One thing about European websites is no matter where you go or which country they suck so much. Barely functional websites. Like they spend half their energy on GDPR consents all over the place but the websites themselves are unusable especially any airline/train or bus bookings. Just very frustrating to use any of their apps or websites.
Macro
Another day another train mixup. In morning take train to Segovia. Come out of station to only realize we are in booneylands in middle of nowhere. Google and turns out the high speed train stops only at the new station while the actual city station that I thought this train would go to is serviced by the slower trains! Thank god for a taxi. Next on way back the smart people we are decided to walk from aqueduct to city station thinking oh why not see city more and then just take a taxi from that station to new station? Well turns out the city station is in siesta hour – like it felt like it was literally abandoned! A few anxious moments with kind strangers helping us out to catch a bus few hundred meters away; the bus was late but we were able to flag an empty taxi which got us back to station just in nick of time for our journey back. Some planner I am 😑
We had noticed this trend in Paris last year and are seeing the same in Madrid – namely all the small neighborhood grocery stores are all manned by Indians our south Asians. These are these small stores with basic items and produce and dime a dozen on streets – I wonder how did desis end up capturing this market? What gives?
Randomly put on Jackson’s Dangerous album on drive to work – damn, this whole album was so so good – be it sound design, mixing, the range of each track, or just one banger after another on this album. Heck this album is so far ahead of its time even today, nearly 35 years after its release!
Just spectacular by Sinner. He really came back from his French open loss well – never allowed Alcaraz anything it never looked like Carlos was in the game. This rivalry is really looking so good and good omen for future! I am always team Alcaraz though – tough one today 🙁
In spring of 2021 I had worked in the retail side of my company before leaving in May of that year. Before I left I had finished onboarding a new desi guy to my team. It was clear to both of us that the team was shit and on my way out I told him to GTFO and move elsewhere in the company. He pinged me back in June to tell me after I left he tried finding another role and then just quit the company to join NVidia because they gave a competing offer and work was more interesting. Assuming he got the same offer as was norm those days, he is now worth 50 million dollars! What a stroke of luck to join the company at the right time (they split 4x in August of same year) and rest is history. The best thing he did was to leave. I feel happy for him (and yeah a tad bit jealous too).
What exactly is Foundation about at this point? Foundation is such hard scifi series to like – while the visuals are staggeringly beautiful and there is so much to take from Asimov, absolutely none of the characters feel home. You don’t feel for even one of them, nor do you fee stakes are high for anyone. Such a weird series that it feels so disconnected and gorgeous to look at the same time. The first episode of third season i was like dear Mule just kill them all and spare us the misery.
Last swim meet volunteering as timer for this summer. Feels like it went by so fast! I honestly think men should do majority of the swim team coaches – they are usually loud and enthusiastically yelling and cheering their teams, unlike most women coaches who choose grace and poise over yelling like donkeys. But you know what, it’s summer swim, it’s meant to be loud and enjoyable. We got the entire year to take regular swim seriously. Dear women let your inside animal out!
Initiate a chat with PillPack pharmacy asking them to deliver my meds earlier so I can have them during my trip. I was dismissed by the agent (most likely a GenAI bot) because I didnt ask for this earlier. Three days later, an actual human emails me and says oh no, we can definitely fill your prescription before trip, and its a matter of your health. I was like yeah go fucking tell your bot that! Luckily my doc refilled the prescriptions and I could pick them up from CVS no issues. After my trip I will seriously evaluate PillPack again because this is not worth it. The incident also show cases why monitoring your AI is super important especially in context of health. I wonder how many more people has that bot just summarily dismissed and sent on their way?
📺 Panchayat (2020) – ★★★★☆
S4 was a good watch but it’s clear that the story needs to come to a closure at this point. It’s renewed already for season 5 and I am hoping it’s the last. Still one of the best desi shows on tv.