Actor Awards Viewing Party 2026

— पाँच हज़ार नौ सौ इक्यासी — I had a bonkers number of meetings this morning—for me, anyway: three half-hour meetings and one one-hour meeting, that last one cutting into my usual lunch break as it's scheduled 11:30 to 12:30. I took my lunch break directly after. So, in the five hours between when I start work at 7:30 (I actually arrived 10 minutes late today, don't tell anyone) and 12:30, a solid half of that was in meetings. This is the very kind of thing I prefer to avoid. But, Gabby pushed our usual Friday 1:1 meeting to today, to sort of split the difference since she's out at Expo West in Anaheim the rest of this week; that would also be a big reason, probably, why all of my meetings this week are crammed into Monday. There are no other meetings the whole rest of the week, which is expected to be so slow in-office due to so many people being at Expo that Gabby even told the P3 team to feel free to skip this week's in-office day. (I mean, skip coming in, not skip work.) I guess I'll be fair and mention that more than one of these meetings ended early. Gabby and I finished our 1:1 meeting after maybe 20 minutes; the Promo Planning call, scheduled for half an hour, lasted 15. I still had to be back in meetings not long after, though—just 15 minutes later for the biweekly POS call after the Promo Planning call. I should also note that all of these meetings today were over Microsoft Teams rather than in-person, but they still collectively sucked up a ton of my time this morning. All of which is to say, I'm rather glad I already posted yesterday about Friday and Saturday of my weekend, mostly about Shobhit and me doing the Downtown Art Walk on Friday. That leaves me with only the obligation today to update you on the SAG Awards—I mean, the rebranded "Actor Awards," and the SAG-AFTRA Seattle Local viewing party, again taking place at Central Cinema. They've done viewing parties at bars in the past; doing it in an actual cinema is way better, even if what we're watching is actually TV—or more specifically now, streaming: it airs now on Netflix, which means to key differences: no strict time constraint; and no bleeping of profanity. I'd say it works pretty well. Anyway, Shobhit and I left shortly after 3:30 and walked down there—it's barely more than half a mile from us—even though the ceremony didn't start until 5:00. But, since Shobhit is on the Board, he wanted to be on hand to help if needed. He wound up helping set up and break down the large SAG-AFTRA backdrop for photos, just like he did last year. At the end of the event, they had all local SAG-AFTRA members in attendance assemble for a group photo. One guy had come all the way from where he lives in Sequim to view the ceremony with the group. — पाँच हज़ार नौ सौ इक्यासी — — पाँच हज़ार नौ सौ इक्यासी — They passed out ballots for our predictions, and once again they had prizes—quite a lot, actually. But, for the second year in a row, I won 1st prize with the most accurately predicted wins. This might start to get embarrassing. Should I sit it out next year? I mean, they hand out a ton of prizes so maybe not. The second-place winner got a blanket, after all, and I didn't! I did get a ton of shit in my First Prize tote bag, though—including two of the same things I got last year (a small SAG-AFTRA branded cutting board; a mobile charger); a pair of socks; a cake shop gift card; a SAG-AFTRA insulated mugs (and we have a ton of such mugs already, but I do like the different lid on this one); an a pouch full of a bunch of smaller supplies like pens and a notepad and lotions and such. They gave a prize for most correct wins predicted; second-most correct wins predicted; and even one for the worst score (the person who got that had three right, I think). They mostly left out the two Stunt Ensemble categories (movie and TV) because those were announced pre-ceremony—a bit disrespectful to the stunt workers, I thought—which left 13 categories to be competing in; I got 10 of them right. One other person also did, so they used the stunt categories as a tie breaker. I got both of those right. Mostly because I was pretty sure I had heard what the winners were during the Red Carpet pre-show, but whatever. The second place winner got a blanket! Also I still probably would have gotten the stunt winners right. Or at least one of them. Shobhit was helping break down equipment after the ceremony and I was just waiting around for him, so I killed time by setting out all my winnings on the table we'd sat at so I could get that picture. I did the exact same thing last year, when I got far fewer things but one thing that was the coolest: a SAG Awards branded BlueTooth speaker, which I now use regularly in the bathroom since the old one I had been using for years stopped keeping a charge that lasted more than five minutes. I should have taken a photo of the goodies table. What the hell, Matthew? Get your shit together! It had a bunch of bags of popcorn for us to take; between Shobhit and me we ate three of them. There was also candy, which