Sayonara 2025

Aerial view of metropolitan Tokyo

This is the time of year to wrap up the old (no gifts please) and usher in the new. Here are a few upcoming events that are on my radar. One of the things I realized in the past year of going out A LOT was that it kinda sucks going to see bands, shows, and stuff by yourself. The new TRON re-boot was an exception. I like to watch movies alone to be with my own internal thoughts about what’s unfolding onscreen, without having to necessarily discuss it with a companion. Most other events though, it pays to have someone with you so you don’t seem like the unhinged weirdo that comes by himself to a random open mic on a Tuesday at some dive bar with only two people in the audience. Drinking alone is also probably not good, health-wise.

So, I’m trying again to systematize my event sharing. I’ve gone back and forth about the best way to do this. Sure, I could simply send out a mass email and bcc clumps of friend groups, but I find that too much work to assemble the various collections clipped from archived emails, text messages, Google contacts, Facebook/Instagram/Discord friends, etc. And oh, maybe friend X won’t get along with friend Y. Or it would be awkward if friend Z showed up during my knitters group meetup. (Full disclosure, I’m not in a knitters group).

With regards to event curation, that too, is a chore that resists efficiency. Most of the cool shit I discover these days exists on Instagram, a site notorious for favoring images over structured content (i.e. text). A cool flyer image with the date and time embedded in the flyer doesn’t translate well to a nicely formatted calendar event on your G-cal. I’ve tried to little avail to find a useful app or utility that will read this, and through some OCR magic, turn it into a event on my calendar. I have found a couple that do this, but it still takes too many clicks, screenshots, and whatnot to make it really a natural part of my workflow. You see, my life now desperately revolves around my calendar. If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t exist. Maybe I have an unhealthy obsession with calendars. Have you been caught up in email thread hell trying to arrange the best time for you and your friend group to find a mutually agreeable coffee klatch date? Wish you had a trusty AI-friend who becomes your loyal scheduler for all the things going on in your life? Welcome to my world.

I found a better way to calendarize my activities. Might change next month. So it goes.

I’ll still probably end up going solo to most of these events. But at least I can stop stressing about putting it out there for others to know about.