a siege of bad actors

— पांच हजार आठ सौ चौरानवे — Last night was Shobhit's and my return to Action Movie Night. There were eight of us this week, including a guy named Damon who used to be a regular apparently a long time ago but I'm not certain Shobhit and I had ever met. Looking at the movie log, it appears he has only had a movie choice one time—in 2018. Shobhit and I didn't even start coming regularly until 2022. We did come one isolated time several years before that, though; that was in March 2017. My guess is we missed whatever window it was that Damon was around in 2018. Anyway, the full list of people in attendance would thus have been Tony, Jake, Chris B (who hadn't come in a few months), Derek, Daniel, Damon, Shobhit, and me. It was Derek's movie choice this week, and he chose something that Tony in particular seemed to think was great: the 1992 Steven Seagal film Under Siege. The other day, we had our second fire alarm in the building in as many weeks. We learned very quickly that it was known some dipshit on the sixth floor admitted to pulling the alarm because people were moving into another unit up there and leaving boxes unattended in the hallway, and the guy who pulled the alarm defended the choice by saying it was a "fire hazard." Anyway, that's not the point of my bringing this up: I saw Tony and Sarah and asked about how or why Sarah got credited for the choice of Nobody 2 last time—the one Shobhit and I missed—especially given that Sarah never watches movies with us. It turns out that Derek, who was supposed to be making the choice last week, could not make it at the last minute, due to family being in town and certain plans changing. Ryan, who always has a drive full of movies people can choose from in circumstances like this, was there, and it sounds like it was sort of a consensus decision to go with Nobody 2. Nobody wanted to take the individual credit for the choice, so they just put Sarah's name on the log. Sarah didn't even stay to watch it. Anyway, Tony said to me, about that movie: "It wasn't great." I was kind of surprised, given how many terrible movies people enjoy in this group (to be fair, they do regularly admit when a movie is bad as well). I said, "It was okay," indicating that I had already seen it—but also apparently forgetting that even I gave it a C+. I didn't hate it, but Tony's assessment, in retrospect, was correct: it wasn't great. I only say all this because he really seemed to enjoy Under Siege, an objectively worse movie. But, I guess context makes a difference, as does the era it comes from, and what a movie is going for. The Nobody movies, even when they miss the mark, are going for a kind of action-movie sophistication that isn't even on the radar of a movie like Under Siege. In the end, though, I found Under Siege to be just plain dumb—and badly acted across the board, with the worst acting by Steven Seagal himself. I had kind of a hard time staying awake. But part of that may have been the three shots of vodka I had put in my drink. Which was kind of pointless because if I'm going to abuse my body with alcohol, it's only going to be worth it if I get at least a buzz out of it, and this drink did nothing. It was tasty, though. — पांच हजार आठ सौ चौरानवे — — पांच हजार आठ सौ चौरानवे — Shobhit and I made pasta for the potluck portion of the evening that always happens before the movie. It was very good pasta, too. Damon was especially impressed, not realizing that this is standard practice for Shobhit and me. We are very commonly the only ones who bring something we actually cooked at home. Tony brought a pizza from Bar Cotto that was delicious; Shobhit and I both had a slice and then he had a second that I took a couple of bites from. There were also two bags of Kettle brand potato chips, which is a better brand that is usually brought, and there were also Safeway chocolate chip cookies. I partook in basically everything, and weighed in at nearly 169 lbs this morning. Fun! I'm only realizing just now that everything brought last night was vegetarian. That's unusual. Daniel, who usually arrives much later than everyone else, also always brings some kind of food bought from a store that needs to be heated. He had some packaged thing last night that was different though, I think maybe a soft pretzel? But it was so soon before we had to file into the theater for the movie that in the end he didn't even set it out. If it was a pretzel, though, that also would have been vegetarian. A quite rare all-vegetarian Action Movie Night. Shobhit and I watched this week's episode of The Lowdown on Hulu after we went back upstairs to the condo. And that basically concluded the evening. — पांच हजार आठ सौ चौरानवे — [posted 12:34pm]

