RADIO DAYS

Two days ago I posted The Story of Netflix.  For those who read it--as, for some reason, there were a lot of readers--here will be the new 2024 programs on this streaming channel, courtesy of Time magazine.  Also, to aid in your watching plan, what series and films will be departing.  One series in particular caught my attention, starring Michelle Yeoh in eight episodes of The Brothers Sun.  Who is she?

• 
  Best Actress Oscar for Everything Everything All at Once.
• Also in Crazy Rich Asians, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Tomorrow Never Dies.
• Was Miss World Malaysia 1983.
• She's 60 years old.

I was planning to spend today doing my prediction of what would be occurring next year.  I got depressed, for it looks like Donald Trump will dominate.  So my choice of this posting today came only after I stayed in bed all morning to watch Radio Days, a 1987 film written, directed and voiced by Woody Allen.  The story itself was nothing much, but the cast was noteworthy. Danny Aiello, Jeff Daniels, Larry David, Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner, Diane Keaton, Kenneth Mars, Don Pardo, Tony Roberts, Wallace Shawn, William Macy and Dianne Wiest.  Not bad Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 92/84.

In his four-star review, noted critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described Radio Days as Allen’s answer to Federico Fellini’s Amarcord and referred to it as "so ambitious and so audacious that it almost defies description. It's a kaleidoscope of dozens of characters, settings and scenes - the most elaborate production Allen has ever made - and it's inexhaustible, spinning out one delight after another."^[5]

What inspired me to feature this production, though, was the soundtrack:

Track listing

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Length
1.	"In the Mood"	Glenn Miller	3:33
2.	"I Double Dare You"	Larry Clinton	2:49
3.	"Opus No. 1"	Tommy Dorsey	2:58
4.	"Frenesi"	Artie Shaw	3:01
5.	"The Donkey Serenade"	Allan Jones	3:21
6.	"Body and Soul"	Benny Goodman	3:26
7.	"You and I"	Tommy Dorsey	2:44
8.	"Remember Pearl Harbor"	Sammy Kaye	2:29
9.	"That Old Feeling"	Guy Lombardo	2:45
10.	"(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover"	Glenn Miller	2:54
11.	"Goodbye"	Benny Goodman	3:31
12.	"I'm Getting Sentimental Over You"	Tommy Dorsey	3:38
13.	"Lullaby of Broadway"	Richard Himber	2:29
14.	"American Patrol"	Glenn Miller	3:33
15.	"Take the "A" Train"	Duke Ellington	3:00
16.	"One, Two, Three, Kick"	Xavier Cugat	3:23

You need to be my age or a nostalgic Big Band fan to appreciate this list, and how Allen weaved in these sounds into the plot.

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WILL THE WORLD WILL REACH 8 BILLION PEOPLE TODAY?

Did you know that only 2.3 billion people live in a democracy? That's 29% of 8 billion.  Donald Trump wants to lower this number by a few more percent. 

One thing about the global population is that no one knows for sure.  So will the number of people reach 8 billion today?  No, we're already past that number.   Time magazine says the world will reach 8 billion on January 1:  WORLD POPULATION UP 75 MILLION THIS YEAR, STANDING AT 8 BILLION ON JAN. 1.

Officially, the United Nations announced that 8 billion was reached in mid-November of last year.

• On 30 July 2022 my posting reported that the world would reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022.
• Then on 19 November 2022, I confirmed that the world hit 8 billion on 15 November 2022.  This number and date were announced by the United Nations Population Division.  
• Watch Rachel Snow of the United Nations Population Fund on November 11 make this video about reaching 8 billion.

AP also came out with the same announcement as Time, citing the U.S. Census Bureau.  

• 
  Actually, if you look very closely at the right graphic, and do the math, the Census Bureau actually said 8 billion was reached on September 23, 2023.  So the Time citation of January 1, 2024 was wrong.
• Further, AP indicated that the UN actually declared 22 November 2022 as the Day of 8 Billion. 
• AP also said that this discrepancy is due to countries counting people differently...or not at all.  India and Nigeria, for example, have not conducted a census in over a decade.
• Some other details.
• The current global median age is now 32.
• But this number will jump to 39 in 2060 because people will be living longer.
• The minimum number of births to remain at the current population is 2.1/female.  Almost 75% of people now live in countries with a fertility rate at that number.  The only countries with a fertility rate above 5 are in Africa.

So what is the correct answer about when the world population reached 8 billion?  Probably at some point between 15 November 2022 and 23 September 2023.

