Where Does the Time Go?

I conducted a lot of my interviews for the One Life to Live book during a weird period when the show had been canceled but it seemed like there was a pretty good chance it was about to be revived, which meant I spoke with a number of actors who were at loose ends professionally but seemed to be in fairly good humor about it. One in particular remarked that she'd always resisted the idea of retirement because she didn't think she'd have anything to do, but since losing her job, she'd found herself with so much to do that she no longer understood how she'd ever managed to have a job in the first place.

I say this because I entered my current anti-employed phase feeling confident that I'd have more time to do everything, but instead, more everything has flooded in to fill the previously committed portions of my days, to the point that I'm sitting here at 9 o'clock on a Tuesday night after having published nothing on Monday and I still have no real idea of what in the hell I ought to write about today. Do you want to hear about all the errands I had to take care of today? Or the home projects on my to-do list? Or the various networking calls on my calendar? You do not. You only want me to entertain you, and as someone who has pestered countless friends to make ill-advised decisions solely for the sake of my own entertainment, I certainly empathize.

On the other hand, there is a small, sleepy dog who keeps burrowing into my side as I type and making adorable little grunting noises as he does it, so I need to keep this brief. There is cuddling to be done.

Here's what I can tell you:

• Cherished Friend of Jefitoblog Keith Creighton is correct: The Max-distributed documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash is 100 percent worth seeking out. If you think you aren't interested in watching a movie about a bunch of jerks who came up with an idiotic business model and drove their company into the ground, never fear, because what this movie is really about is the way two Black entrepreneurs developed a solid plan for making a small but respectable amount of money, had problems scaling that plan, and ended up being shoved to the margins after a pair of honky dumbasses came in and started setting piles of money on fire. It isn't not an infuriating watch, in other words, but it's a fascinating one. Highly recommended.
• I read Blake Crouch's Dark Matter a year or two ago and enjoyed it, but I wasn't sure whether I was interested in seeing the book adapted into a slow and dimly lit prestige TV series, so I held off on starting it until today. After finally caving, I can confirm that it's a slick, addictive sci-fi watch. If you've got a hole in your viewing schedule and you have fun with pulpy science-driven stories, dive in.
• I am now roughly 30 percent of the way through the collected short stories of Mark Twain. I may still be reading this book when I die.
• Several years ago, I played guitar for 1500 days straight, only to hit a wall and become so annoyed with the instrument and myself that I put it down for another several years. I recently picked it up again, but have been taking time to learn some theory and try to acquire fretboard fluency this time around. Circle of fifths, friends. Pray for me.

Last but not least, there's a fun new episode of the Record Player for your listening enjoyment — this time around, Matt and I spend an hour diving into the soundtrack albums that were assembled for the 1984, 1988, and 1992 Olympics, all of which are wildly eclectic, and not necessarily in a particularly thoughtful way. My personal favorite is the '84 album, but see what you think:

That's all for now. I leave you with my favorite latter-day Todd Rundgren song.