SEP 07

2024

Saturday: while I was able to do a few trade sanctions emails today, I spent a lot more of my time helping with chat support requests. I accidentally slept through the first half of my lunch break, but I was still able to eat the first 25% of my week's salad supply before I ran out of time. Near the end of my shift, Julie heated up the very last of the spinach curry, which I had to eat in a hurry before it was time for us to leave. After yesterday's experience, we decided to put on jeans and bring jackets, along with the ponchos I bought and our other supplies.

For our second concert in as many days, we took a ride share to the ferry opposite the Adventure Aquarium. There's a little restaurant at Penn's Landing, just past the "Workshop on the Water". I've been clicking around the building corner in street view, and the place definitely didn't exist in 2016, but in 2022, they've completely overhauled the building and replaced the concrete walls with glass windows and doors. I want to try eating there sometime.

Just past the restaurant, the concert attendees were swarming, and the rain was drizzling enough that we had our hoods up. The stormy weather had a big upside for us as the ferry made the crossing: we saw the most vivid double rainbow of my life to our east as we all disembarked. The camera doesn't do it justice: those hues were saturated, and it was remarkable to see how bright the sky was inside the arch compared to the sky outside it.

We made our way through security and got our blanket set up about 75% of the way up the slope, right in the middle, which was a huge improvement over our position at the Mann, since we could see both screens and the stage itself. I pointed out that we should try to position ourselves directly behind other people with blankets so as to avoid sitting behind chairs, and this paid off for us. During one of the openers (Soft Echo), I flagged down a wandering popcorn salesman to buy Julie a box to snack on, and I went to pick up a slice of pepperoni pizza before the Killers went on stage. While I recognized a lot of the music, this was the first time I'd seen the lead singer, Brandon Flowers, and he was an energetic and upbeat performer. The band's video screen employed a lot of striking imagery (a spinning astronaut, faces maintaining eye contact, classical statues with psychedelic lighting, etc.), which is probably what made this performance a little more rewarding than the bands from yesterday.

It was a long walk back to the ferry and then to our ride share back home. Since the chili goes in the slow cooker, I had to brown the meat tonight before I went to bed. Now that I've prepared this update, I'm going to do that.

2023

Thursday: playing FFXIV before bed, I was able to finish the four Asphodelos raids in Endwalker, which surprised me because of how much fun I was having with them. Every time I've done a non-Ivalice or non-NieR raid series in prior expansions, I found myself snoring, but I had no such issues here. I didn't even realize that the achievement for progressing through these raids was titled "Could Be Worse," which was a phrase I became notorious for overusing in high school. I'm enjoying myself.

Staying up so late meant I slept in. In my dreams this morning, all of our travel plans coalesced into a single cruise. Family members and meetup friends would be there. I struggled to coordinate everyone's arrival at ports and boarding, often at my own expense. Sometimes, circumstances required me to revisit one of my former residences, and none of these resembled or were located in the places I've actually lived.

I don't want to suggest that I wasted the rest of my day; rest and relaxation have their own value. However, of the goals I set for myself, the only one I accomplished was to take a shower. I spent a lot of time commiserating with cats, and I became invested in a series of youtube videos from a source I woudln't otherwise support, so I won't link them here. Julie got home from her long day out just as I was finishing dinner, and we brought the garbage cans back up from the curb. I didn't even get to watch my weekly Disco Elysium stream because of my inattention, so I'll watch the vod as I do the dishes momentarily.