Maybe somebody should take a rest, or something

It's not going anywhere. Maybe a proper evaluation of what I am doing, why I'm doing it, and where I intend to go with this is needed before moving forward. What does one exist for, and to what ends must one work towards. What is high on a list of one's priorities, etcetera. More thoughts, less words, in short.

Wrote a lot, read a lot, lotsa Youtube [Wed 30]

 Don't have any photographic evidence of doing anything useful or good this day. Except I think I watched a lot of british comedy, including QI, Taskmaster, Would I lie to you, 8 out of 10 cats, etc. That's it. Sent a couple of texts to friends, and then got nothing else done. Which sounds horrible, but that's life, some days are just slow. I may have written a tonne in the evening, because a lot of my posts are from this day, but still couldn't make it. It was at this point I was quickly running out of ideas on new topics to write posts on for this blog, alas.

13 things to do overnight in Vegas when you don't have a hotel reservation because of...reasons

1.  See if your friends there are free and if you can make arrangements there.
   
   
2. Lookup 24-hour gyms and figure out a way to chill and shower during the stay, because the backpack's gotta go somewhere you.
   
   
3. Lookup 24-hour swimming pools that don't need the corresponding hotel reservations, and figure out the prices.
   
   
4. Run away from the swimming pool prices because WHO THE EFF CHARGES $250 buckaroos for a goddamn pool chair at a vegas resort, that's daylight robbery.
   
   
5. Check if there's any 24-hour buffets in town that you can spend the night at, discover they're actually not a thing, and also due to your strange timing, you won't be making into any of the buffets in the global capital of buffets.
   
   
6. Check out latenight bus tours and figure out a way to spend as much time as you can on a tour, only to discover those trips end before you get to the city of lights.
   
   
7. Lookup cheap bars that are open 24-hours.
   
   
8. Findout clubs that are open 24-hours and their entry fees because that's what you're gonna be doing and you know it.
   
   
9. Come up with strategies to make quick friends in the new city, everybody's gonna be a tourist there and everybody's gonna be loaded if they've got hotel reservations for the first post-pandemic national holiday weekend -- and wonder if they'd be open to...idk letting you use their facilities for shower and nap, or maybe just in the common room thing, whatever. If pools are free, maybe you can spend the night there.
   
   
10. Gosh, you also need a place to put your backpacks.
    
    
11. Come up with a consistent set of lies about how you obviously had a reservation for the night but unfortunately it didn't work out as you guys decided to go on an adventure and prematurely checked out of the hotel room and see how it's to spend 12 hours of the night in the party city.
    
    
12. Oh god oh god oh god.
    
    
13. Check 24-hour food places and realize if nothing else you can always go there, in addition to tonne of hotel restaurants that'll always be open, so you don't necessarily have to be bankrupt to avoid homelessness or arrest in the city.
    

10 things to do when the airline cancels your important flight to a wedding

1. Cry
   
   
2. Contact the airlines, only to be held on hold for two hours.
   
   
3. Call the hosts and let them know you're probably not coming because they cancelled the flight last-moment and there's nothing you can do now.
   
   
4. Get mad at the airlines and loudly complain about them on the internet.
   
   
5. Finally get through their customer support line, and angrily make them cancel your tickets.
   
   
6. Try to cancel all the other flights, because the trip's not happening anymore lets try to recoup the costs.
   
   
7. Realize every other flight and hotel booking is non-cancelable because you bought the cheapest possible flight class and there's nothing you can do about it.
   
   
8. Cry
   
   
9. Sheepishly call the original airlines and beg them to un-cancel your booking, instead moving the reservations to the following day please, that way at least your trip's not completely hosed.
   
   
10. Make an extremely short and exciting trip of 2 nights and one day, 36 hours, where you won't have a single hotel room reservation, and let errybody know what a dangerous life you leave, make sure you make it sound like you chose to do all of that, intentionally, and that it wasn't foisted upon you by a budget carrier.
     
    

Snapchat is for making friends

 I will give out my Snap ID to people I'm not sure I want to give my number to, but who I want to kinda' follow. Since I don't have any other form of social media, this has worked out perfectly.

In addition to not revealing your phone number through the ID, snapchat lets you have this veil of semi-privacy. I don't have my real name, strictly speaking on snap, and they can't see my friend list, and I choose not to expose my location. Exposing your location 24-7 to randos on the internet is one of the scarier things I have seen people I love and care about do, but this works in my favor. I get to see people's stories while having a large amount of control of the information I do reveal.

It works both ways. Because people understand snap provides a lot more privacy than other apps, they are often more forthcoming with their communications and their shares. There's a higher level of trust and comfort in adding people to snap, because they have control over interactions and their image.

But ultimately, people can text and chatup each other. And it is somewhat of a social media, as limited in scope it might be. It's different from insta...nobody's there to maintain their dating profile for the world to follow, to funnel people from dating apps into their insta follower-count. You have control, but you can chat up semi-randoms who you met up once maybe who knows where, and might not, but on the other hand, if you figure out you're around the same place, or know the same people, there's some trust and connection compared to random people out from nowhere.

Snapchat is for making friends. It's for flirting with people you talk to once-in-a-while. It's for sharing short snippets of life that you assuredly know won't define your social-media image, confident that people understand you're having fun but you're also not that kind of person, always. It's about forgiveness, and forgetfulness and moving forward. Unlike literally every other piece of social media.

It's freakin' great. Please add me on snapchat. Let's get chattin' yeah?

Why writing regularly has been a problem of late

 I've alluded to the sleep issues, the strange timetable, and the loud honking noisy city beyond my window that won't let me write or do anything in peace. It's an opportunity of hands. Surely you must be able to basically communicate in ASL michael, Jim asks.

The problem is I wake up at 6 in the morning at go to work immediately. Get off of work at 1.30-2, and then take shower, get ready for the day. By then I'm too tired, need to fix myself up some food, and get out on a walk for some air. Somehow hanging out with friends and family comes up too. By then it's 9, I've spent most of the evening hanging out in somebody else's place, and need to rush back home. The socializing, walking around, and thinking about things to do is so par, I can't do it. It's like that story wheere a farmer thinks he's going to get all homework things don't workout and he remains an untrained farmer, unable to repair his own tractor or anybody's business.

Where have the tractor shops gone anyway? ANd the problem, that's second in your house is taj  mahal. Indians like to pretendit was great until ever  were forced to live as a commoner, then it all begins sucking, and life is a misery. You can't be a hypocrite about your judgment of life. EIther it's terrible other-persons-wife, and you were nowhere to go, or you have limited chocie of visiting places. Either way, the shittone of freetime in one chock I was expecting and unquote umquote, nobody is takling. Great, the defractor goons come out of the forest in these times, and unculcate the Us'S's history of some of these times.

All-in on meeting new people

 Now that I'm in Seattle, which is a new city where I have limited social networks and know absolutely no ins-and-outs of, I'll be focusing on lowering my standards for knowing new people and considering people I barely know or understand to be acquaintances or even yikes, friends.

It has getting clearer that most people in America generally speaking have low standards for talking to people and making friends, and it's just us and our larger group that doesn't really open up to taking new random parties inside its circles unless forced to somehow. Which works terribly well, we're doing great, and people hang out with each other etcetera. But that's not too exciting for exploring and getting to know the world and understanding what the heck the people who're not us and have lives very different from ours are like.

And thus I've decided to go all-in on meeting new people, getting to know them, inviting them over and generally hangin'. If it goes south, worst...case...well...maybe lets not talk about that but believe me when I say there's not too many serial killers out there these days, and I don't have any valuables to take or steal from, so there's nothing specially awful to worry about.

That is all.

Yeah it's too loud here, but that's the compromise of city living, I'm fine whatever

 My new place is by far the loudest place I've lived in, by a very long shot. Not even N's old place in Philly was this loud with vehicles, and so shouty with people at night. Never did I think, did I imagine I'd get to live in the freakin' heart of all action. Nor did I consider the possibility that the heart is a noisy place, there's hundreds of merrimakers coming around till very late in the night four days of the weekend shouting and calling each other's names, pissing out of your doorstep, and cars and ambulance, firetrucks and copcars rushing around every fifteen minutes like there was a goddamn earthquake tsunami forest-fire and heatwave all happening at the same time in eight corners of the city, and for some reason they all had to go through the exact intersection my apartment happens to face. I don't mind, the city services are good, the fact that people are having fun means it's a lively thriving city, but oh man, this was not a part of the plan. Unclear how in the upcoming days the pars are going to make through it. Which reminds me, I might be gone August through November, so don't be confused, shocked, sad or aroused when no posts appear here for three months, and then a massive barrage of writings again, suddenly. Because I'll probably not be able to conjure up the energy, motivation, or the patience to write for twenty minutes without being disturbed or being asked if what I'm doing is for work or other things.

In any case,  yeah sleep has been hard, kinda, so putting something on the phone has turned out to be of utmost importance. Might need to get a noise-generating machine if it comes down to that, with which I have zero problems, it's a funny thing no, that you have to distract your body from loud traffic noises with even louder but much rambler topics. That's the nature of life, you gotta accept your place in it.

Unless, you want to get out on a bank, and say something.  And trust me that might not be the ideal situation, as you will not have had a good reading of your audience. So just go with the flow, without causing too much trouble, and when push comes to shove and your are put in a place to make decisions that would not be the most idea for somebody in your circumstances, make the jump into something better. No crying controlling, confused about your future prospective.

I'm thinking of extrajudicially acquiring plants from nature

 It will be extrajudicial in nature, from the surroundings, not illegal exactly because the law doesn't go into the specific details of what fern or nice looking plant that I snipped off a leaf from, from a plant deep in the forest, so nobody would be hurt, nature would heal itself, and I would save some mega mega buckaroos, in the order of hundreds, not making up really hundreds of dollars because that's how expensive those goshdarned things are and they'll be getting tonne of sun on the window sill, even got the rooting hormone ready, gonna plant them in the flowerpots later, and in the matter of a few short months I'll have a thriving active little forest right in my living room. What's not to like about that, huuuh?

Eight themes you should write on to make a popular nepali novel

1. SEX. No originality required, shamelessly ripoff crappy hindi pulpy horny novels, or english 'erotica', even 'lady chatterly's lover', which isn't really that sexy it was so outrage-causing only because of the social dynamics of the parties involved in the otherwise class-conscious england, will get people's blood flowing up and down their skinny, sun-soaked very tired veins.
   
