Saturday, February 8, 2025

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: A Maze for February 8, 2025

Happy Saturday! It's Variety Week which means any puzzle type I have a puzzle generator for can be the puzzle of the day.  I did Saturday Mazes for awhile every Saturday, and they seemed popular enough.  Here we go, don't get stuck!



https://mazesforfun.com/

 

Friday, February 7, 2025

Five Things Friday February 7, 2025

 Seven days into the month! Go go go! We got this! 


Look at this! Two of my favorites in one picture, Batman and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.


Although I have a lifelong dislike of wearing anything on my head, I love looking at 1940s fashions, particularly hats.



It’s Cat Scale time! Which of these represents January 2025 for you? My answer? All Of Them.



1954 Minneapolis. My favorite thing about the picture are the Guernsey cows.



I don’t remember ever having school lunch pizza. Pizza Burgers, yes, and yum! In case you did have lunch pizza, now you can make your own.



Sunday, February 2, 2025

DOA On TV February 2, 2025

 


 

Time to turn to the smallish screen, adjust those bunny ears, and talk about my TV week.  I finished The Night Agent, saw new episodes of NCIS Origins, Will Trent and Matlock, and dipped into Elspeth, episodes 1-3.


NCIS: Origins  Flight of Icarus

It's an episode for Mike Franks, featuring the boots he wears every day and how he got them.  It's a scandal at work when Franks shows up to work wearing the sneakers he uses to mow the lawn. His usual boots are apparently beyond repair.

The boots were given to Franks by his mom and his older brother, during a tough time when Franks was drafted and his brother wanted him to go to Mexico instead of going to Vietnam.


 

In the current day, the team investigates the suicide of a general's son who is certain the young man's death was a homicide. 


Will Trent: Floor is Lava

While there was plenty of drama in this weeks episode, there was also plenty of humor.

The main story featured lonely individuals who had been contacted by a man named Cutter who claimed to be with the CIA.  He made them special agents, and convinced them to kill innocent people in service to their country.

When the real CIA enters the scene to help track down sensitive information being potentially sold by Cutter, Ormewood pops out his sunglasses and tries to follow his onetime dream of being CIA.

Amanda and Sunny knock heads at home and Sunny is fighting in school.  Amanda thinks using her usual commanding presence will make the girl do as she asks, but it gets her nowhere.

Whoa I don't remember Betty in the episode.


Matlock: Friends



Matty and Olympia work closely together on a case.  It starts in a bar where Matty just hustles a man sitting at the bar and eating.  She's over the top flirtatious, and even sneaks food from his plate and munches it seductively once Olympia rescues him from his other side.

As the episode title implies, by the end of the episode the two women have declared themselves friends.  Matty horrifies Edwin by standing by her statement that they are friends, and Olympia is innocent, and down comes her picture from the crime board.  Julian is clearly guilty, she says.

I know they've said Matty will be exposed by season's end, but I don't see how she could repair things with Olympia when that happens.


The Night Agent Season 2 episodes 5-10

Though the overall storyline remained compelling, and Noor's arc was a nail biter, the last three episodes bogged down for me a bit with the  crime family focus.  There wasn't a single relatable soul in that family, and their terrorism was just brutality.  They felt they had a "cause" but it wasn't convincing.

On the other hand, it allowed for some intricate plotting that leads to season three's story.



Elspeth

Elspeth is featured in commercials while you're watching CBS shows like mad.  Once I had a subscription to Paramount+ it's was my plan to watch an episode.

In each episode, we see the crime being committed and we know who is guilty.  Enter Elspeth onto the crime scenes where she's only to observe.  She just scoots right in, though, and looks at the crime scene, asks questions, and soon she's honed in on who she thinks the killer is, even if she doesn't know why.

Once she has someone in her sights, she follows them, listens in on them, and looks at them like they're a juicy piece of meat she can't resist.  They can't help see her interest, and soon they try to match wits with her, but she just runs them to ground and they're done.


 

It wouldn't be as entertaining if she didn't project such a sweet, pure, utterly wacky persona.  She's like the dog in Up when he sees a squirrel. Oh, look at that tall building!  She's from Chicago and was a defense attorney.  New York is a delight for her.  

She is teamed with a police officer named Kaya, who is supposed to keep Elspeth out of trouble, but Kaya sees the logic of Elspeth's theories and supports her.

Elspeth is really in town to investigate Captain Wagner, head of the precinct.  I've only watched three episodes, but I love the guy and hope he isn't guilty of anything.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: An Answer Key For An Author's Guide To Murder

 Wasn't that fun?  All in the spirit of a good cozy mystery.





DOA's Saturday Puzzles A Rebus for February 1, 2025

 Happy Saturday, it's Rebus Week.  Here's a timely quote pictorially portrayed using the Rebus Club Generator.




Friday, January 31, 2025

January 2025 Seed Orders

 Despite my lovely plant stand and my success growing seedlings on it, I'm going small on seeds this year, and hopefully on plant purchases once the garden centers open.  

I'm focusing on reorganizing my entire garden, adding nicer soil and amendments, and giving it an intentional design rather than just tossing things in.

