You need some kind of weird mental strength to go through Costco shopping experience. Every time I go to their store I walk out with high blood pressure, incredibly angry and ready to drive like a maniac. Then it takes me several hours to cool down. This in-spite of Costco staff usually being fantastic and helpful. It’s the fucking crowds and the chaos that get me. And that claustrophobia.
The other day I and fam were talking about our best vacations we have taken in the last decade and unanimously agreed on the list.
5 - Egypt: heckling aside, absolutely stunning history and ruins. The pyramids are amazing but Luxor and Aswan are something else!
4 - Greece: stunning islands, amazing people and awesome food. I have written so much about the niceness of people on my blog in past, remains one of our favorites. (A taxi driver in Athens refused to leave us alone on street when he discovered I had messed up my booking, and helped us get a hotel for the night. Another taxi driver took the expensive DSLR I left in his car to the hotel in Mykonos, who then shipped it overnight to me in Santorini! The owner of Santorini hotel gave us a 1 day full guided tour in his car of the island because I refused to take the free car rental his property provided.)
3 - Banff/Jasper: the landscapes are truly out of this world, and the hikes are just amazing. And Canadians were so nice in 2017. They probably are, but dont know how right wing has affected them now.
2 - Universal Studios Florida - this is a outlier but this was such a personal trip for us and the kid had such a blast it will be hard to replicate. Peak Harry Potter helped!
1 - Costa Rica - Incredible scenery, incredible people, incredible food. There is absolutely nothing about this country thats not incredible. This is the country I honestly dream of retiring.
Kinda interesting how the refund for the Taylor swift cancelled concert played out. I bought the tix in resale from a very nice person in Europe. We chatted over video and he was the nicest guy ever. I sent him payment via PayPal for above asking price he wanted which was fine, and then he resold the tix he had in his account to me for 1 euro. When the concert cancelled they mentioned they would give a refund on tix and I was like well shit, I bought it only for 1 euro and I can’t get a refund now. I was never going to ask the guy who sold me the tix for a refund coz it was not his fault but I was like damn I lost the money. Turns out they did refund the money to my credit card, even though technically I bought it for only 1 euro from the official ticketing platform. What’s more amazing is once I had the refund I was surprised to learn the guy who sold the tix didn’t upsell the tickets that much at all. Ultimately I was out just a little and not the complete amount I thought. Oh well a silver lining to the end I guess!
Venmo’s bizarre choice of making someone else’s payment public on my feed makes me want to use the app less and less and is such a violation of privacy. Like my feed is full of others people payment. I now know that a friend of mine paid some other friend for Costco, who got a cleaner last week and a colleague of mine just got her nails done. Like WTF! By default all of this should be private not fucking public!
Started “Industry” on HBO a couple of days back. Does the show pick up or the general mental model of the show is Euphoria set in financial industry with everyone sucks characters like Succession?
I really think Coldplay has evolved its music to creating music only for stadiums. I don’t mind it - I have been their fan for a long time and have seen them 5 times in concerts and they rock. Their new single We Pray is yet another banger that feels like Coldplay purely manifested for a stadium experience. I don’t care though it’s terrific and yes this will light up the stadiums.
Is the DNC not over yet? How long is this party going to last?
So Taylor Swift finally made a statement about Vienna, after being called out politely by Chris Martin from Coldplay. My kid texted me furiously last night while I was at the gym about it - “DID YOU SEE, SHE MADE A STATEMENT!”. I read through it on Instagram and asked her How did it make you feel? The kid responded she felt better after reading the post, and she is back to being a “swiftie” again. That she is glad she made a statement. I responded that if she felt good about it, so did I. But how did you really feel? she asked, and I said I am satisfied with the statement as she is.
I lied. PR statements etc are not new to us or me in our line of work. I dont know who wrote it for her, or if she did it herself, this was the worst way to make a statement about Vienna, and reeked of self absorbed narcissism. There’s a lot I can write about how to write it better, but suffice to say I am over this sack of shit. I wont be surprised at all if she endorses Trump either at this point because narcissists cannot look beyond themselves. I am however going to play along with my kid for a while and let her fandom wither by itself. She is just 13 after all, and I do not want her to be cynical like rest of us adults are in life. I will still try for a concert ticket for my kid but after that I really hope this ridiculous fandom behind a such a entitled prick doesnt last.
