Assorted Meanderings on a Saturday Afternoon

This is one of those articles that I haven't planned...I'm just sitting here in "my" Magnolia Parke Starbucks in northern Gainesville waiting for my iced coffee...excuse me a moment, there it is.  So, where was I...oh, yes, this is more of an impromptu writing, so forgive me if I meander a bit.  Let's see, it's supposed to rain a lot up here this weekend, but it's late afternoon and so far we haven't had any rain...but the clouds are threatening.  I love overcast skies...but only when it doesn't rain.  It's also my favorite condition for going running, something I'm bent on doing more of as I try to build my endurance back up for future half-marathons...

I left for Starbucks right in the middle of professional soccer's UEFA (European) Champions League finale between Real Madrid and Juventus.  When I turned it off, the game was in the second half and tied 1-1.  And it was very exciting and obviously featured two of the best teams in the entire world...as well as possibly the greatest player,  Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo.  But I've never been all that interested in these tournaments, instead focusing on the different leagues...and except for "our" Major League Soccer, all the rest have just finished their seasons.  And yes, I intend to watch an MLS match later this evening on ESPN [correction: it's tomorrow when ESPN shows the game]...

Politically, I feel like I am making myself into something of an outcast to both sides of the ongoing Trump melodrama, wanting the man to succeed at being president but also suspicious of his weird affections for Russia's authoritarian Putin regime.  I don't think he should have decided to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accords on climate change, but he was right about criticizing how different nations were being treated differently.  That being said, I have been frustrated looking at Facebook from time to time and seeing post after post either excoriating Trump in the most vicious terms or praising him to high heaven as America's savior.  To those pursuing their respective political agendas here, it's all personal...each "side" treats everything as if the fate of the world hangs in the balance: either stop Trump or else it's all over or stop those trying to stop Trump or else it's all over...sorry, folks, you're welcome to take me off your political message list as I'm tired of seeing all this crap.  Our president, whom I did not support in the election last year, is still our president and I respect his office and the process that elected him there.  Just because I think he's a jerk doesn't change that and I will root for him to do good things in office as well as continuing to criticize him when he flubs up...and will most likely (but not definitely) vote for someone else in the next election...but let's please get away from the apocalyptic doomsaying, okay?  Oops, sorry again, I probably offended some of you by saying that...

When I get home from work, my shift ending at midnight, I often watch Rod Serling's old Twilight Zone series, shown at 12:30 on MeTV (Cox Channel 115 in Gainesville).  But right after that program ends, they show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a series older than Twilight Zone that goes back to the 1950s.  I hadn't seen these shows but the other night watched an episode titled "Breakdown", which starred Joseph Cotton as a man paralyzed in a car accident trying to convince others that he isn't really dead...as they wheel him into the morgue to perform an autopsy...scary stuff!  I may be finding myself looking a bit more into this series that I've managed somehow to ignore all my life...

Speaking of TV series, I've heard they're working on the next (and final?) season to Game of Thrones, based on the George R.R. Martin fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire.  Unfortunately for Martin's loyal readers, he has reneged on his duties as an author and lapsed with writing the next book, The Winds of Winter.  So the television series has actually gone ahead of the written series, something I find hard to forgive.  If Martin doesn't want to take up the task of concluding his series, then he should hand the work off to someone else...someone like Brandon Sanderson.  Sanderson is a very good fantasy author in his own right and finished the interminable Wheel of Time series after the original author, Robert Jordan, passed away after putting out eleven books with no end in sight and numerous subplots and new characters muddling everything beyond comprehension...which is what Martin's series is beginning to look like...