Another month has passed and—NO MORE SNOW, PLUX!

This has to be one of the worst winters we have had in my area in a long time. Below freezing for weeks and so much ❄ ️ SNOW ❄ ️! There must be two feet around my neighborhood. This is wild!

One concern I have is that the weather tends to go from freezing to humid at the drop of a hat. All of that snow melting quickly will be nasty and dank. Hopefully, the temps gradually climb in March and not hit us with seventy degree weather right away.

But for now, February promises to be just as bitter cold and the snow keeps coming. And with it, seasonal blues and cabin fever. Luckily, I do steps in my garage and shoveling is a workout, I guess. So I am trying to keep active, physically speaking. Mentally is another story.

I have done little writing since my AI Image fun with Colorify. Thankfully, during that time of momentum, I did write two more blogs for February that will be coming out on Wednesday. But I have not done much writing for fun in a while. Momentum and motivation seem to hit me in waves, all-or-nothing style. I am super invested and focused to work on a project. Or I have zero drive and marathon movies or shows during down time.

And soon the Lent season will begin, which means Fish Fry Fridays which are typically pretty stressful for me. So on top of the weather being a downer, my motivation at a plateau, work will be so much fun soon as well. And hour cuts have been happening, so I have more free time but the time in my hands means nothing if I do not have the drive.

But that’s winter for you. Spring and Fall seem to be the seasons I am most motivated to do stuff. Summer is another season when my motivation goes down. But that is sometimes because other things take my attention away. That, and Summer has always been a lazy and chill time for me.

So, anyway, I have been on Netflix a lot lately. Recently, Netflix has added all the James Bond movies. I’ve seen “Dr. No” and “From Russia with Love” and Wow! The 1960s were a hell of a time. Seriously, the corny and cheesy goodness of old school spy thrillers have always been a fun time for me. Although now that I’m older, I actually paid attention to the plots and finer details of these two movies. In the past, I watched them out of curiosity because I played Goldeneye on the N64 to death and became curious about the Bond movies.

The Roger Moore era is my favorite, I remember having the most fun with those movies. So far though, Sean Connery has been a treat to watch, with his swagger and cool demeanor in the face of danger. And so far, I think he only slapped a woman once per two movies. I've only seen two movies so far though, so maybe more slapping is to come. Yeah 1960s!

What surprised me was that “From Russia with Love” is actually a straight up sequel to “Dr. No”. There are even references to the first movie which I just assumed all movies back then were self contained and not trying to build a cinematic universe. Another thing that surprised me is how often the Bond theme is played in these movies, even when Bond is just checking his hotel room for bugs.

I look forward to seeing more of the Bond franchise. Maybe I will give my thoughts on them for an article in the future. Hmmm 🤔?

Another thing I have been watching is “Jurassic World: Chaos Theory”. It is a sequel series to “Camp Cretaceous” which I enjoyed a lot. I have seen most of the Jurassic World movies but “Domination” and “Rebirth”. “Chaos Theory” for the first season or two seems to be stand alone but then it starts to connect with “Domination”. Not having seen that movie, I just had to fill in the blanks when some random event happened that was triggered off screen. And if the leads from “Domination” had been the cause of a lot of chaos in “Chaos Theory” then they indirectly made the Nublar Six’s lives so much more challenging.

I’ll have to watch “Domination” and be like “No! Don’t take the drone helicopter! They need to save Ben!” Yeah, watching “Chaos Theory” first probably will paint my view of “Domination” a little 🤏. It is too bad that the movies never did connect with the Nublar Six series. But then again, even Marvel has difficulty connecting its TV shows with its movies. Even in the streaming era, the silver screen and home theater still have a huge gap of separation.

So, recently a trailer came out for “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”. A reboot of something that only thoughts of the 1980s would remember. Sure, there have been attempts to reboot He-Man before but I have not watched any of those yet, so cannot give my opinion. But since not much has come out in a while, I am guessing this new reboot movie is an attempt to breathe some life back into the franchise.

Well, after seeing the news of the He-Man reboot, I recalled that “She-Ra and the Princess of Power” was rebooted as a Netflix exclusive series about five or so years back. And because of a licensing deal with Dreamworks, who produced the series, She-Ra will soon be leaving Netflix, even though it is a Netflix original, go figure.

I recalled seeing the original She-ra back in my youth but not very much. However, I heard good things about the rebooted She-Ra series and decided to give it a shot before it vanished forever. I watched the first episode and thought, “Hey, that was actually pretty good, might as well keep watching.” And before I knew it, I watched a whole season in a day. And finished all five seasons in a week.

The animation is on par with “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and the writing is just as quality. She-Ra has a lot of character development which I eat up no matter what I watch. And the dialogue exchanges are so freaking good that I envied who wrote such fun and believable conversations. 🧑‍🍳💋

I will admit there are some themes that get repetitive (friendship is magic and all that jazz) but the status quo is shaken up often enough to keep things interesting. And yes, this is a solid series for younger LGBTQ viewers. Which is why this series leaving Netflix feels like a huge oversight. Netflix has a real gem on their hands but it seems like this is just business as always with the streaming giant.

If anyone is reading this in the future and you can watch She-Ra, give it a chance. I was pleasantly surprised and would have watched more, if the series continued past 5 seasons. Which it could have, the ending was rushed, which only left me wanting more.

And . . . I have nothing else to add. I would share more AI Images but I want to save those for articles. January’s update was mostly dedicated to my discovery of AI image generators and I want to keep these updates just as . . . Well, updates. Hopefully the snow will slow down and melt in due time. Maybe seeing grass again will wake me up from this dank mood I have been in.

Good Luck and For the Honor of Grayskull!

—BUCK