Here are my two orders in pictures, as that's all everyone wants to see anyway.


Pinetree Garden Seeds




Park Seeds




Five Things Friday January 31, 2025

 It’s the last day of an icky January. Bad, Bad January! February is all Valentines, repotting of houseplants as they begin new growth, and working on those bread making, crochet, sewing and embroidery skills. Sounds pleasant, right? 


One:  Game Day! Mr. DOA and I have been playing Scrabble for decades.  I, as a lifelong reader and lover of words have a much better vocabulary than he does. He wins more often than not, anyway, because he is a fiend for winning any game. He plots. He ponders. He strategizes. I just want to lay down nice words.


Two: I love this required kindergarten skill set for the tinies from 1954. All very good, doable skills.



Three:  Speaking of the garden…



Four: It’s back to the fifties week! How about these complaints from 1957 about the current state of society and culture. 



Five: Tomorrow’s Saturday Puzzle is a Rebus. Here’s a short one to tide you over.




Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Not Losing My Garden Notebook This Year

 I more often than not lose/ misplace my garden notebook every June, just in the middle the most activity. Here is this year’s effort to spot it in a pile and to easily tell what garden year is covered.  This could work.




Sunday, January 26, 2025

DOA On TV January 26, 2025

 


It's TV time!  I've three shows this week: Will Trent, Night Agent Season Two Episodes 1-5, and a Netflix film  Back In Action.  Next week NCIS Origins and Matlock are back.


Will Trent Find A New Pond

The show opens with a corporate board meeting that is interrupted when several members begin thrashing and foaming at the mouth.  Someone poisoned some of the drinks, but why?  It's a family company, so there's sure to be some sibling rivalry involved.  Faith and Will are starting to work together smoothly again.  

Angie, waiting for approval of her return to the force is tasked with removing the body of a swan on the grounds of the gated community where she provides security.  While she waits for the body to be picked up, she notices a human finger lodged in it's mouth.

There's something for everyone as Betty gets a new scarf, one left behind by Angie.  She is also feeling a bit frayed, so she chews on Will's favorite dress shoes.

Amanda picks out a series of outfits for Sunny.  Amanda has plenty of style, but will it suit a young girl?


The Night Agent Season Two Episodes 1-5



This post would have been out this morning as usual, but I thought for some reason Night Agent Season Two was five episodes, so I watched till 1:30 thinking I could finish.  Oops! Ten episodes this time.  There's little downtime or escape from the constant pressure of bad guys, and chases on foot in Thailand and New York.  

Add to this an  intense story line about a young woman working at the Iranian Embassy trying to trade information to the US for help getting her mother and brother out of Iran.   She's not a spy, just a desperate woman who is treated dismissively by her contact and promised nothing, while she puts herself in more and more danger at the Embassy trying to get something to please the agent.

Rose, in faraway California, has a new job at a tech company when she receives a phone call from a man who wants to know if she's seen Peter Sutherland.

Peter seems somewhat cursed as he is never able to trust his superiors in Night Action.  His partner in Thailand was killed when someone leaked that they were there doing intel work.  His new supervisor knew Peter's father, so she doesn't trust him and asks him if he wants to get out of the program as he's not ready and hasn't had enough training.

I think Peter does extremely well on the run, never hesitating, always a step ahead of his pursuers.

Five episodes to go, yow.

 

 Back In Action




Somehow I snuck in a Netflix film called Back In Action with Jamie Foxx and Carmen Diaz as special agents for the CIA who decide to disappear and lead normal lives after a plane crashes while on a mission.  She's pregnant, and they feel they can start fresh together.

Fifteen years later, they're enjoying a suburban life with their teen age kids who don't listen to them or respect them so much.  Typical teens.  

This reminded me somewhat of True Lies, but here, both Diaz and Foxx are super agents with all the moves that they don't get to make anymore. That is, until they track their fourteen year old to a club for over eighteens, and get into a bar fight with a bouncer who wants them to leave and their daughter to stay.

The scene is captured on phones and goes viral.  The next day, an old colleague from the CIA shows up at their door and warns them their cover is blown and they need to leave now before all of their enemies descend on the cozy suburban house.  He's shot in the head mid-sentence, and vans and motorcycles full of gun men pull up shooting.

It's a quick trip to the school to pick up their scoffing kids, then they're on the run for England.

I loved the show, and thought it was great fun.  Diaz and Foxx seemed to be having so much fun kicking ass.  

Saturday, January 25, 2025

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: An Answer Key for the January 28th Cryptogram

 

Zzzzzzzz.


ZSMNYZI R YH Y GSYM, QM IQHS NRGSMBYWRBT YBRHYP XBESMBSYWN, UQM WNS RBIWRBKW WQ GS NYPU YIPSSZ YPP LRBWSM RI IQ IWMQBT RB HS.

 

PERHAPS I AM A BEAR, OR SOME HIBERNATING ANIMAL UNDERNEATH, FOR THE INSTINCT TO BE HALF ASLEEP ALL WINTER IS SO STRONG IN ME.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh