DramatistDreamer

Maybe because it's elections in my neck of the woods, I am tapped out at the moment. My energies have really been directed to the very local and a few international events.

It's about time, especially for Rosenworcel, who has been acting chairwoman and before that, on the board of the FCC since the Obama administration.

Y&R fans usually turn up for livestreams, regardless of who does them. Locher needs this kind of livestream to juice up his click counts since his view counts over the last several months have been exceedingly low.

Ironically, just this morning, I saw a headline that claimed that Eli Musk was already on his way to becoming the first trillionaire. TBH, I really didn't care enough to read the actual article.

It's actually not good to be so reliant on countries on the other side of the world for medications that a significant amount of the country's population is so reliant on like inhalers. Especially when one country may have a mercurial relationship with the other.

Oh, I double mask anytime I am in indoor spaces with others. Also, there has been a global shortage of drivers for years, which has now been exposed with this pandemic. I did hear experts say that the national stockpile diminished for reasons that have little to do with supply chain issues. Supply chain issues are the reasons for toilet paper, disinfecting wipes and paper towels being scarce, as well as the reason why even used cars have become as expensive as some new vehicles. But the national stockpile issues are somewhat connected but not entirely. It's one of the reasons why politicians who once believed that manufacturing returning to the U.S. was impractical and virtually impossible are now pushing for manufacturing corridors, though mostly modest. The pandemic has shown shortfalls in patients being able to procure simple generic blood pressure medicines, as most are made in either China or India. So the idea of a cluster of manufacturing hubs, rather than huge factories has, at least for the moment become more than a talking point for nationalist minded politicians.

Yes, metro but no longer residing in the actual city anymore.

There needs to be a better way. Vaccination is very important but making high-quality masks available is still also very important. Yeah, I haven't tried to buy N95 because I know it's important for healthcare and frontline workers to have ready access to the N95 masks-- I don't want to be a maskhole. Two years later, and we're still having these kinds of issues gives inconsistent mask wearers cover to only sometimes wear masks. Fortunately, where I live, at least, masks are required in all public indoor spaces.

After having just placed an order for KN95 masks for myself and family members, the realization that as of next month, it will be two full years since the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 has entered humanity and upended all our lives. It's somewhat hard not to feel a bit depressed about this. Also, after two years, shouldn't production of masks be widespread enough that N95 masks are available to the general population, in addition to hospital, healthcare and frontline workers? Instead, supply chain issues appear to have just gotten worse (there have been new warnings about toilet paper shortages). Shouldn't all those overpaid technocrats have already solved this problem?

Look, I am not trying to be condescending, nor do I want an argument, but there needs to be a bit more discernment when posting tweets directly from politicians' social media feed (and even some journalists, unfortunately). Not that I haven't had my issues with Fauci, but he isn't the entire organization.

Those two accidental gun discharges prior to the fatal one this week though, might come back to haunt the producers.

I agree. I found myself giggling when Donna accused Rocco of being a "capitalist". That Donna would have been more relevant today. I wish they had kept some of those characteristics as time went by. At least this Donna seems like she had something going on in her brain, rather than being a blonde bimbo. Nancy Sloane was affable enough but the writing wasn't there for Katie...at all. The actress did what she could, given the limitations of the role. As my mother would say "You cannot get blood from a stone". Storm's romance with Alex actually made me think for a moment that there was some possibility for the character to have some possibility but there was no genuine development of the character beyond obvious plot point. The most interesting aspect of his relationship with that Alex character is that IRL, the actress who played her is a right-winger who was a part of the T*ump administration.

Thanks for posting @Faulkner. A lot of issues are work here, some recent and others long-simmering. As I mentioned up thread, there are union members that expressed deep dissatisfaction with the proposed IATSE agreement, mainly because they believe it to be a bad deal. This on set tragedy may cause more union members to join the ranks of the dissatisfied. There is also the issue of the pandemic pushing back production schedules and film production companies and investors rushing to catch up to amended release dates ("haste makes waste" is not just an empty aphorism). Tie this in with the long-running issue of having all these venture capitalists investing in movies, with expectations of quick profits (which is not generally the way it works), a "time is money" mentality and multiple production companies, half a dozen or more on one film project, which is often seen as spreading the risk of investment in an artistic enterprise (i.e. money losing) can also have a "too many cooks" effect on a project. One can only hope that there would be some soul searching in the industry, but this is Hollywood and the movie business not the theater, where they at least pretend to be thoughtful about where they can do better.

The U.K., from what I have read, had dropped many of their COVID mitigation measures several months ago, and so it appears, everyone is now living with the results.

I only watched a couple seasons of So You Think You Can Dance and he struck me somewhat odd, even from a distance. He reminds me of a certain type of theater and performing arts person who is so overconfident in his/her/their abilities and importance that they freely "take liberties", even when it infringes on other people's boundaries, as they have no real boundaries themselves-they've never been to taught to have any regard for boundaries, as they've been told how massively talented they are--all their lives. I have both had to perform and work with these types. Better late than never, I guess.

Union members walked off the set of Rust, hours before the fatal shooting. The crew members cited working conditions as the reason they walked out. I also heard that the person in charge of the munitions (weapons/gun), it was her first time on the job.

According to what I read, only hours before this shooting incident, some unionized crew members walked off the set over working conditions. So far, I've only heard that the crew members' complaint was about being promised hotel rooms close to the set, but having to drive 50 miles each day to the set.

One thing this look back has afforded me is the opportunity to realize that people like Brenda Epperson appeared on soaps before her stint on Y&R. I guess that's how she entered the Bell soaps universe.

Geez, Peter Scolari?! Oh, how sad. RIP.

Your idea of hell is similar to mine, only with P&G. And with boosters of certain a ATWT former executive producer and HW from that era of the show, they'd likely be the loudest cheerleaders and get heard first.

I guess hometown hopeful Andrey Rublev had some company getting booted out of the tournament. The guaranteed money was probably very high.

Hutchins started in journalism and transitioned into film. Imagine, the possibilities of escaping potentially dangerous situations and then dying on the set of a movie. So sad and preventable.

Even her cadence is off to me, so I didn't even need to see her face. I have seen some 'stills' from the film and wasn't liking what I saw there either. I did see a bit of Bardem and am skeptical of him as well. The story is not just about Lucille Ball, it's about both Ball and Desi Arnaz. Hollywood today is not really about giving chances to anyone, let alone new actors. Making money supersedes everything, Hollywood wants the "sure thing". In the old studio system in the days of Louis B. Mayer, etc. under the old Hollywood boss hierarchy, actors were contracted to a studio, where they'd keep a so-called stable of talent in reserve for projects, including "fresh faces". That wasn't a very good system either because it wasn't very humane. Some actors would be fortunate enough to get meaningful work and breakout success, while others would practically languish waiting for their opportunity to be in a starring or even good supporting role. In the meantime, the studio practically "owned" them, which means they were tethered to that studio and had to refuse work if it emerged from elsewhere, unless an even more powerful studio boss could extract them out of their contract. Even Leigh herself would go on to have problems with depression and many have speculated much of that depression (the part that didn't have to do with personal and romantic difficulties) had to do with feeling the constraints of that studio system. But I digress (a lot, sorry). If nothing else, I wish the casting call would have been more "open". It's obvious to me that Kidman and Bardem had their names practically tattooed on the title roles. What a shame.