Weekly Update - 7/26/23

Ugh, this was not where I wanted to be at with this stage of the week, but here we are. So, to give a short version of a long story, Friday I went out to dinner with some folks who were in town. They'd heard from a mutual friend about a restaurant (which will remain nameless) so we all agreed to try it. Come Saturday morning, all six of us who went out for dinner were feeling unwell, and basically hung out in beds or bathrooms through Sunday night, although by Monday afternoon, I was starting to feel like myself again. The fact that it was in the high 90s for much of that time made it even worse. That cost a lot of working time, so I'm sorry for that, and I'm trying to get caught up. Life's kind of a kick in the teeth these days, but I appreciate everyone being kind about it.

The next thing going up is Breakpoint, at some point in the next couple of days, followed by Before The Storm after that, with maybe some more commissioned Alpha pieces coming out, assuming I can get my shit in gear and start plowing through things to make up for losing a handful of days. Even Monday and Tuesday I wasn't really on my game, so I was glad to hear from A Pack Of His Own that the first draft of that story's new chapter wasn't awful, as I was afraid it might have been. 

Next week, we have QT2:13 on the schedule for Tuesday, and probably Brewster's Brood for Friday, but I've got commissions work to get caught up on, so we'll see. I'm trying my best, folks, I promise you.

I did watch the end of Marvel's Secret Invasion this morning and without getting spoilery, I feel like the ending was a failure on a lot of fronts. There were parts of the episode that I liked, but whole sections of it felt like throwing darts at a dartboard, hoping to hit something interesting. Too many threads are left dangling, or, worse still, in worse shape than they were when everything started, and no real reason for the story to just end where it does. There are interesting things that happened, and I can see where a bunch of the budget went into one scene that looks pretty good (but also just mostly feels like wasted opportunity) and for those of you who were looking forward to the show's version of the comic book miniseries' big twist, there's none of that here. There's not even a post-credits scene. There are good pieces in place, but nothing coherent holding them together. And I have a feeling by the time we hit The Marvels in November, that will have ignored and forgotten all of this show. All in all, it was a pretty bad disappointment from a show that seemed to have a lot of pieces in the right place but didn't know what to do with any of them.

While I was confined to the bathroom for much of the weekend, I did end up watching a show called Travelers on Netflix from one of the creative minds of Stargate SG-1 and the affiliated shows, which turned out to be quite good despite a few wobbles. They only got three seasons, but the end of season 3 seemed a pretty good place to end a series on, so I'm okay with it. If you're looking for something good to watch, you'd do well to watch Travelers. I can sort of imagine them doing a sequel series, so maybe if it keeps resurging, they'll consider greenlighting it, assuming Netflix ever decides to stop giving almost all their money to the execs and almost none of it to the artists working to create these shows. 

I'm out for part of tonight seeing The English Beat with a friend of mine, who both bought the tickets for us and sent me a message about a week after buying the tickets saying "Did you know The English Beat are a ska band? Because I think I just learned that today..." Which I laughed about for a good long while, because back when I was doing radio shows, I did an entire night on the history of ska music, from first wave to fourth wave. 

Planned public releases are as follows: 7/29 - QT2:3, 8/5 - QT2:4, 8/12 - MG 15, 8/19 - Silversmith 3, 8/26 - 7 Secrets 6.

I appreciate all the kind words, and I'm glad people have enjoyed the most recent stuff I've been putting out. More great stuff coming, and if you're just wondering about the next QT2 chapter, again, it's on the schedule for early next week.