Thomas Gordon d'Avila

@maddow.bsky.social: After an hour and 47+ minutes, the longest State of the Union speech in our history, the ghosts of Congress applaud at the end of Donald Trump's long and rambling speech, where he handed out military awards like they were party favors, though the event was lacking in solemnity.

@maddow.bsky.social: View from the torch of the Statue of Liberty on the snowy night of Sunday, February 22nd, 2026. New York City is completely shut down because of snow accumulation. The city has already announced that schools will be closed on Monday, with some serving as warming centers.

#HallmarkHaven: (8/8) She is thus free to pledge her love for Paul, which enhances the celebratory atmosphere engulfing the entire town in their newly restored meeting hall! Rachel was instrumental in the restoration project, of course, and IT ALL SEEMS LOGICAL ENOUGH TO GIVE THIS MOVIE A 92% GRADE!

#HallmarkHaven: (7/8) One would think angels could do whatever they want, but Beau is there to remind Rachel that she can't fall in love with a human. In a sweetly scripted dialogue sequence, Rachel tells Beau that after thousands of years living as a celestial being, she insists on becoming human!

#HallmarkHaven: (6/8) Rachel almost single-handedly brings about the kinds of commitments to help and reconciliations of long-lost friendships which recreate the town's spirit in a manner that appears to extend beyond the Christmas holiday. Rachel and Paul also fall in love, which isn't permitted!

#HallmarkHaven: (5/8) Paul's character carries a burden of guilt throughout the movie, because his best friend, Allison's dad, was killed when Paul was not on duty as Chief. Allison plays a central role in the movie, partly because she designs the town's website, which reminds folks of their past.

#HallmarkHaven: (4/8) An important local point of view regarding this lack of holiday spirit is provided by the town Fire Chief, played by Paul Greene. He is the legal guardian of a beautiful young woman, played by Allison Hossack, after her firefighter father died in a barn fire explosion.

#HallmarkHaven: (3/8) The movie only received 6.5 stars from the IMDb website, so I'm not the only one who gets queasy over guardian angel stories, but I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Rachel and Beau are sent to Earth to resurrect the old meeting hall, so the entire town can celebrate Christmas!

#HallmarkHaven: (2/8) I posted this lovely movie, "Christmas in Angel Falls," about 6 months ago, but the 2nd out of 8 segments got erased from my Bluesky account. The other leading actor is Rachel Boston, who plays Gabby, the angel who Beau Bridges recruits to restore the town's Christmas spirit!

#HallmarkHaven: (1/8) For any regular readers of my Hallmark movie reviews, I have little tolerance for literal time travel or actual guardian angels, yet one of my favorite movies features not only an actual guardian angel, but the SUPERVISOR of said angel, played by Hollywood's Beau Bridges!

#HallmarkHaven: I'm mostly recovered from my hip operation, but I still spend a fair amount of time in bed, facing my TV. I write these reviews partly to justify watching these often sappy, always predictable film productions on the Hallmark channel, but I can now admit that I do like the good ones!

#HallmarkHaven: Part of the reason I took a 3-month vacation from this little project was that I somehow lost the master list of movie titles that I had reviewed, so I had no way of knowing if I was duplicating a previous review without checking the entire list. I'm reconstructing that list now!

#HallmarkHaven: As I've explained, I watched dozens of Hallmark movies, both before and after my hip replacement, and just to keep myself busy, I reviewed them all. After a 3-month hiatus, I'm going to start writing reviews again, but this time, I'll only review movies that I really like! No fluff!

@briefingwithpsaki.bsky.social: Senator Elizabeth Warren is easily identified, despite the mistimed residue from your lovely background graphic! Good job interviewing her, and keep up the excellent work overall with your newish show, Ms. Psaki! @MS.NOW can't have too many kick ass anchors!

@maddow.bsky.social: This snarky little ad is also not particularly true! Representative Crocker is known to be a fighter for the less privileged in our state. White folks make up only about 40% of Texans, and Jasmine Crocker is a beautiful African-American young woman! Will Talarico get THAT vote?

Talarico's allied group, Lone Star Rising PAC, has been blanketing the airways in Texas with a nasty little ad accusing his Dem primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crocker, of being the GOP's darling! The tagline of this ominously-scored ad is "If Jasmine Crocker wins, Texas loses!" Not very Christian!

@maddow.bsky.social: I find the Texas politician, @jamestalarico.bsky.social, a little annoying! I don't like his perfect little haircut, his perfect little body, or his perfect faith in his ability to shape public opinion. He claims that he'd never be a mudslinger, though his Super PAC is happy to!

I foolishly did not see the connection between one of Scott Galloway's "GROUND ZERO" companies, Paramount+, that he has targeted for collective boycotts, but I see the connection now and don't agree with the actions of Oracle's Larry Ellison and his "rich boy" son, so no more CBS Nightly News!

@maddow.bsky.social: I watch a lot of political news on @MS.NOW, but thanks to my parents' viewing habits, I also watch the nightly network news. I disliked all of them, so I started watching Tony Dokoupil on CBS. I've published a few postings on Bluesky using CBS video clips, but not in the future!

@maddow.bsky.social: This short video on the same CBS News program shows a similar and presumably related technology which may use AI - advanced humanoid robotics - that displays technical mastery, but a complete lack of artistic nuance and subtlety. If this is the future of mankind, it'll be bleak!

This report from CBS News focuses on the detrimental impact that artificial intelligence will have on Hollywood, but this technology will have a potentially similar impact on politics, our legal system, and even on interpersonal relationships, yet the industry only wishes to regulate itself! Absurd!

@maddow.bsky.social: This clip, rolled out by ByteDance to promote their new AI software package, features a fight scene between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. It proves beyond any reasonable doubt that this industry, which demands so much of our electricity and water for data centers, needs regulation!

Here's another view of essentially the same shot with a slightly different vertical axis. The surprising feature that I cannot explain with my limited knowledge of physics is the deep hole in the center of the ice block, even though the bottle was not centered in the microwave oven!

@maddow.bsky.social: I like drinking ice cold water from plastic bottles that I freeze solid and then nuke for 2 1/2 minutes, which creates some interesting ice formations when photographed without a flash. The difficult part is excluding any surroundings outside the frozen bottle!

This is "Floating Dragon."

@maddow.bsky.social: I subscribe to literally none of Scott Galloway's targeted tech companies because I'm too cheap! The segments are in reverse order, so #7 (GROUND ZERO) is at the top of his website, and #3 (BLAST ZONE) is the top of the list for worst offenders, or direct supporters of ICE ops.

@maddow.bsky.social: (7/7) Scott Galloway is an effective, inspirational student and teacher of technology who suggests starving the leading tech companies by collectively unsubscribing from their services at the website resistandunsubscribe.com. I don't participate at all, but I support the effort!

@maddow.bsky.social: (6/7) Scott Galloway is an effective, inspirational student and teacher of technology who suggests starving the leading tech companies by collectively unsubscribing from their services at the website resistandunsubscribe.com. I don't participate at all, but I support the effort!

@maddow.bsky.social: (5/7) Scott Galloway is an effective, inspirational student and teacher of technology who suggests starving the leading tech companies by collectively unsubscribing from their services at the website resistandunsubscribe.com. I don't participate at all, but I support the effort!

@maddow.bsky.social: (4/7) Scott Galloway is an effective, inspirational student and teacher of technology who suggests starving the leading tech companies by collectively unsubscribing from their services at the website resistandunsubscribe.com. I don't participate at all, but I support the effort!