Hi Stefancrosscoe
How are you today and how has your week been? Thanks for being understanding and I can relate to having busy weeks and some days I plan on doing all these different things in one afternoon but then one or two of them will take me longer than I expected and slows me down with everything else and that happens on here every now and then but I always try to keep up to date. I am glad you have not been bad and I have been feeling a lot better myself the last few days – thank you for asking and this has been one of the best weeks I have had in a while ‘cause I have been able to see my Sister and my Niece (Courtney) thanks to our area having a few small restrictions eased which allow us to have one visitor at a time at our houses and my eldest Niece is coming here tomorrow. I have missed seeing all of them during the Lockdown and it has been really hard for us and worse than last year and today is Courtney’s birthday and while we can’t go over my Sister’s house and spend it with her I’m glad I got to spend a few hours with her yesterday and I gave Courtney her presents and let her open some of them early while she was here and we got her a cake too which she loved.
Sadly for the most part things are indeed not looking too positive for our state and are getting worse and we had 344 new cases yesterday and just the other day we had 356 cases and four deaths which was the worst day we have had on record since the pandemic began last year and the Premier thinks the Lockdown isn’t going to end until November now ‘cause the numbers are too high and there are not enough people getting vaccinated and she has added more towns to the Lockdown like Lismore, Dubbo, Byron Bay and Ballina due to them having clusters in pubs, hotels and restaurants and I have a Cousin who lives in Lismore and is she is not too happy about it ‘cause the reason it is spreading to them is ‘cause of people living in Hotspots traveling to other towns when they aren’t supposed to be and I think we need stronger fines for them. At this point I am going to be very lucky if I can return to work before the end of the year ‘cause even if our area gets free from the Lockdown early the town I work in is having a lot more cases than we are and will most likely be in Lockdown longer than us.
Again, I am sorry for being a bit too late, but yeah, the last 8-10 days, more or less, have been quite busy, but hopefully things will cool down a bit now, and I am very much looking forward to fall arriving, much closer, day by day. Even if, (as I write this) there is almost a bit of a "indian summer" outdoor, but yeah, something about the fresh air, cooler nights and the leaves turning into different colors, and such a great time, for late night horror movies, under a warm blanket.
I think you mentioned there is winter time in Australia? Or maybe I got that one wrong? Anyway, I guess I must prepare for at least another few months until that might happen, but I might start up watching a few christmas themed films, during early November and see where it goes from then on.
Glad to hear you had a nice time with your family and got together, as family and close ones, sure is important, and here in Norway, there has been a lot more focus in the newspapers about both young and older people, having increased problems with their mental health, due to feeling of loneliness, or not being able to visit their family and loved ones, that or being locked down to a certain small area with few or any relatives or familiar people near by, and sadly, some cases have ended up in total tragedy, with suicide as a result. Also, the waiting lists for those hoping to seek help, seems to just become longer and longer, as day go by.
I usually do not check up too often about how the statestics about how many new cases there is, but sadly, according to media this morning, there was almost a new record of cases happening in Oslo, and I suppose it might have a lot to do with school being back as usual, and the politicians is discussing the possiblity of giving out vaccine to kids down to the age of 12-15 years old.
Because things are still so bad at the moment Beccy and I have decided with visitors it would be safe to only have my Sister and her family over and my Sister is doing the same with us and when it starts to improve and the numbers drop we will invite some other people over but at the moment I think it is too risky and we don’t even know how long this new freedom is going to last and we could be back to not being allowed to have anyone next week. I am sorry to hear you have had an increase in cases in several cities in your country again and with the high rate it sounds like it is the Delta Strand since it moves around so much quicker than any other strand we have had and with people coming back it is most likely going to add onto the numbers especially with young people. Thank you for explaining what electric bikes are to me and I looked them up the Segway bikes and I know which ones you are talking about now and it is surprising how things like that explode over a few years and it is good you don’t have a lot of people having serious injuries on them ‘cause it wouldn’t take much for that to occur.
