another odssey

— छह हज़ार बयासी — Yesterday evening was sucked up mostly by my second time going to see The Odyssey, and Shobhit's first time seeing it. We considered going to see it together the week prior to our departure to Amsterdam in late July, but all the calls we had to make to my doctor's office regarding getting advance medications for the trip, plus other preparation, precluded it. We finally found a day to do it yesterday; Tuesdays and Wednesdays are half-price at AMC Theaters and I had two $5 Rewards on my account, so between my monthly membership and the Rewards points I was able to cover us both at no extra cost. I had the clever idea of nuking a bag of microwave popcorn right before leaving work. (When I brought the bag back to my desk and put it in my backpack, Michael, the Prepared Foods Merchandiser in the Deli department, was sitting behind me and could smell it: "Where's the popcorn?" he said, popping his head up to look in the opposite direction. I just slipped it into my backpack without saying anything.) Shobhit had gone on a super long walk to catch up on steps he was behind on; I had no idea he'd also arrive with fresh deep fried tofu to snack on, which he got at the store that sells it in the International District. It was still warm. So we had plenty of stuff to munch on as the movie was playing. Shobhit had to leave to pee at one point, and it was actually an okay spot to do so; he didn't miss any of the plot. He seemed relatively familiar with the story beats of the original Odyssey, so sometimes guessed at what sequence might be happening next. ("Sirens?" he said, but we weren't there yet. I think this was where Odysseus and his men encounter giant armed soldiers who seem to exist only to murder them all.) He was rapt the entire time, never nodded off as he often does, and still he seemed to have a fairly "meh" attitude as we left, as I commented on how much I love that movie. I was thinking about this this morning. Shobhit is constantly watching TV shows and movies at home, way more than I do. It seems sort of odd, because it feels like he only does it as something to do, rather than because it's essential viewing. I love lots of the stuff we watch togerher, but he doesn't love any of it, really. I can't remember the last time he really loved something we watched. And when it comes to The Odyssey, if I were to make my top 10 of the year right now, it would absolutely be on it. Maybe even at or near the top, although I've given eight movies an A-minus so far, but none yet with a solid A. — छह हज़ार बयासी — — छह हज़ार बयासी — And of course, once we were home and having some real food for dinner, we sat down and Shobhit turned on the TV to find something to watch. I browsed Peacock on Prime Video for a bit since I signed up for a week free trial just to watch Alien: Covenent on Tuesday, but found nothing of particular interest. I went to HBO Max and saw there were new episodes of a new season of the travel show Conan Must Go with Conan O'Brien, and was very interested in that. There were two episodes already released, and I was stunned by their topics/locations. Episode 1 was in India, where Shobhit is from; episode 2 was in the Netherlands, which we just took a two-week trip to. What are the odds of that? I was kind of stunned. And I have to say, I had a blast watching both of them. It was fun watching Conan learn about a lot of Indian culture I already knew about, and to see Conan walking around neighborhoods of Amsterdam we were familiar with. (In the latter case, I'm guessing he spent the entire time in Amsterdam; only one sequence was ostensibly in The Hague but it was on a mock International Court of Justice set.) Not every segment was as funny as the next, but segments that were less successful were actually surprisingly few. Many of them in both episodes had both me and Shobhit laughing our asses off. I need to make a note that these episodes drop every Friday. I've watched much of the previous two seasons after the fact but this will be the first time I'll watch a season in real time—after the first two episodes, anyway. The next episode, apparently in Morocco, drops tomorrow. I just checked IMDb and these seasons are all rather short. Four episodes in season 1 (2024); three in season 2 (2025); four again for season four. So we're already halfway through them. They probably cost a fair amount to produce, to be fair. — छह हज़ार बयासी — [posted 12:32pm]

