Lion ponderings

Continuing the lion kingdom's real estate saga  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/102857268473278281/1225684921613193845   Finally signed the contract disposing of the lion kingdom's land of 20 years.  That left no land, no equity, & no tax deduction.  At least there will be a small payment in 1 year.  There is an option to repay all the payments, fees, & exit from the deal, but the buyer can collect additional money for damages.  He's going to invest a lot on improvements.  Suspect by the time lions retire, the cost of exiting the contract will  be greater than any alternative .  There's another chance he won't really have the money & will exit on his own.  He is deferring the payments as long as possible. There were still ideas for building a man cave but lions don't envision ever living there now or finding another buyer.  Someone else could buy the property by buying out the contract, but they'd have to pay...

 Lions finally began Gladiator II after much dread.  A still appeared earlier to try to imagine the modern politicians of Rome II in Rome I.   https://growmane.blogspot.com/2026/02/youre-saying-vibe-coding-now-requires.html  The thing that appeals with the gladiator series are the visuals of ancient times.  They're a lot more faithful than movies 40 years ago.  These scenes probably existed in real life, in some form.     This was a plausible scene facing the coloseum from the  Pons Aemilius/ Ponte Palatino bridge.   The  Pons Aemilius bridge collapsed during the middle ages from floods & was rebuilt in the 1500's.   The current bridge was built in 1887, leaving only 1 arch from the 1500's.   So much for roman concrete being invincible.  The aqueduct was plausible but it should have been on the south side of the coloseum.    We're probably getting a mashup of many artifacts, very loos...

   Principal recording finally ended on Escenas Romanticas, after 4.5 months.  Many days of lens correction, color timing, sound synchronization, camera switching, edit tweeking remane.   Recording has evolved to a process like movie making over the last 40 years.  Gone were the days of recording an entire piece in a day.  Then the days of recording multiple pages in a day ended.  A week had to be dedicated to just the 1 climax in the allegro, trying to get the crosspaw smoother.  Lions still had misgivings about allegro page 3.  Recording it in the daytime didn't go as well as night, yet the daytime recording represented more practice.  Lions just don't seem to be as focused in the daytime.   That was the 1st in a long Granados cycle which began in July 2025.  It was the most copyright trolled video lions ever made.  At least 5 users claimed it.  2 difficult Goyescas pieces & 1 dance remane.  Every...

An example from Greenspun made lions ponder the reality of buying the absolute cheapest house.  https://www.lennar.com/new-homes/florida/orlando/eagle-lake/ranches-at-lake-mcleod/cottage-collection/kitson     It's pretty depressing in even the sales pitch, with just a garage, a small window for the facade & all wood. No-one even uses garages anymore.  The price difference is so small, the owner would have to be extremely stretched to not go higher.  6 small windows in total, with 1 small window in the bedroom.  The apartment of the last 25 years & most other apartments have more exposure.  That's $265k nowadays or $185/sq ft.  Lions could probably get used to it.  They're sacrificing exterior for square footage & the interior is a pleasant cocoon.    The next higher one is the $252k & has 2 front windows.  That would be less depressing.  Proximity to water causes the depressing one to cost more.  ...

2 years now since lions were last able to run every day.  There's a nonzero chance the malaise which began in 2024 is related to the cat naps starting in 2024 & vitamin C reduction in 2026.  Cat naps haven't been in the most relaxed position because when confronted with a short sleep time, the brain puts up with a less comfortable position.  Vitamin C going down to 1g/day coincided with the hamstring tendon. Trying to boost the vitamin C at noon failed because lions always forgot.  The morning is the best time to take it all, since that minimizes the residual odor at night & enhances the bowel movement in the morning. 1 thing that might work is just taking protein every other day, regardless of effort.  They now recommend taking less because of mercury concentrations. The big change after age 48 was what formerly recovered no longer recovered.  Hamstring tendon, posterior tibialis, heel injury used to bounce back in a few days.  Lions eat less ...

 After many years of trying to get the best rendering of subtitles for Macross DYRL & trying to find a copy in better resolution, it finally showed up in HD on the gootubes.  Sadly, the subtitles were on top of the video instead of in the letterbox & it appears to be a theatric print.  Also disappointing to not have clean animation frames. It was 1 of the last times yt-dlp was able to download anything.  Every attempt after May 18 resulted in a login requirement.  It seems the lion kingdom's only viewing was a very low quality copy before 2013 with baked subtitles.  It was very dark & low def.  A better copy arrived in 2013 & the 1st copy was lost.   The last revisit to robotech featured only stills from the TV show.   https://growmane.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-backflow-starship-incense-burner.html    The HD print showed what a masterpiece it was.  Sadly, the lion kingdom before 2013 didn't know the rob...