DramatistDreamer

@amybrickwallace I really hope that your In-laws will see reason and do their utmost to protect themselves and each other by getting vaccinated and being diligent about mask wearing. Continued strength to you, as someone who has one or two unvaccinated relatives (they cannot be around me and they aren't allowed near my mom) I know it is both stressful and frustrating. Continue strength to you too @Soapsuds, I'm sorry that this has happened to your family. Hopefully, everyone has taken the steps to protect themselves and each other by getting vaccinated, if they haven't already. Strength to everyone else that is dealing with a similar situation. I try to take things day by day, because to listen to projections on how much longer we will have to deal with this is liable to really make me feel depressed. My life is such that now whenever I go out and into an indoor space with people, I plan ahead to go when there will be the least amount of people and time myself so that I am not in that space for longer than 15-20 minutes at a time. And always double-masked. There are no more simple outings.

It also proves the complaint about slower court speeds deadening tennis, which I made several years ago, over and over again. The courts were finally sped up, for the first time in ages and the entertainment value went up, irrespective of the names of the players. It's a pity both the US Open and Wimbledon wasted so many years of late with slowed down court surfaces. Think of how many bodies were wrecked by such slow courts.

I thought the first set was fun. I didn't really have any expectations, seeing as the two players were first-time finalists. The women coming out ahead of the men in the ratings is pretty much par for the course in recent years, especially in light of the relative predictability of the men's draw.

Thank goodness I don't watch some media, because that sounds pretty desperate to me.

I know Trinis must be embarrassed by this.

The Djokovic-Medvedev final was up 37% over last year's men's final. For the men, that is a definite improvement in ratings.

The women's peaked at 3.4 million, while the men's peaked at 2.7 million. https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-releases/2021/09/us-open-viewership-up-33-in-prime-time-13-overall/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Yes, I remember that. She did do other soaps but never seemed to do long engagements at that point. I really do believe that she just didn't want the type of hours that filming a soap opera generally requires.

From her previous interviews, I got the distinct impression that she didn't want to be tied to a soap, she wanted the freedom to do theater, where and whenever she wanted.

No big surprise that I'm seeing the women's matches rated higher than the men's. Hasn't it been this way for years now?

That's why it's misguided to lionize or revere these talking heads, just by what you see on television. Many of them are glorified script readers at best. I kind of prefer the title that they are given in Britain, that if newsreader, because that's essentially what they do, they read the news. Actual journalists research, write and deliver their own news stories.

For all the squawking about right-wing zealots taking over Europe and possibly Latin America, it sure seems like there has been a decidedly left-ward turn in politics over the last two years. While America and parts of Great Britain may be willfully blind about the disaster that is Trumpism, it would appear that much of the world has decided to veer away from that direction. Wasn't Norway supposed to be full of right-winger in charge by now? 🙄

It was so prescient to bring Penny back to Oakdale on special occasions during the 80s. That should've continued, right up to the end of the series' run.

And guess what? They have begun to run ads (at least, when you stream on the YouTube app), just as I suspected. The episodes are actually about 21 minutes in length, on average. Some people are complaining about the screen aspect ratio but I don't see the B&B uploaders doing much to change that, at least, not with just a few thousand views per episode. But, as quiet as it's kept, even those few ads per episode, for an episode that is just a little over 20 minutes is $$$ for B&B's revenue stream. Modest amounts add up, when you consider it. It's basically almost entirely an income stream that's "passive". B&B is in the position to do this more easily than most, due to their length, of course, but also the fact that they don't tend to use much popular music, like many other soaps did during the same period of time. Other soaps though, do have some years, some episodes where not much popular music was used, so this is achievable with many soaps, tbh, not just B&B.

Some (not all) sectors of the media seem loathe to admit that California Republicans essentially wasted huge amounts of the state's money to front this recall election, with ridiculously foppish and unserious candidates. These same media entities also seem loathe to admit that the recall has been rejected in what looks to be a landslide. Great use of public resources in a pandemic.🙄 Wasn't the Republican party supposed to be the party of fiscal conservatism? I guess that's only when it comes to the lower income classes.

He's spent most of his career outside of the top 💯. The chair umpire saying "It is what it is" though 😂.

Apparently, Tennys Sandgren got defaulted, like what, two games into the first round of a Challenger match?

Did no one post the trailer for her documentary? I mean, I could do it but since I was absent from the board for a few days, I had assumed that it had already been done.

In addition to this, those characteristics were essentially played by an entirely different actor, Terry Lester.

Is this some type of record? Oh, it's not a record, but Tonic does indeed have a faster losing time.

Venus was one of my Top 2. Her skin alone, she was positively glowing. Oh okay, the tennis. The WTA side has been unpredictable for years but unpredictable would be a tremendous understatement for what happened this year. The so-called ascendants who acted like Serena was in their way to the major titles...what happened to them?! Garbiñe? Svitolina? Bencic, who always acts like she is condescending whenever she has to play Venus, where was that spirit of entitlement then? Congrats to Raducanu for grabbing what was ripe for the taking and congrats to Fernandez for cutting a huge swath through all those WTA players who were supposed to contend for this year's title. Nobody saw them coming, but it will be interesting to see who familiarizes themselves with Raducanu and Fernandez's games going forward. Well, nobody could claim that Medvedev came out of nowhere, with two other finals under his belt, but it had really been Novak's title to lose and lose, he did. Unlike many of the players who face Djokovic in the majors, Daniil knew that mixing it up (what some might call junk-balling) was an effective strategy for someone who was likely fatigued and nervous. Had Daniil played a predictable game, with obvious patterns for Novak to become comfortable with, Nolé might have been able to settle down and find his way in. What's really funny is that Medvedev employed the same type of tactics that Monfils used when he took a set off Djokovic at the US Open few years ago, but Daniil was ruthlessly efficient and ultimately successful. I guess the point is, when you win, there won't be criticism of your strategy. Congrats to Daniil on his success at the Open. I had low expectations for this tournament, so it was fun to watch, the handful of matches that I did watch in their entirely.

Someone once tweeted that Carlos Alcaraz looked like the love child of Rafael Nadal and Carla Suarez Navarro and now that tweet seems to make sense, lol. Angie won the battle of the pushers. Angie was sleeping in that stadium, I'm not sure she even went back to her hotel or wherever she's been staying. She wanted this win badly.

😵