I got home from Seattle Saturday around 11am. Steph and I caught up on the shows we are watching and had a lazy day. I also played some Steam games from my list and drank lots of smoothies. The kitties were glued to me pretty much the entire day, which was really nice.
Sunday we met up with Punit at the climbing gym. It was the same climbing gym that Tina and Amit picked out for us. I had a good time and got one of the problems that I was too tired for last time. After that we took a walk along Southwark Bridge where they had several groups of sheep and some guilds. The sheep are there to cross the bridge as part of a tradition, and they had some stalls with lots of wool products. The guilds were set up on the other side of the intersection and I grabbed a donut from the Worshipful Company of Bakers, aka baker’s guild. After that Nancy joined us and we went to an afternoon tea at Lyaness, a Sri Lankan restaurant. The food was pretty good, besides the eggplant.
Monday after work I went to my first West End Musical Choir practice. It was great, and I enjoyed the singing and the chat afterwards. The song was pretty tough, as the words were fast and the harmonies difficult. There were probably 70 people there, and it was especially nice when everyone was singing all together.
Tuesday I took it kind of easy after work, because it was a crazy busy day, and Wednesday was Archer kitty’s dental appointment. Tuesday night he was so amazingly cuddly and needy. He wanted attention all night.
Wednesday I checked out the Choir at King’s Cross. It was at the furthest place from our house that could still be vaguely considered King’s Cross, but it wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed it, and there was still plenty of time for me to make it to the Dive Club meeting.
Thursday we met up with Lynne and saw a really interesting play, “Anthropology” about a woman who makes an AI clone of her sister. The AI then helps to find the sister who was missing and presumed dead. It was really well done. The tech they talk about with the AI clone is pretty surface level, and the only stretch is when they fed browser history, social media likes, and other meta data into an LLM.
Saturday, Steph and I played a lot of games. We started Frosthaven in the morning, then had Ethiopian, then played Don’t Starve in the evening.
Sunday we went to the Japanese festival in Trafalgar Square in the morning with Nancy and Punit. We walked down to the river and hopped on a ferry to go to Greenwich. There we saw the Cutty Sark, walked through the park, then crossed the Thames via a pedestrian tunnel underneath it. We went to one of the farms that is strangely inside London, before heading home for book club.
I took a one week trip to Seattle for work on what would have been London, Week 43. This was a serendipitous set of meetings / internal conferences for work. My larger team was meeting for an offsite in Seattle, and my role was having everyone of that role meet in Seattle on the same week. I chose to do the role based meeting on Wednesday, which was the only day of overlap.
Monday I headed to the airport around noon, and got some nice chill time in the Virgin lounge before the flight. I had some people from both groups on the flight with me, but we just did our own things while on the plane. I took a downgrade for some nice Delta credits, which wasn’t a big deal since I was planning on staying up the whole flight anyway. On the way back I plan to sleep so that I can wake up at 7am when the plane lands and try to just start going about my day.
The first day of the offsite was fun, with presentations in the morning and a high ropes course in the afternoon. I really enjoyed the ropes course and was able to make my way through most of it. We had a nice dinner and I got to chat with a lot of the US team that I hadn’t seen in a long while.
Wednesday I went to the summit for my role, and had a great time chatting with everyone, trying demos, and meeting up with more US people I hadn’t seen in a long time. The conversations were some of the most intellectually stimulating I’d had in a very long time. Everyone in my role is a tinkerer and hearing about their work and the ways they get things to work is amazing.
The second day of the summit I gave my talk on AI and showed off some demos, like Story Machine. I had a great time at the conference, though I called it a night really early as I was amazingly tired.
We had a pretty chill Friday and then headed to the airport. A few of us were on the same flight back. I slept for most of the trip.
We spend Monday evening with Tina and Amit as they came to King’s Cross to have dinner at Dishoom. We headed to the Camden Head afterwards and walked a little along the canal. The Camden head wasn’t too packed and we got a spot in the back for the comedy night. I enjoyed it and the good Spanish comedian was there doing his same bit with some more twists that we hadn’t heard.
Tuesday I had to work more than expected, and so I met everyone at the climbing gym. Amit was crushing it of course, and the good climbers talked to him some about the routes. We went to a newer bistro, and it had a ton of people working outside on their laptops in VC meetings.
