The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – BALD JASON'S GAY GOTH BOY BLOG

May 18, 2026

“God’s Got a Sick Sense of Humor”

I slept more than 9 hours Saturday night and then cuddled with Aron for about an hour. I managed to get outside again (15 days in a row) and walked to Fort Tryon Park again but the shin / ankle pain was back. I thought I’d sit on the bench outside the park when I got there, relax for a bit and then keep going, which is what I did on Friday, but I found that my phone wasn’t working, which caused some amount of panic and I decided I’d head home instead of going into the park itself. Part of that was pain I was feeling. Part of it was the stress of the phone not working. But another part was that the heat, in the upper 80s, had started to feel oppressive. I made home okay and Aaron handled the phone – although I hope his solution works out. He paid a bill we don’t owe (for a crazy amount of money), thinking they will pay him back which I’m not comfortable with – but it isn’t my money, and he’s usually right about these things.

I took a shower. Our water pressure has had problems lately and this was no different. But we also don’t have much hot water, which hasn’t been a problem for us in years. I don’t like this, but we’re having someone in to look at it.

Later, after a delay of about a month, I finally watched the final 2 episodes of Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power which were epic in scope, filled with the sweeping vistas, fantastic acting and production design, and all the other wonderful elements I’ve now come to expect from the series. And I cried a lot. It made Aaron happy that I’m enjoying the show (which he binged earlier this year) and that we can talk about this season in full now. He did spoil one thing accidentally, but I’m actually quite relieved rather than angered. That particular secret seemed far too dragged out for me so his reveal pleased me a great deal. And though I’m happy I get to watch at least 2 more seasons of the series, I love how this ending works. If the series had been cancelled after this season, it would still be wonderful, it would still feel like an excellent prequel to the films and although there are dangling plot threads, none of them seems so overwhelming that this ending could not have been satisfying on its own. I wish more series would do this.

We had a Zoom call with Aaron’s sister, which was lovely. I’d called her from the car on Saturday and she requested my presence in their weekly chat. It was all enjoyable but I left them for bed around 10.

I slept relatively well Sunday night. No cuddles in the morning as I woke up very hungry and thirsty. My stomach has not been as well behaved today as it has been the last few days, and so I began working on my website, which I’ve now done all day. I’ve not been outside yet, but I’d like to get out for a bit so that I don’t lose my record! But I don’t know if I’m up to going to Aaron’s pool game tonight, because I don’t know that I’m up for being out late. I have a doctor’s appointment that I have to travel for tomorrow and then Wednesday we travel, flying to Florida to check on our house there, which has apparently suffered some damage from the last occupants. I love our house in FL and I like going there, but I always find travel to be a bit stressful, so I’m not looking forward to that part.

Today’s song quote title is from Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumors”, from their excellent 1984 album, “Some Great Reward”.

April 15, 2026April 15, 2026

Daredevil has been Born Again!

I woke up early yesterday morning. I watched Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord S01E03 (“Chapter 3: Whispers in the Unknown”) and started S01E04 (“Chapter 4: Pride and Vengeance”) before getting distracted by a stray thought about how my sister Janice recently told me that she doesn’t enjoy Star Wars much, which I thought was odd. But then I remembered that I didn’t like it much either until I started reading the books. And then watching The Clone Wars and the other shows as they were released and I think that’s key for me, because that’s where all the character development really happens. I mean, there are so many background characters who just die without being named on screen in “Revenge of the Sith” but The Clone Wars develops all of those characters so losing them because far more tragic. That kind of thing really helped. So I started making a list for her of the things to watch, which I worked on for like 40 minutes before stopping, realizing that my sister would never watch this stuff! lol

I returned to bed soon after to cuddle with Aaron before he left for work. Later, I took some photos with my once fancy, but 20 year old camera. I went to therapy. I read the news. I walked to Little Caesars for a pizza. I talked on the phone with my cousin Katie, my friend Mark Adams and finally my grandmother. Later I snapped a few more pictures and started getting ready for bed. I still haven’t gone to the bedroom though because my sleeping medication hasn’t really been working well the last few nights which means I need to give it a break. It will good for me. But it also means I can’t just fall asleep quickly and so I’m awake. So I watched the new Daredevil episode.