   
2. LOVE. AND SEPARATION. I don't want to satirize my favourite poet or genius, but think about this. A couple get married. Were they in love before? Who cares! They're married, she's helpless, he's the only thing he's got. He goes abroad, she wanna come, he's got a mother that needs looking after. She's not tooo tooo old, but yanno what, free manpower etc. He goes to the biglands, makes bigmoneys, get sick on the way, almost dies, some mountain dude saves him, brings him back to health. The news of his ill-health comes back, but not of his recovery. Mother dies because of poor health. Wife does too. Older sister, who we only learn about in the last few pages, tells him it'll be okay. He dies too. It would not pass the bechdel test, whatever.
   
   
3. POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND MYSTERY. Mostly conspiracy theories. DID YOU KNOW WHO KILLED THE POLITICAL LEADER? Or how the cia was involved in literally every small non very special thing that happened? Or how the cold war was actually fought in Nepal, and without it nothing would have been solved, because you do now!
   
   
4. Mountains and rivers, mountain and river. You know, how beautiful are the mountains, how cool are the rivers, the water from the rivers flow below the mountains, it fertilizes the soil, the soil that gives us nice-smelling cool red flower. And that bitchin' biiird, amiriteeee.
   
   
5. SAD VILLAGE LIFE. Saddo does sad things. Bad things happen to him. And then it only gets worse. They steal both his kidneys, sell his teeth, kick him in his toothless mouth, use his hair to make teddy bear, ride him like a horse, etc etc. I don't want to make too much fun of this because this is all to real, could be documentary, unfortunately.
   
   
6. HOW TO DEVELOP NEPAL. This is not a novel, obviously. But it could be. About fictional governments passing fictional policies, that would ahem, develop the country. To be...developed, in a very developed manner. Great development, superman!
   
   
7. BIOGRAPHY. Everybody wants to write a biography, and they do tend to sell well to, what can you do, but ya gotta be famous and liked for people to buy it, and also publish salacious excerpts in the newspapers so you bait your readers into buying the book. You ain't doing this too many times, might as well burn all the trust ya got.
   
   
8. Pretend translations of religious or political texts. They can be ninety percent interpretative, and you can put in a lot of your imagination in there, just needs to claim to be a translation of a much better-known work and let the free marketing do its thing. By the time people are wiser, you won't care for it. Also they ain't gonna know because if they did, they'd have read the original version.
   

I've (finally) completely totally moved into my new apartment

 As these shitty habits go, I'm writing this a week after the date I'm backdating it as, but I've finally fully moved into the apartment, cleared out the trash from the original move-in, and am comfortably in my house. I've got plates, I've got carpet, and I've got pans. No wall decorations, no further projects, and no vacuum etc, but that's because of other, unrelated messy reasons, not because I haven't moved in.

In other news, yeah, I'm so terribly behind on everything this blog related, I've been questioning the value of even writing here. It's not a journal anymore, and what's the fun in doing something that's very chorelike.

And then I realized the problem, something I used to complain for like every third post back in the day two years ago but I stopped doing since: that I need proper discipline and checklists and timetable to do things, and without that I lose my thread of organization. Some things will push further, like a good workspace, but even then, when you don't have much motivation, or organization, it'll only go so far. SO now I've been working towards creating a writing schedule. Stay tuned. Blah blah.

Recovery from hell, halfday, naps, cleans and cooks, longwalk, podcasts, writing, toomuch food [Tue 29]

 Barely got up, groggy all morning, a few meetings where I wasn't feeling it. Took the day off after lunch because I wasn't in my full form, all my energy sapped away by the day before.

Napped for several hours, on and off. Then wrote a bunch. Made fried rice from the available rice and leftover veggies. Cleaned the house. Watered the plants. Wrote a bunch more. Watched episodes of tasmaster I hadn't watched before.

The thing that takes the longest these days has been writing the blog, when I don't have pre-planned posts, it takes several hours to write 8 posts, it's bad, it'll just expand to take all my free time. Need to start timing my posts, and stopping at the end of time period. It's bad, if that's how it works out, I can do other things as well. I was supposed to work in the evening, except I ran out of time.

Went on a walk to the nearby park, got my 10k steps, saw a really cute person but she was running the other way, hopefully not after seeing me. Listened to a tonne of taskmaster podcasts, after watching the shows. Office ladies podcast as well.

Had fried rice after coming back from the walk. It was far, far too much, I had to put the bowl of rice I was eating from in the fridge because I've now run out of all the other storage containers. Really need to finish eating by tomorrow. Gotta get more intense physical exercise just so I am able to finish the foods I'm making but unable to finish.

As I write this, it's 1.30 Eastern time. Brushed, had my melatonin and vitamin d about an hour ago. My vitamins have been reloaded, and I've realized if I keep them in the bathroom I'm unlikely forget to eat them.

Hellish hot day, movies in the mall, hang with the gang, scratched by doggo, tama rice, late sleeps [Mon 28]

 During the day I used all the dozens of massive bricks of ice I made in the fridge to cool my bedroom. Worked from my floor bed because the lower you are the cooler it is, and the ice-cooled air hung mostly around the floor. Didn't get much work done because it was a record-hot day, and the brain was not in a situation to do any work. Throughout the workday had a banana in total, mind was shutdown and not hungry.

After work just stood still for a bit, barely napped, showered, got into the bus, and went to downtown. Went into the mall, to the AMC, bought the ticket to F9. Needed to get snacks because my body deserved a reward for putting through the pain. Decided to get mac-n-cheese bites instead of popcorn, it wasn't a great idea all things considered.

20 minutes late to F9, movie was darn entertaining, though the audience didn't seem to find it as funny as I did, perhaps they were all there for the AC like I was, except without my knowledge of the series. After the movie ended, spent like 2 hours in the  mall talking to friends and just sitting down, staying away from the heat. Texting the boys. After it was decided we'd meet at S's place, went there.

At S's place, got attacked by M, who's grown quite large now, and her nails were sharp as hell. I've got scratchmarks all over my arms and torso now, gotta be careful with her. Soon A&A, and G came over. We made tama bodi and rice, I cut all the veggies. Rice with ghee and veggies. The meateaters had pork belly that A made. We all got a drink each. Yummies.

Left for home at 2.15 in the morning, it was quite early for a weekday, but for my work hours it was too late. Got home, brushed cleaned up, took a bit to sleep because of the heat, but eventually lost consciousness for the night.

Top ten rules of Nepali comedy

1. Before you write a joke, you should ask yourself, “Does this joke challenge people’s long-held beliefs, or rebel against existing social structures?” If your answer is yes, it's a bad joke.
   
   
2. It is claimed that good jokes make people laugh. That is not true. Good jokes make people angry and/or scared for their lives and/or completely humiliated.
   
   
3. It is bad form to make jokes at your own expense. Making yourself the butt of your jokes makes you look weak and lacking in confidence in front of your enemies. If you need to make any jokes about yourself, it should be how big your penis is, or how annoyed your wife is at your hijinks.
   
   
4. People in power should not be made fun of unless they're of the opposition party or women. In which case, the only joke that should be made is that they should be in prison. Even if your party's in power. Specially if they're in power.
   
   
5. A good joke is one that is easy to 'get'. To clear up the confusion you should surround your joke with laughing emoji, tongue, tears, eyes, fire, so your readers know for sure it's a joke and it's supposed to be laughed at.
   
   
6. If there is any distinction between a 'joke' and a 'threat' legally speaking, it is known only to those in the highest echelons of lawyering and you don't need to bother yourself with that. Just go free with your jokes, the first thing that comes into your noggin.
   
   
7.  If the joke still doesn't work, you need to attach multiple copies of the Nepali version of 'trollface' so that your readers see the cartoon man laughing at your joke, and get the hint that it's funny and they're stupid for not getting it.
   
   
8. Keep updated with the latest developments concerning the latest CIA/RAW conspiracy to take over the country, to keep your jokes “fresh”.
   
   
9. Comedy can be a powerful force for combating evil. For centuries, writers and comedians have leveraged their sharp wit to expose injustice and make the world a better place. Do not give in to this temptation. 

10. If you can’t think of a punchline, try putting the joke in all-caps. 

    
    Adapted from here.
    

Proven wrong, hurray

A friend returns the stack of books you loaned to them, but one of the books isn't yours...and it's a bit odd.  Where might the book have possibly come from? Did your friend give it to you on accident, or for other reasons?

"Yes Mrs. Thapa, I'm quite sure. I know I've been touchy about this in the past, but this time is for real alright? You know how you embarrassed me in front of the entire class my telling them how they should all be like me and maybe if they read even a tenth of how much I did, they'd do so much better, and all of that... Well...he came to ask me for some good book recommendations the next week, and checked if he'd be able to borrow any books. And I lent him a few. Almost a dozen. That was two months ago. Yesterday he comes to me and says he read a book every week, and thanked me from loaning it, in a really weird way I dunno if you'd understand, and returned the books. He had the 'look' in his eyes Mrs Thapa, he had the look!"

"No, no not the other kind of look alright I know what's that about and he's dealt with that in the past, and I don't think it needs talking about anymore. And even if that was it, it would make no sense that he'd include that book in particular, yeah? What would be the point of giving it to me? Would it be a hint-hint bro, why don't you go to hell, sort of message? Because lemme tell you ma'am I know him much much better than you do and he's not the sort of person to send that kind of passive-aggressive message. Either he'd cry and just let it all out, or you know live and let live, that's been his motto, always."

"Yea yea I gettit, the last part undermines my point, but it's a figure of speech you should know, you're the English teacher! No I'm damn serious, if we don't take this seriously who knows what could happen and I wouldn't want to be held responsible for you know, whatever. And most definitely you wouldn't want to, how'd you deal with you know the outcome of all of it. We remember what happened...how long ago was it now...with the senior guy...a decade ago, they still tell stories about that, and the football competition too, you don't want that. Just bring him over and have a conversation. No! No! Do. Not. mention. My. Name. I mean if he gets super duper defensive whatever yeah fine, I care for him as a person yadda yadda, but what's the point to needlessly involve me in here. He's looking for intervention, I tell you. He's really looking for interven...Wait, there's a call coming in, it's him, I'll pick it up, and get back to you."

