Living in Norman and Quitting Soda

Issue #39: choose your own interesting subtitle

Welcome back!

I know, I skipped a week.

So we have been back in Oklahoma almost a month now (we got here on the 14th of January) and I can’t believe it’s been that long. We still haven’t finished unpacking. The garage is full of boxes. The fact that we have so many boxes in the garage, which were previously in the storage unit up in Michigan, lead me to wonder if we really need all of that stuff. We will probably go through it all when it gets a little warmer (that garage is cold) and figure out if we need to keep all that stuff. I also have not finished setting up my office. I have my work station/podcasting station set up (you know, the important stuff) and I finally got around to buying a TV for the office (for my Xbox mostly) but I have not got it mounted and I haven’t bought any shelving units for my books and other paraphernalia. I’m sure I will get around to it eventually.

I have enjoyed being back and I’m really liking the new area that we live in (Norman). There is a lot to do here. A lot of good places to eat (and a few that I didn’t care for if I’m being honest). There are a few live music venues. I haven’t had a chance to go to any of the Norman venues yet but I plan to. The library system here in the area (Pioneer) is really nice. The library downtown, aka Central Library, is massive. It has 3 floors and sooooo many books. The staff is always so helpful. The other big plus here in Norman is that there is a really cool comic book shop not far from me called Speeding Bullet. There is another comic book shop on the other side of Norman as well but it is more a gaming shop than a comic book shop. But that’s another thing: Norman has a game store so that is another plus. Also, living in Norman, I am not very far from my favorite game store (Game HQ). Also, while not specific to Norman, I am glad to be back in an area that has OnCues. If you are not familiar, OnCue is a huge convenience store/gas station. I like OnCue way better than Wesco (western Michigan). OnCue has really good flavored ice tea. Speaking of ice tea…hmmm…hold that thought. I’ll come back to that. Another good thing about Norman is that the school system is really good. As far as I can tell anyway. I only have one child still in school. They are in high school. Norman HS seems to have a really good program that caters to their needs (if you are a new reader, my youngest child is autistic). Overall, I really like Norman better than where we were living in Oklahoma before (Edmond). And if you had not guessed it, I like it here much better than western Michigan. There are a couple of things and a person there I will miss and I will miss being that close to Chicago but overall, this was a good move for us.

Now, back to the ice tea thing. The day that we were driving from Michigan to here, I made the decision that I would not drink soda or energy drinks anymore. I have tried to do this before but it never stuck. Usually, what would break it is when I would go to a movie theater and my only options were bottled water or soda. And since I went to a lot of movies, I wound up breaking down and drinking soda and then that turned into me drinking soda regularly again. This time, I have done really well. I have only been drinking coffee, water, and a lot of tea (both iced and hot). My favorite hot teas are a peace detox tea (whose brand I can’t remember but probably need to because I’m almost out) and a Moroccan mint tea. As I mentioned before, I really like the iced tea that OnCue has. They have a bunch of vats that contain both sweet and unsweet versions of some flavored teas (regular, tropical, watermelon, peach, and black raspberry). My favorites are the peach and black raspberry. The movie theater that I go to here is an AMC and they have one of those machines that has hundreds of different drink options so when I go to a movie, I drink zero sugar lemonade. Thus far, it was worked well. I have gone almost a month without any soda or energy drinks so I’m doing pretty good. I hope it sticks this time.

Here’s a picture of Earl, Leia, and Max cuddled up together:

A new episode of Rogue One Radio was streamed this week. We celebrated Star Wars Podcast Day by talking about all the cool Star Wars content that is coming our way in 2023. Star Wars Podacst Day, February 7, by the way, is the day that the very first Star Wars related podcast (Jedi Talk) aired back in 1999. We had a good time on this show. In addition to our Star Wars discussion, we also played tunes from The True Faith, Toeheads, and Straightline. You can check out the replay of the video on YouTube here or listen to the audio on Spotify below that. You can also listen to the audio at other platforms by visiting https://bio.link/rogueoneradio.

I haven’t been watching nearly as many movies as I had been since moving back to Oklahoma. A lot of that, to be fair, has to do with the fact that there really isn’t a lot that has come out. Since I have been back I have watched that movie Plane and I have re-watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (a much better movie than you'd think it would be honestly). Last night (Thursday), however, I did go to the theater.

Knock at the Cabin - I was not really impressed. It is not a movie I would recommend. It seemed kind of pointless to me.

I’ve been trying to do a lot of catch up on comic books this week. Not only recently released single issues but also a lot of trades and graphic novels. In addition to that I recently finished reading the Star Wars Darth Plagueis novel and started a re-read of Darth Bane: Path of Destruction (the first in the Darth Bane trilogy). I’ve been doing so much reading this past couple of weeks that I don’t feel like listing it all here. You can, however, keep track of what I have been up to reading-wise on my GoodReads account.

This week’s track comes from Chicago’s Airstream Futures. They just put out a new album today called Armer L’harmonie. I have really enjoyed their previous albums. They have both shown up on my favorite albums of their respective years. Prior to the release of Armer, they released a couple of singles from it and this week’s track is one of those. Enjoy!

Surprise! I have a bonus track of the week!

This one comes from England rock band Motorhead. The song comes from a re-release of their final studio album Bad Magic. They recorded some other songs during those sessions that didn’t make it on the album and so they are re-releasing it this month with the title Seriously Bad Magic with a few new tracks. The bonus track of the week comes from the re-release. I really love the intro to this song with Lemmy (R.I.P.) talking about politicians.