That is surprising you nearly had a taxi driver hit you a few days ago and those are people who are literally paid to drive for a living and they should be heaps more careful on the road than average drivers and know not to drive while they are talking on a mobile phone but sadly they are just as bad as everybody else and the phone call was most likely not important but there are some people glued to screens and they can’t go anywhere without them or spend a minute away from them and on feet in shops and shopping centres they can be annoying too because they just stop somewhere and play on their phones or I Pads until people tell them to move out of the way. I don’t blame you for having trouble remembering the Driver’s License plate ‘cause I am not that great at remembering numbers either and would have forgotten them. The problem is that kind of driver does kill people in multiple countries and I think most accidents are caused by somebody not watching the road. Have you ever heard of car jumpers or car hoppers? Thankfully they aren’t very common but there have been some here on the news that jump on top of cars when there is a lot of traffic and they will go from one car to another like something you would see in a movie and it is lucky they don’t end up dead.
I sometimes (when I take the subway into the city square) will look around, just to watch how many people actually is not (as you put it so fine) glued to the screens, and I feel like I am suddenly in some weird sci-fi movie. Literally all the passengers, is constantly trying to avoid eye contact with other people, just stare like robots down to their phones or computers, and I am often wondering how there is not far more accidents happening in the daily life, as many also covers their ears and hearing, by playing music (very loud), and it is almost like they try their best to tempt fate, or something, but some should really wake up, and take a look around, realizing life is flying by.
Car jumpers, that is something I have not heard of, well, expect from some american movies, where some creep tries to create a situation out of nothing, by throwing himself to a car or a driving vechicle, then getting all ready to sue the innocent driver.
People do stupid stuff, but some really are on a whole other level, and just do not seem to think at all, until they act, and can cause very much damage in such a manner.
Yeah. The Olympics is over now and we were too upset over Sally and Stephanie losing at the surfing and didn’t watch the rest of it () and the WSL is on now and both of them have returned to it and I am hoping Stephanie Gilmore wins the World Championship this year ‘cause she only needs to win it one more time and she beats Layne Beachley’s record and goes down in history as the female surfer who has won the World Championship the most times! I did hear your country won gold medals and our country did too and had success in other sports like swimming and for Norway to not be much of a summer Olympics nation and win more this year means there must have been a lot of athletes that were training hard over the past few years to change that. Something I will say about all the Athletes in the different sports is I was happy for them they had the Olympics this year and they didn’t hold it off for another 4 years after cancelling it last year ‘cause I heard the ones that qualified for last year would have had to qualify again and it would be heartbreaking to be somebody who has spent their life wanting to be in the Olympics and to get in it only to have that dream taken away from you.
This pandemic has ruined a lot of things for people around the world and did you hear they are going to have one of the Olympics here in Australia again up in Queensland? I can’t remember what year it is going to be but we had the Olympics in our state (New South Wales) back in 2000 and I don’t know if it happens in other countries but they destroyed all this bushland in one of the towns near us for it to build buildings for events and ever since then they have stayed empty and nobody uses them and it is a big waste and you would think they would do something else with them. With Disney there are quite a few Live Action remakes in development now and we will have to wait and see what ones get made ‘cause I heard the ‘Bambi’ one was cancelled but they look to be remaking nearly everything in Live Action side from the Pixar movies and yes, as long as the money keeps coming in for them there will be more for sure ‘cause that is why they make them. I mean a lot of people complain about how many remakes we get nowadays and want more original movies which I want to see too but a lot of these remakes sell and that is the reason why Hollywood keeps making more of them and they see the dollars coming in as us wanting more of them.
I read that Jakob Ingebrigtsen (who won the 1500 meter), had already back during Olympic in London 2012, when his older brother Henrik ran, set his sight upon winning the gold in 2020 (well, he had to wait another year) and to have such a drive and of course ridiculous amount of talent, is, yeah, and he is such a young fella as well, only 19-20, and I believe the last time we had long distance runners who could compete with the very best, was back in the mid 90s, with Vebjørn Rodalen, who won in 1996 summer Olympics at the 800 meters.
Anyway, I am kind of excited to see if Karsten Warholm (400 meter Hurdles) will be able to compete on 400 meters (normal without the hurdles), as his world record earlier this summer, might show that he can not only compete, but maybe stand a chance of setting new records, and he his going to run this night or evening.
Will be interesting, as the last time he tried to run the 400 meters, he had already a few days before, run the same course (but with hurdles) and as a result, he ended up last, not surprising, as he had not gotten enough rest, where as the other 400 meter runners, had plenty of time to get ready.