"Hi, hey, you're still there? Okay, great, yeah so I talked to him about the book situation, and apparently, and you'll find this so funny, but also quite sad. Apparently my suspicions were not completely founded, but there was a need for concern. He'd heard something bad happen to somebody from a movie, and knew a friend's brother wasn't doing well, and meant to give the book to him, got mixed in my pile instead. Yeah yeah quite funny actually, he's in a vacation with his girlfriend right now, lots of plans from what I could make out of it. Ooops. Better safe than sorry though, right?"

How we escaped the deadly dome of heat

1. Went to the mall, and just chilled about for the AC
   
   
2. Went to the movies, tarried about, and watched multiple movies for the same ticket, just for the cool climate.
   
   
3. Went to friends' places for dinners etc, and hang, friends who have AC in their apartments more specifically, who didn't even know it was so bad outside throughout the day and kept wondering what the big deal was because people in other parts of the country know how to deal with the heat waves don't they so what's the big deal with it happening in here.
   
   
4. Drove to various places in their cars just for the AC, because the lights went out precisely during the most hellish part.
   
   
5. Large blocks of ice, massive bricks really, slowly melting inside the room, taking up all the heat energy to change the phase into water. It's a really energy-intensive process, thankfully.
   
   
6. Jumped into cool bodies of water, particularly South Lake Union where swimming is not allowed but people did anyway because they'd rather be arrested if it came down to that than die of heatstroke. Also, Green Lake.
   
   
7. Went to cafes, bars and restaurants that had special offers focused on the sort of people who didn't have AC's or fans in their places and would rather spend money eating drinking out than on AC or fans.
   

F9 a review

This is a super-quick review of Fast and the Furious movie, the ninth installment of the series. F9, as it's also known as and what I asked the cashier for at the theater.

I went into this movie cold. I don't know anything about the lore. No backstory, no knowledge of the characters, no interest in the relationships. They kept mentioning 'family' which was confusing because I was expecting to see some sort of more traditional family structure though that is more attributable to my lack of wokeness with regards to the meaning of a family. I'd read the reviews, and seen the trailer, so I wasn't completely blind. Just totally unaware of the mythology surrounding the whole thing;

It was a goddamn good time. They fly a car to space, pretty much, knock at the doors of a space station cold, and make it back alive. And everybody's invincible. There's no permanent bad guys, just people who're confused and misunderstood, once the confusion's cleared up, every movie apparently has the main villain come back as a part of the 'family' in the following movie. Which is also what happened here.

The cool thing about this was there was little to no car-related CGI, they were all real shots of cars being destroyed, using IRL effects. You can tell the difference with the lack of glossy weird effects, and more 'realistic' physics compared to... CGI simulation.

Even if you've never seen any of the preceding movies, it'd be worth the time and money to watch F9, as long as you don't get yourself expensive snacks. Great entertainment for 9 bucks a pop, plus you get to sit in the AC, but maybe not for thirty bucks per person.

The AMC Experience: First theater visit in toomany years

 Yesterday, Monday,  went to the AMC theater in Downtown Seattle to watch the F9 movie. The primary motivation was to escape the killer heat but it felt good to be in an enclosed space with hundreds of other people, maskless, and watch the most ridiculous and stupid but exceedingly entertaining movie. This however is no review for the movie. Instead I want to talk about the theater experience itself.

I don't remember when I last went to a theater to watch a movie. It was probably the summer of 2018 when Moviepass was big and folks with those wanted everybody else to pay the full price and go with them. Possibly earlier. Regardless, it felt like I was back in my post high-school days, going to see the movies by my own volition. The major difference being then I didn't have to pay for the movies or the snacks, but now I gotta get the moolah out for everything out from my pocket.

The AMC theater is in a nice mall, very convenient. It's on the top floor, as expected. The roof has glass sheets which was awful for yesterday because of the greenhouse effect going on despite the heavy airconditioning going on. Beyond that, staying in the line wasn't too painful. It was a bit surprising to see probably hundreds of people lining for a movie on Monday midday.

The ticket was nine bucks something, including all taxes which was very reasonable.

Because of the heat, I hadn't had much until the evening besides a banana, so decided to get something big for snacks. It was a choice between large popcorn or mac-n-cheese balls and I choose the balls. With a bottle of water. Wrong choice on both counts, IMHO.

Because there were only like 8 balls of deep-fried man-n-cheese, and I was done in two minutes, with nothing to do for the rest of the movie. And the water cost me five bucks. The ticket was nine, the snacks were sixteen, quite ridiculous. And the food was more expensive than popcorn, while lasting nowhere as long. Bummer, I know better now. It was obviously frozen and heated in an oven (hopefully, and not a microwave) but it tasted good when dipped into marinara sauce, also provided.

Clean restrooms, respectful viewers, great big screen, and comfy seats, nothing else I got to complain about besides the pricey snacks. If only somebody else had gone with me, to split the popcorn, it'd have averaged down to sensible rates. And I should have asked for a free cup of water, and not thrown the pointless five buckaroos at a small bottle of Dasani.

Review: Smith Tower Seattle, also bar

Last week coworker G, M, and I went to checkout Smith tower, which is one of the tallest oldest standing buildings in the US, with the elevators there installed in 1916, I'm told.

The sceneries from the roof were pretty decent, it's not by any stretch of imagination the tallest building around, or the most scenic but its central location in the old part of the down makes it so that you can at least have a glance at all the major buildings around. The Needle, the Flier, the original Amazon building, starbucks buildings, dock, Bellevue, they're all in view, and so are the train and the streetcar systems.

For dinner -- an very late lunch really -- I got the impossible burger with potato chips. It was pretty decent, as eating out in fancy places go. Got a shrub, jabanero and pineapple, to go alone. So spicy, and my kombucha of the same flavor combo was better. Paid 26 bucks. Would I go there again? If somebody wanted to see the rest of the town from the 'not-tallest' building. Not specially to eat, no, because if you add the price of the entry of the building, it comes out to 42 bucks. I'd rather go to the Needle, and eat at a cheaper and tastier place.

If you're a tourist and want to see something cool, or can get your place of work to comp for the trip there, it would be worth going. Or perhaps somebody loaded is taking you out on a dinner, some situation of similar kind. Otherwise, I'm pretty mehh about the place. It's in pioneer square too, and truth be told it's not the fanciest neighborhood.

Rancho Bravo Tacos: a review

 It's a Mexican place close by where we live.

Seating is great: they have ample indoors and outdoors seating, for days when the whole goddamn sun is not focusing all of its energies trying to pop us off. On cooler evenings and afternoons it must be quite fun, actually. Plus they have three-buck liquors available with food, so a nice bowl or rice burrito and beer would be fantastic actually. Or tacos.

The location is perfect, it's in the middle of everything, right next to a very popular park.

Prices are extremely reasonable for the location. A good-sized burrito for less than ten bucks, plus you could get a beer too, before taxes. That's an amazing deal. The quality of food was pretty decent, nothing out-of-the-world, but the sort of food I could see myself eating multiple days every week.

It's got multiple locations in the Seattle area, funny thing last weekend multiple unrelated parties ended up going to separate outlets of the same place.

Churros are great too, but understand that their size of churros is quite large, no matter how many people you're taking desserts for, you definitely don't need five orders of them.

Buddha Bruddah: A review

 It's the most popular takeout restaurant I've known.

The food was fantastic, it's a Hawaiian-Thai fusion place, which makes sense if you think about it: rice, fish-inspired dishes, and warm-climate vegetables.

It's got AC, and in the 1.5 hours we sat there eating our post-move lunch, they must have done perhaps ten ten-thousand bucks worth of business, it was wild really, they were never lacking in customers waiting to take hundreds of bucks worth of food.

It's gotten expensive in recent days, the boys tell me, the entrees start at 14/15 bucks. The fried chicken was fantastic, I'm told. I tried all their sauces, and oof, they were good, the food was definitely elevated by the sauces

Worth going there at least once.

Walmart supplies, heatwave, park chills, writings, escape from the dome, Chipotle dinner [Sun 27]

I write this at the night of the same day, should have gone to bed way earlier, but wanted to finish these journal posts.

In the morning got up, afraid of the day whose temperature was going to cross the hundred mark. Brought my walmart supplies from downstairs, rice and foil and the rest, unpacked and cleaned the bedroom finally. I'm finally pretty settled down, as much as I'm gonna be, and ready to clean up each and every corner and jump into my hobby projects.

Took two showers. wrote a bunch, just avoided the heat at any cost. Maybe napped during the day as well. Didn't cook anything because didn't need any more heat in the house. Also the heat apparently kills your appetite which was for the best.

Went to the park nearby stayed there for a couple of hours, talked to home, few friends from Nepal and the rest from everywhere. Took a short nap right in the park. Went to QFC to cool myself down, then to Chipotle, got myself a nice bowl of rice, healthy filling food for cheap price.

Walked back home, wrote a tonne, watched tv, talked to folks, opened the windows and shades, and tried to sleep. Now I write this almost 11pm Pacific Time, and all set to sleep.

Need to write more, and tomorrow's going to be scary but at least I have plans (go watch the movies, and to the malls) so I can skip the crazy heat dome.

Catchup on sleep, chill at the park, larger hang at S's place, latenight chills, bravos rancheros, I discover I missed another hang [Sat 26]

 For breakfast I made three slices of bread, gochujang and the green veggies heated in butter. A perfect copy of the typical 'pau bhaji'. It was incredible.

Napped, got up, and went back to sleep for the rest of the day until the evening, thereby skipping the intolerably bothering heat. Caught up on the sleep at least. 

Put a couple of my containers full of water in the freezer to create large blocks of ice to survive and make through the two following days of heat dome. Talked to a bunch of my friends all over the world before that because it was the perfect time to get caught up. So sweaty.

Spent like three hours in the park next to my house, all by myself, listening to the bands there, waiting for folks to show up but also avoiding the hot top floor of the building. Eventually we got around to planning what we wanted. So I got myself a large burrito, five orders for churros which I realize in retrospect is a lot of churros even for a decent number of people. Then walked over to the nearby weed store, bought 7 pre-rolled joints for 15 bucks plus one dollar returned. Told that to the guys later and everybody's mind was blown at how 'affordable' the joints were.

