Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Geekly Daily 51 (January 15th, 2019): Damn you Labour Board!!!

Now playing: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
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So here's a fun bit of fun that's been going on at my work lately. I know, I usually encourage you to skip this part, but stick with me. The labour board was called on my employer. Apparently someone who was fired complained to the board that we weren't getting our breaks. Which is kinda sorta true. So the Labour board came in and placed strict rules on my employer forcing she give 30 minutes of unpaid break to every employee.

Here's the thing, it's true we weren't getting designated breaks. On the other hand, they also told me that once I was done my chores they had no problem with me working on my writing or whatever. Some people would bring a book. So that meant that often a good two hours of my shift I would be able to just sit and relax and work on my writing or read from my ipad, and I'd be getting paid for all of it. Just get up to serve the odd customer, and back to reading. And they wouldn't complain because that was my break, and I'd finished my work.

I mean as you know from my previous post they complain plenty but that's something else entirely.

But now with the Labour Board's insistence now I'm allowed to do all that stuff for exactly 30 minutes, and then I have to put it away and have to work for the other 7 and a half hours. That's right, the labour board literally forced my employer to make me work more for less pay.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I feel like conservatives would laugh at this and say "See!!!" because sure enough this is the sort of bureaucratical nonsense they strongly oppose, or at least claim to oppose when it suits them. The idea of small government. It's not that there aren't faults in the system as it is now. There are, and I've never said there wasn't, I've never said the liberals are perfect. I've always said we need to fix whats wrong, instead of just giving up and going with conservatives, and in this sense it's the same thing. Clearly there's something wrong, and small goverment can seem like it would be a vast improvement, but as per always that's if one completely ignores the price. What exactly is the price in abolishing such strict labour laws? Would I be helping myself to only hurt a hundred others? You can't ignore the cost. There has to be a better way.

So I don't know how to feel, except that I'm disappointed and frustrated and I'd be grinding my teeth if I weren't conscious of the damage that would cause them.

