— पाँच हजार चार सौ अट्ठाईस —
We had a slightly smaller crowd than usual at our Action Movie Night last night—my first in a month, as Shobhit and I did not come two weeks ago, being our anniversary night, and we went out to eat at Saffron Grill instead. That night was Tony's pick, and it was
John Wick Chapter 3, which is fine, but I am not especially sad to have missed.
Tony himself missed last night, because he and his wife were headed out to a vacatin to England and Scotland last night. He's also five days out from testing positive for covid for the first time. He told me over email yesterday that he "feels great," but there was nothing more specific discussed. The sense I have is that he's flying out anyway, something I'm sure tons of people are doing these days. What are the odds that someone on any plane you're flying on has an active covid infection? Probably pretty high. Someone from work admitted to me a few months ago to flying home from a vacation with a child having a known covid infection. Anyone actively avoiding flying in airplanes is not being unreasonable, in my opinion, and anyone flying
without a mask on is being batshit insane.
As always, these days: I'm not especially scared of covid anymore, even under these kinds of arguably stupid circumstances. I continue to wear masks in a lot of scenarios, but
especially on airplanes, which are flying petri dishes, because
masks work against all airborne infections. They even keep you from getting colds! Why more people don't think about this just boggles my mind.
Anyway, I digress. Shobhit also opted not to join last night, even though he was actually home, citing his campaign work. I did not realize until I got down to the theater that left me as basically the official "host": I was the only one there who actually lives in the building.
I was one of six present last night. The other five were Jake, Ben, Ryan, Derek, and Chris G. I learned for the first time last night that Derek, who I met at a building summer social on the roof last summer, has actually moved out, and now lives in, I think it was Northgate; he's just continuing to come to these movies. There's one other guy, Joe, who I believe still lives in the building, but he wasn't there last night. It was just me.
I made pasta, as seems to be the default choice anymore (it was highly complimented, mostly because I sprinkled gorgonzola cheese on top of it), and of course my requisite four-shot cocktail (hey, I drink it slowly over a few hours!). When I got down to the space between the condo complex's two buildings, Ben was already waiting to get inside.
After the others arrived, Chris G, whose turn it was to choose a movie, realized he didn't think to bring a laptop from which to stream his choice—this is usually the mode people use, rather than the far more reliable choice of bringing a DVD (but, of course, people don't keep DVDs much anymore). Unsure whether it would work given Laney and my inability to play the movies upon our last Double Feature date, I still went up to get my own, new Macbook Pro for him to use.
I got back down to the ground floor in the elevator with my laptop when I realized I forgot to grab the HDMI cable. Back up I went, to get that.
— पाँच हजार चार सौ अट्ठाईस —
— पाँच हजार चार सौ अट्ठाईस —
Getting connected to a reliable wifi network proved a challenge. Chris was able to log into his Prime account on my laptop out in the kitchen, but once we got the laptop into the theater, where signals are much weaker, it was just impossible. Also, in the middle of figuring all of this out, I fucking locked my keys inside the theater! I had to go back upstairs in the East building to retrieve the spare set, only able to get back inside by buzzing myself in through my phone. Once back down, I finally had the wherewithal to put the door stop in the way of the theater door.
I also emailed Tony to ask about the wifi. I guess he's been able to play movies by using "a really long HDMI cord" with his laptop either at or outside the door where the Wave G Public Wifi signal actually worked. My cord was not long enough for that, and the "Braeburn_EXT" wifi network, I only got confirmation from Alan the building manager over email this morning, is not currently working. He's "working with the vendor" to get it fixed, but who the fuck knows when: Laney and I had our issue on June 4 and it's still not resolved. Our next movie is August 13. Maybe I should invest in my own really long HDMI cord and see if that makes a difference.
I may have to try that even in time for the next Action Movie Night two weeks from now, when Tony will still be out of town. He had even asked over email whether I would be able to make it; I didn't realize until last night that he asked that because, again, I would be the only other person there who actually lives in the building.
As for last night, it was Ryan to the rescue: he happened to have a flash drive with something like fifty, apparently prioted movies on it. Some were incredibly recent, including
Beau Is Afraid, and I immediately asked them
not to pick that one.
When Chris had his Prime Video rental poised to rent, since I was in there helping set up, I saw that his choice was
The Conjuring, which I really did not want to watch either. He chose from Ryan's list after Ryan explained this bonkers movie billing itself as "Swissploitation" called
Mad Heidi. Think
Kill Bill, only . . . not good. I wasn't bored, so I'll give it credit for that, and its use of cheese as both a weapon and a symbol of patrotic propaganda was amusing. The acting was terrible, probably on purpose. I'll never watch it again, and probably won't even remember it in six months.
I don't usually do this, but as the only Braeburn resident present, I stuck around in the kitchen outside the theater until everyone left. Other people made sure all the dirty dishes were in the dishwasher, but I put the detergent pod in it and programmed it to run.
Plus, Tony usually takes excess beers back up to his place. He wasn't around to do that, so now I have a cardboard box full of a hodgepodge of different cans and bottles of beer in our refrigerator for the next two weeks. Shobhit almost drank one, then decided the brand was too cheap. He opted not to dig any deeper in the box for anything of higher quality.
— पाँच हजार चार सौ अट्ठाईस —
[posted 12:30 pm]
