project hail walky

— छह हज़ार अट्ठावन — There were two major movie releases over the past two weeks, just before and during the 4th of July holiday weekend: Supergirl and Minions vs. Monsters. I had no interest in either one so I didn't go see them. They both kind of tanked at the box office, and I'm generally not interested in Minions movies anyway. In spite of my minority take that last year's Superman was not good, I might have been interested in Supergirl had the reviews even been decent; this was a female-superhero-focused film, after all. But, reviews were mixed enough that I thought: why bother? Oh. Also released June 26 was the latest Jackass movie, and: no thank you. I haven't seen any of those and don't feel like I have missed anything. I don't care how many people whose opinions I actually respect have loved them. Watching goofball straight guys pull stupidly dangerous stunts is not my jam. All of this is to say, I haven't gone to see a movie in the theater since Monday, June 22. That's over two weeks ago, and I'm not likely to go to another until Monday next week—a three-week break in which I wasn't even traveling. A sad state of affairs for the movies. There have been plenty I have not see that I could have gone to, but none appeal to me at all. Everything in theaters right now, I have either already seen or looks stupid. I suppose I could have seen the Hong Kong action film The Furious, which people really love. I kind of doubt I would have loved it that much, but it might have been serviceable in the absence of any other options. Unfortunately I seem to have missed my window; it's still in a couple of theaters in the region but not in Seattle proper and only a single showing each day and late in the evening. Hey, wait a minute. I just looked at my calendar. I can totally go to a movie on Friday. I think I'll do that. A two and a half week break, and not a three-week break! I need to see The Invite before people start talking about it and spoiling shit anyway. Okay, I feel a little better! I'm just feeling starved for quality content in movie theaters these days. The Odyssey is the following weekend, so there's also that. And I've already heard very good things about both of these movies. — छह हज़ार अट्ठावन — — छह हज़ार अट्ठावन — Okay, what else? I almost made chai last night, but Shobhit wasn't super into having some and I agreed it might be a good idea to skip it anyway. I don't need to have chai every day. I had a soda instead. We walked to the Tuesday Farmers Market at Cal Anderson Park. Not much going on there, Tuesday is much smaller. But, it got us out for a bit. We also walked further up to QFC so he could check his lottery tickets, a dream he refuses to give up on in spite of the astronomically low odds of winning. I wasn't up for another three-mile walk like we did on Monday. He went out for his other walk later, during which I washed the dishes and went to bed. In the meantime, we watched Project Hail Mary on Prime Video. Shobhit seemed kind of netural on it. "It's a very happy movie," he said. That was his basic, overall assessment. I love that movie, and if I were to make a top 10 for 2026 right now, it would at the very least rank #2, after Pillion (which is listed as a 2025 movie but didn't open until February, so for my purposes it's a 2026 movie). It's long, though: two hours and 40 minutes. So that took all the time we had between returning from our walk and Shobhit heading back out again to get his steps in. — छह हज़ार अट्ठावन — [posted 12:33pm]

fútbol

— छह हज़ार सत्तावन — A good portion of the evening last night was taken up by the World Cup match between the U.S. and Belgium, which happened here in Seattle, at Lumen Field—excuse me, "Seattle Stadium." After hanging out a while in the bedroom while I ate my dinner, after making chai, I came out to hang out in the living room with my laptop while the match played. Shobhit was very invested, and kept commenting on how hot the Belgian players are. I could hardly care less. The most interesting thing about this was all the local fervor, with the U.S. playing the match and somewhat by chance playing here in Seattle during the last of our six host-city matches. People were all over town in ridiculously patriotic getups, lots of red, white and blue color schemes, American-flag shorts, that kind of stuff. Even during my lunch break yesterday as I walked through the Rainier Square lobby, I saw a couple of guys in similar getups and also wearing springly blue wigs. They looked like the love children of Uncle Sam and Tina Turner. I did pay enough attention to see that the American players seemed to be shittier people than the Belgian ones. Every time someone was tripped or knocked over or whatever, it was almost always one of the American players doing it. Plus, even I could see that the Belgians were better players. But, now that I have made these observations, I will easily forgot all of these details forever because I don't care about sports. Shobhit texted me while I was in a meeting this morning: Argentina Egypt match is so exciting. I replied: lol I'll take your word for it. I don't have to ask who he's rooting for: he always chooses the country that's better on gay rights and specifically gay marriage. This is how I learned, just now, that not only has same-sex marriage been legal in Argentina since 2010, but they were the second country in the Americas to do it, after Canada did in 2005. The U.S. didn't do it until 2015, and that was due to a Supreme Court decision that our current Court could easily overturn. Egypt? Forget about it. Muslim countries don't legalize same-sex marriage and most of them criminalize homosexuality outright, including Egypt. — छह हज़ार सत्तावन — — छह हज़ार सत्तावन — Anyway, shortly after Belgium handily won that match, Shobhit asked if I wanted to go for a walk with him. I thought, why not? I had nothing else to do. So, we walked to the north end of Broadway, turned left on Roy and walked down to Melrose, walked the pedestrian path alongside the freeway and then along Melrose back to Pine, walked a block out of our way around Voodoo Doughnut on Pine and then over to Pike, and then back up to the QFC at Broadway & Pike before going the rest of the way home. I mapped this route and it was about three miles. I had already walked a cumulative three miles walking the 1.4 miles to work and back, so even I clocked in at 16,695 steps (7.7 miles) yesterday. Weirdly, I had more steps on Friday (17,664) but fewer miles (7 miles). How does that work? Maybe the app doesn't count distance if you're just walking around your own home or whatever. It's still cumulative distance, isn't it? Shit, this is going to keep me up at night! Whatever. It was a lovely walk last night. And even though I had some cookies with my chai (the last of the sugar cookies Alexia brought with her for the double feature on Sunday), I actually weighed in a less than 170 lbs today—169.4—which I have not managed since June 19. I'd love to keep it going down, but we'll see; it's hard between my inability to very drastically change my eating habits and the fact that I'm older now. Will I ever just accept the state of my body and be done with it? I'm 50 years old, for fuck's sake. Nobody's looking to me to have a concave belly, but I'd still like to fit better into a lot of my clothing. Plus I want to look my best in Amsterdam! Speaking of which, I found a couple new very cool points of interest, one in The Hague and one in Rotterdam, to add to my travelin checklists. Right now I have 25 listed for Amsterdam; 9 for Rotterdam; 7 for The Hague; even 4 for Utrecht even though I don't know if we'll even go over there; and 10 for Brussels. Two and a half weeks to go! We fly out two weeks from Saturday and I can't wait. — छह हज़ार सत्तावन — [posted 12:35pm]