Speaking of scammers, I learned last night that now they're even using supposed "wrong number" texts for scams too. It can be a human who will eventually try to turn the convo to get information from you, which I knew about, but I didn't know they'd use bots to "wrong number" text you just to get you to reply and suss out that your number is active. Dang it, scammers, why don't you use some of that creativity for good? Become white hat hackers and scam evildoers like human traffickers or thieves. Gaaah.
Morning, Cantina. Yesterday, Dad did his thing of getting up way too early for no reason at all (Google says wonky thyroid levels can increase anxiety, soooo, yeah) and then staying up all day just watching TV all day long (and then falling asleep on the couch but refusing to go take a nap in bed until almost supper time) so I had my ears plugged up the vast majority of the day in order to get anything done. It also rained all day long, so I was cooped up indoors. Wheee.
Dad at one point put it on a channel that was playing this 2010 kids movie starring The Rock, called "Tooth Fairy". Rant coming:
I. HATE. THAT. MOVIE. For one thing, it's just plain stupid. I enjoy many of The Rock's family-friendly roles, and he was trying, but the story and writing were just bad. Also, 2010 is the year I graduated high school and I was dealing with a lot of anxiety back then. My parents and I had driven down to Florida and back for graduation activities and the night we got home was my birthday. Dad had gotten Tooth Fairy on DVD as a present because he thought it would be funny, but I just thought it was dumb and then I ate the wrong combination of cake and pizza and barfed after the movie ended. It's not a good association. But it's been 14 years, and I don't exactly sit around dwelling on that memory or talking about it, so Dad doesn't remember that I have bad associations with that movie. He apparently also doesn't remember that we gave the DVD away because none of us wanted to watch it again. I didn't feel the need to make a big deal of my loathing of it, so I kept my ears plugged and made sure not to pay attention. At least Dad now seems to remember that it wasn't all that good, so hopefully, he won't want to watch it ever again.
/end rant
Anyway... I managed to get some writing things done yesterday despite the noise. And in another positive note, I discovered sound settings on the TV that increase the audibility of voices and decrease the volume of explosions, action scenes, and other loud noises. Yaaaassss. Where have you been all my life? (On the TV, apparently, I just didn't know this existed.) I tweaked them and BOOM, they work like a charm! I played the end of of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor without getting blasted out by the action between cut scenes. (The story was so good! I hope they don't take 6 years to make game III...) Maybe now Dad won't have to turn the sound up so ridiculously loud to hear speech. Hopefully, it'll also keep us from giving the sound remote such a workout when we watch movies.
Today, Dad slept in a little more normally, so I got some writing stuff done, and also got on the stationary bike for an hour. (I usually aim for a half hour minimum, but sometimes I feel energetic and keep going.) The desk we got for it so I can write and bike at the same time was definitely Worth It. I don't think there's anywhere to go today, so here's to more writing.