Midterms

Less than 3 weeks until the mid-term elections.  And naturally every other advert on telly seems to be political in nature.  There are all kinds of elected officials being voted on at the local and state level, plus a bunch of proposals and initiatives.  Unfortunately I haven't been paying attention to exactly who or what they are, since I can't vote.  All I'll say is that I won't make any predictions about what happens in the mid-term elections.  Such is my deep distrust of an open and fair democracy in Trump's America.  I hope the Democrats take the House and the Senate, but they probably won't.  It's a sad sign that so many of the races aren't even competitive.  And what is particularly tragic right now is seeing how more and more unhinged Trump is becoming as, hopefully, he starts to lose his grip on power.  He is taking the country down with him.  

The Odyssey

Talking about physical media, I found out too late today that The Odyssey was available for pre-order.  There are a couple of limited edition versions (including a $300 premium limited order edition - which is just a ridiculous amount), but both were already sold out.  They appeared to be sporadically available on Amazon, but when I tried to checkout then I ran into problems and the item became unavailable.  So I've decided to give up trying to get it.  This feels exactly like trying to watch the film on an IMAX screen - just impossibly popular.  Part of the problem is that when I see the words "premium" and "limited edition", then out goes all semblance of sanity and rationality.  In those circumstance I will pay the crazy amount of $300 for a copy of a film I haven't seen yet, plus some stupid extras.  But no, I should wait until some superior (and better value for money) version of the film gets released in a few years' time.  And I should watch the film sometime before then to see whether I actually like it or not. 

Zavvi

I was shocked to discover today that Zavvi had ceased operations and entered administration.  I've bought a lot of stuff - predominantly physical media - from them over the years.  Indeed, I had an outstanding preorder with them which I'm unlikely to ever see (a 4K deluxe edition of The Untouchables).  Fortunately, at the time of my order they were only charging you at the time of dispatch.  So I haven't lost any money.  That is especially lucky because earlier this year they changed to charging you at the time of the order.  Good luck in getting your money back if you pre-ordered something after then.  I'm glad there are still some good US and international retailers of physical media - I still like to add to my film collection.  Indeed, just recently I ordered a collector's edition version of Memento from a retailer called Umbrella - who I think are Australian! 

Road Rage

Had a bit of a scary incident this evening.  I was driving to a local supermarket to pick up a few groceries and to stop by an Asian restaurant to pick up some dinner (cashew chicken).  The route takes you round a roundabout.  And you don't need me to tell you that most Americans don't know how to drive round a roundabout correctly.  And sure enough, as I was circling the roundabout someone came right out in front of me even though I had the right of way.  So I honked my horn.  This didn't go down well.  The guy wasn't originally going in my direction, but came off the roundabout behind me and decided to tailgate me.  I had to stop at a traffic light, and had no idea what to expect.  Was this guy going to jump out of his car and confront me?  Or worse?  He didn't, but then I turned off into the supermarket car park, and he followed me.  And then I turned into one of the car park lanes, and he followed me again.  What do I do?  I didn't want to park my car and get out, because who knows what might happen then.  So I circled round the car park, and left via a different exit.  But he was still following me.  So I circled round and came back into the supermarket car park again.  And he was still following.  But after turning into another one of the car park lanes, he mercifully didn't follow me again.  I didn't really have any thoughts other than to keep on circling around until he finally got bored and moved on.  The other thought that crossed my mind was to drive to a police station - but I had no idea where the nearest station was.  In retrospect, what I should have done was try to do some car park maneuvering and get behind him so that I could get his number plate.  As it was, I kind of sat in my car for a few minutes just in case he showed up again.  But fortunately he didn't, and I was able to get on with things.  Scary stuff.  My takeaway - maybe I need to use my horn a bit less liberally.  There is no point in accidentally antagonizing one of the many psychopaths who live in this country.        

Last Thoughts on Bay Area Trip

A few final miscellaneous things from my week in California:

- A couple of photos from a walk I did one evening.  When I've visited previously, I've been north to the bay waterfront.  This time I headed west to a waterfront on a side channel that feeds into the bay.  Not quite as photogenic, but encountered a lot of very expensive houses (plus a lot of hummingbirds!).

- I haven't played any ping pong since the Seattle office shut.  Until this trip.  Had absolutely no plans to play, but unexpectedly got asked if I wanted to.  Perhaps most surprising was the person who asked me - my manager's manager.  Someone who I know, but not someone I have interacted with much previously.  But I could hardly say no to my boss's boss!  We were both very rusty, and so we just hit the ball around rather than have any actual games - probably for the best.  I wonder if he was checking me out, because I had heard that he might become my manager if my job eventually transitions to this new role.

- We had an onsite departmental summer picnic whilst I was there.  During this picnic, there was a raffle where they were giving away various prizes.  The good news - I was one of the raffle winners.  The bad news - all the prizes were swag that had previously been given away by the company in previous years.  Talk about cheap.  So all I got was yet another water bottle - the same as one I'd already got.

- Perhaps the most important meeting while I was there was one about the direction my particular function is going in.  We've got a new head of our department, so he's got some ideas.  Let's just say it was a simultaneously enlightening and scary meeting.  It's probably going to result in one of the most substantial changes to my fundamental job function that I've ever had.  We are talking about having to learn a new programming language, new software and utilize new AI tools.  I don't know what to make of it all.  In my case, I don't even know if you can teach an old dog new tricks.  But I think the next few years when we make these transitions is going to be very tough.  And rough.

- Finally, a few photos of Mount Rainier peaking through the clouds from the flight back.  I like the convenience of flying in and out of Paine Field to the north of Seattle, but both flights on this trip had delays of over an hour - so that seems to be one consistent drawback of using this airport.

  

Menu

Thought you might be interested to see what was on the menu at the Chinese restaurant we went to for a team dinner.  This was served Chinese style - where we ordered quite a few dishes for the table, and it's put on a rotating dial on the middle of the table so that people can help themselves to whichever ones they want.  Despite some of the alarming choices on the menu, there was plenty of stuff that I was okay with.  But I feel they might have purposely selected dishes that I wouldn't mind!

127

127.  Any guesses what this number means?  What about 126?  Well we went bowling as a team-building event, and those were my scores in the 2 games we played.  Not great.  But considerably better than almost everybody else there.  If ten-pin bowling was an Olympic sport, it would be one of the few sports that China would not compete for gold in.  Everyone was impressed with my bowling skills, even though I don't have any.  But at least I did manage to bowl quite a few strikes.  Though I really wish I was more consistent and could properly bowl balls with spin.