DS

As part of procuring Taylor Swift concert tickets I joined innumerable facebook groups on Taylor Swift and a lot of communities on Reddit for good measure. Practically every other day there’s a thread about What should Taylor Swift do after ERAS tour? It is honestly shockingly amusing reading just how many women want her to settle down after the tour. They actively wish that she marries Travis, has kids, maybe get a residency at Las Vegas so she can focus on other things. Then a usual band of supporters come through with why must she do any of it at all.

From my vantage point as a man its insane to read societal expectations and norms are often imposed on each other by women themselves. Like Taylor is at the peak of her career, and the pervasive discussion is how might she settle down? Did anyone tell that to Chris Martin, Bono, or bands that? Were they somehow expected to “settle” down, marry and have kids and give up their life at their peak? Like why are these kind of idiotic norms forced on women, and much worse by women on women. I for one am excited to see where Taylor goes next. More music, more concerts, hell yeah! And if she wants to marry and have kids at same time hell yeah to that too. But jee, you can have it all you know - and someone in her position absolutely can! Women, do better - you deserve more and should expect more.

A wholly unexpected result coming out of India. Modi is still winning but it must definitely sting that forget getting an outrageous majority his party is struggling to get enough seats on their own to form a government, and the only way Modi can hold on to power is through alliances! Thank god for small mercies and impressive show by congress and opposition. Hopefully this is a sign of tide turning and BJP having to rely on alliances should keep some checks and balances, fingers crossed!

Also how is it that a country can count 700 million votes in a single day while the most powerful nation in the world can’t even finish it for weeks together?

Cant wait for dad to wake up to smirk at him.

Trying is absolutely the best show on streaming right now. Just so so perfect in every way.

Do the ultra leftists morons who keep complaining about Biden’s age ever realize that the reason they are complaining today about his age is because they were the same idiots who didn’t vote for Hilary in 2016 because her emails. If only you morons had come out and vote not only would the country have had a woman president but a damn good one at that - and maybe this election would have had some new faces after her 8 year run. Biden is running to fucking save your brain dead ass but yeah keep acting like Cinderellas.

I simply don’t get the allure of airbnb for short stays. Like I want to come back to a room made for me each night. I want fresh towels everyday and I sure as hell don’t want to clean before I leave! I will pay extra to stay in a hotel than stay in an airbnb and have to do everything myself.

Every fucking time I go out in the backyard to mow my lawn I let out some choice words looking at the tree cover surrounding my property. It rains a shit ton here and thanks to fucking 100ft trees all around my backyard and sideyard are never once dry enough. The grass is just wet all the time and the sogginess just stays. This would’ve been a deal breaker for me had I been smart two years back lol.

By all looks it seems like Modi government will come back for a third term in India. At this point the opposition in India really needs to take a hard look at itself and decide if backing a loser like Rahul Gandhi is ever going to pay dividends. This is the third election that the Rahul Gandhi led opposition has lost. When are they going to look at replacing him and his family with some true leaders who can take on Modi? Rahul Gandhi has the charm of a snail and by now you’d think they know Gandhi family is done and over with. Until the opposition is not able to field a competitive lead against Modi, I fear that this win emboldens BJP even more than ever. We may just see how absolute power can corrupt power absolutely play out in real time in next 5 years. Sad situation that there is absolutely no credible alternative even forming in India!

How horrible and completely out of control price gauging is in the USA? A employee in my company put concert tickets on sale a couple of months back when I had just started looking. She wanted between 3-4000 dollars per ticket, which she also sold overnight! For significantly significantly less amount of money that would have cost our family those tickets, I booked my entire summer trip, including flights, hotels, trains, Olympic tickets and the concert tickets. By the end of the trip I am confident we will have still spent less on this than making the trip in the USA to just watch the concert. You want to see late stage capitalism at its worst just look for Taylor swift tickets for shows in USA / Canada. Like who are these morons who buy these tickets and why? Why are there no laws like Europe that restrict uncontrolled price gauging? It’s just apalling. And somehow majority of the country feels they are in recession and inflation out of control.

Went to our regular alcohol shop this morning and dad insisted on joining. On seeing the nearly 1k bill he freaked out and asked me how much do I drink! The look on his face was hilarious. I wanted to play along for a bit but decided against it for my own sanity. I had to calm him down that we visit this store once a year at best because its far, and usually the person who goes to the store also carries with shopping list for multiple friends. Had to point out that literally 2/3rds of the shopping that we did was for friends who are going to pick it up from our place and its not me. Not sure if he was convinced or not, but hey IDGAF if he thinks his son has become a raging alcoholic!

We gave an early birthday surprise to the kid this morning and laid out our summer plans:

Olympics swimming finals. Hike the alps. Taylor Swift concert.

The kid is in utter disbelief. Period.

Today was my first therapy session and it went better than I expected or thought it would go.

We ordered two accent chairs from Macys that were delivered last night. Despite our best intentions and measurement it turns out they look bulky and cumbersome in our room. The same piece in store looked nice and stylish. A quick call to Macys and they are coming back next week to pick it up, and the nice lady on phone even waived the restocking fee! We’ve bought quite a few furniture from Macys but pleasantly surprised by the return process.

For years after mom’s passing my dad would keep sharing numerous spreadsheets and documents around on how he planned to disperse his “inheritance” between me and my brother. He would show me various combinations of properties & assets divvied up between me and bro, and even a “college” inheritance to my kid. He even made a will at some point that he shared with both of us. I dont need any of his money (thankfully!) and told him its his assets to do whatever he wished. He of course insisted I absolutely had a stake in it.

Until I didn’t. As is true for him (and thats why I had no expectations to begin with), he decided my bro should get the entire inheritance and promptly wrote it all away for him including the whole “college” inheritance he promised the kid last few trips. I and bro get along really well and we are very close to each other, and I would’ve never said no anyway, but it kinda hurt nonetheless that dad didn’t once ask or thought he should let me know. He kinda sorta dropped all of this on me while we were out picking the kid from swim practice. My poor bro kept assuming I and dad had already conversed and it was the plan. Anyway, its things like these with my dad that often leave a bad taste in my mouth. I already struggle with my feelings for him and things like these don’t make it any better! On the other hand I am also glad that I do really well for myself and at the end of the day nothing about my life changes with his decision at all. If he feels happy with his decision, so be it. It would’ve just been nice to be asked though.

I legit heard a firecracker burst in our community. Hell yeah! Gand maraa benchod is just about the only feeling I have right now!

Its absolutely insane how terrible almost every European company’s websites are. A majority of them feel like they were designed by entry level developers at Infosys or TCS. Random errors, no focus on user journey, webpages crapping out for no reason, the fucking websites don’t even implement location detection and change default language to english if location is from a english speaking country. Its just infuriating dealing with European websites. Small mercies - fuck all the cookie tracking but gosh most American websites actually make it easy to do business not harder!

How long before Netanyahu goes full Hitler mode and starts annexing all the border countries starting with Egypt and mercilessly killing civilians in other countries also while western countries continue to affirm their full support? Isn’t that how Germany got out of hand initially? Stop this man before he becomes the second coming of Hitler.

Weirdly enough I am no longer finding micro.blog a space to write my thoughts as i feel them. Which means I am cutting down on my macro posts in favor of actual micro thoughts because thats how I feel micro.blog is trending towards becoming. Nothing wrong in it, it just means I need to blog more!