01276: Somewhat Sick, Dead Drives, Theater and Mahar

Shifted my sleeping schedule around a bit today since Tobie had an early meeting and thus we couldn't grocery as normal before bed. So I went to sleep shortly after getting home (which I admit was later than it should have been because of a last work task) in order to be awake now in time to hit Shopwise later. It's just as well given I was pretty beat by the time that I got home and starting to feel just a wee bit under the weather. I woke up just over six hours later and I still feel like I'm running a mild fever (note to self: check temperature) so I'm just hydrating for now. I took a paracetamol before bed and I'm not sure if it had any effect, but if things persist I may just take another one to be sure. Mild case of the sniffles since last night as well. This does not bode well.

A friend of mine quipped over Twitter that maybe I was feeling O Bar withdrawal, which would make for a pretty humorous reason to get sick. Realistically it probably has more to to do with the fact that I'm venturing out of the Sietch again with the work crowd and the combination of the office and my MRT rides home present any number of risks of exposure to other illnesses, infections and things of that nature. Not trying to sound like a hypochondriac or anything - just being a little realistic as I assess what may have gotten me sick. If I am sick. Or maybe just dehydrated? Bleh.

As I compose this blog entry, I'm doing my best to burn a bunch of the recently concluded TV shows to DVDs. This is a routine task that we perform periodically at the Sietch, although the only recent complication is the fact that my external 1 TB drive is acting up for some reason. There is power to the device but when I connect it the drive isn't detected by my computer, Tobie's computer or even the Cinematube. The light turns on when the USB cable is plugged in but dies the moment I unplug it. It still works sporadically and then the drive disappears in the middle of a file transfer or something like that.

To be fair, it's just senseless data. Mostly TV shows that we've downloaded and a number of movies, musicals and things of that nature. There's also a significant amount of porn (I'm a guy, so sue me), which might be a pain to replace, should I ever feel inclined to do so. It's a good thing that I stopped storing my personal photos and videos on that drive since I opted to just keep them on my netbook and burn them the moment they reach the capacity of a DVD-R. Had I lost personal data of that nature, then I'd really feel bad. I guess the only question is whether or not the drive can be salvaged. It's over three years old and I'm sure it has seen quite an amount of wear and tear. So it may not be all that viable to invest in saving, but we'll see.

I was scanning the upcoming theater plays in the next few months and came across the fact that Repertory Philippines is staging Next Fall, which is an LGBT-themed play that got a few award nominations two years ago. As much as I love musicals, it's always fun to invest some time in watching a straight play here and there, and Repertory Philippines still handles this side of things rather well.

I'd like to the official Repertory page, but it looks like their website is down for some reason.

Should we push through, this will be our first play for the year just a week or so earlier than our scheduled trip to Singapore to watch Wicked. There's also an international touring company for Mamma Mia! that's in town this month, but I'm not sure if the play is worth the ticket prices. While I do love a campy jukebox musical as much as the next guy, having to pay prices that are nearly comparable to the productions in Singapore do seem a bit iffy. We had passed on watching The Sound of Music some months back but this one might merit more attention.

It's funny to consider that theater remains one of my main "vices" while for Tobie it's O Bar. For the most part I tend to handle the theater tickets when we do have time to go while he typically foots the bill for our O Bar trips. I didn't really consider how those two sources of entertainment sort of evened out financially until I really thought about how much Tobie had spent over the holidays given our frequent O Bar runs. So it all evens out, which is often the case with me and Tobie. It's interesting how we always manage to achieve parity, especially when it comes to finances. Funny how life works out that way.

Lastly, today is the birthday of a dear friend and my "gay mother", Mahar. We've known each other since the third grade although it took a few years before we actually became friends. I have to admit that at the time I doubt I would have ever expected for him to be one of the closer friends that I have until today, but that's exactly what has happened.

Mahar and I share many passions. What began as just realizing that we both knew Monty Python while everyone else was without a clue evolved into a shared love for Broadway musicals and theater in general and more recently tabletop gaming. I see Mahar almost every weekend because of our games and more recently because of his "research field work" at O Bar. We have a lot of shared history to be sure but it's nice to have at least one tether back to my school days. I don't seem to be quite nearly as close to anyone else from that period despite my limited efforts on social media. Again, life is kind of funny that way in terms of the people you end up remaining close to despite everything else.

So Happy Birthday, Mahar! See you on Sunday for our next gaming session!

Comments

  1. How...I don't know how to say it, but I'm part of a blog post title! *preens*

    Thank you my dear! Yes, could you imagine? Friends for almost 20 years now! Being your gay momma has always been one of the prouder things about our friendship (for me at least.)

    To more years of fun!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It does blow the mind somewhat to consider that it has been that long, hehe.
    Clearly time well-spent!

    ReplyDelete

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