Wednesday I had some presentations and I was absolutely dead after work, so I passed out early.
Thursday Steph and I caught up on some of the our shows, Lower Decks and Wheel of Time. I’m enjoying both immensely.
Friday Steph left for Berlin and I took a light day at work. I decided to do a game jam for the weekend, and it turned out pretty well. I didn’t get nearly as far as I would have liked, but all the systems are there and the game is decently balanced this time I think. Dragon Party.
I had lunch on Sunday with Nancy and Punit, then went to Carla’s birthday party. It was a decent amount of socializing and Carla’s party made me want to work on my Spanish. Steph got back late on Sunday and we spent the evening together before I tried to stay up really late in prep for my Seattle trip.
On Monday I set up some new shelves that I had ordered in the kitchen. It filled in a spot that was strangely vacant, and made me think that we needed some more color in the kitchen as well. The color part will have to come later.
On Tuesday I went back to The Burnt City and had a fantastic time. I’m really glad I went three times, as there was just so much to see. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head since the first time, and I would love to make a VR experience that had that same feel.
Wednesday I went to Shit-Faced Shakespeare and it was hilarious. They were doing the production Much Ado About Nothing, and Duke Leonata was the drunk one. She was hilarious and immediately took it off the rails by killing a main character. The antics were fantastic, and I would love to see it again to see how much is staged vs. the drunk person doing their thing.
Thursday I had a MTG draft of the new set Wilds of Eldraine. It was a fun set, but I lost all my games.
Friday, Steph got home from her Mexico trip. She chilled during the day while I finished work, and had some non-work meetings as well.
Saturday Steph and I went to Finsbury Park station, but not to the park itself. We had some decent Indian food, then set off on a short hike along the Parkland Walk. It was really nice, and even though it is just a narrow strip of trees on either side gave a great feeling of being in a forest.
That evening we jumped on and played some Grounded with Michael and Michelle, but we are all getting really tired of dying so much and having to go get our backpacks afterwards.
Sunday we had a relaxing morning, and then met Amit and Tina at Shakespeare’s Globe to see a production of “As you like it.” The cast was pretty good. They had most of the roles gender reversed, and some did amazing jobs selling the characters they were portraying. I especially liked the costuming, as it was a strange for some of the characters. We then went to afternoon tea at The Swan right there. We walked down to the Golden Hind and around The Boroughs Market.
This was a short week, due to the Summer Bank Holiday.
Tuesday I started looking after the cats of a coworker. They are pretty nice, and one lets me give it belly rubs.
On Wednesday I took Archer to the vet to have them look at his front broken tooth (from when we moved to the UK and he snuck under the bed while I was moving it). They said it didn’t have to be exctracted immediately, but sooner is better than later, as it would probably just get more and more painful, and the older he is the harder it will be on him. Otherwise they said his teeth look great, so the brushing seems to be paying off.
I took a class on riding Penny Farthing bikes, and they were a ton of fun. I did well pretty quickly on them, and we took a ride to Buckingham Palace.
I also saw some shows while Steph was away, including The Book of Mormon and Les Miserables. I also walked through some parks since the weather was amazing. I went to Primrose Hill and Battersea Park.
This week Steph was getting ready for her trip to Mexico for Science Week with the cave diving group.
I had a call with Kim and Grace on Tuesday, and Grace made a story using the Story Machine. Wednesday I helped Steph to the train station, then took the afternoon off to go to the Hampstead Heath ponds with a coworker. The weather was perfect and the pond was cold at first, but as long as I stayed moving it was a great temperature.
Thursday evening I went to the ABBA concert with coworkers and I was impressed by the tech they used. It made the digital representations seem pretty real, but they still had points where they were uncanny valley. The sparkle effects were especially amazing.
Friday and Saturday I worked on a game for the Brackeys game jam with the theme “Diving Deeper.” I chose to make an interactive story about Steph cave diving in Mexico, Scuba Steph. I was happy with how it turned out, although it isn’t much of a game.
Sunday I climbed with Punit and then had lunch at Canopy Market with him, Nancy, and a few of their friends from the states.