spider garbage

— पांच हजार आठ सौ तिरानवे — Yesterday right after work I took myself to see Kiss of the Spider Woman. It was fine. I do love having only four blocks to walk there after work now. From the old office, it was 1.4 miles—or, 19 blocks. It was nearly five times the distance. It tended to only take me half an hour, but still, if a showtime is at 4:45 or 4:55 then having only four blocks to walk can make all the difference, and I don't have to leave work early. Hell, with how long trailers last anymore, I could get away with leaving work at 4:30 for a 4:30 showtime. Speaking of which, there were maybe six other people in the theater with me last night. There was an older couple in the row right behind where I sat, and then one seat over. They clearly didn't go to the movies that often. When the Nicole Kidman AMC spot was finally running, indicating the trailers were done, I overheard the woman marvel that "It's almost 5:30!" Mind how, the published showtime was at 4:55. Now, they play product commercials at that time, and not even the trailers started until after 5:00. It's pretty annoying to be paying money to go to a location outside the home just to be advertised to, but whatever. This has essentially been the model for cable TV for decades, except you don't leave the home for that. I was in row D, which was not the one I reserved my seat for. I was actually booked for row H, which is the second row from the back. This is one of the smaller theaters at Pacific Place, and I wasn't sure when I booked it how close the closer rows would be to the screen. Well, someone else was sitting in the seat I had booked when I got there. Normally I would actually say something, but when I saw that what I booked was not really my preference anyway, I just sat in row D where no one had booked any seats, and hoped no one would book that seat between the time I sat down and when the movie started. No one did. — पांच हजार आठ सौ तिरानवे — — पांच हजार आठ सौ तिरानवे — Anyway, I walked home after the movie, and Shobhit had made a meal packet of fettucine alfredo for dinner; I had what was left, taking it back to the bedroom where I wrote my review. That, as usual, took me about an hour. I then went out to the living room and Shobhit and I watched a couple episodes of television, after I made us some hot chocolate. We watched this week's eipside of Slow Horses on Apple TV, and then this week's episode of Only Murders In the Building on Hulu. I hemmed and hawed for about a second on the second one because it was getting late, but then decided fuck it—because we have two more shows to watch tonight and tonight also happens to be Action Movie Night. That's all the news that's fit to print, I guess. Even the "fitness" of what I printed here is debatable, one could argue. I finally updated my Garbage playlist on Apple Music, to include tracks from the new album they just released in May, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light. That makes their 8th album, and I have been a fan ever since Gabriel introduced me to their first album while we were in college in 1995. I even saw them in concert here in Seattle when they came to The Paramount to promote their sophomore album in 1998, Version 2.0. I often think of Dad and Sherri when I listen to Garbage. I was at their house once and listening to their single from the 1996 Romeo + Julet soundtrack, "#1 Crush." Sherri asked me who it was, clearly not liking it very much, and when I said "Garbage," she said, "Well I knew that." Hardy har har. Pretty low hanging fruit there. But, I think of her every time I hear that song now, so who's laughing now, I guess? With a discography of eight albums that can now be split evenly in two, I also created two more Garbage playlists: one for 1995-2007, and one for 2012-2025. The first one includes tracks from their first four albums, but also three tracks from other sources: the aforementioned "#1 Crush"; their title James Bond theme song for The World Is Not Enough; and the unreleased track they included on their 2007 anthology Absolute Garbage. The second playlist is exclusively tracks from their last four albums, except with the addition of one non-album track I found while looking at their discography. I haven't dived into Garbage much since their last album was released, in 2021. It was a good time for a pivot, I guess; Suzanne Vega also released a new album recently and I have been binging her entire discography in a way I'm not sure I have in decades. — पांच हजार आठ सौ तिरानवे — [posted 12:30pm]