Whew, so we had some excitement last night. Last night for me anyway—I suppose it was morning for most of you. Some Splinterlands drama, with a fairly big name on this chain being accused of doing some fairly underhanded things, and the resulting drama about it. No links—you guys either know what I'm talking about or you probably don't want to know. It's the kind of drama that we don't see on Hive much these days. Back on Steemit, this kind of thing seemed to pop up far more often. I suppose that is an improvement—or a sign that our chain is much smaller than it once was. Read it as you will.

I woke up this morning to find the drama still going, although it seems like a peace offering was made so maybe things are simmering down now. If so, this rare drama has been resolved much quicker than usual. Progress?

Anyway, finding myself in the middle of this discussion last night left me tired, and this morning it took away my writing time and left me feeling in need of some cheer.

So let's just let my mind wander around and see what I can pick up.

Getting the Band Back Together

A while ago we discovered that @raymondspeaks hasn't seen The Blues Brothers.

gasp!

How anyone could live as long as a Boomer like him and not see have seen it is a mystery. We were piling on and trying to encourage him to correct that fault.

Thinking of that film makes me happy. It absolutely would have to be on my top 10 all time list. It's not a great film in the same way that Citizen Kane is a great film or North by Northwest is a great film, but it is one nonetheless. It is about the silliest film you will ever seen outside of a Monty Python outing, with a completely nonsensical story and incredibly over-the-top silly scenes. They never take themselves seriously and invite the viewer to join in on the fun. Combined with that is some really amazing music. John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd really were loves of the old blues and rhythm and blues music; they felt it was a crime that some of these artists weren't given more recognition, so they set out to correct that by inviting them into the movie.

Anyway, not a review here. If you haven't see it, go watch it. I think I will watch it again soon myself. Might be time to introduce my oldest to it. I was a few years younger than him when I first saw it—I was only in the 3rd grade and all the new curse words I was exposed to got me in trouble later at school when I decided to use some of them, unaware that teachers generally weren't a fan of hearing them from 3rd graders. It was a learning experience!

Silver Auryn

A week or so ago I posted about the trend of silver dragon coins this year. In that post, I mentioned that with the exception of the dog head, Falkor from The Never Ending Story is very similar to an Asian dragon.

Wouldn't you know it, but the song from that movie has been stuck in my head since. It's the perfect ear worm. Don't believe me? Go listen. This is another movie I haven't shown my kids yet. They are the perfect age for it—well, the oldest is anyway, but see, I read them the novel last year. I had actually never read it before, so I assumed it was similar to the movie. It was—for the first half. Well, somewhat. Lots of small changes, but somewhat similar. Where the movie ends, however, the book keeps going. At first I wasn't sure if I liked the second half of the book, but as soon as I realized the morality lesson it was giving, I came around and became a big fan. And you know what? My kids loved the book. They loved it so much that I've been kind of scared to show them the movie for fear of disappointing them.

At any rate, for months after finishing the book, both kids were begging me to buy them their own auryn necklace. If you can't read the book or watched the movie, it is a powerful amulet that protects the wearer from harm and has some other benefits.

Sometimes one of them are reminded of it and start begging me to buy them one again. Well, wouldn't you know what I just happened to come upon a few days ago? A silver auryn!

¥6000 after shipping, which is about $40 currently, which is too much to pay for something my kids will probably lose or break. But man, isn't that cool. Thought my friends at #silvergoldstackers might appreciate this. If my kids are still interested in the story in a few years, this could be a cool gift to buy them. (and if you are interested get it here)

Blue Skies

So yeah, there was some Hive drama last night and this morning. You know what is a good remedy for downers? Blue Skies.

Actually I wasn't searching for this, but when I loaded up YouTube while logged into my music profile, it was there waiting for me in the suggest videos. Is that serendipity or what? This is always a great song, especially when the swing jazz part of it is really emphasized, as in the above version. Enjoy!

Anyway, I was going to keep going with more randomness, but I see I'm over 1000 words now and I have some work soon anyway, so might as well end it on that high point. Have a great day, y'all.

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.