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Cheetah Cub at San Diego Zoo Safari Park (7.18.2020)

Deep breath. So yesterday I was on a rampage, but today was a nice reset and a much more chill day. The world is still just as messed up, but sometimes you have to turn it off the best you can. So I did. Earlier this week I mentioned I spiderwebbed my phone screen and today my insurance (Asurion with AT&T) sent out a technician who fixed my phone in his van for a $29 deductible. We pay a lot for the insurance but was super impressed with the service and the guy was so nice and professional. 

As I'd said in yesterday's meltdown, we didn't plan on going anywhere this weekend, but after watching too much TV, Darren and Nova nudged me to do Safari Park. It was slightly more crowded than it has been the past few visits when we do the end of the day from about 5 to 8pm, but I think the anti-maskers just aren't showing up anymore, so even though there were more people, they're all pretty respectful about masks and distance, and I noticed even if people have drinks or food, they're masking between drinks/bites if they're doing it while walking around. And both the cheetah baby and one of the lion females came right up to me at their windows. We'll probably return on Sunday.

After Safari Park closed, we decided to try to catch Comet Neowise, so we wandered. Instead of going west on San Pasqual, we went east toward Ramona and kinda just cruised around until we could find a good elevated and dark spot which was a deadend somewhere off a road called Highland Valley Road, and though I hadn't even brought my tripod, we were able to see the comet with binoculars and eventually the naked eye once we knew what we were looking for. To be honest, just being out there so remote and seeing the stars was pretty nice. 

That led to a nice music-filled drive home and all of us content with our day. Darren's now playing music, Nova is asleep, and I'm catching up on Housewives and finishing this update. And we're maybe getting our ants under control with our Terro traps so gotta find the bright side, sometimes.  

• Watchlist
• Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (Netflix)
• I loved this documentary about clairvoyant/TV personality Walter Mercado. We didn't grow up watching any Spanish-language telvision at home and avoiding it like the plague whenever we were at my grandparents' house, but even going in blind, I started watching with a curious fascination and finished by crying and feeling mucho, mucho amor. 
• Fuck It List (Netflix)
• This is a teen comedy and I background watched while I was working, but I actually stopped working and watching as the main kid is very endearing and though the story has been done, it felt like a slightly new take and was enjoyable. 
• Rocketman (Amazon Prime)
• We had to look up if this was a musical for stage before it was a movie and it wasn't. It was often cringey to watch and Darren was annoyed by the timeline of songs appearing back to back with songs from entirely different decades. I did not love this but don't regret watching it, either. Just be prepared for a lot of "wtf?" moments. 
• Indian Matchmaking (Netflix)
• OMG. I'm three episodes in and I'm obsessed. I think this show is made for me. It's literally an Indian matchmaker adding to her database of eligible Indian men and women and connecting them. The whole first episode is just all the people who are eligible and their people preferences. One thing you realize is that some of these women should just hook up with each other because the dudes are kind of a joke. At least one of them lives in San Diego.
• Activities
• Dyson offers up free science experiments for kids
• Finding Comet Neowise: Sky & Telescope

• COVID-19 Updates
• San Diego: 625 new cases/6% positivity/6 new deaths/56 deaths this week
• 15 new community outbreaks in the last 7 days/12% Case Investivgation
• California: 9,199 new cases/7.3% positivity/120 new deaths
• Music News:
• I don't necessarily agree with Marc on this one. I feel like if we can get Trump out of office and Biden n by January, we can start to get some real leadership and get the virus under control. But we're already seeing small venues close, drive-in concerts are ridiculous (imho), and he's probably right when it comes to big shows and festivals. Anyway, this is going viral today, so in case you haven't read it...
• Don’t Expect to See Concerts Before 2022, Top Touring Exec Marc Geiger Says - Variety (7.17.2020)
• Burger Records posted on Facebook:
  Several stories have been brought to our attention about some Burger artists engaging in the grooming of underage girls for sex, relationships built on power imbalance, and the solicitation of pornography from minors. With this in mind, we want to remind all of our artists, and inform the Burger community at large that we have a long-standing zero-tolerance policy for this sort of behavior. Zero-tolerance means complete removal from all Burger platforms, destruction of physical media, and an end to our dealings with you, no questions asked, and no exceptions given. If your situation calls for it, we will report you to the proper authorities. We have taken these actions with the artists that were reported to us in the past day, with the exception of removal of the offending artists catalog. We are donating profits from sales of that artist to charity at the victims request.
  When called out for not naming the bands, they did: "It's Part Time, Phil from Love Cop and probably more to come."
• The Satellite (formerly Spaceland) is pivoting and will no longer be a live music/dance party venue. 
• To all of the Satellite fans out there, I am sorry to say that we will no longer be doing live shows or dance parties. We would like to thank you for all the support you have shows us over the years."
  We shut our doors March 12 after the bands started canceling shows due to the corona virus and the Government shutting down the bars and nightclubs just a few days later. It has really hit us hard. We can no longer afford to wait for the day we will be allowed to have shows again. If we do that, we will not have the money to continue and will be forced to close forever.
  We are currently removing the stage and redesigning the club to be more of a place to get good quality drinks and food. We will be re-opening the kitchen and doing a complete redesign. Due to the lack of funds, this will not happen quickly. We will be opening in the parking lot for food and drinks as soon as we have the kitchen re-opened or the government lets us hire a food truck. We hope you will still support us during these tough times.
  It personally has been an amazing 25 years of live music and dance parties. I will miss those days but it is time for us to move on. 
  I would hope that you will support groups like NIVA. They are trying to raise support in Congress and the Senate to help out all the Independent clubs in the US so they do not have to change format like we did or just close the doors for ever. Go to their site and show your support so we can start going to shows again!
• In case you missed the San Diego Music Awards, the full presentation is available on YouTube. I presented the Best World Music Album category. All the winners are available here. Congtats to everyone who won and apologies for not having posted anything sooner.