Friday 5 for December 18: Year in review part 1

OK.. so the Friday 5 is wrapping up the year 2020 with part 1. Do I have anything good to say about 2020? Not really, but let me think.

1. Who made you laugh most this year?

Since I hardly ever go out, I am pretty much limited to the person I hang out with... so that would be my friend Lisa. We have some funny moments, though most of the time, I don't get her jokes. I am not a very comedic person.

2. In what ways was 2020 better than 2019?

If you asked what was worst about 2020 over the previous year, I could offer you a huge laundry list. About the only remotely good thing about 2020 and the whole mask wearing mandate, is that for many days of each week, I could skip shaving since most of my face was under the darn mask while I was out in public. 

During the early, all clamped down martial law like phase of the pandemic back in late March, driving in Honolulu was not so bad because traffic was significantly down.. but then many of the businesses were sucking up a lot of red ink due to the government shut down mandates. Several never recovered. Sad.

3. What was the best movie or TV series you saw in 2020?

TV series

1. Tales From the Loop (Amazon Prime)
2. Star Trek Lower Decks (CBS All Access)
3. Star Trek Picard (CBS All Access)
4. Fringe (old series, never watched before but slowly chipping away at 5 seasons of episodes; IMDB-TV/Amazon Prime)
5. Captain Scarlet (2005 reboot - Amazon Prime)
6. A Teacher (Hulu Basic) - I hope this story continues to court
7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hulu Basic) - 1980s era TV version of the original British radio play
8. Star Trek The Next Generation (reruns on either CBS All Access, Amazon Prime, Pluto TV) - just fun to watch again.
9. Babylon 5 - (Comet TV until 10-2020) - reruns - fun to watch again.
10. Doc Martin (Pluto TV, Tubi TV) - just watching various episodes of Series 1 to 6 or 7. I'll wait for 8, 9, and 10 to show up on one of the free services in the future.

Movies

1. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) - I did not see this until January 2020. This is significant for me in that it marks the last movie I ever saw in a theater. I don't think I will be going to those places anymore due to rising ticket prices, expensive food and of course the possibility of catching COVID-19. My movies days are over... onward to streaming or watching my old DVDs... plus I am done with Star Wars... Disney is now putting out way too much product for me to even keep up, much less care about it anymore.

2. Plenty of older streaming movies that I can't immediately recall on various platforms plus stuff from my DVD collection.

4. What was your favorite food discovery of 2020?

Haven't gone to a restaurant of any type since February 2020. Eat almost all meals at home. I am not a cook so mostly I make stuff I can heat up in the microwave... discovered CAULIFLOWER RICE this year... it is a good rice substitute that is supposedly not too fattening.

5. What’s something nice you purchased for yourself or received as a gift in 2020?

I have a "new" Apple iMac computer, "new" iPad and a new "PC Netbook". Two different friends gave them to me because they upgraded to the latest and greatest. I was pleasantly surprised with both. The iMac is a 2013 model but can still run Catalina (10.15.x); the iPad is a 2012 model and is hobbled with iOS 9.3... but it still works and I can do online stuff and play simple games with it. The Netbook is hobbled with Windows 8, but I am going to use this as a testbed to fool around with a Linux installation.... again.