Interesting that the UN in 2012  summarized 65 different maximum sustainable sizes, and the most common figure was 8 billion.  Paul Ehrlich, author of Population Bomb in 1968, a half century later in 2018 thought that there was a near certainty that our civilization would collapse within decades at 8 billion.  He and his wife Anne (who was a co-author of that seminal book) thought this number should be between 1.5 billion and 2 billion.  Then last year, the Ehrlichs, with other experts, stated that the sustainable level of our human population at between 2 and 4 billion.  So by current consensus, we have too many people trying to survive on Planet Earth.

Worldometer, my source for those years of Covid-19 data, has a page showing the world population at 8.082 billion, changing by +2.4 every second.  A few other bits of information.

• Books published this year at 2.8 million, with a new one every 10 seconds.
• Internet users in the world today at 6 billion.
• Overweight people in the world at 1.7 billion.
• Communicable disease deaths this year at 13 million.
• 44.6 million abortions so far this year.
• 45 million HIV/AIDS infected people in the world.
• 392,674 deaths by malaria this year.
• Just a little more than a million suicides in the world this year.
• 1.344 million road traffic fatalities this year.

That's Nigeria above the USA, and Pakistan just below.

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THE STORY OF NETFLIX

All of the cable streaming channels are charging more and more, or asking you to pay a premium if you don't want to watch commercials.  They are also cracking down on password sharing.  

But today I will focus on Netflix, which began in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail movie rental service.  

• Silicon Valley carpoolers, Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings, with Patty McCord also in the car, admired Amazon and their large category of items selling on the internet.  

• 
  During those days, VHS was the dominant mode, but they heard that DVDs, smaller, less delicate and cheaper, were coming, so they took this path.
• Jeff Bezos of Amazon initially offered to acquire Netflix, but Randolph and Hastings persevered, changing from from cost/rental to a monthly subscription for unlimited rentals without due dates or shipping.

• 
  Then came the dot.com bubble, hurting their company, so they tried to sell Netflix to Blockbuster, which did not think much of those prospects.
• Patty McCord was also involved, and here she indicates how they destroyed Blockbuster.  She also wrote Powerful.

• Netflix went public in 2002 at $15/share.

• Currently sells for $490.51.
• If you bought 10,000 shares, you would today have $5.4 million.

• 
  2003:  made its first profit the following year.
• In 1997, only 925 films were on DVD, exploding to 35,000 in 2005.
• Blockbuster began its own DVD rental service in 2004, but Netflix filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Blockbuster, which was eventually settled.
• 2007: Netflix launched a streaming media service, introducing video on demand through the internet with only 1000 films, although by that year 70,000 were available on DVD.  But even though internet downloading was slow, the company delivered its billionth copy that year.
• 
  This gets complicated, but also in 2007 Netflix tried to build a Netflix Player to be played directly on a television set rather than computer.  This failed, but Roku independently spun off.
• Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010 with a billion dollar debt.
• 
  In 2011 Netflix charged $7.99/month for their streaming service.  Also expanded service to Europe.  That year began Netflix's original content development with House of Cards.
• 2015:  Netflix expanded into Oceania and the Orient.
• In 2017 began to connect to airline flights.
• 2018: earned the most Emmy nominations of any network with 112, and in 2021  earned the most Academy award nominations with 36, winning 7 Oscars.  Also began to offer games through a television remote control.
• 
  In 2021, Squid Game drew more than 111 million viewers.  Mobile games were launched.
• 2022: indicated that 60% of its subscribers had watched a Korean drama.
• Discontinued DVD-by-mail service in 2022, and those who had them at the end could keep them.  Distributed 5 billion DVD's in its lifetime.
• Now available in every country except for China, North Korea, Crimea, Syria and Russia.
• 
  They are working on password sharing by cost.
• Up to 238 million subscribers.
• In 2018 and 2019, produced more than 600 original shows, and this rate is expanding.
• Won 6 Academy Awards in 2023.
• Depending on what you want, can cost your from $7 to $23/month.  Considering just one movie out with popcorn can cost you more than $20, Netflix is a bargain.  I'll never be able to watch all of what I want even if they stopped creating new stuff.

If I had to pick one best Netflix genre, it would be those Korean series.  South Korea has in the past decade or two made the most progress in the world.  From electronics to kitchen appliances to shipbuilding to automobiles, their economic transformation has been phenomenol.  I remember first visiting that country in the 1980's, and they had not yet totally recovered from the Korean War.  Go to Seoul and Busan today, and the change is startling.  More than anything else, perhaps, has been in entertainment, from BTS to films to those series appearing on Netflix.

MovieWeb ranks the best Korean series.  Here is the top 20:

• #1  The World of the Married (2020), no Rotten Tomatoes review.  Revenge.
• #2  Sky Castle (2018), no RT review.  Turbulence in the upper class.  Saw this...good.

