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I rode my bike home from work yesterday, got home at 5:00, made some chai at Shobhit's request, and ate leftover pasta for dinner.
Shobhit got home from a rehearsal in West Seattle at about 5:25. I asked if he wanted to join me for the movie I was going to see, as I have a whopping $30 in AMC Stubbs rewards points at the moment. It's a good thing he didn't, because it would have been a complete waste of rewards points.
I left again shortly after 5:30, to make it to Pacific Place to see the new Francis Ford Coppola movie he's had in development for eons and finally got into theaters:
Megalopolis.
It was not good. I gave it a genreous C+ because I liked some of the visuals. Otherwise, it's a hot mess. The number of people on Letterboxd who love it are baffling me, although the ratings spread among users is nearly evenly divided, which makes sense to me. On a five-star scale, the most people rated it 2 stars (which was what I did); second-most gave it three stars; third-most two and a half stars. Next was four stars, and after that one star. The number of people who gave it one star (1,288) or five stars (1,234) is very close to even.
I thought I might like the movie in spite of the many flaws I already expected it to have, based on ample media coverage in recent years and recent months. No such luck, really. The best I can say is I checked that one off my list.
I felt pretty good about my review while I was writing it. Then I re-read it, and I didn't like it as much. Oh well. All we can do is move on, I guess.
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I might have waited to see that movie until tonight, but Shobhit and I are actually going to see a play—one at ArtsWest in West Seattle, and with tickets far more expensive than we tend to spend: the order for both tickets together came to $99.
But, Agastya, the guy who directed the first local play Shobhit ever did in Seattle (which was in Hindi!), is involved, so Shobhit wanted to go. The play is called
Guards at the Taj, and it's about the guards being ordered to cut off the hands of all the workers who built the Taj Mahal, so they couldn't build anything else (which is believed to have actually happened but apparently
officially regarded as myth). Fun!
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— पांच हजार छह सौ बयासी —
In other news, I spent a bit of time comparing cycling commutes between the old office we had until 2016; the current office; and what will be the new office by late next year. Specifically, the time and distance when cycling home from the office:
From Roosevelt Way NE office (U District): 3.4 miles, 24 minutes
From Elliott Way (Belltown): 2.7 miles, 28 minutes
From 4th Avenue (Downtown): 1.3 miles, 15 minutes
First thing to note: each time the PCC office moves, it gets closer to where I live. Maybe one day we'll move into the Bullitt Center, just one block away! Stranger things have happened.
Second thing to note: with each of these moves, the feet per minute gets lower: 748 feet per minute; then 509 feet per minute; then 458 feet per minute. This has to do with two different factors: there are more building and traffic barriers per block with each move; and with each move, the start of the commute gets closer to the base of Capitol Hill, cycling up which is the slowest portion of the ride.
I did recently very slightly shorten my bike commute home from the current office, which was
lengthened by the addition of two blocks I had to ride, thanks to the conversion of sections of both Pine and Pike to one-way streets as far as just east of the freeway. This meant that, even though I live on Pine, I now had to ride another block south to Pike Street before turning left up Capitol Hill, then ride the block back to Pine where I could then travel eastward again. That distance was 2.7 miles and Google Maps estimates as 29 minutes. But, I recently figured out I can turn left earlier from 7th Avenue, up Olive Way to Melrose Ave, where I can turn right and go to Pine where I can turn left there—without having to overshoot a block down to Pike unnecessarily.
This, apparnently, saves me 0.1 miles and one whole minute. Not the biggest difference, I realize. But it's the principal of the matter! I don't like being forced to go out of my way pointlessly.
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Finally, I just finished my Zoom lunch hour with Karen—which I actually forgot about, even though I have it on my Google Calendar. I put lunches with her on my Outlook calendar for work as well, but for some reason didn't have it for today. I only got reminded of it when Karen sent me the Zoom invite earlier this morning.
She recently had a surgery. I never did get any details on how that went, but it seemed pretty clear she's doing well as of now. She took sick leave for most of last week, was apparently back to work for two days, and then took a week of vacation today. She was supposed to go to a quilting retreat this week, which was why she had the vacation scheduled, but she canceled the retreat because she still wasn't well enough post-surgery to go on a trip of any magnitude. She still kept the vacation, apparently really enjoyed having a "staycation" for a week, and even got some Christmas shopping done.
So, naturally, we talked a lot during the first half hour about all the holiday planning I've already got underway. Then, after nearly forgetting to even talk about it,
she brought up the news that PCC will re-open the Downtown store. She did not realize the central office is also moving, though, so she was stunned to learn details about that, including the fact that I'll be on the Office Transition Team. "I'm surprised!" she said. "You're not really a joiner." Fair. But, Gabby sure effectively sold me on it, when she said I'd probably get to do things like tour the space before other people do. Also, it sounds like I will largely function as a communication facilitator between the OTT and the Merchandising Department, which is solidly in my wheelhouse and totally something I can do.
Anyway. We also talked about Shobhit's and my trip to Phoenix coming in November. We talked about a lot. And now I need to post this and try and get some work done.
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[posted 1:09 pm]