I mainly did chores for the rest of Sunday until 6pm. Then I played some Grounded with Michelle and Michael. We completed the pond lab, and got the chip from the anthill after getting ant armor.
Monday I did a long hike at the end of the Metropolitan line. The weather was pretty good, and the views were great. The berries were all over the place, and delicious.
Monday evening I went to a musical, A Strange Loop. It was good, but I’m sure there were tons of references that went over my head. I saw Oskar, a coworker, there.
We didn’t do much because of the sickness, which we tested for and wasn’t Covid. Friday was our anniversary of 5 years, and we had a lovely dinner and went to a bar afterwards with a Chocolate theme.
Steph and I weren’t 100%, so we kept the weekend mostly quiet. I went by coal drop yards to listen to the London Opera perform, then Steph and I went to listen to a musical choir, which was pretty good. I’ve joined the fall term of the West End Musical Choir, and I’m really looking forward to it. I also took another long walk in the nice weather. This time I went to Mile End and then through Victoria park, up through the marshlands and ended at Blackhorse Road Station.
It was a pretty calm few week before Edinburgh Fringe (yes, this is out of order).
Steph and I played a few rounds of Frosthaven. The four character group is fun, but the sessions take about 3 hours each.
I went on two long walks through parks, since the weather was so nice.
The first was through Islington. I walked through Bernard Park and up to Highbury Fields. I saw a cute pub that looked like it was covered in Wisteria called The Albion. It wasn’t blooming at the time, but still looked like a great spot we will need to go to when it is blooming next. I also saw a fox on this walk, as it was ducking into a park.
The second walk was a long one. I walked through Russel Square, then down to St. James Park. I continued through Green Park, then Hyde Park. I stopped by Little Venice and then went to Regent’s Park. I walked along the canals home from there. It was the perfect day, and there were tons of birds in all of the ponds.
Steph and I caught a morning train from King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverly, which was amazingly convenient. The ride was pretty smooth, with power outlets and wifi. Although the wifi was spotty and terrible.
We got to Edinburgh around 1:30 and checked into the Airbnb, just a 12 minute walk from the station. We had a few shows lined up for that day, and we made our way to the first one, which was actually an escape room. The escape room with Agent November was pretty good, although it also had a murder mystery element that we weren’t as interested in, and failed at. Our small team did find all the clues, we just didn’t have time to piece together the mystery.
We then went to some parks, got some boba, and had some ramen for dinner. We walked over to The Meadows, where our next show was. Steph wasn’t feeling well so she went home. I went to the show anyway. The show was Clique, a burlesque circus show. In line I met an older woman and her daughter. She was very talkative and they followed me after I had my ticket scanned and I went to the ‘sirloin’ line. We got front row seats and it was more than worth it. The show was exactly what I was hoping for from Fringe. They had some normal acts of pole dancing, rope/silk dancing, and skills of balance. The blade swallower did one blade, then two, then six. She also swallowed what was effectively a lightsaber and the glow could be seen through her neck.
The strangest act was a woman handing out popcorn wearing a helmet with a popcorn maker on top. After handing out all the popcorn bags she got a bunch of kernels and put them in the machine, then plugged it in. She started hula hoop dancing some while the kernels were heating. After the first kernels started coming out she took her top off and covered herself in butter. Then she did about twenty hula hoops at once while the kernels were really popping. After that she made a sign like she needed salt. She crouched down and pulled a salt shaker out of her vagina and danced while spreading salt everywhere. It was the strangest performance I’ve ever seen, but really well choreographed and paced.
Some of the other performances were strange, if not as strange as the popcorn performance. One woman had her hair around a clamp that was used to hang her from a wire. She then did a dance while hanging from the wire by her hair. On the same wire they hung a coat rack that a guy did a pole dance like strip routine. Another woman danced with an eight foot tall balloon, which she slowly climbed into, then she stripped inside and popped it from the inside.
