your back.

I know the stars are looking out for me, but do I really need to be warned not to speed? Isn't that what the law against speeding is for? Will next month the calendar warn me against fraud or murder? If I'm the sort of person who looked to a calendar for that sort of advice, I probably shouldn't be allowed to drive.

Frankly, I should just be satisfied that the calendar didn't tell me that I should be buying a house or falling in love today (as it does on February 7, 14, 16, 20, 21, 24, 26, and 30 — a favorable day to "meet new sweethearts with healthy bank accounts").

Speaking of reading ahead, no less a star than the eminent time traveler Emmett "Doc" Brown warns against knowing what the future holds for a reason. I mean, what am I supposed to do with the warning that awaits me on February 11?

Be careful when working out. You're extremely accident-prone today. Also, don't speed when driving to and from work. You could wind up in a fender bender.

At least I'll get to do whatever I want with my back, which means I should be free to pick up the calendar and relocate it to the trashcan. But I'm so accident prone, I might give myself a papercut in the process.

UPDATE 2021-02-12: Oops. This post should really be about March 6. See my correction post on February 12.

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Before we get started with 2021 movies, let me mention that there was a 4-way tie for actor I saw most in 2020, each of whom appeared in 4 movies. Those actors are Kirk Douglas (who I have seen in 18 total movies since I started counting in 2012), Edward G. Robinson (15 total movies since 2012), and Tomisaburo Wakayama & Akihiro Tomikawa ("Lone Wolf" and "Cub" respectively in all 6 of the awesome "Lone Wolf and Cub" movies ). That's a good crowd to belong to.

Now, on to 2021!

1. (1860.) If Winter Comes (1947)
Make no mistake: Winter *does* come. Despite its soap-opera-y melodramatics, this is a morality play in which a good man is punished by society for being good. It lays it all on a bit thick, but I don't think it's wrong. We do always assume the worst from people because we usually are. Be best!

2. (1861.) Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Sadly, this sequel is nowhere near as good as its predecessor. Someone seems to have forgotten that the real star of these movies is not Bryce Dallas Howard's shoes or Chris Pratt's smarm but the people-eating T-Rex, a lesson that I hope the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion takes to heart. Or at least to its teeth. Its very, very large teeth.

3. (1862.) Rachel and the Stranger (1948)
One step below the mail-order bride is the indentured-servant bride, but Loretta Young manages to hold her own against frontiersmen-in-need-of-a-domestic Bill Holden and Robert Mitchum in this adventure story/romantic dramedy. Enjoyable.

More to come.

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