Daredevil: Born Again. Season 1 was a mixed bag which I felt was due to creative issues behind the scenes, so I cut them some slack. I was assured that Season 2 would be the series at its best, only to have the first 3 episodes leave me disappointed again. But episodes 4 & 5 have been incredible! These 2 episodes have easily been the best of the entire series to date. I cried. There are 3 more episodes this season and Season 3 is filming now, likely to be released about a year from now.

I have the Star Wars episode to finish. I have 2 more episodes in Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. I have one more season to watch of His Dark Materials. Euphoria Season 3 started on Sunday but I think I might wait and binge that when it’s finished. There are many shows that I’ve started and not finished, which I’d like to, it has just all piled up now over years that I don’t know that I ever will get to a lot of it.

I read the news out of Cinemacon. So many release dates announced. So much movie news in the last 48 hours. I love this stuff. And Disney is closing out the convention on Thursday, likely with news of “Avengers: Doomsday”, so I’m looking forward to that.

But I am actually getting tired. I may try to sleep.

April 7, 2026April 7, 2026

“Top Ten in the Charts of Pain”

Yesterday was productive. I got tons done on the new website. It’s fun and a bit of an obsession right now. It can be relaxing but I have to remind myself to step away from the computer and get other things done and to take breaks so that I don’t get totally burnt out.

I got away yesterday for a not-so-fun reason. Aaron was in pain and told me he was going to CityMD. I had just eaten so I needed to sit still for a little bit but soon dressed and joined him at the clinic, which is just across the road from us. They let me back to see him just as he was about to have an EKG, which appeared normal, but they instructed us to watch out for certain signs and if we see any of those we are heading to an emergency room. He’s taken the day off of work today.

Later I watched the first 2 episodes of the new Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord series. It’s a little slow, as this is a new beginning, but I enjoyed most of it. We know Maul of course, and we’ve met Rook Kast in passing, but most of the characters and the world is new, so I’m okay with it taking a little time to get going. I wish the entire series was available now, because I would have binged it over a couple of days. I’m curious to see where this goes…

My gripes are few. The new world, the planet Janix, looks so similar to Coruscant, that if I hadn’t been paying attention, I’d have thought that was the setting. It makes sense that Maul would be on a different world as he’s avoiding entanglements with the Empire, but most worlds in Star Wars look at least a little different, and this looks exactly the same. Maybe there were visual cues that I missed. I also didn’t like the ends of the episodes. The cliffhanger moments make you want to watch the next one, which is the point, but again, if this was released all at once I’d be happier with that model. And then the pace, as I said, is a bit slow at times – or, more accurately, the faster paced stuff often didn’t matter to me, because I didn’t feel very invested in most of the new characters. There are already signs that this will likely change fairly quickly, but for now it feels problematic; trailers and posters have revealed later appearances by several known characters that will likely help with this.

I think this might be great in time. I’ve been wanting to re-watch The Clone Wars for several years now, not having seen most of it in over a decade, and with The Bad Batch and the Star Wars: Tales shorts in place, this could all be a lot of fun. But I’m currently watching so much stuff that this will have to wait for now. Hopefully someday!

Later I also continued on with my first time through The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (S01E06 “Udûn”). I hadn’t watched any episodes in over a week and was worried I’d have lost interest again. I’ve tried twice before to get into this series but this time has been far more rewarding and I’m 2 episodes further than I’ve ever been. And this episode was fantastic, filled with multiple events that I had anticipated but had assumed would happen in the season finale but we still have 2 more episodes to go! There were also several surprises and my theories about this or that character are developing and changing with nearly every episode. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to get into this series but I’m really glad that I have. It’s also nice knowing that I have 10 more episodes as Season 2 aired over a year ago, and that Season 3 will include a time jump, which suggests that Season 2 will have an ending that won’t drive me crazy. I hope. lol

I only meant to stay up a little to see if I could update a few more items on my site but I ended up staying up past 4 am, listening to From the Choirgirl Hotel, the Tori Amos album released in May of 1998 and which I often listened to when building the first iteration of this website in the fall of that year. I eventually had to call it quits after working to exhaustion – and I knew I needed to sleep before my therapy appointment today. I slept for 6 hours. I had relatively intense dreams but they’re finally fading now. I woke with a migraine, which hasn’t happened much lately, for which I’m very grateful. I had a smoothie (with coffee) and took a small dose of pain medication.