Yeah, to train for years after years, always constantly looking forward to beat your personal best, and be able to compete with the top performers from the rest of the world, and only to have it all taken away, that might be very tough to overcome. Not everyone has lots of money and people around them, to take care, if something goes wrong, and for some, they are pretty much on their own. But I am glad this years event went ahead, even if it was without an audience.
What you wrote about all these empty building and stadiums, being built for Olympics or other huge sport events, then suddenly later on, are just ending up as empty shells. Well, that is sadly something which often happens. Such a waste of money and yeah, also how it might damage or destroy nature and enviroment, which had to be taken away, in order to build these enormous buildings.
It is a shame, that they often cannot find better solutions, to make good use of them, later on, than just have them standing there
It is the same reason why we have so many Reality TV Shows and there’s no doubt some of them are absolute rubbish but millions of people have tuned in every week to watch ‘Big Brother’, ‘My Kitchen Rules’, ‘the Bachelor’, ‘the Bachelorette’ and ‘the Kardasians’ and they are popular and keep coming back for more seasons. I am actually more surprised at some of the classic movies that haven’t been given remakes ‘cause there are heaps from the 50s, 60s and 70s they could be making next and look at all the Cary Grant, Doris Day, Bob Hope, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Bing Crosby, The Marx Brothers, Joan Crawford, Deborah Kerr (who I was named after) and Jerry Lewis movies for example that were popular but I think what might be stopping them from remaking some of them now is they were so well-known for having certain Actors in them and people like my Aunt who are fans of Doris Day watched Doris Day’s movies ‘cause she was in them and not for the actual movie. Eddie Murphy done a good job with the remake of Jerry Lewis’ ‘The Nutty Professor’ but others would be harder to do modern versions of especially the ones with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and I think they stick to the 80s and 90s for the most part ‘cause they are easier to adapt.
That reminds me do you like any of those Actors ‘cause I grew up watching a lot of their movies with my Aunt and Grandfather and my Grandfather loved Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, Abbott and Costello and The Marx Brothers movies and he would have them on when my Sister and I stayed at his house and I find I like a lot of the classic Comedies like that more than the modern ones. Speaking about movies Beccy and I have been re-watching the ‘Star Wars’ movies to get ready to watch the Star Wars shows on Disney + like ‘The Mandorelian’ and we noticed they have the Ewoks movies on there and we are going to watch them too () and I recall seeing them ages ago like back in the early 90s and haven’t seen them again since then so it will be interesting to re-watch them all these years later and I heard they are bad but it will be fun to see them again ‘cause I like Ewoks. I have surprised over how many things are on Disney + and we have been re-watching some of the old cartoons like ‘Spider-Man’, ‘X Men’, ‘Fantastic Four’ and ‘Spider Woman’ and I like the 90s ‘X Men: Animated Series’ more than the live action movies ‘cause they didn’t depower Rouge, Gambit was in it and Cyclops wasn’t made to look so weak and the Live Action movies really didn’t do a good job handling Cyclops in my opinion.
Joan Crawford, Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant are surely all names I am familiar with, and have enjoyed much in some very watchable and great films, but as you said it, I guess I am more of a, watch a movie because I want to see the film, not just the actor, even though I surely have my soft spot, going only into certain titles, because I know or is a huge admirer of the actor involved, which can go both ways, but sadly, maybe far too often, end up with a bit of a disappointment.
But I tend to think of it as, "well, they gotta eat, and pay their bills, like most people do"
but some names, it is kind of a downer, to see the talent that ends up doing absolute terrible films, but, yeah, I think it was Michael Caine who got asked the question of why he bothered to do
Jaws 4: The Revenge (1987), and he said something about not having seen the final end product, but he did see the pool or garage the films salary paid for, which I guess shut down the critics.
Myself, I love those Caine films, like
The Island (1980),
The Hand (1981) and of course Jaws 4. Very enjoyable and fun horror films, and certainly no where near, what I would ever think of as a "worst movie" contender.
Anyway, I very much agree on what you mentioned, about 80s films being maybe more accessible to todays audience, where as films from much older days, might be seen as kind of "from another world" or time, and of course, the money men, wants to play it safe, not take too much gambles, so a more familiar franchise or film, might seem the more natural choice to go by.