• 
  #3  Snowdrop (2021), RT ?/98.  Starring Jisoo (from Blackpink) and Jung Hae-in.
• #4  Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022), RT 100/94.  Saw this...fabulous, waiting for season 2.
• #5 Vincenzo (2021), RT ?/93).  Saw this, and wow.  20 episodes, each 1.5 hours long, or an investment of 30 hours.
• #6  Crash Landing on You (2019), RT 100/97.  Saw this, excellent.  Season 2?  Ten episodes, each 70-110 minutes.
• You can read the rest.

MovieWeb also ranks their best movies, and chances are you never heard of them.  Written this year, here is the top ten...and in 2020 Parasite (Rotten Tomatoes:  99/90) won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  It failed to make this list.

• #1  Memories of Murder (2003), by Boon Joon-ho, about a serial killer.  Rotten Tomatoes:  95/93.
• #2  Old Boy, RT (2017), RT: 83/94.  One reviewer quote:  Both brutal and lyrical, writer-director Park Chan-wook's existential nail-biter has torture scenes that will have you avoiding dentists, sushi bars and badly appointed hotel rooms.  April 15, 2013 | Rating: 5/5 | Full Review…
• #3  I Saw the Devil (2011), RT: 81/87.  Another serial killer film.

Netflix will spend $2.5 billion on South Korean film and TV productions over the next four years.  The Glory, released a year ago with 16 episodes, was the third most watched show during the first six months of 2023, with over 622 million hours of viewership. Received 88/94 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.  To quote:  Years after surviving horrific abuse in high school, a woman puts an elaborate revenge scheme in motion to make the perpetrators pay for their crimes.  Her performance was....disturbing.  Bullying and school violence are plagues in the country.

Finally, Time magazine has a list of the 10 Best Korean Dramas (meaning series) of 2023 on Netflix, but in no particular order.

• The Glory is in this list.
• I only began to watch Castaway Diva, and I'll continue, although only got a 76 audience rating.  Stars Park Eun-bin (right), from her Extraordinary Attorney Woo fame.  Didn't recognize her in this new role because she was so good as an autistic attorney in her earlier performance.
• 
  I'll mention one more, Dr. Cha, for it has been highly recommended to me.
• Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 86/91.
• 16 episodes.

For two decades, Cha Jeong-suk (played by Uhm Jung-hwa), a medical school graduate, put her career on hold after getting pregnant in order to become a devoted housewife supporting her spouse, mother-in-law, and children. But after being diagnosed with acute liver failure, Cha sees the selfishness of her family—culminating with her husband’s eventual refusal to be her liver donor. She then decides to stop being a doormat and applies to be a first-year medical resident in her late 40s. Doctor Cha is an entertaining 16-episode series on finding newfound independence and meaning in life as one ages.

• You can read about the other series.

15 Craigside rainbow yesterday.

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Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics.  Thursday was my pandemic day for years.  Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments.  All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms.  One of these will shock you.

• 
  There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell.  From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms.
• JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms.
• However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms.
• Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid.

• 
  A competing subvariant, BA.2.86,  also known as Pirola, a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed.
• No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months.  This is caused by stress more than anything else.  It appears, though, that most regain the loss.

I got the latest issue of Time magazine yesterday with Taylor Swift on the cover.  There are several cover photos, and mine was the one on the left.

Athlete of the Year was Lionel Messi:

Time also selected its top ten photos of the year.  Each has a story worthy of your reading.

So on to our next adventure in the spring.

• We fly on March 19 to Tokyo, and will stay at the Tokyo Westin for five nights.
• Next, on to Singapore's Marriott Tang Plaza, then Bangkok to the Sheraton Grande Sukhamvit.  I plan to make my final set of vests during this stay.
• A year ago we caught this fabulous Emirates first class flight from Bangkok to Dubai.  So we thought, why not do this again, and double it.  So we will, from Bangkok to Dubai, then spend a couple of layover hours in the Emirates Lounge, then another Emirates first class to Munich.  Serves unlimited caviar.

• 
  A couple of days in Germany, then on to Copenhagen, Denmark.  
• Certainly, a visit to Tivoli Gardens, and perhaps a world-class dinner.  
• I wonder if it will be possible to dine at Noma, the #1 restaurant in the world? 
• However, it will close later next year, and getting a reservation I hear is impossible.  Maybe Chef Rene will remember me (he is to my left).  There is Alchemist (#5 in the 2022 World's Best Restaurants).
• 
  Incidentally.
• Tokyo has #37 Sézanne, #27 Florilège and #21 Den.
• Bangkok has #17 Gaggan Anand (Gaggan to my left) and #15 Le Du
• Singapore has #14 Odette.