Went to S's place, they'd gone on a hike during the day, a couple of them had stayed in his rooftop. Got dinner, chilled a bunch with S's friend K. After 12, when they shut the roof, went down to his roof, got a drink, smoked a bunch, and chilled with K, T, S, and A until 3 in the morning.

Walked back at 3.15, and slept pretty quickly after.

Brunch with eggs and bread, evening chill in the park, super late hangout until the next morning [Fri 25]

Because for some reason I didn't get to sleep properly the night before, Friday was groggy and confusing for me. I believe I was watching old episodes of Taskmaster maybe. Didn't get much work done, had a few meetings around.

Day was extremely hot.

Had bread and eggs for lunch because didn't want to turn on the heat.

After work cleaned up the place, walked around a bunch, two showers due to the heat. Walked to S's place, we drove to UW, from where we picked A and A, and then went to Gasworks park. The plan was to go to Green lake but that didn't work out as it got dark earlier than expected.

We got the picnic blankets and chilled for 2 hours, until 10. Then A and S decided to get dinner and drinks, while A and I looked after M the doggie. They got various foods while I ate noodles. We ate and drank until 1 in the morning, at which point we dropped off A, and drove to S's place. There we smoked a bunch more, and I had my third drink of the night. We were up talking and hanging until 4AM, at which point my body couldn't take anymore and I passed out. A took an uber back. I got up at 6 in the morning and walked home early hours of the morning.

Savory oats brunch, Smith tower trip, dinner on top, rest and hang at home [Thu 24]

 In the morning I cooked wayyy more Oats than I should have, and didn't want to eat that with sugar and cinammon, so I dropped in some Kimchi, green veggies, soy sauce, furikake, eggs, and turned it into a solid savory lunch.

After work, walked to Smith tower in Pioneer square, man that place smells like piss and makes anybody feels super insecure. We waited for fifteen minutes and climbed to the top of the tower. Sixteen bucks. It was so early the restaurant there wasn't open yet. After spending 2 hours with G and partner talking and chilling, the restaurant opened up. I got myself impossible burger, chips, and jabanero pineapple shrubs, it tasted mostly like a worse version of my famous kimchi. Which is a bummer, because it reminded me of kombucha making, unfortunately I don't got no proper containers for them.

Walked around a bunch in the area with the guys, it was to be our last hang together since they were to be driving back east on Saturday morning. We took the street car to Broadway, bid each other farewell. I came home, walked a bunch, talked to my international friends, called ED and talked to her for 3 hours, called home and talked for 30 minutes and that was my day!

Rusty's gonna save ICE

Rusty rusty, old man rusty never knew when to stop. They told him to not work on the old car technology anymore, there's batteries and chargers and solar panels now, nobody's going to pay you for that, they told him. He didn't let that stop him from tinkering around in the employer's time. And his managers looked away when they saw him play with the black grease and the dangerous liquids. Because if there was anybody who could come up with a new discovery in an industry that was almost two hundred years old and had been worked on by tens of thousands of extremely intelligent engineers, it was Rusty.

His story was otherworldly. His parents had been refugees, running away from a country to another, figuring out a stable place to bring up their growing family. Using available means to get things done wasn't just an option, it was the bare necessity. As a young child Rusty learned to make fans out of old car engines, washing machines and dishwashers all improvised, the guts of television from eras gone by to create a frankenstein of an entertainment console that nobody but he knew how to repair. He was a machine shop in a single person. You showed him a new equipment, told him what it did and gave him some operational parameters and the theory involved -- after all, despite being a savant, Rusty wasn't a god, he couldn't unravel the decades worth of physics and engineering education just by looking at something -- and he'd putter about, take it apart, fix it back up, in a few days he'd tell you exactly the function of each part, and how one would design a better version of the gadget.

His nickname was quite obvious: he tinkered around with the iron and glass out in the dumps, and thus he was Rusty.

When Rusty was nineteen his family finally settled down. He caught up with the formal education he'd missed out on over two years, applied to college, summarily accepted by the best schools in the area, and excelled the first two years of education. An eagle-eyed professor who saw the man's potential offered him a job at a company he was advising for. A summer worth of seeing him get his hands dirty and they knew he was their man. Full time job offer, effective immediately, they would pay him as much as he'd be given once he'd completed his degree. And in the meantime he could play around with whatever he desired for half the clocked time. An amazing salary, opportunity to work on something he'd always enjoyed, and the freedom to explore his personal interests. It was too great of an offer to let go. After two years of college and four years of formal schooling, he worked as an engineer at an autobile enterprise.

In the three decades he worked as an active engineer, he mentored thousands, got a hundred patents all by himself, and gave a away hundreds more because he didn't see the value in the piece of paper with his name on it. He didn't care for employment opportunities: he was well-aware that a competitor would easily triple his annual salary for him. The company had been kind, they had given him individual freedom, he didn't see the value in running after money. And it wasn't like he needed more of it.

In the later years in his career, the technology he'd spent his life perfecting fell out of favor. He'd be the one to save it, if anything could ever be done.

Ramblings from a very confused mind, ramble ramble

Just write some bullshit, one has to, even if that's fiction the temperature outside is unbearably hot and there's not much in the way of reprieve, one must go on and on, until something pops or breaks. Even if the temperatures are so goshdarned high your keyboard and laptop give your hand a mild burn and you want to avoid resting your hand on there. It's as if somebody left the oven on, for three weeks, and comes back to find nothing burned down but everything suspiciously hot to touch but whatareyou gunna do, gotta live.

These days have been few and far in between in the recent days, because nobody imagined one would find themselves in a situation where thoughts refuse to come into the noggin because the body is in a self-preservation mode, creativity needs at least some sort of guarantee that the body is going to make it though the night. It's a wonder humans never lived in water because you know what that'd have been an excellent option there. Waterbeds, except you sleep IN the water. Like frogs or crab or any other amphibious being that knows the value of being close to that elixir of life on warm days to be able to regulate their surrounding temperature up to a decent degree.

Of course, any individual with a smidgen of critical thinking must also consider the possibility that maybe this is not all random, seems awfully well-timed no, the same couple of weeks one moves into a new city hoping for a more livable weather, the temperatures go so high they break the charts, they break the thermometers, they break the heads of any straight-thinking individuals expecting regular-place temperatures. Instead, this gift from the darkest depths of hell, as if the worlds were upturned somehow. Maybe the 'dome' metaphor has something to do there, but who knows. It doesn't help that one lives on the fourth floor of a building, which would work in one's benefit during the winter months and on cooler days, but on this particular set of circumstances that just means it's not unlikely that one's above might feel warmer in the inside than what the noobs are experiencing on the outside. What if it was a conspiracy by the universe and the bigheads up there to trick one into acting against one's self interest? It would be a low-blow but not something unexpected from the eggheaded ones, they can't come up with better ideas after all. You pat them on the head, congratulate their for genius undermining trick and move on. Don't take the heat.

Lay low, that's a piece of advice that's perfect for so many unrelated situations: whether you are a secret agent who's on the cusp of being discovered who's been told to lower their presence in the new territory, possibly get a couple of new getups and escape as soon as the mission is complete, or if you're living in a warm apartment of an unseasonably extremely hot city and need to keep yourself warm, so you sleep on the floor to avoid the hot air that rises up.

The dome of heat

This heat
Feels like
A bowl of hot ramen
Dropped from fifty feet
Above you.
Drenching the world,
In hot, spicy, soupy
Juice, where nobody could
Do
Anything.

It feels like
A bowl of warm
Freshly baked
Bread, still steaming
Except you are
In the oven
Screaming.

Nowhere to run
Away from the
Unceasing, unyielding
Nasty, uncaring
Sun
Not even for a moment, none
Hiding in fear
Away from the outdoor
In containers, airtight
Bidding, waiting, counting minutes
Until it's night
To finally come
Outside.

Sneaky bastards take over everything

July 27, Kathmandu.

The Valley Post has learned that a group of miscreants has unofficially taken over the control of the Nepali government, and has been running it with no overseeing or accountability, with the concerned authorities unaware or unable to take any actions against them. It is learned that the unofficial coup, orchestrated by a group of men in their late teens and early twenties...mentally, not physically, has been going along for much longer than anyone had previously considered possible.

Dr Karnel Singh, an expert of political science and coups in a local university that we won't name, said that the secret group could have been in control of the state apparatus for a long time, in the order of decades. "While we can't be sure exactly at which point real governance was taken over by these miscreants, practical jokers and mostly nihilists who didn't care much about politics or the implications of political actions, we can confidently say that it's in the order of decades, multiple, and there is no end in sight, " Dr. Singh said.

Other experts who were reached out for comment but refused to talk on the record with their names because who knows what these goons are going to do it's not like any rules or laws apply to them and nobody has the balls to enforce the goddamn rules they wrote, said that the takeover has gone on for so long, it is now indistinguishable from real governance. "We think Nepali governance is one of the least accountable, most corrupt, and generally the most disappointing among the failed states in the world. And while that may be true it's unclear it's the 'real' governance we're talking about, or the group of goons who took over the reins of the statecraft in secret. Either way, it doesn't matter as this has become our new reality", an expert said.

International experts who have studied power transitions, coups and democratic institutions argue that the movement has gone for far too long to be reversed, and if there was ever a backbone of democratic, honest governance in the country, it has crumbled by this point due to the lack of use. "I guess if you're not paying attention to the people in power, this is the sort of thing you should expect. A ten-year kid could go to Singhadurbar tomorrow and take charge of the state, and decree that chocolate should be free for all the kids. We would have no way of telling if that was a decision made by the existing fakies, real government, or the new unsurpers of power. Because our eyes have dropped low due to the low expectations, the mechanism for keeping those making statecraft accountable don't exist anymore."

20 Things to do to escape the HEAT DOME

1.  Get a friend with an AC in the apartment, and not too many other plans, and hang out at their place until the temperatures go down.
   
   
2. Go watch a movie and enjoy the aircon, just chill in the theater, go watch other less popular shows and chill for the rest of the day.
   
   
3. Go to a restaurant with AC, and get the cheapest drink, spend hours and hours just chilling there
   
   
4. Go to a mall, just for the AC.
   
   
5. Jump into an icy-cold lake.
   
   
6. Drive away to the mountains, or colder areas.
   
   
7. Surround yourself with large blocks of ice.
   
   
8. Get an AC.
   
   
9. Drive around in your car, if you have one, just for the AC.
   
   
10. Find somebody in the bars etc, identify if they have AC, and perform sexual acts, if it comes to that, real slow so you can lengthen your AC stay.
    
