🙏🏻 The Friday High Five

Unseen Masterpieces, Artificial Coziness, and Playing Hooky

20th Century Fox

Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High Five. 🙏🏻

It’s been an interesting week.

One of my team members was abruptly fired Wednesday. I don’t know why—I have my suspicions—and the bosses won’t say because that’s how you get sued. It’s really none of my business, but I still can’t help wondering. This sort of wondering always has a selfish slant—we want to know so we don’t end up with the same fate.

He was a senior developer and hand-built several of our IT systems. He was a big cog. You can’t just throw one of those out without suffering the consequences. I’m sure the managers know this. I’m sure their hands were tied. But as the saying goes—shit rolls downhill. And we were already knee-deep in it.

There are as of yet no plans to replace him, which means we need to get just as much work done with one less person. Managers understand this, but I don’t think they really get it.

A program is just a bunch of 1s and 0s when you get down to it. There’s nothing physically created, which tends to make what we do a bit invisible. In fact, you only really notice or care about your computer systems when they’re broken or you want them to do something they don’t already do.

This isn’t an assembly line where it’s obvious you don’t have the requisite number of hands to keep up with the widgets streaming past. Our work piles up, but it doesn’t impact anyone other than the frantic developer trying to stay afloat.

I’ve been working a ton of overtime. More is suddenly required, but I’m going to take a page from old man Steve Rogers here.

Marvel Studios

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I’m not surprised the Terminator series won last week’s poll. I am surprised Total Recall beat Predator. Then again, I guess it’s hard to top a three-breasted woman.

My vote was for Predator, incidentally, but you already knew that.

Have a great weekend!

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5 Things I Enjoyed This Week:

• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

• Warming myself beside an artificial fire

• Godzilla vs Kong

• The Mindy Project

• Playing hooky on a random Tuesday

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Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

I’m currently working on a piece celebrating the 20th anniversary of this riveting drama set during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s.

Russell Crowe stars as Jack Aubrey, captain of the British warship Surprise, which has been dispatched to hunt down Acheron, a French counterpart. What ensues is the very definition of cat and mouse, as hunter becomes hunted becomes hunter. It’s an epic story in the original and truest sense of the word.

The action pieces are splendid. Being me, I am naturally drawn to the more personal parts of the film, specifically the relationships between the men aboard Surprise. No surprise there (sorry).

Master and Commander made just over $200 million at the worldwide box office, against a production cost of $150 million. A modest success. I suspect the double-whammy of an 1800s war-drama and that unwieldy title kept audiences away. To this day, I’m not sure many people have seen it, which is a real pity.

Warming myself beside an artificial fire

One morning, my wife was in the living room enjoying her coffee and a book. I decided to put a crackling fire on our big TV as a joke. Funny thing: I discovered I actually like it.

There are hundreds of these on YouTube. I think it’s probably a sub-genre of the ASMR trend. I’ve sampled maybe 6 or so; the one below is my favorite, which has the proper ratio of whooshing to crackling. Last night I had it going while writing.

I should note that we have a working gas fireplace in our house.

Godzilla vs Kong

I grew up watching the old Godzilla movies, the ones with the comically bad dubbing that never failed to make me laugh. I’ve watched a few of the modern films but they were uniformly not-great. The first Pacific Rim was a far better ‘Big Freaking Monster’ movie. I did really enjoy Kong: Skull Island (2007) though, so this titanic bout was an inevitability.

I got around to it after my wife suggested we watch this past weekend. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and also his TV.

Godzilla vs Kong is a fine way to spend a Saturday afternoon when you’re pooped from working all week. I had zero expectations, and the film exceeded that bar. Though it suffers the same problem as the rest of these films—the climax involves the humans standing around watching as CGI monsters duke it out.

The Mindy Project

Hulu

I was tangentially aware of this show for a while, but never really had it on my radar until my friend

Amanda Kay

mentioned it in a post I can’t find but I’m at least 50% sure happened. Mindy Kaling is the creator and star of this delightful sitcom about a chronically single doctor who sees the world through the prism of classic romantic comedies, and narrates things as such.

The writing is smart and funny, and frequently references pop culture, which I am a big fan of. The Mindy Project feels like a more earnest and less silly version of something like New Girl. My wife and I are always looking for great sitcoms we can throw on. The Mindy Project has quickly become our new favorite.

The show originally aired on Fox before finishing its run on Hulu. I’m watching it on Netflix, which is a good summary of the confusing horse-trading the streamers get up to with these properties.

Playing hooky on a random Tuesday

My day job has been a real mother lately. Showing no signs of relenting—if Corporate America was a character, it’d be John Kreese from The Karate Kid; no mercy, sweep the leg, etc.—my wife and I decided a day off was in order. Which is how we ended up at the movies at 11 AM on Tuesday.

We had the entire theater to ourselves.

It was luxurious. I could just enjoy the movie, and openly flirt with my wife while going for popcorn refills, and not worry about people’s feet in my back or the glare of their phones in the corner of my eye. (What is it about movie theaters that brings out the worst in some people?) I imagine this is what great wealth feels like.

Which brings us to this week’s poll! What’s your favorite thing to do with a spontaneous day off?