Adulting Week Finale

I got up and got ready to go on time. It took me forty minutes and two calls to finally get a cab. When I got to the clinic, they told me I was too late and they had cancelled my appointment. However, they checked with the doctor, and she was able to slip me into the next spot.

The appointment was productive. We reviewed my medications. That was the whole point of the appointment. My various prescriptions were expiring and Medicaid wouldn't pay for them until I had a review. You may recall, from previous comments on my adulting efforts, that one of my problems these days is that my Medicaid expired last summer and I can't get it restarted. They're not planning on paying for anything, including this appointment, at the moment. The state aid offices are shut down to in-person visits for the duration, but the doctor told me that the office in the clinic is still open and might be able to help. After that, they gave me flu and shingles vaccines.

The nice lady in the aid office (who spoke softly and very rapidly) just had a few minutes before her next appointment, but in that time she had me sign all the forms to apply for Medicaid yet again. On Monday, she'll call me and get all the information to actually fill out the forms. She was able to show me how to find my Medicare number (and updated my payment info at the clinic with it). She also will take care of restarting my SNAP account and getting me Alaska senior benefits (which will cover about half of my Medicare monthly). If everything works out, I should finally be able to pay my medical bills by the end of next week.

After I got back downtown, I celebrated by getting a latte. Wordle took me four tries.

Freedom Convoy Foolishness Arrives in Anchorage

The usual gang of fools decided to hold a freedom convoy here in Anchorage. They went to the Cabela's parking lot where the city council member from Eagle River, Jamie Allard, welcomed them. She posted a video of herself saying there were hundreds and hundreds of them (it looked more like tens and tens to me) and added, "I don’t know how traffic is going to do with all of these guys, but we don’t really care." A couple of points.

Last year and the year before, conservatives were saying that blocking traffic was the worst crime ever and that protesters should be run over and killed. Around the country, Republicans proposed laws making vehicular assault legal under "stand your ground laws" as long as you remember to say the magic get-out-of-jail words "I was scared." Now, they are saying blocking traffic and shutting down cities is "legitimate political discourse" or something similar. To be fair, it's not entirely a flip-flop; they were all in favor of blocking traffic with various hysterically unsuccessful "million truck marches" against Obama and with their Trump Trains. I think the difference to them  is that drivers are patriots and pedestrians need to be summarily executed.

Intentionally blocking traffic is already illegal, regardless of your politics. Allard seems to be endorsing law breaking. How do her constituents in Eagle River feel about this? I'm being rhetorical. We all know how they feel. As long as it's inconveniencing the liberals downtown and not happening in their backyard, they approve of the lawbreaking and they approve of their lawmaker approving of the lawbreaking.

Cabela's is private property. Are they allowing the convoy to use their parking lot because they support them or is the convoy trespassing? If you're not familiar with Cabela's, they sell outdoor gear, including hunting and fishing gear. Guns and ammo make up almost a third of their business. A large part of their natural clientele is going to lean hard right, but it will also include outdoorsy tree-huggers as well. Someone in the press needs to get a statement from them. 

Boba Fett

 Now that six of the seven episodes of #BookofBobaFett have aired, I have thoughts.

Last summer, I signed up for Disney+ and binge watched The #Manalorian and was pleased to see that I only had a few months to wait before there would be a new related show to watch. In the mean time, Disney announced two more shows; Obi Wan Kenobi, which, of course is set between the first trilogy and his death in the second trilogy; and an Ahsoka Tano show set sometime after the second season of Madalorian. I'm looking forward to both of those because those characters are great and  this gives us opportunities to tie up loose ends of plot lines and characters from the animated series'. Almost thirty years pass from the end of the first trilogy to end of the second series of Madalorian.

This brings us back to the Book of Boba Fett. It begins at the same point Mandalorian S2 ended with he and Fenec Shand arriving at Jabba the Hutt's palace and taking over. 

Episode 1. It's been about eight years since Jabba died at the Sarlac pit and one of his lackeys has been running his turf, badly. Boba meets some of the locals in town and goes into an extended flashback that explains how he survived the Sarlac and lost his armor (regained in the Mandalorian). The episode ends with an homage to Ray Harryhausen that most viewers didn't seem to catch.

Episodes 2-4. Most of these episodes develop the flashbacks. The short sections of "present time" finally come together in episode four to reveal who the antagonist is going to be and that the overall plot arc is going to be The Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven.

Episodes 5-6. A sudden digression into the Mandalorian. Yes, he's going to be one of the seven, but most of  these two episodes have nothing to do with that, they are setting up the next season of his show. It's nice to see Ahsoka Tano, but her appearance was a gratuitous cameo with no hints about her own show.

<Episode 6 spoiler> There are many characters from the earlier movies and animated series whose fates were left unexplored. The new live-action shows seem to be picking up a lot of those characters. Cad Bane is one I was eager to see. I was excited to see him, but a little disappointed in the role he's going to play. My big hope is that the charming and always treacherous Hondo will show up in Obi Wan or Ashoka. [Fun fact: Cad Bane and young Boba Fett had a duel in a planned, but never produced, episode of Clone Wars. That's supposed to be the source of the dent in Boba's helmet.] 

+Coming up next, the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven style finale.