Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, September 1, 2021, or: Of Storms, Starships, and Superheroes

Greetings, Dear Reader. It’s late morning here in New Hometown, Florida on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. It’s a gray, wet, and sullen day, and – if you go by the meteorological calendar instead of the astronomical one – it’s the first day of autumn. Currently, the temperature is 78˚F (25˚C) under rainy conditions. With humidity at 68% and the wind blowing from the south-southwest at 6 MPH (9 KM/H), the feels-like temperature is 79˚F (26˚C). The forecast for today calls for scattered rain throughout the morning and afternoon. The high will be 87˚F (30˚C). Tonight, rain will continue to affect our area. The low will be 75˚F (24˚C). The Air Quality Index (AQI) is 59 or Moderate.

Today I woke up at 6 AM to the sound of thunder booming dully in the distance. It seemed as though the thunderstorms would head in our direction, but apparently that particular squall line had already come and gone. However, we will be getting more squalls from a huge blob of a weather system off to our north, which – from what I can determine from radar images on my Weather app – might be a distant appendage to Tropical Depression Ida.

As far as weather goes, I dread the first half of September; the Atlantic hurricane season peaks on September 10, and right now there are three storms and a possible fourth spinning out there. Ida, of course, hit Louisiana as a Category Four hurricane earlier this week and is now making a beeline to the Northeast. Meanwhile, as Tropical Depression Kate spins off Bermuda – it is, happily, expected to stay out to sea – Tropical Depression Larry is churning out in the central Atlantic Ocean and heading toward the eastern Caribbean on a west-bound course at 20 miles per hour. As of today, forecasters aren’t sure where Larry will go, though if we are lucky it will turn north well before it threatens the continental U.S.

Meanwhile, what else is happening on this wet, grey, and gloomy Wednesday?

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Well, Amazon informs me that another of my July pre-orders, the 4K UHD Blu-ray of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, is being readied to ship out for delivery on Tuesday, September 7. That’s the same day that my other pre-order, Star Trek: The Original 4-Movie Collection is supposed to ship. I can tell that Amazon seems certain that, barring unforeseen changes in Larry’s itinerary, Warner Bros. Home Media isn’t going to have the same supply-and-demand issues Paramount had with its Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection set almost three months ago, Zack Snyder’s Justice League has – on the Not Shipped section of the Orders page – a definite delivery date of Tuesday, September 7.

In sharp contrast to that, this is what Amazon says about the Star Trek box set:

Pre-ordered

We will email you when we have an estimated delivery date.

Mind you, the box set still has a September 7 release date; it’s the delivery date that is still somewhat up in the air.

Oh, well. I own the DVD and 2K Blu-ray versions of the six Star Trek films that feature The Original Series cast, so it’s no big deal if I don’t get that box set on Tuesday.

As for the Zack Snyder’s Justice League 4K Blu-ray? I skipped on the Joss Whedon-directed version of Justice League back in 2017 because I knew that Whedon had – at Warner Bros. insistence – cut huge chunks out of the film after its original director, Zack Snyder, stepped away in the post-production phase after his daughter Autumn’s suicide. I’d read enough reviews of Whedon’s version to lose interest in Justice League. And, to be honest, even though I am open to watching reboots of comic book adaptations, I am not as enamored of the 21^st Century DC Extended Universe as I am of the two Richard Donner-directed Superman films with Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel.

So, what made me choose Zack Snyder’s Justice League?

Well, I own the first two films of the Snyder Superman/Justice League trilogy, so even though I have no interest in acquiring the other films in the DCEU series (although I might make an exception for the first Wonder Woman film), I want to see how Snyder concludes this particular arc. I don’t have HBO Max, so my other two options were to get the Blu-ray or just skip it altogether. I obviously opted for the former. Whether I’ll regret doing so later…that remains to be seen.

As for the rest of this Wednesday? It doesn’t look like we’ll be spared from heavy rain or thunderstorms, so I might end up reading or using my tablet to listen to music on my Amazon Music app. I don’t think I’ll be able to watch TV or use this desktop PC. I already lost one computer to an errant lightning strike in 2004; I don’t want to lose this one, since replacing it would put a heavy burden on my finances.

So, that’s it from lovely New Hometown on this first day of September. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay dry, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the drier side of things.