covenant

— छह हज़ार इक्यासी — Another chill evening last night . . . I rode my bike home from work; I made chai; Shobhit and I went shopping. We went to the QFC in the U District, specifically at University Village, just because it's so much nicer and pleasant than either of the ones on Capitol Hill. Shobhit had a potato-baked dish at home which we ate with rice and baked frozen naans. And then I spent a good chunk of the evening watching Alien: Covenant, which until then had been the only film in the Alien franchise I had only seen once. (Now it's only two of the seven films I have only seen twice. And no, I'm not counting the two stupid Alien vs. Predator films, only one of which have I seen at all.) This franchise has been on the mind lately for two reasons. First, Prometheus, which I watched on Monday, kept showing up on my HBO Max account as available but leaving soon, which was why I was compelled to rewatch it. I had not seen either that or Covenant since the latter was released in 2017. Second, this week's Rewatchables podcast covered the 1986 James Cameron film Aliens, which was really fun to listen to. (This was how I learned the wild detail that Vasquez, a Latina character, was played by Jenette Goldstein, a White woman, wearing darkened contact lenses and darkened skin.) Anyway, I have not watched the primary four movies from the original series through from start to finish in about ten years; I last watched Alien in 2016 and Aliens, like the two prequels, in 2017. I only just realized when looking it up that the last times I watched both Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection were actually standalone viewings outside of a marathon through the franchise as usual: I watched Alien Resurrection as a Jean-Pierre Junet double feature with Amelie in 2021, July 18; I actually watched Alien 3 by far the most recently, on New Year's Eve 2024, with Jennifer and Matthew and Ian and his girlfriend Bella, because Ian had never seen it and had only recently seen the previous two for the first time. So, having just watched Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, I think I'm ready to go through the "quadrilogy" again, this time doing the whole franchise in timeline order. I have long had a boxed set of the so-called "Quadrilogy," with lots of special features, so I may watch them on DVD again for the first time in eons. I think there are versions you can watch with triva popping up and I may watch that. My only issue is that DVDs play with distorted pictures on the TV, which drives me batshit crazy, but maybe I can get my DVD player extension to work on my computer. The last time I tried it I couldn't get it to work though. — छह हज़ार इक्यासी — — छह हज़ार इक्यासी — I bought a bag of small stroowafels in Amsterdam to bring and share at work, but I really wanted to share with the Merchandising Enablement Tea and not just the whole office. The problem is that we never have a meeting with all of us physically together, so I never really had a good moment for it. I went ahead and just brought the bag back home recently. I had three of them with my chai last night and they were delicious. I think I'll put the cashew cookies on hold until we've burned through those. We're also down to the bottom layer, of three or maybe even four, of the 50 chocolates we had at home from Leonidas. These chocolates are generally amazing, putting most chocolate truffles you can get here in the States to shame. Shobhit often wants to go into Fran's Chocolates at U Village for a sample, but we didn't bother yesterday. I don't know if it crossed his mind, but it did mine, but I knew we had better chocolates at home. And Fran's is a pretty high-end, quality chocolate maker. But authentic Belgian chocolates are still better. Maybe it's just the novelty, I don't know. I'm going to miss those chocolates when we are finally done with them, though. Laney has asked more than once how "transition back to regular life" has been after returning from Amsterdam. I have explained that I did worry a little about it feeling like it was all over too quickly, with the trip itself over in just over two weeks after months of research and planning. What I did not think about was the long tail of ways the trip still kind of lasts, weeks after returning: the time I still spent on tagging the photos on Flickr, organizing them; we still have Alexia coming over next Monday to watch a slide show I have assembled. And there are still the Belgian chocolates, and now the stroopwafels, which continue giving us a flavor (quite literally) of the trip we went on. It's turned out to be a very effective way not to make it feel like the trip was over too quickly. Besides, two and a half weeks was actually long enough: I was ready to come back home by the end of it. I discovered an interesting detail about Cape Town, South Africa, where the next World Pride will take place, in 2028. It's actually in the same time zone as Amsterdam! So the time difference will be the same, where day and night basically flip. It's going to take us longer to get there than to Amsterdam, though, because not only is it nine time zones away, but it's in the southern hemisphere. Cape Town is about as far south of the equator as Phoenix is north of it. I just realized the trip to Cape Town may not be extremely longer than that to Amsterdam, since we can just change the average angle of the trajectory. With an 85-minute layover in Reykjavik, our trip from Seattle to Amsterdam was right around 12 hours. ...Oh, well, I guess I take it back: spot checking Expedia, it appears we're looking at a 22-hour travel itinerary at minimum, probably more. Yikes. Oh well; that's basically how it goes with Australia as well. Anyway, I was thinking it might make a difference to go through Atlanta as the one layover stop, but it looks like at minimum we'd be looking at a 13-hour layover there. That sucks. All this could change by the time we're booking that trip, of course. We have both Boston / Provincetown in June of next year and Asia / Australia in December of next year to worry about first. Of course I've already started check lists of points of interest at nearly all of these places, because I have a sickness. And I want to keep planning our travels until climate catastrophe makes it impossible to keep doing it! — छह हज़ार इक्यासी — [posted 12:34pm]