Starr is Screaming

Last night, sashagee and I went to a Sailor Moon musical.

I know very little about Sailor Moon and have no emotional attachment to it--I haven't seen a single episode of the original series, though I have seen Crystal, and I was not one of the people who grew up watching and bonded with it as a young child. sashagee is, though, so as soon as she heard that there was going to be a musical performance she asked if I wanted to go with her, and I said yes.

Our original plan was for me to come home, us to eat dinner, and then head down there and get to the doors around 7 p.m. I heard from multiple people that the merch line was insane and sold out extremely quickly, though, so mid-afternoon we changed our plans. She came down and met me after work, in her cutest red dress with her hair in odangos, and we went to Brightwok Kitchen, which was dairy-free, gluten-free, mostly egg-free, and thus while not technically heḥshered I at least felt comfortable eating there during Pesaḥ (my original thought was some other Asian restaurant but soy sauce has wheat in it so that was a no-go). We got some delicious rice bowls, checked to see if the tea store was still there (it was not), and then walked to the Chicago Theatre to stand in line. The line wasn't too long and we lucked out by all the existing VIP people moving through their line, so the back part of the main line where we were was routed through the VIP line instead. We immediately went through the merch line, got through in only a few minutes, and sashagee bought a branded lightstick (lit up in multiple colors and said セーラームーン on it) and a poster, and since we still had almost an hour and a half before the musical began, we bought popcorn and sat up on a bench on the balcony hallway and waited. We saw MomoManLove very briefly, talked with pearl.nongluk and bradford.bensontaylor about their struggles with the merch line, and saw gracielizabeth and pezroan waiting in the merch line which now extended all way down the downstairs hall and up seven(!) flights of stairs. They eventually got down to the front and came back, only to inform us that we were extremely lucky because the branded lightsticks had sold out and only generic Kpop-style ones were left. gracielizabeth had gotten VIP tickets so she was seated in the front with the bigwigs, whereas we were up on the balcony, and as the timer ticked down we took our seats.

The musical was fun! Which is to say, I had a nice time, but I was not one of the people screaming when Usagi did her first costume change and said the famous 月に代わって、お仕置きよ！ (tsuki ni kawatte, oshioki yo, "In the name of the moon, I will punish you!") The first half was a condensed version of the Dark Kingdom arc, which I've heard all of these musicals do, but it makes sense--being the first arc, there's no backstory you have to assume the audience knows, and it's the most theatrically-dramatic part with the love across lifetimes and the forces of the Dark Kingdom, here depicted as pre-War-style with neon and big band music. The sailor senshi fought song guys, Tuxedo Mask threw roses--all special effects were done on a giant screen behind the stage, where the supertitles were also displayed---they went up and down platforms and had fight scenes, and saved the world. If you're familiar all with Sailor Moon you know what happens. If you're not familiar with Sailor Moon, you would probably be in for a rough time because a bunch of stuff was cut out and I would have had very little idea what was happening if I hadn't already seen Sailor Moon Crystal. As it was, I kept thinking, "Wait, doesn't the villain have shitennō? Where are they?" (they were entirely cut)

The second half was a series of idol concert-style musical numbers. Most of them were reprises from the show, and the whole time I kept thinking, what about the theme song? There was a brief wordless version at near the beginning but everyone knows it and they haven't done it yet.

( Well, of course they were saving it for the finale )

We left and met up with people out in the lobby, but everyone decided not to go out to anywhere afterwards. Instead, we all just went home. On the way back, sashagee kept saying how amazing it was and how much she loved it and how glad she was she managed to get one of the coveted branded lightsticks. She gave it 10/10. I wouldn't go that far for the aforementioned reasons that I have no deep connection with Sailor Moon, but it was still a bunch of fun. Be prepared for the idol show, though, and make sure you know the plot. Otherwise you'll be lost.

No, not, Pesaḥ, that's on Saturday.

So a few years ago, I went on to the website of my internet provider (RCN) and noticed that the plan I had at the time, 150 mbps, did not show up anywhere as an available plan. So I called in, and they confirmed that it was not an available plan and that I could upgrade to 400 mbps and pay $40 per month less than I was paying at the time, so I told them that I wanted to do that. Well, over time the price started creeping up slowly more and more until it was more than I was paying before, and I went online and checked the prices and, lo and behold, the 400 mbps plan that I upgrades to no longer exists. So I picked up the phone and I called in to RCN and we went through the same speech again. I upgraded to 600 mbps for $30 less than I'm paying now, and I'm sure in the future I'm sure I'll have to upgrade once again to 800/900/1gb for $25-40 less than I'm paying now.

This feels like a valid use case for AI, honestly. Check the website of $SERVICE_NAME every month, see if there's a better plan than the one you're signed up for now, sign up for it. Have the AI talk to the company chatbot so I don't have to speak to a soulless machine.

Well, that would work if I hadn't had to talk to a real person to make the switch. She said her name was Mary (based on her accent, it was not) but uniquely, and the reason I write about it, is that she asked me about my day while she was looking something up. That doesn't happen often anymore and now that there are so many soulless machines you have to talk to on the phone, it was nice to have a moment of human interaction. I told her that Laila was playing in the room nearby and I felt lucky that I was able to work from home and see my daughter, and I hoped that she hadn't had to deal with too many angry customers over the course of the day so far. She said she hadn't. Hopefully that's still true.