    
11. Get a sweater and a jacket and go to HMart, spend hours shopping, it's gonna be colder than winter there anyway.
    
    
12. Dig an underground bunker and hide until the temps subside.
    
    
13. Something to do with an igloo.
    
    
14. Evaporative cooling/swamp cooler. Look it up.
    
    
15. Move to a cooler climate.
    
    
16. Keep your freezer door open and sit by it.
    
    
17. Nonstop showers or bath, with cold water flowing nonstop.
    
    
18. Do drugs that'll make you feel cooler, but not so much that you die of heat stroke while not feeling anything.
    
    
19. Dunno, get a hotel room maybe.
    
    
20. USB fan.
    

The question I don't know the answer to yet: how's the new city?

How are you liking the new city, that's the question I've been getting a lot lately from friends, family, acquaintances and acquaintances I'd like to get to know better but somehow they're always like ooo I have to go to a wedding last week, how about the weekend after, or huuh that sounds like a great idea but I don't drink beer is it okay if we go to a wine place, etcetera. And the answer to that is: I don't know. No clue how to answer the question, or to even evaluate my stay here for the last three weeks to get around to evaluating it.

Because the move has been multiple things: I've changed cities, which means I've gone from the Northeast to the PNW. How do I isolate the changes due to that? Versus say, the changes that have happened from living with a couple of roommates to living all by myself. Versus, the changes due to living in a place where all my friends were moving out to the burbs, and everybody was settled and in stable relationships versus this city where most of our gang is either single or super duper excited to help other single people be out and about. There's too many uncontrolled variables, and I can't parse the intention behind the question, so there's been no clear answers yet. Disappointing, I know. Also I moved from a quiet neighborhood to a place that's in the heart of everything, heart of downtown and my friends all live in these tall luxury buildings around. So different circumstances completely.

There's no easy answer. Where do I even start answering from? Seattle is...a city. That's not Boston. More expensive to eat out, groceries are pricier, the taxes for eating out are twice as much as in Mass. And the people here walk so slow, I'm always rushing around by comparison. But then I've never lived where all the bars and restaurants were, so it's unclear if I can differentiate there. How are the people in Seattle, if somebody asks me that I'd be screwed. Because as somebody who came from a liberal arts school in the northeast with super-liberal students, it feels like I'm back on campus with annoying people who aren't particularly politically astute and don't seem to realize the full implications of their proposed policies, but will make them shamelessly anyway? That's not a great answer. And it's not about Seattle, just my neighborhood, the three blocks around me.

Generalizations are unhelpful, generally speaking, but at this point there's so many things to generalize about one finds it not easy to start making them. So, to go back to my original question: I don't know, it's a whole different experience, different friends different circumstances, different neighborhood. I need more time to process everything. A lot more. The length of stay I intend to have here currently may not be sufficient to give a complete answer.

How I'm dealing with the heat dome situation, tryina freeze my way out

So, as I wrote just now, the heat around here is oppressive, intolerable, historic, and goddamn awful specially for somebody who moved to the region to avoid the temperature extremes of Boston.

Because Seattle has traditionally been a moderate climate place, with maybe a slight tilt towards the chillier side in the winter, there's heating options available on most buildings, but cooling systems aren't usually available even in pretty decently recent apartment complexes. Because nobody thought the temperatures would get this high in Seattle of all the places. My apartment is one of those places. No AC, no fan because I didn't realize this would happen until it was too late, and no other cooling options.

So I had to figure out the alternatives.

First, I froze maybe ten galloons of water in all the containers I had into bricks of ice, that I can then strategically place around the room to cool the place. Think of large cubes of ice as thermal batteries of sorts: I'm creating heat on cooler days to run the freezer to generate ice that I'll use on warmer days. I'm 'paying' the heat cost out of pocket to get a bit of relief on much hotter days.

Second, I've put large pieces of cardboard strategically placed around the apartment, sprinkled water on them until they're dripping. This is using the 'evaporative' cooling to keep the temperatures in the tolerable range. As the water picks off heat from the surroundings to evaporate, it decreases the ambient temperatures in the area. There's far more effective ways to do it, but this will work when there's not many other options.

Third, go to friends with AC for decent period of times. I'm going to friend S's place in a few hours to avoid the main intolerable part of the heat wave.

Fourth, dip in the lake to cool your body and let the water take the heat of the environment.

Fifth, go to restaurants and movies to cool yourself down. That's my plan for tomorrow, when temperatures will go as high as 110 F in the evening, and since it's still technically work hours I can't bother my friends. Instead I'll go to the movies to watch F9 the movie, and have a grand ole' time cooling myself down in the show.

Heat Dome!

Living under the heat dome has not been particularly fun. I was steaming up yesterday, dripping, dripping like a leaking balloon from all over my pores, sticky salty drops of sweat triggered by unseasonably warm weather in the PNW that has broken all historical records. For reference, think Nepalganj weather -- late 30 Celsius to mid-fourties -- but in Pokhara. That's how life has been for us for the past several days, and tomorrow, Monday will be the worst.

I'll write in a different post about my small attempt at avoiding the most heated part of the dome, but here's the awful things that's happened because of this crap shit dirty gross weather.

First, I missed out on a nice hiking trip because it was so hot and crazy intolerably sweltering that I figured nobody would be sane enough to go hike. What I forgot was that they might be heading to cooler parts of the region, and dip into lakes for fun. So big booboo on my part there. Second, I've missed out on innumerable excursions to local parks, stores, restaurants and bars I might have made otherwise if the weather was more tolerable. Third, I've not written much, because it's so hot in here and I can't think straight. Nothing gets done in this weather because the body is in survival mode: help, help get me out of this burning oven, any place but here, etc. So multiple showers a day, closed blinds and hiding in the room away from company and life has been the norm.

It's not just that. Any decision-making has=s been kept on hold because I can't do any productive work in the apartment, the thick beads of sweat flowing down from my back or my forehead are a reminder that there's a more urgent issue I need to be taking care of. It's always a challenge to stay cool, and this has been the most challenging of challenging times.

The one good thing, I guess if anybody can even call it that is that people have been wanting to get together and do activities to escape the physical oppression through social connections. Which means going to parks late in the night, parties till wee hours of the morning, hikes to cooler places (yea I missed out on that one, happy others are at it), and jumping into cool lakes, something people rarely did otherwise. It's fun, but maybe the kind of fun that would rather be avoided if there were more tolerable things to be done in this weather. Getting out in the open before eight or nine in the evening is pretty tough.

It's going to last only two more days, and those will be the most oppressive two days, but when we make it through this, there will be much greater appreciation of what we have generally speaking, weather-wise, and how that's much more preferable to living in a hot humid armpit of the devil.

Shakshuka and bread brunch, tired day, QFC and TJ's trip, Thai green curry cooking, massive veggy cuts, evening walk, yogurt snacks [Wed 23]

I write this very late at night of the same day, finished with all the pre-sleep chores, the last thing to do is to lay down on the bed and sleepytimes.

Got up as usual, feeling a tad more tired than I've recently felt. Job was usual, setup a few meetings, pretty productive all things considered. For brunch I used the Shakshuka starter from TJ's, put two eggs in there on the pan, and made a solid Shakshuka. Had that with three pan-toasted slices of bread.

During the day, I was not particularly high on energy, probably because of the lack of proper sleep and rest I've been struggling with.

After work, wrote a bunch, showered and headed out to QFC to get laundry and toilet cleaning supplies. Then walked over to Trader Joe's, got seasonings, cocoa, yogurt, fruit, and beans. Also, coconut milk, it's gonna be relevant soon.

At home, cut up at least a pound of carrot, a pound of cauliflower, tonne of string beans, and green onions. Also chopped up one whole red onion, and sauteed them all in a pan, added coconut milk, and then green thai curry paste. Took a really long time to cook, but it's going to be pretty edible, I'm sure. Didn't eat it because wasn't in the mood for rice.

Went on a walk to the nearby park, for an hour. Not much happening, except I envy the group of friends who're just hanging out and chillin in the park, wonder how they get the time and figure out the logistics of hanging out with near and dear ones every day. Got to eleven thou steps. Back home, had yogurt for dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, packed the veggies, and started writing. Thirty minutes before right now, took the melatonin, and brushed and now I'm all ready to go to sleep.

Only four extra posts to 'cover up' the post count. Eyeroll but also I've been running slow.

Fried rice brunch, target and HMart trip, meeting and planing at brother's, hot chocolate on chocolate biscuit, long-weeked plans, calls on calls, late to bed [Tue 22]

For brunch I fried up the veggies and rice I had from the weekend, added a bunch of hot sauces, soy sauce, gochujang, egg, and really whatever was in my apartment, and turned into a yumm meal. It was awesome!

After work and shower, went to HMart to check if they had something interesting there. Found a nice jar of kimchi, got it and put on my backpack. In retrospect it wasn't a good idea because they didn't pack it well. Walked over to Target to get some Ball Jars, they didn't have the size I was looking for. Bought some nice double-chocolate Milano chocolate's for SB's apartment. Called Sb and told him I was coming over.

At Sb's, checked out his new apartment, and we got drinks at the office in his apartment. I got hot chocolate, so I'd be dipping double-chocolate cookies into a hot chocolate. Triple chocolate, WOOO! Went up to the roof to make plans for the July 4th weekend. Spent an hour figuring out a schedule, thought it worked out fine, paid for everything. Then discovered that actually, no, we made an error, and we had to cancel it all and start from scratch. Talked to AD on the phone, the person for whom we're making the plan. Made the plan again, except with added fun, in addition to going to Texas for the engagement, we're going to Vegas for funtimes during the long weekend. I'll talk about it in details in the coming days, but we've really tried optimizing the trip, to be everywhere good at every point.

Back home, I chilled, wrote a little bit, and was considering calling it youtube and bed when ED called. Hadn't talked to her in a while, so we had a nice heart-2-heart conversation for two hours. Then the folks from home called, and we talked for another 40 minutes, which took my 'phone time' to almost three hours. I was exhausted, and so ready to sleep, it wasn't hard to fall asleep.

Did the pre-sleep exercise I was recommended, and went to sleepland real quick.