The last group of performance was a man/woman team that did comedy skits. They did a quick change skit where the woman changed outfits really quickly, then the guy went in and came out nude. He then climbed around the audience for a bit, while she convinced an audience member to give her a sock. The guy came back by and grabbed the sock and used it as his only clothing. Later they had another bit where they were biting off bits of banana and spitting it back and forth, they got an audience member to try as well. The guy did some juggling/spitting of the banana bits, and then it got too strange for me to record here…
I went to a sexy circus show later, around midnight, as Steph was still tired. I sat in the front row again, as these are mostly small venues and I’m showing up early to many of them. I’m also wearing my Captain America shirt, so I get called out a lot. The MC of the sexy circus called me up to the stage to help with the juggling and spinning objects show. He had me put on a bowtie, then a sequin hat, then a pink strap-on. He had me lay down and he used the strap-on as one of the things to hold spinning soccer balls. I then handed him more and more knives as he juggled.
The second day we slept in and went to the Audio Deepfake exhibit at the university. Then we went to an amazing a cappella concert put on by the student group Norther Lights. The beatboxing was especially impressive.
We found some good gelato and then took a rest for a bit. After resting we grabbed dinner, and I tried to go to a sing-a-long pub quiz, but it was full.
Friday evening Steph and I went to Showstoppers, the Improv musical where they did a great performance. They had the theme of a puppet convention titled ‘No Strings Attached.’ They had musical numbers based on Queen, Sondheim, Annie Get Your Gun, and Avenue Q. A few of the songs were decent, but most were surprisingly good. They lost the plot for most of it, focussing on characters, but it actually came together in the end. The way the director broke in to make people do different things was great.
Saturday, our third day of Fringe, started out with sleeping in. Around 10 we headed out to another escape room experience, which was a lot of fun and we did really well on it. This one was out of a case, which was pretty well done. We had about 2 too many people I think, but they managed to get some parallelization in the case, which was impressive.
We grabbed some Thai for lunch then I found a few shows I wanted to see.
The first was a pirate themed comedy show, Max Norman: A Pirate’s Life For Me. The guy running it was one of the best improve comedians I’ve seen. He kept the narrative together and had wonderful pacing and timing. He had lots of audience participation, asking for a word from random audience members.
Steph went to the Little Black Dress exhibit at the Scottish National Museum and I went to a show called Lane Kwederis: Sex Job. It was well done, with lots of interesting information and views that I had never been exposed to. I thought the mindset that she has is far healthier than those I’m normally around with regards to sex and sexual desires.
Steph and I met up and headed to Aloft for some more circus like performances. They did some hula hoop dancing, and more of the silks and pole dancing. One of the most unique performances was a poetry reading while juggling.
The last even Saturday was too late for Steph, Bubble Show for Adults Only 2. It was a fun experience where I could tell the performers were loving it. I got pulled up on stage and they made a giant bubble penis on me. They then had one of the bubbles with vape inside on top they they put the wand over and popped the bubble inside the wand, which made the vape gas come out the top. She also had me pop lines of bubbles with vape in them with my nose off her chest and leg. They had a few other funny sections, one with shadow puppets, and another with bubble guns.
Sunday Steph and I went to the castle in the morning, then had a nice lunch at a Spanish tapas place. The afternoon started off with Steph taking a break while I went to the show Calling in Love. It was strange and interesting, but it was certainly the worst show of the weekend. The performer did a great job performing, but the jokes took the self deprecation too far and it made it more sad than funny.
We then went to another improv musical, but this one wasn’t nearly as good. It was done by students, and the format they chose for audience suggestions made it much harder to get characters that were interesting. They had the audience give the setting, title, and two characters. The first musical did setting, title, and musical genres; leaving the characters to be created by the actors.
We skipped one show, to relax for a bit, then headed to the AI Improve show. It was hilarious, especially because I could understand what they were using and doing. I talked to the organizer afterwards and will reach out to him, as he works across the street from me.
We had a lovely dinner at a Japanese restaurant, then saw the last show of our run, Sex Ed: Revisited. It was the first show the actor was putting on and she did a really good job. I think the science she was presenting could have used a bit more rigor, but the points she was making and the parts she did present were great. I learned something, which I wasn’t expecting.
We caught the train back to King’s Cross the next morning and it was a smooth ride the whole way home.
Archer was soooooo happy to see me when I got home. Here is a video of him showing his love:
Here is a collage of the promo images for the shows we saw:
It's an Exciting World 