• 
  Fly to Amsterdam on April 6, and stay at the Amsterdam Marriott.
• April 7, board the Tauck MS Spirit on an 8-day Tulip River Cruise to Brussels, via Keukenhof Gardens, Kinderdijk's windmills, Hague and Antwerp.
• Fly to Barcelona to stay at the Cotton House Hotel.

• 
  April 16, board the Regent Seven Seas Voyager for a 10-day Mediterranean cruise, with stops in Rome, Sorrento, Santorini, Izmir, Istanbul, Mykonos and Athens.
• Fly to London, and on April 28 board the Queen Mary 2 for a week to New York City.

• 
  Stay at the Marriott Marquise near Times Square for 6 nights.
• Yankees baseball?
• Broadway shows?
• In the 50 Best list are the only U.S. restaurants:  #8 Atomix and #44 Le Bernardin.
• Fly back to Honolulu on May 11.  Below, a photo on my return after a Circle Pacific Adventure in 2016.

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CRUISING, Part 2: HONOLULU TO EUROPE AND BACK

To catch a Christmas European River cruise in 2024, I made two itineraries involving cruises, sailing east from Honolulu to Europe and west from Europe back to Honolulu.

Unfortunately, couldn't find a cruise to the West Coast from Honolulu.  Something to do with the Jones Act.  Possible to sail to Vancouver, but no options coming or going during these two itineraries for the Fall and Winter of 2024.  Also, no cruises from the West Coast of North America to Honolulu during this period.  Well, there is one loophole that comes at the end of this posting.

So we start with a flight from Honolulu, and the only cruise heading south, then east, was on the Holland America, from Vancouver to Fort Lauderdale on the Nieuw Amsterdam.  Thus, beginning in September of 2024.

• Fly from Honolulu to Vancouver on September 26.  Stay a couple of days at the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown.
• Board the Nieuw Amsterdam on September 29 for a 21-day cruise.
• Verandah cabins start at $5509/person with beverage package and WiFi.
• Stops in San Francisco, San Diego, various Latin American ports, through the Panama Canal and eventually to Fort Lauderdale on October 20.
• Spend two nights at JW Marriott Marquis in Miami.
• Fly to Memphis on October 23.

• 
  Board the America Cruise Lines American Symphony on October 25 for a 9-day cruise.
• Arrive New Orleans on November 2.
• Spend three nights at the Saint Hotel in New Orleans.
• Fly to Miami on November 6 and stay at the JW Marriott Marquis.

• 
  
  Board the MSC Magnifica on November 8 for a 23-day cruise to Genoa, Italy.
• Spend a few days sailing in the Caribbean, then to Madeira, Lisbon, etc., Barcelona, Civiravecchia (Rome), arriving in Genoa on December 1.
• There is a large number of Christmas river cruises, but the following is one example.
• Fly to Amsterdam on December 1 and stay at the Amsterdam Marriott hotel.
• Board the Viking Tir on a 15-day river cruise to Budapest.  A veranda room is available for $7,200/person.
• Arrive Budapest on December 19.
• Fly from Budapest to Hamburg on December 19.  Stay at Hamburg Marriott Hotel.

There aren't too many westward bound transatlantic cruises.  The following seems possible on Cunard's Queen Anne, which just began sailing in May of this year.

• Has 15 restaurants for 3000 passengers.
• Board the Cunard Queen Anne on in Hamburg on December 20, 2024 for an 18-day to the Canary Islands, and back to Hamburg on January 7, 2025.  Balcony $8195 ($455/day)/person.

• Queen Anne will begin its Maiden World Voyage, taking 111-nights from Hamburg on January 7, 2025.  balcony room costs $28,169 ($254/day)/person.

• 
  Continue on the Cunard Queen Anne from January 7, 2025 in Hamburg for a 26-day cruise to San Francisco, arriving on February 4, 2025.  Current balcony room for $6000 ($231/day)/person.
• That above leg seems bookable today.
• However, the ship then sails to Honolulu, arriving on February 9, 2025.  Perhaps this will be allowed.  Got to look into it.

If not, then stay at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront and fly from San Francisco to Honolulu on February 7, 2025.  Then again, why not take that World Voyage, which ends in Hamburg on April 29, 2025?  But then, we'll need to fly back to Honolulu from Hamburg.  So many options.  Cost for them?  Today, the above remains a fantasy.  Why spoil those dreams today?

Tomorrow, details on our global journey in the coming spring.  A lot of flying, plus three cruises.  This one is real. Cost?  Return for details.

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