This and that

[selenak]

This week, I read a couple of harrowing books, both fiction and non-fiction, and in between watched Soul, the Disney movie reccomended to me, which turned out to be delightful - both visually (it's amazing was Pixar does here) and in terms of characterisation. Our hero is Joe Gardner, a music teacher wishing he could be full time jazz pianist, voiced by Jamie Foxx, and early on I thought the story would go for another rerun of the basic It's a wonderful life premise, but no, the story goes into another direction. His sidekick-slash-co-lead whom he acquires later on is called 22, voiced by Tina Fey, and we get Angela Bassett voicing jazz saxophonist Dorothy Williams in a supporting role. As Disney/Pixar heroes go, Joe is endearing yet flawed, and believable as a passionate musician to me, which isn't always the case when films depict artists (yet avoid giving more than a nod to the type of art that's supposed to be essential to their lives). You can tell where the broad story is going, but there were some great twists and turns in between, and I really enjoyed watching this in between creeped out by some 18th century people.

I also would have enjoyed the Borgias rewatch I had planned, but alas it turned out my DVDs, which I had not watched in years, possibly since a year after the show ended, are of a terrible quality. One episode was barely watchable, and the next dissolved into blackness. This does not make me happy panda.

Much more importantly: no sooner was I happy that my parents had been vaccinated that Astra Zeneca (first shot) , which they were vaccinated with, was no longer allowed to be used in Germany. So you might say I had a very mixed week so far.

Comments

[ratcreature]

I am really underwhelmed with the vaccination efforts here so far.

Hopefully they'll have worked out some additional rare side effects warning label and resume the AstraZeneca shots by the time your parents are due for their second dose. And at least having the first one confers some protection? Probably better than just having missed the chance to get it. And from what I understand in the UK they are delaying the second doses for quite a bit and it seems to still work, so maybe even if theirs is delayed a bit because of the suspension, it won't matter too much.

[selenak]

No kidding. It's downright embarassing.

And yes, some protection is better thannone. Here's hoping!

[ratcreature]

Yeah, and it's not just the UK, the US or Israel. I mean, look at how well Serbia has been managing to get people vaccinated quickly. Or Chile. If Serbia can get vaccines into their population, Germany should be able to, but apparently not.

At least it looks like they'll continue to use AstraZeneca now. Though it's really depressing how much the handling of the whole issue hurt the confidence in the vaccine.

I get that you want to keep an eye on the side effects, and it's awful bad luck for the people who got these blood clots, but considering how many people Covid kills and a lot of those seem to die from blood clotting complications, I can't help but think that these people might have had the same kind of mystery factors that cause deadly covid outcomes in younger people too, and with far more people. I think even in my fairly low risk middle age group it's still more than one in a thousand chance to end up dead from covid if I get it (not to mention possible long term disabilities and what not), so by orders of magnitude more likely to end up dead from that than from these possible freak vaccine side effects.

[bimo]

No kidding. It's downright embarassing.

Apart from the constant worrying about senior citizens and other people belonging to high risk priority groups for obvious medical reasons: As the wife of a teacher who works in secondary eductation, I don't even know where to start when trying to explain how urgently educators throughout the country need to be given the chance to get themselves vaccinated. So far everything North-Rhine Westphalia has done to protect its employees has been nothing but downright ridiculous. If Ministry of Education's long series of failures and utter misjudgements wasn't so life-threatening, it would actually be funny.

[selenak]

Hugs through the ether. It's a godawful situation all around.

[rose_griffes]

While I understand the extra caution with a novel virus and novel vaccine, AstraZeneca's vaccine has basically the same kind of track record as Pfizer. So the pause seems a bit over the top.

[selenak]

OH, I entirely agree, and vaccinating with it has now been resumed, to my great relief.

[shadowkat]

Odd, I thought WHO managed to convince the EU, along with EU scientists, that the Astra Zeneca was safe, and better than COVID? Apparently not.

So sorry. Hope things change soon.

Soul is a lovely movie. I found it very uplifting and inspiring - I was quite surprised by it, since I expected it to much the same way you did.

[selenak]

Astra Zeneca vaccination has now been resumed, so there's that.

Entirely agreed about Soul.

[thawrecka]

I haven't seen Soul, but the idea of a film about a musician that's actually passionate about the music is intriguing. So often films about artists are about mental illness and/or being unable to create art, or in the case of adult films, about sexual misadventure, and don't remember to include much of the thing they're supposed to be creating.

[felis]

my DVDs, which I had not watched in years, possibly since a year after the show ended, are of a terrible quality

I've had that with some DVDs I hadn't watched in years, too. Do yours look normal? Because mine had developed a white film on the underside and once I'd polished them - quite rigorously, since I thought there was nothing to lose anyway - they started working again.

[selenak]

They look normal, but I shall polish them just in case - what did you use?

[felis]

Uhm ... just a cloth and some water I think. Possibly a bit of dishwashing soap? It was a couple of years ago, so my memory is a bit hazy.

[cahn]

Ugh, I'm sorry for the roller-coaster with your parents and the vaccine! Glad they got the first shot, and really glad that it sounds like they are going to resume using it? Fingers crossed, anyway.

[selenak]

Yes, last night, the minister in question said vaccinating with AZ would resume.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank goodness!

[watervole]

Eeep! I didn't know DVDs could deteriorate. I hope my B5 ones are still okay!