Eventful Week (Patreon)

It's been a busy week. Following the extrovert paradise that is CONvergence, I took the kids to see Bloodywood, Jinjer, and Babymetal on Wednesday night, which was their first concert excluding sci-fi conventions and those Beth has performed at. The sort of funny story about that is that while I like Babymetal and find them to be good writing music (catchy tunes with lyrics that aren't deep enough to distract me), I fucking love Bloodywood (Punjabi metal in the tradition of Rage Against the Machine and other "issues" metal, with an awesome slice of Indian folk instruments that really make it stand out). So, when Beth found out that the two bands were playing together in Minneapolis, there was no way I could resist that siren call.

After I bought tickets, William and Arya noticed my excitement and heard bits I played while writing in my office (most of the time, I stick to headphones, but in my office I put everything on the speakers). They started begging me to take me with them. This was not a movie-ticket level of cash outlay, so it required a bit of cajoling, but once a friend of ours offered to come along and provide additional adult supervision, I relented and bought tickets for them, as well.

Bloodywood opened and was everything I hoped it would be. It gave me plenty of opportunity to pull out my hair tie so that I could properly head bang - something I really only do at a metal show when I get really excited about it.

Jinjer was not quite as much my style - a Ukrainian metal band with vocals that are part comprehensible and part growl-screams. I was impressed, however, to discover that both the melodic sounds and the growls came from the same female vocalist. I seriously spent the first song or two trying to figure out who the second vocalist was, but nope, same chick. Still not my style, but legit metal as fuck.

Babymetal was also more or less what I expected, but for that I decided to make sure it was a memorable experience for Arya. She's heavy, and I'm old, so I couldn't keep her on my shoulders for the entire show, but I did so for more than half of it, and she was delighted. My back and calves? Not quite so much, and I'm still kind of limping when I go down a flight of stairs. William seems to have mostly enjoyed himself, but Arya had a fantastic time, so that was a win.

I've also been reading a bit of old Asimov on the side - lots of robot stories in preparation for the Murderbot panel at CONvergence (which was so much fun), but also the Foundation series (finished Foundation and Empire last night at the expense of giving Arya a reasonable bedtime).

Beth and I are also caught up on said Murderbot show, which is a solid adaptation. I'm looking forward to season 2, since the show's renewal was announced this week.

I haven't been as productive with writing Deep Dive this week as I usually am, and while I hold out hope of finishing the current global conspiracy by Tuesday, I'm also aware that I have some unrelated freelance writing to finish this weekend, which might prevent that from coming together. No week goes by in which I write nothing, but so far it's been closer to 1,500 words than to the 3,500 I budget for global conspiracies.