Well, they never really go anywhere.

Last night, I finally got to see Jurassic World. I also saw the first Game of Thrones episode for the 2016 season. Here is my catchy image for this post:

I’m using this image because I have a morbid fear of copyright takedown notices.

Anyway, about Jurassic World:

Total excrement.

1. The effects haven’t improved very much since 1993. If anything, they’ve gotten worse. They should have called this movie “Jurassic Cut Scene on the Xbox One.”
2. The characters are idiotic. I thought there might be an exception, but nope. Hated the kids; hated the “navy-paleontologist” character; hated the woman park boss; hated the rich Middle-Eastern Hammond replacement; hated the military nut. Not one redeeming person.
3. The plot goes from stupid to ludicrous to face-palm to brain-damage. Every scene introduced a new improbability (and we’re talking way beyond the improbability of the fictional world here — I’m referring to intra-plot “luck” and other problems — the final scenes are just off the chart with deus-ex-machina stupidity).

This movie has not one single good thing going for it. I’m very glad I didn’t get the Blu-ray.

About Game of Thrones:

I’m pleased to see that various revenge plots are beginning to gyre up. I only hope they come to something. I especially want to see Cersei kick some ass. I also am interested in the weird Arya plot — will look forward to where they’re taking this “blind martial arts master” thing.

I dreaded that they might bring back Jon Snow, and it looks like that may be on the table. I got really sick of that character and his Tarly nerd sidekick, but I imagine a great herd of heartbroken girls wrote in protests, so Snow will probably be rezzed. Too bad.

The dumbness is strong in this one.

Reckitt Benckiser, distributors of Lysol, have decided to give themselves a raise. Already overpriced, the big spray can used to cost $4.97 at Walmart. Yesterday, it was $5.97. Can someone tell me what’s in Lysol that justifies paying $6 a can at Walmart’s low-low pricing?

Never mind. I bought Walmart’s house brand for $2.57 or something. It doesn’t smell as good, but it claims to kill germs just like Lysol.

Let this be a lesson about something.

For some reason, most of you don’t have the DIY Network. I won’t say you should be ashamed of yourselves, but this isn’t anything to be proud of either because you’re going to miss the renewal of the best flip series in the world, to wit, The Vanilla Ice Project.

I don’t know what this season has in store. Probably Wes Kane will be back as Rob’s right hand man. Unless the earth has turned incorrectly on its axis, Jeremy the College Kid should also be a regular. The identities of the rest of the crew are a mystery, but they may be pretty good. I don’t see how they can be as great as Pork Chop, Handsome Dan, George the Plumber, or other erstwhile cast members, but I could be surprised.

What I can count on is very high-end house flipping the likes of which no one has ever surpassed. The bling will be mighty, and I don’t doubt that Rob will bring his usual ingenuity to every crisis. Over the course of an unspecified number of weeks, prepare to watch a hopeless wreck of a mansion go from zero to hero. Kitchens will be destroyed and rebuilt with state-of-the-art accessories. Swimming pools full of unspeakable detritus will be transformed into sparkling water attractions. Tiki huts will almost certainly be fabricated on white sand beaches. Yard flora will rival the gardens of bygone sultans.

If you don’t watch any other do-it-yourself flip show this season, you owe it to yourself to be awed by the VIP Ninjas. Send word to your mother.

(I’m supposed to give credit for the photo, so here goes: By Dave Kleinschmidt from Williamstown, MA – Is this real? Cropped from original image., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2558759)

I don’t mean to imply that I’m neglecting my housecleaning, just that I haven’t had much to report on this subject.

Things have moved along efficiently and happily. I continue to approach cleaning with a spatial rather than temporal mandate in mind. That is, I do not set rigid schedules but instead remind myself that I did X room last time, so I need to do Y room next. If you go by schedules, you will certainly fall behind. If you fall behind, you’ll get depressed and fall further behind. If you think of roomscapes instead of clocks and calendars, your priorities will stay intact. To do a room properly and knowing that a certain other room must be done properly during the next session — this is far superior to agonizing over how you can do Tuesday’s room when you don’t have time.

Swiffers and feather dusters, of course, remain my weapons of choice, but the reason I’m touching on this subject again is to introduce a new device which I’m ashamed to say I’ve overlooked as a cleaning necessity. As you know, I love my Riccar vacuum cleaner. I love it so much that I consider it my pet. You don’t need a dog if you have a good vacuum cleaner. It’s also nice to have a broom and a dustpan for general sweeping, as well as a whisk broom for small dry messes. However, whisk brooms sometimes don’t quite catch everything. More correctly speaking, the little plastic dustpans that accompany these brooms don’t lend themselves very effectively to collecting certain small objects, like shreds of paper or other flat things that seem to cling to tile in spite of energetic sweeping.

This is when you need a spot vacuum. And the best spot vacuum I’ve found is the Black & Decker Dustbuster.

The virtues of this product speak for themselves. For under $25, you can get a battery-charged sucker-upper of surprising power and reliability. Did you drop some little slivers from your paper shredder? Did you spill some peppercorns? Notice some bits of tracked-in dirt marring your recently mopped tile floor? Just run over to where you’ve hung the Dustbuster on its charging hook, suck up the offending particles, and you’re good to go. Every once in a while, dump out the little canister and wash the filter. That’s it.

I cannot recommend this device too highly. Maybe the competing Dirt Devil is just as good, but I prefer to support a company with “Decker” in the name because I’m reminded of Carl Weathers’ CIA character in Predator, and that’s the best reason I can think of to choose one product over another.

Go out today and get your Dustbuster. You’ll send me lots of thank-you notes.