I still have none streaming sites, that I use (for now that is), I guess the closest one, is kind of watching a film, every now and then through my brother and his account, which he has no trouble with. However, the problem is that I so seldom end up finding a film that I actually want to see, too damn many I have seen, or is absolute not interested in.
If they only would increase the number of older films, specially within the horror, action and comedy genre, then I would be very much interested. But as of now, it is just, well I end up clicking from one title onto the next, and I just never seem to end up finding the "right" one, and end up giving up, and just go by my movie collection (the physical VHS, DVD and Blu-ray one), to find me something to watch.
Of course, Youtube has an impressive selecation of free movies, where many has far superior quality in picture and sound, (most are even uncut as well), but yeah, again, to find the right one, and not end up with a poor or terrible impulse pick, that is not always that easy.
Speaking of the Star Wars movies, I did find a used rental VHS of The Watchers: Reborn (1998) not many weeks ago, and while certainly not a great horror film, it has a certain b-movie charm, which these 90s video releases often would include. And I remember renting it, back in summer of 2003, at my local video store, which sadly closed down not long after. But I was interested in trying to find it once more, as I had not seen it for so long.
Some of the prices for a DVD copy (on Ebay and Amazon) went for crazy, I mean who spends that kind of amount on one movie, even a used one?
Well, I was lucky, a used second hand store (online that is) had the exact same rental VHS copy in store (a Norwegian copy as well), and I found it for the price of nothing.
Anyway, back to the Star Wars link, Mark Hammill I have always been a fan of, and most of the times, during the 90s, he seemed to show up as the villain or bad guy, of course something he often did very well (Joker on Batman the Animated Series, especially) but onscreen, he mostly played the baddie.
But in the Watchers 4, he did put in a nice guy part, and while the film itself, is not very "great", it was fun to re-watch it, and I am glad I decided to search around for a VHS version. Sadly, the DVD copy (region 1) seems to be just a bit too pricy for me. Maybe someone might re-release it, on DVD or Blu-ray one day.
Since you are a fan of Dark chocolate I was curious if you have ever tried Loacker Wafers ‘cause they came in Dark chocolate and are nice and the most recent chocolate I had was actually White Cookies and Crème Chocolate Milky Bar and I love that and Caramilk. They do bring back a lot of old things in shops under new names and I have noticed that the most with cereal and sometimes it doesn’t turn out to be as good as you remember ‘cause you romanticize the flavour in your mind and think that it is really delicious ‘cause you haven’t had it for so long but it isn’t that great. I am not a fan of when a company makes changes to a food product that has been around for a long time ‘cause usually when they do it is never good and Arnott’s here done it with Shapes biscuits a few years ago and they got a LOT of complaints from people and had to bring back the original flavours. You are right about Right and Left wing propaganda and there is very much an either them or us mentality with them and this need to choose sides and be a part of something and Terrorists often have a way of saying the things these people are wanting to hear and can get through to them in ways their families can’t and it is a problem I don’t think we address enough.
Yes. There is a 'Legally Blonde 3' coming out and I am very excited 'cause I didn't think we would ever get one 'cause the second one was so long ago and there was technically a third one called 'Legally Blondes' that was a spinoff but it was horrible and Reese Witherspoon didn't appear in it and most fans would rather forget it ever happened kinda like the prequel to 'Dumb and Dumber.' 'Legally Blonde 3', however is going to be a proper follow up to the second movie based years later and it was delayed by the pandemic but the release date is now the 20th of May 2022. Some of the other members of the original cast have been confirmed to be coming back for it like Luke Wilson and there has also been talk of Reese's daughter, Ava Phillippe appearing in it. Reese did go through a rough time a few years back but she seems to have gotten her career back on track now she done 'Big Little Lies' and she is currently in 'The Morning Show' with Jennifer Aniston and Season 2 of that is going to start next month. Have you seen many of Reese’s movies and if so what are your favorites?