Rice and veggies lunch, super-sandwich dinner, killer heat stops me going out, new person to talk [Mon 21]

 For brunch I cooked up some rice, and had it with half of the remainder of the veggies I'd cooked over the weekend. It was yum, so filling. The first time I cooked rice in the apartment, which means I'm settled down in this place guys.

Didn't go anywhere outside the house during the course of the day, because there was a lot to write, but the heat was intolerable, so freakin' burning, it would have been extremely unpleasant to step out of thehouse Apparently there's a 'heat dome' coming to this part of the country and extreme temperature such as this day are going to be more common. That's a big fat bummer because I'm extremely unprepared to deal with the heat.

During work, got myself a new super helpful EAP person to talk to. A, who's a replacement for S from Boston, is super outcome-focused, and gave me the ten most amazing tips to deal with life world and everything, and come out of it bright and glowing. It was extremely helpful.

Wrote a bunch in the evening, napped, just chilled around. In the evening made heavily buttered toast in the pan, made PB&B sandwiches out of those, and it was so freakin' yummy, the second time I had this sandwich in three days.

Checked Clubhouse again, discovered it was actually quite disturbing, and quit it for reals, for good.

Clubhouse convos, bus to Belltown, I save myself, packing A's place, unpacking at storage, Thai dinner, hang at B's, trainride home [Sun 20]

 Not fully recovered from the days and nights before, I slept in. Setup my clubhouse fully, talked in Yd's channel, setup a couple more channels and listened to them and thought there might be something in there after all.

Around 11, called A and checked if there was any help he still needed, and he asked me to come. Got a bus to his place, without getting lunch or anything.

Turns out they had ended up not really moving much the night before besides the couch, which meant I had the opportunity to take back the backstabbing I did the night before. Worked hard at packing his apartment into a U-Haul truck. Worked for two hours, then we chilled at his rooftop, the amazing one with mindblowing scenery for what could have been the last time ever. End of an era.

Two of us drove in the UHaul to the storage place, A and I took uber. There we spend another two hours unpacking and arranging the items in their storage space, which was already half-full with B's belongings. Retrieved some commonly-used items such as vacuum, wood steamer, and basic kitchen implements for my apartment.

We went to a local restaurant called Buddha Brudda for dinner, which A got for us. It was so filling, after a long hard day of not having had anything before. It was all of us, nobody else had had anything over the course of the day, so we savored our meal. Need to write about this place a bit more, because never before have I seen a restaurant quite as popular or in demand, and it wasn't entirely super cheap either. I'm impressed!

After that we went to B's place where we put the remainder of the items that we're going to retrieve for our apartments in the foreseeable future (since B was going to be out of town for a while). Talked to his friend V (though the initial might be wrong) who told us stories about things done in the back of a Uhaul truck, and a GMC store with firemen. Plus I got sparkly water, a watermelon gigglies. Also played with two chubby huskies, owned by V, and now I'm starting to think owning a Husky in Seattle weather is not a good idea since they shed so much.

Took an uber to the nearby train stop, got off at my neighborhood and walked home in the evening.

Listened to a bunch of more Clubhouse stories etc, and discovered maybe it's not for me, considered deleting it forever.

Early morning wake, walk to the car, drive to Mt. Rainier, failure, multiple stops and hike, lost, audiobook return, Mexican restaurant dinner [Sat 19]

 Got up early, ready for the Mt. Rainier hike. Walked over to G's place, their doggo A wasn't coming with us this time around, so it was just the three of us.

We drove out of town for an hour before stopping for 30 minutes so the car could charge. Beyond that the drive was decently uneventful. As Mt. Rainier got closer, it was amazing to realize that it was the closest I'd ever gotten to a real-life mountain peak despite being from Nepal, the folks gave me some shit for that.

After driving all the way to the top of the mountain we discovered they didn't have empty parking spaces, and waiting for 20 minutes didn't help. So we decided to not go any forward and pause on the hiking plans. Instead, we'd visit all the cool cute little places around the mountain. Took a bunch of photos from as close as we could, and drove down.

Stopped at about maybe a dozen places on our way down the mountain. So many glaciers, glacier-caused river diversions, amazing waterfalls and fast-flowing whitewater rivers. It was amazing. Our small hikes were bookended by our attempt to hike this short half-mile trail where we got lost in a thick forest, couldn't find the trail and had to return back the way we got in. The trees here are massive, hundreds of feet long, when they go down, it's almost like walking on an unending bridge. Thanks to the fertile volcanic ash and soil, they should try growing Italian tomatoes in these lands and see how close we can get to their export-quality stuff.

Listened to a bit of Ayoade's "On top" audiobook, until the guys were too freaked out by the insane traffic.

Back in S town, we went to a Mexican restaurant nearby G's place. It was a pretty decent place, we got simple cheesy tortillas, a lemonade each, and split an avocado dip among the three of us. It was twenty-five bucks all things included. Maaan, eating out in Seattle is expensive.

Walked back home very tired, called A to check if he needed help with moving, no response, so set up clubhouse, listened to a tonne of podcasts, and slept. Not having had proper sleep in the past three days, I very much wanted to get some sound sleep before the end of the weekend.

Haircut, mushrooms and greens dinner, massive post-dinner snack, party at S's, meeting new people, alternate plans and backstabbing friends, early escape [Fri 18]

After work went to the local barbery and got a pretty decent haircut, though I've been thinking about it lately and you know what it's not too hard to tell a cheap haircut from a nice one. Also, I showered before the haircut and after, so I'm really taking advantage of the all-you-can-use bathroom which I have all for myself, ALL MINE MUAHAHAH.

Wrote a bunch, and cut about a pound of oyster mushrooms, sauteed them a bunch, threw in sichuan pepper, hot sauces, soy sauce, green onion, and bok choy in the end. It was a fantastic dinner, I could eat it every day. Though after some time I realized there might be need to drink a little bit at S' place where I was going late at night, so made myself a snack. Which involved pan 'toasting' three slices of bread in an inch of butter, slathering peanut butter between the slices, and pressing banana in there. This massive super-fatty sandwich tasted amazing, filled me up real good in case I had to drink. Oh also, I smoked after eating, so I was worried I'd get hungrier, glad that didn't happen.

At S's place it was mostly the regular gang, my farmer look went to waste. Didn't drink because the person or persons one would have found to be the best person with their name weren't there. However I did meet friend T, who's friend of N, and roommate of T who I'd met the night before. We got into this massive practical joke where we'd give shit to S, the host, by teasing him about the new friend he'd be having over. S had two people coming over late in the night. We gave them a surprise party. The friend also happened to be a partner of A, who was T's classmate. The cake was triple chocolate, not too shabby.

Didn't end up drinking, and got a bit too high. Didn't get to socialize as much as I'd hoped to because I was mildly paranoid. During the day G had texted me asking if I was interested in going to Mt. Rainier the following day and I'd said yes. Which was a bummer because I'd also promised to help A out with his move. So I had to tell A that I'd be unable to help hm the following day, felt really bad, but on the other hand I'd gotten into a really bad miscommunication situation by missing out on a hangout I'd help organize by getting the timezones wrong. So I couldn't have said no to this, and also Mt. Rainier was always a good opportunity.

Left the party early, and tried to go to sleep on time so I'd get up early and full of energy the next morning.

Amazing morning noodles, walk to Belltown, farewell party, youtube troubles, meetin' new people [Thu 17]

For brunch I made amazing noodles with shredded carrot, enoki mushroom, green onion, bokchoy, sesame seed oil, hot chilly oil and eggs. Very, very filling, took me a long while to finish it, made me think I might want to take it easy with the noodles, not because they're unhealthy but because they're becoming a vehicle for too much nutrition into my body.

Afternoon after work I bought a pound-size bar of chocolate from TJ's and walked to Belltown to A's place. Uneventful walk. It was to be the farewell party for A's younger brother A, who's going back to his collegetown.

A and his other brother A made incredible rice, dal, golbheda ko achar and green veggies. Meat-eaters also made the spicy pork belly that A (friend) made, I tried a piece and it was great but then it is quite hard to mess such things.

In the party there was the three of us, plus to of A's sibs, plus BB, PK, and then TS, who works locally and acquired an abode, hadn't met him in a really long time. We hung out in the room for couple of hours before getting down in the room, fun conversations about the world of finance were had. I got inspired to maybe switch tracks as well, career-wise.

When all was done, it was midnight localtime and PK kindly offered me a ride back home in his fancy car. We talked about friends, future plans and weekend things to do (they were going on a camping trip) during the 10-minute ride.

Too tired to write or function, I fell asleep immediately.

Complicated breakfast sandwich, walk to the park hang with the bois, doggy play, driven home [Wed 16]

 I write this exactly a week after this day because I got too lazy, etc. etc, but now all caught up shuddup already.

For breakfast I made two large omlets with onion and mushroom. Had that between two slices of pan-toasted bread, covered in ketchup, sliced carrots and radish. It was great except the radish was mayybe  bit too strong. It tasted and smelled only of radish. And the entire apartment smelled like radish for the following two days.

After work I set out to walk to sculpture park, let the boys know I was gunna be there if they were free to meet me up. On the way stopped by some store, and then target. Waited or A to come back to his place because I needed to use the restroom. From there we walked to the park and met up S and the doggo. I've written about this before haven't I because it feels like I have. Anywho. Doggo M played with a bunch of other friends, and the older doggies didn't seem to pay much attention to her sadly.

We spent a few hours hanging and chillin'. Because the walk back was almost 45 minutes, and it was already quite late at night, I got a lift from S, who dropped me at my place. Wrote a bit after that, ate whatever, and went to sleep. So tired.

Grocery list Jun 23

• Toilet cleaner
• Fruits
• Laundry detergent
• Saran wrap
• Aluminum foil
• Read up more on how the Britney situation pans out
• Nice shoes for the engagement
• Garbage bags
• Chickpea
• Quinoa
• Canned tomato puree
• Large bell jars
• Cheesecloth
• Sweet rice
• Amylase from asian store
• Yeast
  

Free Britney

Yeah, I mean, pretty awful things, even if one is severely ill, one does not deserve their reproductive rights and disability rights taken away by people meant to be protecting them. It's messed up, man. Get the fucking father out of the picture already, world, this is truly horrible.

Some thief's logbook, probably

4.55am:
I'm all ready in my getup. A dark jacket, long workman-like trousers and heavy boots. Shiny yellow windcheater on the outside, and a very durable hard hat on top. Put on my gloves, just to make sure nobody gives me suspicious looks, and a nonsensical ID card showing, just to scare of those nosey Nellies.

5.05am:
Near the target region. Traffic is low, nobody seems to be unreasonably interested in what I'm up to. I'll scope the area for a few minutes before taking out the equipment and getting on the job.

5.07:
Fuck, I forgot to bring the bag to carry all of the acquired materials. Geeeez, now I gotta go back, fuck, I should get better at this sort of thing. I should really have made a checklist like they told me to, but nooo I had to be overconfident and tell them that any idiot would be able to remember the basics. Egg on my face now, alas.

5.22:
Phew. I'm sweating and panting, but at least the sun's not out fully yet, still room for me to maneuver where I want to be. Right, morning joggers are running about now why do they have to do that, can't they sleep peacefully during the weekend, get drunk in the evenings and sleep late and not bother honest working people from accomplishing their tasks. Gotta try to not look shifty, the team told me my eyes could communicate that I was in the mood for thievery to the least suspecting person, gotta have a more calm look.

5.25:
Just thought of something. This is a wonderful time to be doing this work, with the pandemic and all, nobody will suspect a thing. And they won't be able to tell me it was me, with the mask and the cap, I'll be lost in the night like a shadow.

5.41:
Just as I had sat down to begin the extraction, the stupid trash trucks showed up. Now they're creating this mayhem and the neighbors are pissed. The sun's gonna be out soon, this may have to be delayed, the folks are going to give me a really hard time.

5.47:
Fuck me, the sun's out, the partiers are coming out of their after-parties, all eager and suspicious and anxious, there's no way I can work among these turds. And one of them threw up right where I was planning to situate myself to do the uhhh.extraction. This is some shit. Get your lives together, people, workout and drink a lot of water. Why do I have to pay for these hosers' healthcare system, I don't want to be contributing towards kidney correcting surgeries for these assholes who suck the rest of us dry, let me tell you what...

...

6.09:
Oops, got a little distracted there, with the previous post, and now the street cleaners are roaming. Ah well, it was a good recon project, gonna be back tomo.

Finally so close to settling in the new place

Have started making rice and veggies on a regular basis, tomato-based sauces, leftovers for multiple meals, cooking while I work, and doing the dishes much closer to using them. I feel like I'm finally settling down in the new places.

Some things remain. Still need to work on four large laser-cut pieces of decoration that are to go on the walls of my living room. A wall of plants by the window to hide the emptiness of the apartment, but also to muffle sounds and suppress the echo in the apartment is pending as well. Two plants -- both succulents -- have made themselves at home in the apartment, and are just now beginning to thrive.

Which means I'm about ready to get bored of the situation and explore new projects. My fermentation and brewing projects await. The indoor DIY fountains are the first 'new' greenfield project I'll be taking, and it'll be my exploration into the new-hobby territory.

Used books will be acquired, and so will empty bell jars for my creations and experiments to live in. Maybe a nice loud bluetooth speaker to hang somewhere because the loudest noisemaker right now is my work laptop and it doesn't feel right playing music in it.

Things are settling down, three weeks into moving in.

As for what is new and different, let me start with the neighborhood, obviously. Everything's here, my grocery trips are lot shorter. Not in a bad way, it means I can carry even fewer items on my daily trips, if that is even possible. I've gotten used to the sounds of the city, and sleep comes more easily amidst the...and I say this in the most loving way possible...raucous.

I haven't hosted anybody yet. Folks have come by, but I'm not yet confident of my cleaning and hosting skills...or my cooking skills for that matter but not as worried there I just pretend to be more interested in 'experimental cooking' and that kinda gets rid of the complainers...enough to have people over. And how would I even entertain them, without a television or a sound system? Speaking of which, a smallish television is on the way here, from A's place in the coming weekends, along with a bunch of nifties from his place. Gonna make my life much easier, those things.

Generally though, I'm hoping to avoid collecting more things. It's not a permanent move, and the command to come back to regular location can come down any week. One hopes such things are avoidable, but when push comes to shove, aren't we mere dead leaves in the river that is life, pushed around by boulders and diversions?

Anyway. I uh got distracted there for a moment.

Where I was going was, I'm gonna be RULE-ing soon. Watch out.

Sometimes I wonder...how I don't run out of ideas

It's strange isn't it?

Every day I'm blathering on about some thing or another, for the last two years I've gone more-or-less uninterrupted. I've repeated yea but not exactly, I can just go on and on and on, talk about something or other. Wonderful how one can just write and not run out of ideas. Wherever these things come from, there's gotta be a limit, a sort of 'bucket' where after it's run out, there's only empty rumbles. A drip here and a drop there.

Or perhaps. There's no fountain or spout out of the bucket, only drips. These aren't high-quality prose worthy of reading, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that this particular bucket has always been empty (and thus it makes such loud noises) and what we're getting here is drip drip drips of creativity because that's all there is to it.

When I do truly run out of ideas though, this is what I do. As in, this, right now what you're reading is what I type. Complaints about being unable to write, wondering about how awesome I am, and just wasting time and internet space. Because really, the brain fogs for a while, there's nothing good running about. No tales of rabbits going on wild tales, no historical fiction, no strange animals fornicating with one another to produce abhorrent chimera, no no no none of the fun nonsense. Only navelgazing here. Gaze, gaze gaze at one's own navel and wonder about the things that could be.

Is it possible to teach creativity, or is one born with it? Can empty buckets learn to fill themselves up and pour out a steady stream of quality content (that's what literature is called in the third decade of the twenty-first century boys and girls) for the world to consume (aka old-timey 'read') or are they only good for making loud noises and scaring away critters like stray dogs and cats, maybe a wild animal sometimes. A monkey here and there when a lone individual finds himself bored by the pashupati neighborhood.

These put me to sleep, can't imagine how terrible it must be upon my readers. Genuinely though. Started writing yesterday, made it to like what five posts, and such strong urge to sleep, it was intolerable. Saddest part is I didn't even fall asleep, it was just the body's defence mechanism to avoid producing or consuming any sort of content resembling this. No worthy cause to have lost the habit for.

Socializing should be energizing, it should trigger ideas and make you want to create more interesting, colorful and perhaps even wild characters. It sounded like my brother though, the one who's been coming to my place lately, one of the few reasons I actually moved to the new land. It's often not, which sucks because I want to be in a place to be making new friends and funnies, but also be writing like a famous author. Wish my aspirations were actively listed. I do ant to be a safe and secure person, none of that bullshitting about a of this!

Oooo looky here, it's been two years, two uninterrupted years of writing

Two June's ago, in 2019 I wrote a blogpost here. And then another. And another. The next month I wrote a few more. The following month, which was August, I wrote a lot more, 29 to be exact. September was 60, October was a freakin' hundred. That's how it started, this madness, this undying need, desire, compulsion to write. Write, just write, no matter, find out some free time and use that to write. Write to define yourself, write to discover yourself. Write to improve writing -- hahah that never happened unfortunately.

Here we are now, two years later. It feels fuckin' fantastic. I've kept at this consistently for all this time. And not just that, in respectable volumes. I've had lows and highs, but never too far away, and the machine has kept chugging along. This is a marathon, to use the sick ole' metaphor, and the journey goes on. Nobody stop me!

Where to from here? I'm still angling for a book, at some point soon, though ideas are easy to come by, the execution remains hidden. Or should I say, I appear to choose to not execute on the 'bookwriting' idea, though I desperately wanna. So that's on the table. 

And the 'blind date' review series, they're a-coming, dotcha worry too much my babies.

I'd promise, normally that I'd get my shit together, improve my writing, edit better, all of that BS, but lets be real, we don't want big fat liars here. Which is not to say I'm not going to do any of that, just that no more promises that I might be unable to keep in the future.

I'll get back to regular fiction writing, that's on the cards, soon. Like 'this week' soon, not in an indeterminate period in the future.

But like, lots of good things are happening, and have happened, and I've stuck around thick and thin with this blog. Fifteen years long. Ain't too shabby huuh.

Happy happy.

Recipe for a very wild weekend for some people and their friends

Ingredients

- 3 boys, ideally in late teens
- 3 girls, same age-group as above
- 2 motorbikes
- 1 very old maruti 800 which won't drive uphill without being pushed
- 1 Big lie about a 'school trip'
- 18 bottles of beer
- 2 large bottles of vodka
- 1 hotellier, far too honest for his own good
- 7 corrupt cops, hungry for bribes
- 2 hotel rooms
- 1 police raid
- 1 local goon with connections to the top
- 1 ride to the thaana in the back of a truck
- 1 call
- 1 family-related favor
- 2 big lies about where everybody was
- 12gm of psychadelic mushrooms
- 1 confusing, paranoia-filled, day
- 0 orgasms
- [to taste] attempts at consensual sex-having
- 1 alien observation
- 1 religious discovery
- 1 attempt at acquiring 'harder' drugs
- 1 very heavy rainfall
- 4 disappointed individuals

Recipe:

Combine the ingredients, cover your ears and wait for the big boom.

Letter to the local chief

Inspired by IT Crowd.

TO: Who it may concern

Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm writing this to report an ongoing robbery attempt at 3 Main Street in Downtown, third floor. I am composing this on a cellphone from a safe closet with brightness turned low on my phone so as to avoid being discovered.

This evening I found myself under interesting circumstances. Because I went on a hiking trip during the course of the day, I was quite tired and ready to fall asleep. However in my rush for relaxation I compromised on the most basic security measure of all time, closing the door. As I slept on my bed, I chose to not turn on the lights, so as to assist in my sleep.

It was then that I heard to voices whistling and rustling downstairs. I was too fearful to check up physically, so I used the security app on my cellphone to check the cameras downstairs, and it was clear that there were two gentlemen sitting comfortably unaware I had been back home for some time, packing away my valuables into cardboard boxes. I could have interrupted them, quizzed them on what they were doing chewing down my nice leather material, but it didn't seem like a good time, with all those heavy weapons on them and what not.

Oh and strangest o all things, there was already a home invading criminal present in the building but I guess the height of the other bs was soo great, everybody missed out on the other party.