And as if I wasn’t a fan of Coldplay all these years, Chris Martin, you really are the man! Can’t wait to hit yet another of their concerts when they tour USA next.
Last night the kid was acting quite rudely and erratic. After a brief tense hour with her behavior going all over the place, she finally broke down in tears about Taylor Swift. It’s been almost two weeks since the Vienna concerts were cancelled and she was unable to go to something she was looking forward to for months. One of her besties got to watch her literally a week before she was going to and it’s been hard for her to calibrate herself. It’s been hard to see how she is coping up and reconciling, but as my therapist put it last week, kids do sometimes need to learn how to handle disappointments. Hopefully she learns in time that no celebrity is ever worth that adulation or love. I will try to compensate for the concert this year, but given the astronomical prices of tickets in USA, probably a very very long shot at this point.
I don’t know how I got here but I am now truly bored of the Obamas. Can we skip tonight and just go to tomorrow and Thu?
🍿 Kill (2024) - ★★★★☆
Holy mother lord this was one adrenalin and testosterone powered absolutely no holds barred action movie. One of those fuck the plot just go for the ride. I did not imagine Bollywood making a movie like this!
Swiss chocolates are overrated. We got a bunch of expensive chocolate and regular lindt chocolates from Switzerland. I can’t make out any differences between the chocolates or the chocolate we have here. What gives? We even got expensive “sprungli” chocolates.
Anyone excited for mpox pandemic?
Its been a week now since we first got the cancellation of the Vienna Taylor Swift concert due to terrorist threats. A week has gone by with absolutely no communication, affirmation or acknowledgement of the events by Taylor’s team. My 13 year old has been waiting for some kind of words from her team, and I have taken this opportunity to say nothing to my kid so far. This morning she said hates Taylor for not saying anything; i knew she was harboring feelings like this. She hasn’t listened to her music in a week, and even if she does, quickly shuts it out. She has not taken a keen interest in music as she usually does. Today morning I took the opportunity to educate her about differentiating art from the artist. I had to tell her that the end of the day, most artists are shitty people, and so probably is Taylor as she is realizing it the hard way. That did not mean she shouldn’t have to like the art she produced. Just like she hates J K Rowling now, does not mean she did not enjoy the Harry Potter books or movies still - and this applied to Taylor. She could still very well enjoy the music, but she does not have to put Taylor on a pedestal that she did. I told her we still have opportunities to see her later this year if we can snag tickets, but also let her know that she is not special. She is a human, and like all artists most likely a very crappy person in real life. As long as she learns to enjoy the art and not get obsessed about the artist I am all good. In a way this cancellation has been a difficult life lesson for her.
Why does it feel like Walz is running for president and not Harris. Harris needs to be in news more, and yet most of the clips and shorts online are now Walz dominated not Harris. I mean as long as it helps the ticket its fine, but it should be more about Harris.
Personal nit: Biden needs to stop talking about why he dropped from the race. His latest interview makes it feel like he still has some grudge against how it all happened, which is fair - but its not important anymore. I hope he realizes its not about him anymore and avoids interviews about why he dropped. He has explained it very eloquently, no need to go into details. It hampers only Kamala.
Apple is quickly turning so scummy and greed obsessed that I am wondering if there is now value in trying out Android phones if the company doesnt matter? Maybe not be a bad time to do a switch and try out something else.
Every 4 years Indians collectively go How can a country of billion plus people produce so few medals at Olympics? I swear I’ve been hearing this exact same question asked from my childhood. Now I have a daughter of almost Olympian age and the question has not changed. The answer is honestly pretty obvious: India is not a sporting country. There is no shame in admitting its not. You can either force sports into your culture like China very successfully did over decades. Otherwise it is quite ok to be obsessed about cricket.
Its been really strange to see there has been no comment or post made by Taylor Swift or her team after the Vienna cancellations due to terrorist attacks. Nearly 200000 fans were impacted and this is not counting folks who were not ticket holders but would just gate outside the stadium anyway. I get that this was a traumatic event not just for fans, but to Taylor herself, but the fact that there is not even an acknowledgement of this at all anywhere is quite bizarre. For an artist who has some of the best social media and PR in the business, this complete lack of connect and comment has been jarring to say the least. My daughter is one of them who was impacted, and even she’s finding it heartbreaking that Swift has been completely silent on this and has not even acknowledged the heartbreak hundreds of thousands of people have had over the last weekend.