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-- चार हजार एक सौ बारह --

I really need to bite the bullet and get rid of this LiveJournal account, opening a new blog on another site. I've been thinking about it for years, but Gabriel texted me a screenshot last night that made me realize something that has probably been going on for ages and I never realized it. For me, having a paid account on LiveJournal always meant "no ads." But guess what? That only applies both to myself and other paid LiveJournal users. I guess those of you who read this journal but are not yourself LiveJournal users -- which at this point may very well outnumber actual LiveJournal users -- see ads on here all the time? And apparently as of yesterday, one of the ads was right at the top of the page, a huge photo of President Fuckwit surrounded by other fuckwits at his desk. The ad headline: Homeowners Born Before 1985 Are In For a Big Surprise. How wonderful. Also: gross.

And that's not even the half of it. LiveJournal keeps logging me out, forcing me to see other ads myself, until I log bag in again. That's been driving me crazy for a few weeks. In the past, it always kept me logged in. I need to fucking move to some other platform. I finally signed up for a Squarespace account last night, and I think I will start mirroring posts there as I post here for a while -- I've got a two week free trial going. And I'm sure I can get a discount once I decide to register a domain name with them; God knows half the podcasts I listen to offer one. The domain will almost certainly be Fruitcake Enterprises.

I actually thought for a while about making this change in time for my fortieth birthday last year, but it just never felt pressing enough to make it that high a priority. But LiveJournal is just increasing its own status as a long-term disappointment for increasing numbers of reasons, and the fact that they have long been a Russia-based business has long been a part of that. But I was too stupid to realize the ads I was paying not to see did not apply to the readers, and it's becoming a moot point even for myself since the fucking service keeps logging me out so I wind up seeing their god damned ads anyway. I think this is finally becoming genuinely untenable to me.

I do have the idea of moving to another platform with literally fifteen years of archives left here, but what can I do? Use a lot of links at the new site that point to these archives, I guess. I sure wish there were some easy way to transfer these archives to some other host. On the other hand, everything is temporary -- everything. Everything, everything.

-- चार हजार एक सौ बारह --

Shall I tell you about my weekend? It actually was pretty full of socializing. I hung out with Laney on two different days -- on Friday semi-spontaneously.

She had seen a movie streaming on Amazon Prime called The Girl with All the Gifts, and even though she knows I am generally opposed to watching any new zombie movies (the same way I am with superhero movies: they are overdone, I am sick to death of them), she insisted this one was good enough to see. She liked it so much, in fact, she emailed me that she'd be interested in watching it again and we could watch it together if I'd like. I suggested I come over to her place to watch it after work on Friday -- Shobhit was working a late shift that day anyway.

I asked if I should bring booze. At first she said she thought not, since she was going to get up "early-ish" on Saturday. She later emailed me changing her mind: she was going to go get herself some wine, and I was welcome to bring my own cocktails if I liked. I brought a thermos full of four shots of tequila and two shots of Triple Sec. I figured putting enough ice into the glasses would dilute that enough; I kind of thought wrong, both because I let Laney pour the cocktails for me and she never used much ice, and because -- well, that was still a lot of booze.

The pertinent point kind of renders that irrelevant anyway: I need to learn a lesson here that I should have known better for some time if I had been paying better attention. No matter how strong the drinks are, if I drink in the evening, I am bound to fall asleep while trying to watch a movie. And this, totally predictably, happened while watching this movie. I did see most of it, but struggled to stay awake during a fair amount of it, and thus lost some pertinent plot points. What I did see was admittedly intriguing, though honestly not quite enough to make it worth trying to watch again. For me it was more about the excuse to go hang out with a friend for the evening.

And we took quite some time to get to starting the movie to begin with, we talked about so much that had nothing to do with the movie first. I had three things I wanted to talk to her about, and had even made a list of them in the Notes app so I wouldn't forget. We did get it all covered -- the subjects ranged from the deeply personal to the broadly cultural. And then, because this happens when she's drinking, she wanted to go outside and smoke a cigarette. We sat outside and chatted for a while. I had gotten there at 6:30, giving me enough time to make my own dinner at home first, and we didn't start the movie until well after 9:00. Both Shobhit and Ivan were home from work by the time I got back home.

I was pretty buzzed. I was also super tired, the combination of which made me impossible to work with when Shobhit and I attempted to do the crossword puzzle. "Go to bed," he said -- without hostility, I should say. But I stumbled a little as I made my way to the bedroom and Ivan noticed: "Are you drunk?" I said I was buzzed, and also really tired. I probably did qualify as drunk though.

-- चार हजार एक सौ बारह --

-- चार हजार एक सौ बारह --

Shobhit and I did our requisite grocery shopping on Saturday afternoon. He had already done shopping for produce, so there was no need to go to the Asian grocery stores in the International District this time. We did go to Big 5 and I got a pair of shoes and a pair of sandals at incredibly good prices. They were so cheap I can't reasonably expect them to last very long, but they were still prices too low for me to pass up. Then we went to PCC, and also stopped at Trader Joe's. We still wind up going to way too many different places any time we head out for grocery shopping now -- all in the service of finding the cheapest prices for specific items we're looking for. Or Shobhit is looking for, I suppose. If it were up to me we'd still just be buying everything at PCC, but there are too many things we can get cheaper at other places even when comparing to my employee discount. We didn't go to Costco this time; we probably will with my next paycheck.

