Sick

Due to the pandemic, Parker and her best friend decide to quarantine at the family lake house alone – or so they think. (IMDB)

Honestly, I thought that the movie we would get after the pandemic would have been a catastrophe flick with The Rock as a scientist who’s saving the world by single-handedly creating the vaccine and dodging evil Chinese spies while jumping from a rooftop to an helicopter and punching an alligator in the face.

Instead, what we got is a slasher movie happening during the pandemic. Well, I’m not disappointed! It’s a good slasher without drama, there’s even a plot twist. Also, it is shot in a dream house.

So, once again, I must thank Covid-19… Not only has it brought us the most interesting year of the last 2 decades and promoted home working while making my inner introvert very happy, but it has also, years later, inspired a not-bad-at-all slasher.

One Year Later

It’s been a year since the confinement has started. One of the games that has entertained us the most is Animal Crossing New Horizons. It has constantly brought good mood, relaxation and sunshine in our lives.

Yesterday evening, my island, Lonestar, has finally received a 5 stars rating. I still have to upgrade my house twice and my museum collection isn’t complete but I’ll happily spend another year running around my happy place.

Farewell, 2020

2020 may have been disastrous for many people but, at least, a lot has happened, which is more than we can say about the previous decade.

From a pandemic to a mad president, I’ve never read the news as much as during this year. Ok, we’re all getting tired of Jimmy Fallon’s Trump bashing spree, the rednecks of America, the anti-maskers and the confinement but 2020 had us entertained, on a global level.

Also, we could both finally live one of our oldest dreams: spend an entire year dressed in pyjamas and I have the feeling that we’re about to make it.

What we will remember:

  • The first confinement was impressive, the second was a mess, I hope that we won’t see a third;
  • We’ve finally seen the end of Orange Is The New Black and it was awesome;
  • We’ve watched El Camino and it is the end that Breaking Bad truly deserved;
  • The new Doom was crap;
  • Animal Crossing was fun until the terraforming and custom paths;
  • We’ve seen all three seasons of Westworld and it blew our minds. Go androids!;
  • 1917 was a stunning camera job;
  • Mark Ruffalo had us replace all of our Teflon cooking pans;
  • The second season of the Mandalorian was as excellent as the first;
  • Building Lego is still a blast!;
  • The Cyber Punk hype train seems to have derailed and I’m happy that we were not in it;
  • America has lost a lot of the popularity that it had managed to build during a century of movies, will they ever get it back? It will certainly take more than Dwayne Johnson and The Avengers;
  • Home working is great but, even for the hermits that we are, it’s becoming a bit long.

Tomorrow, we’ll be celebrating the end of one of the strangest year we’ve ever known and we’re not sure whether we should be happy or afraid…

Three Weeks

These last 3 weeks have been some of the strangest weeks of my life. It all started on a Tuesday, I woke up having flu like symptoms, with the COVID-19 pandemic going on, I had to contact my doctor. He decided that I was infected and had to stay in quarantine until I was fully recovered. We are three weeks later now, and I finally start feeling better, and better each day.

When I look back at the last 3 weeks, everything seems like a blur, some moments were lucid, others have become blank spaces in my memory due to the fever. During the moments that I was lucid, a lot has been going on in my mind though. It has been quite a long time that I needed to rethink my life, and so I did. Between my soul searching and dreaming about tropical destinations, I’ve watched a lot of TV-shows and movies. But more about those later since I tend to make a blog post of most of the things I watch.

This pandemic is until now the biggest world crisis that I’ve ever lived through, and it’s about the weirdest time to be alive. A world wide quarantine situation that forces the people to stay inside with only essential shops like supermarkets and pharmacies that may remain opened, social distancing, and the police fining the people that don’t respect the measures. You can’t go outside without a valid reason, and if you do you need to wear a mask and gloves.

While some people are completely negligent, others are in panic. I have to admit that, at this point, I stopped reading too much about it because I don’t want to live in panic either. We just deal with it, and ration our supplies as much as possible even though some things are hard to come by in these times such as medication, toilet paper, soap, masks, gloves,…

Last week I bought a sewing machine so I can make masks myself. It was quite the thing to setup since I never used such a machine before, but I managed to make one mask with old sheets and ribbons from old PJ-pants. It doesn’t look like much, but at least we have a mask for when Chris needs to do the shopping on Tuesday. That’s the one thing that scares the living hell out of me, that something would happen to my better half.

On the bright side of all this is that I learned to use a sewing machine, and our planet seems to recover thanks to the lockdown. The air is so much fresher, and it’s the first time since I live in Brussels that the sky looks blue without the blurry effect of the smog. It makes me think so much about the global warming and pollution, and how everyone can make a big difference with little effort. I wonder what the world will look like after all this, are things going to change for real or are people just going to pick back up from where they’ve left? Only time can tell!

For me personally, a lot has changed during this pandemic, and all in a positive direction. Meanwhile let’s try to stay safe so we can live and tell the tale.

Strange Times

Since New Year’s eve, I’ve been concerned with many things but the pandemic wasn’t one of them.

Today is the first day that I have to stay home because of the virus. In fact, I’ve just received a mail from the manager of my team, we officially don’t have access to the office anymore.

Half of me feels like Ferris Bueller, the other half like Rick Grimes.

The building and the street are very quiet. The neighbours are not slamming their doors, you can’t hear many cars in the street, the kids are not shouting on their way back from school, even the birds seem more silent than usual.

It should feel strange, it just feels good. The world is on pause.

I haven’t been posting much since the beginning of 2020… I was too busy being adrift, but all it took to put an end to my inertia was a worldwide crisis. Or was it the near release of Doom Eternal?