Shobhit took none of but I took a plastic pouch of gummy candy that I ate way too much of. We also got a single drink ticket; Shobhit and I had a glass of wine each, and Shobhit ordered a beer from the same menu I ordered from using their at-table QR code they've just kept using since covid. We also split a mushroom and onion pizza that was quite tasty. Oh, they also did raffle tickets with several prizes; I didn't win any of those. Shobhit was barred from playing because he's on the Board. I couldn't say how many people were there, but there couldn't have been more than, I don't know, around 30? There was a lot of empty seats. I was slightly surprised, although the groups for these Seattle watch parties have never been huge. The 25 local SAG-AFTRA chapters nationwide did get a shoutout during the ceremony, noting that a lot of local chapter watch parties were happening. As for the ceremony itself, there was one notable surprise: Timothée Chalamet did not win for Marty Supreme, as everyone expected; Michael B. Jordan did, for Sinners, a film that really seems to be surging in awards popularity. There's a lot of talk about whether that will win Best Picture at the Oscars, though I still lean toward One Battle After Another (an objectively better film, in my opinion—but, both of them are good). The Oscar odds on Goldderby still has One Battle After Another far ahead, even after Sinners won Best Ensemble at the Actor Awards; it also still has Timothée Chalemet pretty significantly ahead of Michael B. Jordan for Best Actor, although the margin there has narrowed a fair amount. Anyway, it was a fun event as always; Shobhit and I walked home after and he made parathas with which we made quesadillas and they were delicious. We spent the rest of the evening watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and then several episodes of season two of Going Dutch, which is super dumb but funny. — पाँच हज़ार नौ सौ इक्यासी — [posted 1:01pm]

SAG Awards Viewing Party 2025

— पांच हजार सात सौ चौसठ — Shobhit came to meet me at work on Friday, and we walked home together. Another Social Review point for him! At my request, we walked south along the waterfront instead of straight down Western or Elliott Avenue. Just because it was more scenic, and I knew Shobhit would want to go through Pike Place Market, which we could still do by cutting up through the Overlook Walk, which takes us straight up into Pike Place Market. I took a brief video clip from the MarketFront while we were cutting through, having registered for the first time the many layers of city that particlar spot has: I noticed for the first time the train barrelling into downtown by entering the tunnel under it from the north—it would be in a tunnel from there down to King Street Station in Pioneer Square. Directly above that was Elliott Way, over which the Overlook Walk stretches, connecting the Pike Place Marketfront to the waterfront. The MarketFront stands in between the Overlook Walk and the original structure of Pike Place Market. Anyway. That was my social activity for Friday. We went home and hung out there for the rest of the evening. Shobhit got a couple of books as a training of sorts for his new Accounting position with TPS. Apparently reading the books still counts as billable hours. And I've made a pretty good dent in my library copy of Children of Dune over the weekend, so I should easily be able to return it before they charge me for the book for it being overdue for a month, which would not be until March 12. I just got an email notification that God Emperor of Dune is now available for me to pick up—knowing this one is somewhat more divisive among readers, it doesn't surprise me that one became available by far the most quickly of any I have read to date. — पांच हजार सात सौ चौसठ — Shobhit and I went on another walk on Saturday. Another Social Review point for him! He's officially ahead of Laney now for the Winter Social Review, he can breathe easy. After yesterday, he has 23 points. Laney is still standing at 20, which was where she was at before leaving for Florida. Due to rain, tonight's BYOB Happy Hour at the Seattle Waterfront swings has been postponed to Wednesday. At that point, she'll get up to 21 points. Spring isn't for nearly another month, so now there's till time for them to be neck and neck for a while. Anyway, we walked the mile and a half or so down to Jackson Street, to the Franz Bakery outlet store that's at their factory. They have super cheap prices there, and Shobhit has taken to stopping there on his long walks. We actually bought a couple of things. On the way back, we stopped at both Amazon Fresh and at QFC to get some other things, which I suppose could arguably make this the kind of outing I don't usually count for the Social Review due to it just being running errands. Were it not for the walk to Franz, I would indeed disqualify this walk. But, the point of this walk was actually the walk itself more than the destination, which puts it in a gray area and I decided to count it. I know you'd all be losing