I went out with Ivan Saturday evening -- there was a movie he and I wanted to see opening this weekend, which I knew Shobhit would have no interest in. And when another friend of Ivan's stood him up for plans to get pho' on Saturday of Pride weekend, I suggested we get pho' before the movie. I really figured Shobhit might join us for dinner at least, but Shobhit decided he preferred to stay home and make himself a dish he knew I would hate (okra), so he did that. No Social Review point for Shobhit on Saturday then! Only for Ivan.

So anyway. The movie was at 7pm, and I suggested we head out for dinner at 5:30 because the service at The Pho' is always terrible and we'd be sure to have long waits, even when the place is dead. This plan worked out well for us. We walked together to Broadway and had our pho', which I think he has a fair amount more regularly than I do and it's clearly one of his favorite things to eat. "Comfort food!" he exclaimed, when our bowls arrived. I have no idea why, but that evening having pho' really hit the spot for me as well. I found it way more satisfying than I even usually do, and I also pretty much always like it. Ivan always orders a large bowl and I always get the small; he still managed to finish before me. I have no idea how this happens. Am I really that slow an eater? I never feel like I'm taking my time -- I mean, shit, although we did visit while eating, it was never in a way that had me setting my chopsticks down. I was still always eating. But I guess Shobhit is not the only person who eats way faster than I do.

We then walked on Broadway from there down to The Egyptian, and we saw the new Sofia Coppola film, The Beguiled. Side note: I always find the word "beguiled" a challenge to type. I can never do it without having to correct typos. Anyway! The movie, like pretty much all of Sofia Coppola's films, was a mixed bag. Beautiful to look at. Great performances. Weirdly anticlimactic. Something, difficult to put my finger on, missing. Ivan pretty much agreed with all of this as we walked home from the movie.

-- चार हजार एक सौ बारह --

I saw another movie yesterday, and saw Laney again yesterday -- and this time Shobhit did join us. One more point for him! (Two points for Laney this weekend though.) Shobhit chose to walk downtown but I met Laney at the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station at 11 am, and then we all saw the 11:40 showing of Baby Driver, which we all quite enjoyed -- pretty much all of us even more than we expected. Laney and I both expected to like it and it still exceeded our expectations; Shobhit was skeptical from the beginning but wound up having a great time watching it. He even expected I would give it an A-, although I still stuck with a B+. It was thoroughly entertaining but still had a few flaws.

Shobhit and I had managed to grab several "buy one get one" meal coupons for Chipotle and so we wound up going there for lunch after the movie, while Laney went back home. Shobhit and I walked over to Pike Place for a bit afterward. The meal there was heavy enough that I totally skipped dinner -- and still, after two days of my weight going slightly down, this morning I was up a full pound! What the hell! I've had two pretty major BMs already this morning though so maybe that will make a difference tomorrow.

Without having really any idea why, Shobhit and I were both rather tired for a lot of the day yesterday. I came home and wrote the movie review, and we had discussed going down to Lake Washington to take advantage of the nice weather, but Shobhit fell asleep on the couch. And last night I zonked out very soon after 10 pm and then slept like the dead for the next seven hours straight. I even would have slept later if not for Shobhit's own alarm going off at 5:15 due to his needing to be at an early shift this morning that started at 7:00.

We did manage to watch the final two episodes of season five of Orange Is the New Black last night, though. I thought the whole season was excellent. That show is consistently excellent. I think season 2, with its rather two-dimensional one-woman villain, was its weakest, but on average, that show has really been impressive with how good it has remained after this many years.

-- चार हजार एक सौ बारह --

So there you have it: my weekend. I'm not taking a four-day weekend like many others are. The office has a few missing people today, but not a whole lot. Marketing seems mostly gone, but Merchandising is mostly here. I mentioned this morning to Scott that today is like Monday and Friday rolled into one. The office is indeed closed tomorrow, though -- Shobhit has a work shift in the afternoon and early evening, but he should get done early enough to meet me at South Lake Union Park and hang out there until the fireworks happen at dusk. We'll definitely be walking home from there; traffic will be way too nuts otherwise. At least it's a much easier walk than from Gasworks Park, which used to be the only park option on Lake Union -- the last time Shobhit was with me for Independence Day in Seattle was in 2009, when we watched from Karen and Dave's temporary apartment right there on the lake. That was also the first year Ivar's did not do the fireworks show on the waterfront, leaving only Lake Union. Lake Union Park, as it happened, opened in 2010.

So now, for the first time, Shobhit and I will be together in Seattle for the holiday and Lake Union Park will be an option on the south side of the park. I'm sure it will be packed so I'll want to get there early with my blanket tote. Still I might take myself to a movie in the afternoon. We'll see.

-- चार हजार एक सौ बारह --

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