Oh, yes. I know about Lego and some of my friends used to have it and I was telling another member on here recently how I was surprised over how much my Sister said it has gone up in price and there are some people are that good at building things with Lego they have even become famous off it and have you heard of Lego Artists? Thank you for answering my questions and the TV Industry has come a long way since the success of ‘24’ and is viewed very differently than it used to be and streaming is the big thing now that many are saying is not only the future of TV Shows but movies and due to the pandemic we have been seeing a lot of new movies that would have come out in cinemas going onto streaming services instead like we talked about with the upcoming ‘Batgirl’ movie. It has been a long time since I saw the first three 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' movies but the first two were very popular here and some of my friends loved them but the third was seen as a bit of a disappointment and after watching it I could see why since it was very different than the first two and went in another direction but I remember thinking it wasn't bad. The second one I thought was better than the first and I remember the 'Go Ninja Go' song in it and them facing Super Shredder near the end which I later found out was the wrestler, Kevin Nash and he was a very scary strong looking character but if I remember correctly he caused all these things to fall or collapse on him and that was the end of him. I don't remember exactly but I recall he was easier for them to deal with than he looked. I remember there was also a cartoon in the 80s some of my friends watched that was on in the mornings here and did you watch that? Anyways, that's it for me for now too and that's okay you took a little longer to reply to me and I look forward to hearing from you again too and hope you are having a good week.
The dark chocolate you mentioned, I did look it up, and I think we have something a bit similar in brand and style, not so sure about the taste though, but yeah, they sure looked tasty.
The one thing that bothers a lot of norwegians, is that the variety in most of the food stores, are often very much of the same, which I guess is also a huge reason to why so many travels over to Sweden, where the variety in food products, is on a whole other level. I mean, you feel kind of "ashamed" how lousy and few choices you get in your own country, and then head into one, where you can almost "drown" in all these exciting products.
That, and how the prices are often way lower, is why so many take several trips a year. Not sure if I will be doing so this year, but hopefully it might happen soon, as it is not just the shopping part, but the whole little "adventure" with my family. Also, they have a neat movie store (not many of those left, sadly) where I always tend to waste away an hour, where the rest of the travleling company, are doing their things.
I seem to never leave that store, empty handed.
When it comes to Reese Witherspoon, she certainly has a nice talent, of showing up in some great movies, even if they might not be considered as "her own" films, but I am not sure I have a particular favorite, but I have a feel, that Election is one of those I should try to look up someday, not sure if I have actually seen it, but something about it, seems rather familiar.
Since our last chat, I did re-watch the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and yeah. It is quite a disappointing way of ending the original trilogy, and it felt very rushed, like all these random villains, and too much focus on the comedy part, but of course, the more watered down sequel payed way to that 2 years earlier.
Anyway, it was nice to see Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) back agein, even if he ended up as a babysitter, and did not much fighting, where as Master Splinter felt very lousy treated, he talked "weird" and probably spent the entire film, just sitting on his butt, probably due to how poor the costumes and dolls looked, compared to the first two films. That, and saving money.
The money part, kind of surprised me, as even by 1993, the Turtles mania, was still very much alive, and since both the former films made it so big, I wonder where did all the money go? I just wished they had spent more focus on hiring in a better writer, and I did like that they turned away, of not constantly relying on re-using Shredder, but with so many potential bad guys from the Turtles universe, all they could gather up with, was a bunch of mean pirates and yeah, I guess also the 2 year long wait, resulted in that many kids, where now older, and had kind of moved on, to other action themed cartoons and shows, where Bikermice From Mars and Power Rangers, would soon arrive.
Anyway, I did not think part III is to be considered among the "worst movies" of all time, I mean it is not very good, below average I would consider it (of course, it sure helps being a Turtles fan) but, yeah it is one I might not watch for a very, very long time. Where the first film, I can happily re-watch many times over, the second, maybe because of the nostalgia, but all in all, there is way worse movie trilogies out there.
Would be fun though, if someone could hand out a really good Turtles movie again, but for now, I think I might do a re-visit with the 2007 animated film, which I believe was the second best Turtles film ever made, after the original from 1990.
As always, lovely to read your replies, and hope that you are okay, and I will try to be a bit more faster the next time with my reply.
Until then, have yourself a great week/end.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Sure, I grew up loving the original animated Turtles show, which went on during 1990-92 or 93, and loved starting the day or morning watching it, then coming home from school and catch up with a new episode (as the morning ones, tended to be the one shown a day before).
However, due to some politicians thinking the word Ninja was "dangerous", they changed it to Hero in most of the Scandinavian and certain European countries.
It was not until much later on, that I realized it was actually Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not Hero Turtles.
Well until next time: