Weekend Report

Yes, it’s time for yet another weekend report.

Twas a busy but good weekend.

Saturday: Aikido practice (2 hours), nap, lunch, drove to Fort Worth to see our friend John’s band play. Great show. Having talented friends is really a good thing.

Sunday: Breakfast with friends William and Katie, then we played D&D all afternoon.

Tomorrow the War on Ignorance continues.

I love this little dog

Having never had a dog before, my wife and I had no real idea the grip he would have on our hearts. We thought oh we really love him. But we had no idea the depth. It’s hard being away from him during the day at work. Whenever we both leave the house it’s hard to even do that, because we want him with us. The joy this little being radiates is absolutely unstoppable.

cute little sheltie dog
Riley on one of our many walks.

A trip to the movies

Normally we see movies at the local Alamo Drafthouse theater, here in Richardson (normally I would link to them, but as you’ll see I don’t think they are link-worthy anymore). Last year (or was it the year before?), the franchise owner for a bunch of Alamo locations shut our theater and some other locations down. They were reopened by Alamo corporate, which I suppose is now owned by Sony Pictures. The auditoriums were remodeled in such a way as to enshittify the movie-going experience. We used to enjoy going there for dinner and a movie, but the food it noticeably worse now. Some is actively horrible. And it is a lot more expensive. We went to a movie there a few weeks ago and noticed that the pre-movie experience is also worse. It all seems more corporate (because it is). It feels like what once had a living, shining soul is now a dead carcass that thinks it’s still alive, but still…

…still it is better than the experience of of going to a huge “normal” theater chain.

Last night we went to see Becoming Led Zeppelin at a nearby AMC megalo-maximo-giganto-plex. At the concession stand you pick your order on a touch screen and pay with a card. It spits out a receipt with an order number. Eventually a person working in the concession mine behind the “stand” puta your order up and you are summoned to get it. If they could make you prepare your own shit, they would. I’m sure that’s on the way.

Once in our seats we were immediately bombarded with advertising, “movie trivia”, and then more advertising, all designed to keep the attention of a society of people who can no longer stand the be alone with the horror of their own thoughts.

Then the lights dimmed slightly and we were shown previews of coming films (all of which look horrible. Sorry. I know I’m complaining. This is complaint-worthy.), as well as AMC (American Multi Cinema) propaganda, demonstrations of the sound system, etc.

This went on for at least 25 or 30 minutes. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to start freaking out. I’m not kidding. I really wanted to see this movie, but had I not been with my wife I think I would have left. The pre-movie torture session really was that bad. I honestly – no joke here – thought “maybe this will never end.”

The movie was, however, great and made up for the water-boarding we took beforehand. I mean c’mon – Led Zeppelin. The greatest rock band of all time. Totally worth it. It all sounded great. The interviews with the surviving band members were great.

Weekend Report

OK, it was a pretty normal weekend. Walked the dog. We have been watching a lot of MST3K on Twitch since the Orange Shitbag took office. There’s only so much chaos we can take.

We had a fun D&D game on Sunday. We’ve been playing almost every Sunday afternoon, and it has been nice for everyone to escape into a world where you can actively seek out and kill evil.

Aikido for two hours on Saturday morning is really good but also very taxing. I’m in good shape now, but truth is I am 60 years old now and I just can’t run myself as hard as I did 10 or 15 years ago, but I still try, and it’s keeping me kind of depleted. Practicing on Monday and Wednesday nights until 8:30, then Saturday 10am-noon, plus full time work, plus maintaining the rest of life is a lot. And I haven’t been been skateboarding in weeks. And I’ve not been reading. So I need to find a new balance for some of these things. Reprioritizing things. I want to have more energy to do fun things with my wife, to help with some of the meal planning and cooking, etc.

I know that the winter is not helping. Gray, wet, cold days are a bummer, and they seep into the brain. It’s not good. I must also admit that as devoted as I am to the idea of not letting the activities of Orange Shitbag and his dirtbag henchmen ruin my/our life, the feeling of chaos in the country is hard to escape. It creates a background haze of anxiety even when you aren’t paying attention. When you do “tune in” for a few minutes a day to make sure everything hasn’t been destroyed yet (why? I don’t know, because there’s not a fucking thing I can do about what’s going on except carry on being a reasonably good person) the background anxiety leaps to the foreground. Also not good.

My wife asked me over the weekend how to use RSS feeds to follow blogs. She want to spend more time reading blogs and actual quality websites than using social media, which I think is a good idea. Thinking I might offer to do a quick n dirty webinar for friends  who want to see how it works. Might help people escape the shit silos.

That’s all for now.