In any case, I took that opportunity to hide myself in the bedroom closet -- it's a hidden entry that I doubt those idiot thieves will find out. I looked up the number to your local police constabulary, and encountered the email ID instead, so I figured I'd provide a live running commentary, and give you all to communicate back higher-level conformation.

Therefore, HELP HELP HELP, THERE'S ROBBERS HERE AND THEY'RE STEALIN EVERYTHING. HELP HELP HELP.

Sincerely,
RW

Somehow I find myself in an advisory position for relationships

I'm in an unenviable position, lemme tell you that. I claim absolutely no expertise, special knowledge, experience or skillset in this domain. And yet time after time people come to me for advice, I tell them to do the most reasonable thing, often that's the first thing they would have done anyway, and when it all works out, they come to me for more advice. It's a never ending cycle.

There's little joy in it, you're always putting yourself in a dangerous position. If things work out, the upside is not too great, you'll get a small thanks and perhaps more work exposing yourself to greater danger in the future. And if it doesn't workout, they'll blame you for their ailments, put you on the pointy end for bad things that happened to them because of you, even if they had nothing to do with the advice. You'll be held responsible for everything awful that has happened in the history of them

It's a risky proposition, becoming somebody holding an advisory position vis-a-vis relationships.

And here I am, chugging along. The only way to do it is to disclaim all responsibility right from the start, tell people that you will absolutely not be held liable if things go south. And give them options and the way they could pan out. You could do this, one would say, except such and such are the outcomes that might not be in your favor, are you ready to accept the possibility you might have to shower in a bathtub full of ice for the next three years if you do this? Because if you don't want that, it would not be advisable to do it.

You're offering advice, but not committing to anything, just showing them the plethora of options and combinations of choices that will shape their relationships. Often this allows them to take greater control of their partnerships, without transferring the blame over to you. Really, you're not in the business of giving advice here, you're in the business of empoering people enough to make their own goshdarned decisions, and holding you as the mentor who guided them in the journey of decisionmaking.

Parting comments on Covid etcetera.

In most urban, coastal states, Covid appears to be ending. Positivity rates in Massachusetts are in the range of 0.3% and falling, with fewer than 50 people testing positive each day, the number is again going down by the day. Total number of hospitalized patients in the state were at about a hundred, which means most new cases aren't serious. The vaccination numbers look really good. The state has removed all the covid-related restrictions and emergencies.

Washington state isn't there yet, exactly, thanks to the large rural, alternative-reality based population in the Eastern part of the state, but they're on the way. The restrictions are to be lifted about two weeks from now, which seems like a decent option. Other larger, severely infected states such as California and New York have mostly opened, so it only makes sense. Gods save Florida and a bunch of other states that haven't been sufficiently vaccinated because aggressive strains that don't give an efff about your political affiliations seem to be gaining a foothold. The delta and gamma variants.

Outside the US, it's not too great. Europe is several months away from fully-vaxxed. Japan might never open up looking at their current trajectory, with a large population of anti-vax population combined with their xenophobia and the lack of interest in opening up tot he rest of the world.

India is...unclear...on what their opening strategy is. They're not going to be vaccinated in the necessary numbers to be fully open in the foreseeable future despite producing and vaccinating in huge numbers. They don't have a clear lockdown strategy. I'm imagining there's still a few more waves to go before things slow down.

And Nepal...is...going to be in a very tough place. There aren't enough vaccines for...ever. They're going to be opening soon. But what happens when things are back to 'normal'? How will they enforce social distancing? It's not clear. Lots of deaths, many in our extended family as well. Every family has had a few of those. Nobody believes the official numbers, officially, it's almost like a joke at this point. There's weddings in November/December, even if the gc situation worked out, unclear if I want to commit into going there. Because what if I get stuck? ED is not going because of potential health concerns for the baby.

I hope, hope, that this is going to be my last Covid update, at least for the U.S. Another half-year or so for the rest of the world, and we'll find ourselves in much more stable footing. Fingers crossed.

Frequently asked questions about the three-headed doggo on the doorway

Q: May we feed it bread and other treats?
A: Absolutely not! As explained in the headmaster's speech, it's an incredibly powerful and wild being, unable to distinguish friend from foe, old from young, harmful from harmless. It will, without a moment of consideration, eat your hand, as well your entire body along with the treats you're offering, make no mistake.

Q: Is it okay to pet the doggy?
A: He is a four-tonne magical beast with unknown strength and a serious temper. That said, if you have magically extended your hands and can guarantee that his leash won't get as far as you, feel free to go wild. He does love tummy rubs!

Q: Can he go to the dog park?
A: Unfortunately, due to the threat that might be perceived by other dogs, and the safety and wellbeing of all the parties involved, particularly those who are not us, it would be a tedious expedition at the very best to take  him to the dog park. In short, no.

Q: How old is he?
A: It's unclear, but he's been known to have made the rounds of the English countryside in the 1880's, going off of which we can comfortably say he's 150 years in the least. He is a magical creature, if you didn't already know.

Q: What breed is he?
A: He's a cross between Demonic Hellhound, a japanese Spitch and a Tibetan Mastif.

Q: Do you take him out on walks, he looks bored?
A: We do on occasion take him out on walks, though it's important to not make him get used to it. Because of his size, the logistics of walking out in the open with him are not simple, so a lot of challenges have to be taken care of before he's ready to go out.

Q: Do you plan on breeding him?
A: Maybe, depending on if he finds a partner of a compatible breed.

Q: Can I get one of the babies if you don't want them?
A: Sure, why not!

No, no, big brother's not watching you at all

 You are thoroughly mistaken if you think big brother is watching you. It's such a ridiculous idea even, to think the government would even care about watching you. Big brother don't give an eff about you hoser, auright, with all those enemies of the state plotting things and the wars going on. Bro's got a tight sched.

Ohh yeah, what, lol you think all those private companies collecting information is all big brother? Lol get a life okay it's just consensual business transaction between two parties, one of whom has complete information regarding the use of the shared data, the legal limits of how the data can be squeezed out of every last cent, and the other party who's just desperate to watch a cute cat video who doesn't care that they just signed away all their memories and cherished conversations with the click of a very aggressively written button. Two fully-informed consenting parties who know perfectly what they are signing up for, and there's no reason to worry about such things, whatsoever. If you stop that, you'd be stopping all businesses and transactions between all parties, forever, we wouldn't want to do that, would we?

And besides, there are rules, and laws, that limit the power of the government. The government can't just snoop on you at its whim, somebody has to make a case for it, they have to file a petition for a search warrant, a judge has to find that there's a good case for you to be tapped of your information, and then using the very limited jurisprudence provided by the court governments, they will tap on your communication. Not a byte of data beyond what is strictly required of the case, okay, get your aluminum foil hat off, dummers.

Oh what about that? You're saying the government shouldn't be allowed to do business with private businesses? Are you a communist or what? If the government can be let to buy nuts and bolts from companies owned by private citizens, if the state is able to purchase various physical equipment and materials, why should they not be allowed to purchase digital information. Just like physical documents but with fewer trees dying, omg do you hate trees and the environment? Government should be encouraged to buy more digital materials, alright!? This is good for all of us!

I mean, yeah, might some of those information involve the things the government might be interested in, with regards to compromising your privacy? Yes. Are there legal hurdles to stopping that? Suspiciously, no. Is it functionally no difference from the big brother putting eyes and ears in your apartment, doing massive data analysis on every single point from your life, including your moods, motivations, your heart rate, your physical status, your relationship status and everything else there is to know about you, perhaps even more than you know about yourself? Absolutely not. But come on, why would anybody do that! That's just...waste of money.

So, no, nobody is watching you, the big brother is certainly not, you're just a part of capitalist system where you pay various companies with data, and they sell other companies ads but also get you incredibly powerful information and resources for free. Isn't that such a great deal? Stop complaining and just move along, alright? You don't want us to reveal what you've been searching on the dirty sites, publicly, do ya? ;)

Hell hath broken loose: The Nepali clubhouse scene

 I joined Clubhouse --  the (now) popular radio broadcasting app that you can't record audio using, or do anything else, besides doing public podcasts -- the other day because YD asked me to, she had an online meeting thing, and wanted me to join the panel just to think out aloud if nothing else.

And it was...alright? The group was mostly persons in their mid-to-late thirties talking about how marriage is not a big deal at all, and you don't need to get married, you do you man. Etcetera. Obviously it was all the singles, mostly, so one could safely imagine this as a coping mechanism. There were also a few other folks, folks who were already married and were kinda' not sure where the life was going, wondering if they should have made other life choices, explored other possibilities and looked into a different way of life. But they had a kid and it was an arranged marriage and nobody can blame other people entirely for the situation they find themselves in, in those specific social circumstances. Still, there are brave people out there who despite the shitty hand dealt to them by life will keep fighting on, on and on and on, until they're beaten black and blue, and still go on because giving up means giving up on life, and they're born fighters. Envy is the only word I can use to describe them...I envy them, that they have the gumption to speak out and talk about their issues despite the complicated set of circumstances they find themselves in. I wish I could write on this more.

YD's group had like 30 people at one point, and I saw a former miss Nepal (!), somebody who I thought back in the day was superduper cute and wrote about her too, briefly jump in and out. Probably the closest encounter I've had with her. She cute though. Looks like S. Gomez.

In any case, because the conversation got wayyyy heavier than I was expecting, I was jumping around between it and a 'movie review' conversation hosted by somebody I used to know from back in the day. Mostly them and their friends, but there were like 15 people max there, just discussing this random movie. It was interesting to see.

And then. In the evening I was recommended a group, and it was terrible. A 'come single, go double' sort of events featuring hundreds of young girls and boys in Nepal, hosted by a couple of creepy dudes in the bay area, who were pretty clearly using the platform as a filter for themselves to get to know more women. And I'm sure it works out for everybody because the girls want to be a part of it too, but still feels a bit gross, you organize a 'dating show' and then become contestants on every round, daily, and get yourselves dozens of women. Didn't seem right, my mind was already blown.

That was until...I heard of the other...shows. Hundreds of young men and women, all um..on the hormed side, doing public voice-based sexual performance, a mass orgy of horny young voices dirty-talking with each other. I'm glad I actually never joined the room, just looked at the name of the group and deleted my account, uninstalled the app and told everybody who's ever replied to my texts about what a wild and crazy world it is out there on Clubhouse.

Things be wild, yo, dunno how it's gonna go.