— पांच हजार आठ सौ उनचास —
All I really have to report for you today is that I met up with Laney at AMC Pacific Place yesterday afternoon, for the 4pm showing of
Eddington, the new Ari Astor movie set in early covid times, amidst George Floyd protests. Both Laney and I found it misguided and incoherent, but some people are weirdly loving it (namely my favorite podcasters from
The Big Picture, who are really on a role lately with takes I'm not on board with—they also both really enjoyed
Superman).
I kind if enjoyed writing the review, though. It was on the longer side, roughly 1300 words. I remember when I used to write for
'mo Magazine, and I was asked to try and limit my reviews to around 600 words. Ha! The reviews I post to my blog are now consistently twice that length.
I have no idea how long I'll continue writing these reviews. Forever? Until I die? I've been doing it nearly 21 years now. I'm like the unpaid Roger Ebert. I did love
his blog, in the years before he died. I never thought of this until now, but he would be the single movie reviewer with any genuine influence on my writing.
Anyway. "4:00 showtime" is used rather loosely. AMC is now selling ad space
in between trailers (which I loathe, but will concede that they are generally higher quality ads than typical ads that air before trailers begin), and I checked the time when the trailers were finally done and the AMC intro was just starting—the Nicole Kidman ad hadn't even happened yet. It was 4:26. By the time the actual movie, which has a runtime of 148 minutes, actually began, it had to have been 4:30. It was about 7:00 when we go out of the movie.
Laney took the bus home, as she has done the past three movies we saw together—and so I rode my bike up the hill. I spent the next hour or so, maybe a little longer, on my review. Then I went out into the living room to watch two more episodes of
The Studio on Apple TV. I'm starting to see a trend: one major "get" as a guest star per episode. Martin Scorsese in episode 1 (with a very brief cameo by Charlize Theron); Sarah Polley in episode 2; Ron Howard in episode 3. Now I'm eager to see who it'll be in the next one.
I had to reset my ancient Apple TV box (I bought it in 2010) just to log out and re-log in with Shobhit's Apple account. Because he just upgraded his phone, he got 3 months free of Apple TV—super convenient, as Apple TV was going to be the next streamer I signed up for a month! Now we get three months. We just had to log in under his account. This was also how I figured out, for the first time, how to load a software update on the Apple TV box, which I don't believe I have done in the 15 years I've had it. To Apple's credit, the thing has never stopped working.
I have no plans tonight. I did check AMC for the possibility of seeing another movie, but I scrolled down and was like: "Seen it, seen it, seen it...." There were three movies playing I haven't already seen, and you'd have to pay me to see
The Smurfs; I have no interest in the
I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot as I never watched the others; and then there's a Chinese sequel I've never heard of. Chilling at home tonight is fine.
— पांच हजार आठ सौ उनचास —
— पांच हजार आठ सौ उनचास —
I do have a good amount of plans the rest of the summer, though not a lot this weekend—just a BYOB Happy Hour with Laney at Alki Beach tomorrow, but no other plans until I head to North Cascades National Park with Dad and Sherri on Monday. Shobhit heads to Portland that same day on Amtrak, for the labor conference happening across the river from there in Vancouver, WA.
Ivan is at his own conference in Las Vegas right now. He's going to Portland for a couple of days next week, I believe, and then will travel to Seattle the same day Shobhit returns on Amtrak—presumably they'll both take the train; I don't know if they'll be on the same one. But he's going to stay in our guest room for four nights. It'll be the first time I've seen him since he moved out three years ago in 2022, so I'm pretty excited—even though I did not get much advanced notice, so I have virtually nothing to budget for spending while he's here. North Cascades alone already has me nearly $100 over budget with the paycheck I'm getting
today. I figure we can still work out some way to have some fun around town, though. I budgeted $25 for at least one dinner out.
The following weekend, Shobhit wants to go to the "A Day in Punjab" festival at Seattle Center as well as to the Blue Angels Seafair Air Show. The weekend after that, I have another BYOB Happy Hour with Laney, at a park in West Seattle we plan to take RapidRide buses to; and then Dad's 70th birthday party (though he actually turns 70 five days before that, on August 5). Three days later, I leave for Co+nvergence in Saint Paul for work. The day after I return from that, on Sunday August 17, we plan to go to Alexia's apartment in Issaquah to make dinner for her while she's recovering from hip surgery.
Incredibly, I have no plans currently for the weekend of August 23 and 24. Except! Friday the 23rd is the last day working at our current office location; the entire following week everyone is expected to work remotely; and I have decided to take the entire week for PTO. Tuesday of that week is when Dad and Sherri plan to come up for a day trip checking out the revitalized Seattle Waterfront, and I hope to be tour guide. Monday September 1 is the Labor Day holiday, which is why Tuesday September 2 is the first day in the new office.
There's a lot to look forward to. Which is how I like it!
— पांच हजार आठ सौ उनचास —
[posted 12:32pm]
