Tablesaw!

Between having a free night and being mostly done with the big ticket at work, today was so relaxed it almost felt like a weekend.

Last week offered a surprising amount of new music for me, which I discovered as I looked for something to play while working:

• Temple Songs is nice, but has unusually short songs. "Arc Still Bends" is a little cringe, but I liked most of the album.
• Lost Weekend is cool. I've already been enjoying the single "Lost Boys" for a bit, but on a first listen a lot of the album seems indistinguished.
• Alien Metal is weird, and a strong hit for me from KLGL. It looks like it'll be another good focus album for me. I can't tell if "Level 5" is subtly referencing Rez.

As I was in the garage collecting trash, I realized that a car door had been left open, with the overhead light on, since yesterday afternoon. So even though it was after midnight and almost everything in town was closed, I headed out for a little drive to recharge the battery just in case. Picked up a shake at In-N-Out to justify the trip just a bit.

Relaxing day for the most part. Got to sleep in and putter around the house. Spent a little time putting back in work for the time I was interrupted this week. Tried the Dave's Hot Chicken in town, which was decent. Biked to the theater for the first time since getting sick.

Performance went better tonight. We expected another small house, but got more walk-ups than expected. Still not huge, but the difference between one dozen and two dozen is noticeable in a theater that seats eight dozen. Finally got the audience to crack a few laughs in my first scene, managed to get an audible gasp of disgust in Act II, and sold my final exit without nearly bringing down the set. Only hiccup for me was forgetting to make my costume change for I.ii. Had a little trouble focusing on costume tonight in general, almost forgetting to switch into costume shoes as well.

When I went to ride home, my front tire had a flat. I think I know exactly when it happened, too. Luckily the walk home isn't that bad either.

Tomorrow, my parents are at the matinee, and I know I can count on my dad as audible laughter.

An "unofficial" rehearsal today to "run lines," which turned out to be a rough run through of Act I. Maybe a good revisitation because we haven't looked at it for about two weeks. Lines very rusty, blocking forgotten. I had hoped to return to notes A. made when last we worked on it, but realized that they had been lost in the SMS app debacle changing over to Graphene. Reran the scene simply (pretty good on lines), and it refreshed her memory, so I wrote it down again. Y. also asked me to be sleazier. It will be a full sleaze attack on Thursday.

We are now in a final press for the show. Rehearsals continuously before opening (gulp) next week.

Watched a bit more of Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, and am really enjoying it. The tone shift in the second episode is accomplished so effortlessly that I was impressed.

As I continue to recover, Psyche is starting to feel herself succumb. Whatever this bug is, it seems to have an annoyingly long incubation period. But it does mean I'll have the energy to pickup slack, even if I have to pile rehearsals on as well.

More Sudafed and cough syrup, not much change, though Psyche thinks she's getting sick now too. Spent most of the day working on trying to get my Android phone over to GrapheneOS, which limits a lot of the Google surveillance. Things went mostly well, though I misunderstood some of the backup settings, so most of my SMS messaging is locked away in a Google backup. Other than that, I'm slowly reconstructing the phone, doing my best to get things directly from Github rather than going through the sandboxed Google store.

I'm sad that I finally have to say goodbye to Doggcatcher, the podcasting app that I've had for at least a decade. An app that I paid for once for probably about $4. An app that had doggedly provided the simple things that a podcasting app needs to do without complaint. It's been abandoned for a while, and now I couldn't even download it from Google Play if I wanted to. We honor your memory, Doggcatcher, as a app that treated podcasts like just another RSS, instead of a cash cow.

(Backdated: Written 8/1)

Cold continues. No Sudafed, but took a nap in the middle of the day. Proud of being the one at work to pull myself and a colleague out of a nerdspiral of trying to find the cause of a bug that we knew was fixed.

We went out onto the balcony to watch the rocket launch from VSFB, which was a really good one, right at sunset so I'm sure it could be seen all through the region. From where I was standing, it was possible to see the shadows left across the sky by the smoke trail.

Started Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, and looking forward to the rest of the series. Primarily vibes, but I really loved the way the forest was shot to depict very early morning in the snow.

Tried to set an alarm for this morning but messed up and slept in again. So I'm late in the evening with still bad sleep hygiene. My own fault for wanting to watch the Lestat finale. I know they've been releasing the rock tracks, but I really need this season's score to go with the previous seasons.

A little work on lines, a little work on computers. Not enough time in the weekend. I keep promising I'm going to take off a day to just catch up a bit more, as I suspect my PTO usage has been low this year.

Sat down to write an entry, got nerdsniped by some personal technical issues. Still unresolved, but I gotta finish up. Read plays. Had rehearsal.

Busy day at work. The fix from Friday didn't take, and I've been a bit async with getting it updated. Hoping to wake up to resolution after dropping some late-night info. Frustrating, but feels good to have ownership of a thing.

Bought some terrible shirts at Ross for the show. Need to remember to bring them in for review for rehearsal. Still kind of behind on memorization.

Made fried rice using the extra serving of rice from the sushi restaurant last night.

(Backdated: Written 7/12)

Drove down to L.A. to visit with family. Sister's family was already gathering at my parents' house and we joined. The pool was a perfect temperature, so we were swimming from the time we arrived till the food arrived (really excellent pizza). Sister chopped the salad herself, concerned about The Parasite.

While in the pool, I looked up to see a rainbow high in the sky directly above us, formed seemingly only in the humidity of the air and the strange currents of the clouds high in the atmosphere. Within five minutes the sun or the clouds had passed and it was gone.

Watched Argentina vs. Switzerland while we ate the pizza and the olallieberry pie Psyche had picked up at Avila Barn. Only game I've sat down to watch all the way through so far, and probably will for the rest of the Cup. Easier to get invested when others are watching.

At the end of the night, I talked my dad into watching The French Dispatch. Loved it all over again. Rewatching tanked a few theories I had, but it was fun to watch with a closer eye. I really loved the Concrete Masterpiece this time. I'd originally sold it by saying it was divided into parts, so it would be easy for him to stop if he got tired, but it got its hooks in, and he watched the whole thing.

Absolutely unhinged finale of Dimension 20.