better call saul penultimate episode and hot chocolate and a reastaurant

So Better Call Saul is drawing to a close and I am finding it freaky to try and watch the second last episode which was made available on Tuesday (I am looking forward to cancelling my Stan subscription though as soon as that happens - talk about a streaming service with absolutely nothing that appeals to me aside from one thing that appeals very much). I finally steeled myself to watch half the episode this morning (up to where JimmySaul breaks into the cancer man's house). At this point the show is no longer in any sense a prequel but totally a sequel. Which is understandable but does kind of fuck up the overall continuity (until a few episodes ago you could have said, you can watch this whole thing like those faked up Star Wars prequel movies that made the real first and second films the 9th and 23rd or whatever). 

Anyway I guess I will get through to the end of that episode sometime today. Then I will no doubt be on edge for a while. 

I didn't get round to showing you the rest of my Bendigo trip from the other day, you probably feel on edge yourself. Well, I didn't go to this reastaurant: 

Not did I go to this cafe which I only photographed because of the Minna Leunig:

Oh, on the way back from Bendi I went past my old Albion stomping ground where I haven't set foot since I left in 2019 but I was adequately interested to photograph it going past:

^ No change here

^ Change - the car park - big deal right

^ Change - my townhouse block there and some building shizzle in front of it (ie in the foreground), don't know what that's about but it looks residential, and there's been some grotesque new buildings put in next to it. 

^ 'My' block again. 

^ Not a Bendigo picture - it's just that handsome Chanticleer looking dreamily at me* because like many cats (and dogs) he thinks I rock. 

^ I don't know why I own this or how long I have owned it but last night I realised it was the only album I own that I had never played and I did and, like all my other records, it's really very good. It's a lot more sparse than I expected, which possibly just means that the bulk of it (aside from the hit single which in this case was 'Heaven's in the Back Seat of My Cadillac') was recorded fast 'n' cheap with no particular frills (a few disco-y violins, that's it). But it's really solid. Mind you that's only side 1,  I will turn it over sometime in the next 25 years.  

*Alright he's not looking at me but that's only because I interposed a phone between my eyes and his. He went back to looking dreamily at me right after. 

last night's viewing

I remember the kind of mental blankness that comes at the end of semester every time it descends on me but still I'm never prepared for it. Yesterday was a huge day and I ended it with watching two shows new episodes of which were released in the afternoon/evening and which I like to keep up to date with: We Own This City, which is up to the fifth instalment of six episodes, and Better Call Saul which is pushing out two seasons this year, or two mini-seasons or however they're framing it, and which ended on a mid-season cliffhanger yesterday in a way that didn't really do much for me. 

I am the world's worst television watcher and always have been, because I just can't pay that much attention. I don't seem to have the concentration span, and I know I'm not unusual in that (it must drive directors, actors etc mad that so many people are like this: 'just fucking watch, damn you!'). We Own This City is actually fairly mundane, the most interesting thing about it is that the tales about police corruption are so cheerily and apparently voluntarily (well, they are in prison, but they have no qualms about discussing their actions, never couch it in justifications) given by the corrupt police in question. There's no time in this show for anything but the sketchiest backstories and it's really all about the various injustices and crimes committed over a long period of time. I guess I enjoy it, as I've stuck with it, but (and? because?) it is very unusual television. 

Better Call Saul has been overlong and it is hard for me to follow all its characters/narratives, so I just take each episode as it comes pretty much. Obviously I have stuck it out this far and I look forward to an accelerated final seven episodes. But maybe it has come close to outstaying its welcome. Somehow I have been exposed to a lot of social media excitement about the series and yes it has a lot going for it but I can't help feeling that there's quite a bit of water-treading going on here. 

The other thing I watched last night was Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers, a film which critics are saying is 'far better than it has any right to be'. I remember in my childhood any time I encountered anything meta or fourth-wall-breaking I would be completely thrilled, and so too I suppose were millions of others of my generation, which is why it's so common these days in mainstream media. Anyway, this is a film in which Chip and Dale, two ridiculously minor Disney characters* are former stars of a 1980s/90s tv show (which they were) which means something to a certain demographic (people around the age of 40 now I suppose, or a bit younger) but the chipmunks themselves are washed up, or one of them is (Chip I think, whereas Dale is still trying to trade on faded glory). The whole premise of the film centres around a preposterous beat up re: pirated or 'bootlegged' characters and knock-off movies, unless it's not a beat up and this really was/is a major thing. Nobody dies and there are some scary moments. I don't think I laughed but I actually enjoyed quite a few things about it, not least that Dale is a 3D animation and Chip remains a flat, cel animation. I gather there is a massive amount of references to animated cartoons from the last 100 years most of which I didn't get, and I also didn't really get the guest appearance of Robert Crumb's Mr. Natural who was never an animated cartoon character as far as I am aware. Or maybe I dreamt that bit. 

*OK wikipedia tells me one of their 1950s shorts was nominated for an oscar. So I suppose they have meant something to some people sometimes.