sleep over if if I did not clarify this. Shobhit and I went to our own separate events on Saturday night. I went to Steamworks and had a great time. I only needed a couple of hours, which was unusual. Oh! I nearly forgot: on Friday night, I found the two-and-a-half-hour SNL 50th Anniversary Special on DVR. Even though we didn't even start it until after 10 p.m., we stayed up until about 1 a.m. to finish it. It was incredibly entertaining. But, Shobhit woke me up around 7 a.m. Saturday and I could not get back to sleep. This left me sleep deprived all day Saturday and I zonked out by shortly after 10:00 Saturday night. Shobhit got back from his event within minutes of my going to bed but I was fully sleep already. — पांच हजार सात सौ चौसठ — That brings me to the SAG Awards Viewing Party, something I have been attending as Shobhit's plus-one whenever possible for several years: in Seattle, it gets hosted by SAG-AFTRA Seattle, on which Shobhit is a board member now. This year, for the first time, it was held at Central Cinema—the place Barbara worked at for several years until she quit that job in 2010 to move to Arlington. It's still just a block from the apartment building she used to live in; Central Cinema is on 20th just off of Union. The guy who runs the place is still the same guy, I think, although I couldn't tell if he recognized me. SAG-AFTRA provided free bags of popcorn, a couple of free drink tickets (Shobhit and I both had two glasses of rosé), and some free candy—all of which I consumed too much of, on top of the cheesy fries and pizza Shobhit and I split, which we did have to pay for when ordering from the Central Cinema menu. I'd have settled for just the fries but Shobhit kept wanting more to eat. He even got a third bag of popcorn from the table in the back after we had each already eaten one of our own. I was quite stunned to have weighed in at 165.9 lbs yesterday morning, the lowest dip I've had in months. But after last night, it was no surprise that as of this morning I was right back up to 167.4 lbs. Anyway. I have an ongoing photo album containing all my photos from SAG Awards viewings over the years, because I typically only take one or a few photos. I took seven last night and that was the most I've taken since the eight I took in 2014, when I went to a viewing with Shobhit in Los Angeles. Still, I think I'm going to duplicate each year's now and add them to my annual, separate Oscar Party photo albums, as the SAG Awards, while distinct and separate, are still very much connected to and in conversation with the Oscars, for which the acting branch is by far the largest. And the "Oscar Party" photo albums have really fluctuated in size over the years, especially as I haven't done a "party" of more than two or three people in several years now. It was a good time last night. It was certainly a great place to watch the awards, which now get broadcast live on Netflix, which made it easy. Shobhit and I walked over there early, getting there around 4:10 maybe, as he had committed to help set up. I helped him set up the photo backdrop, and then used the timer on my phone to get the shot of the two of us in front of it. They passed out paper ballots. I almost didn't turn mine in at the end because out of 15 categories, I got 10 right. I was certain someone else got more right than that. But, finally I said fuck it, and turned in my paper—spacing the fact that I forgot to put my name on it. The guy who collected them figured out which was mine though, and gave it back to me to write my name on it. Another guy from the National Board was present, and I was amazed when he called out my name as the grand price winner! I got a SAG Awards-branded charcuterie board, and a SAG-Awards-branded little speaker. A woman had also been given a charcuterie board as a prize for getting the least right. She got four correct. There was a woman who was another plus-one, sitting in the booth directly to my left. She had arrived nearly as early as Shobhit and I had, saying she would just wait for her friend to arrive. Her phone had the wildest ringtone: it sounded like the yowls of cats in heat. It even rang once shortly after she sat in her booth before the awards were about to start. Thank God she turned it off at that point. As for the awards themselves, there were two notable surprises, even though they also tracked when it came to odds: Tomothee Chalamet won for A Complete Unknown over Adrien Brody for The Brutalist (I think Brody still has the edge with the rest of the Academy at the Oscars, but I could be wrong); and Conclave won Best Ensemble for a Film, in a category where The Brutalist wasn't even nominated—but both A Complete Unknown and Anora were. The Brutalis is nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, but the preferential ballot could really push Conclave forward even there. I gathered my prizes, Shobhit and I walked home, and we watched this week's episodes of The White Lotus and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. — पांच हजार सात सौ चौसठ — [posted 12:31 pm]