As per usual, life sucks. Yours truly,

Andrew Geczy

Geekly Weekly TV Rankings ( for new):
  1. Les Miserables *****
    Another amazing and beautiful and touching episode of Les Miserables this week. You owe it to yourself to figure out a way to watch this BBC show, because it is so worth it. It is so touching and heartbreaking and everything the musical is. It's being done really well. I really enjoyed the dynamic between Jean Val Jean and Cozette, it was so sweet. And Javert's anger was beautiful. It's so inexplicable, but Oyelowo plays it very well.
  2. Young Justice *****
    Going off of ep 4, and they released three episodes again this week which is annoying but perhaps only to me, this episode was fantastic. It was just fun. I particularly enjoyed the criminals being very confused why these rent-a-cops were so well trained and equipped. "You can't be getting paid enough for this." "I own the company!" "Sucks to be you." The emotional arc with Artemis was alright as well, a little eye-roll-y watching animation try to be super melodramatic and grounded, but it might just be that I've gotten too old for this shit and lost my imagination.
    Watching the beginning of Ep 5, and I think going off what I was just saying, it's kind of just jarring when a cartoon, especially one this over the top, also takes itself so seriously. It's likes to pretend it's a live action show, and the cartoon-y visuals just don't do enough to keep up with the writing. It's a tough dissonance to fight through. But ep 5 was another fun episode, with Miss Martian taking center stage. I had the most fun with the friendly over-enthusiastic new god, and enjoyed the drama with Forager and his ignorant bug friends who turn against him.
    The sixth episode was interesting in how it continued the story of the fifth, but a pretty generic story of angry hothead impulsively challenges someone out of his league. Still an enjoyable episode, and I think the 5 star rating shall stand.
  3. The Good Place****1/2
    That was a really good episode of the good place. Potentially the best episode this season, though it's been a more lackluster season than the past two. I really enjoyed the depiction of people in The Good Place. They were all hilarious in how nice they were, and it quickly became clear to me what I'm glad Michael figured out by the end of the episode. That it is actually The Good Place's diligent enforcement of rules that has led to all the trouble now. Eleanor trying to break through the door to heaven seemed like a bad idea, but her plot with Chidi was fun, and he was sweet, and then they did it. Also Janet was a lot of fun, and Tahani, while her storyline dragged a little this episode, she had some of the best one liners in the episode.
  4. Family Guy ****Fun episode. Family Guy even admitted last episode that they were late to the trump bashing, but all in all this episode seemed worth the wait. There were some great moments, but I think I enjoyed this episode most for it's meta references. When Peter tries to criticize Trump, trump fires back by attacking the show and saying that what the show has done to make fun of vulnerable groups is far worse than anything Trump has done, to which Peter replies "In fairness, we're trying to phase out the gay stuff." That's the sort of honesty that makes me tickle pink. Those are the moments when Seth Mcfarlane is at his best. Also the Sleepy Hollow joke was amusing. The more meta the show gets, the more I enjoy it.
  5. The Big Bang Theory****I actually kind of enjoy Penny's ex-boyfriend every time he shows up. They have a lot of fun with making him just... so dumb. Like he would give Peter Griffen a run for his money he's so cartooney dumb. And giving him a girlfriend who works in a bookstore but doesn't read and is so smart that you could "Name any book, and she can tell you if she's heard of it." "Ooookay. Catcher in the rye." "Nope." The worst storyline, again, was Raj. Bringing the show down. Pining over the loss of his relationship was fine and could have brought out some good humour. But nope, instead he went back to her. God Damn I don't like her. She's never even seen love actually. She's terrible for Raj, like this is just dragging on torture. Thank god it was mere minutes out of this episode.
  6. Gotham ***1/2
    It was a good episode of Gotham, though with all the wonderful cliches and over the top ridiculousness that comes with it. I knew from the moment Jim's first scene with Barbara ended that she would be there to save him in the end. Barbara has been so weird, and her character has been consistent this season only in its blunt force fitting her into every possible cliche, and ignoring her own motivations every step of the way. I also called that the witch would be Ivy. Can't remember if I called that last week, but the way the recap was put together it was the first thing I thought of. That one house with the cannibal woman was...weird. Oh and what was with those guys in Ivy's layer dressed and talking like their right out of some combination of Gangs of New york, Titanic, and Mary Poppins. "'ello govena. We gots us a witch over tha." So for the rcord, this show is absurd in almost every way...except for its granular plotting which seems to love to resort to cliches. Finally, the catwoman reveal was underwhelming... I think I just talked half a star off the rating.
  7. The Orville ***1/2
    Wow, this episode was... something. The focus on Alara was right up my alley, though I can see how some people might not be as enthused to watch a young 20 something woman scream at Robert Picardo "WHy didn't you love me, dad!" This episode wasn't great, average, heightened by being all about Alara, and then completely hit a brick wall at the end with the reveal that this is her last episode and she's leaving the show. That's a little rough, especially since she was my favourite character, and kinda the reason I was still watching this show. Apparently it was simple scheduling conflcts. And maybe she'll be back. It's not over for the show yet, this was still a decent episode despite cliched teenage girl angst writing issues. Also at the end, she gives her wounded father a mission to do during her action scene, while leaving her healthy and able sister and mother to stand around and do nothing. But that kind of cliche was par for the course with this episode. I would have brought in more humour. They could have made that weird CG creature look really ridiculous, instead of playing the cliched "Watch me pet this cg creature" scene completely straight. In fact they played almost the whole episode completely straight and if you weren't madly crushing on Alara like I am, I could easily imagine you hating this episode. But then again, that theoretical person might be excited to see her leave the show, so what do I know.
  8. Star Wars Resistance***
    It wasn't a bad episode of the show, though as soon as Kaz first spotted the creature in the water, I knew it was Neko's pet's mother. And when everyone's first assumption was "It's trying to eat Beebo!" I'm like "What?" the randomest assumption in the world. Also I agree with the boss, that thing was smelly and disruptive, it had to go and if Neeko wanted to go with it, then all the better. he's disrubptive and useless too. But of course that's not how these cartoons go, and the worst was near the end when the boss was like "We have to help Neeko's friend." Alright sure, lets just risk the whole station for a tiny blobby thing that's going to eat the whole station.
Geekly Weekly Talk Show Showdown:
  1. Vice News Tonight
  2. The Daily Show 
  3. Stephen Colbert
  4. The Graham Norton Show
  5. ➤James Corden

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