Sunday, September 4, 2022
Staycation day 9 of 16. 100% sleep quality last night according to Sleep Cycle app. Medium bowl of oatmeal with milk, flax meal, cacao nibs, toasted slivered almonds, blueberries; water. Rode Muni to Civic Center Station, then walked to the Asian Art Museum for Free First Sunday. Used their iPhone app and my Airpod Pros to listen to commentary. I found the app hard to use but ultimately serviceable. I suspect that after having had really nice experiences with VoiceMap, all other tour apps will seem burdensome. Instead of the Asian Art Museum tour app, I wished that you could choose a focus, such as Masterpieces, and then—like VoiceMap—simply walk and be instructed where to go without needing to pull out the phone every few minutes. The Asian Art Museum app is nice in that it provides audio descriptions of the art, but it fails to recognize that those who want it probably want it all the time and those who don't probably don't want it all of the time. The map was hard to use because it doesn't take advantage of GPS, so it's hard to figure out where you entered a gallery. The app doesn't detect what floor you're on, so if the map it presents is not of the floor you're on, you have to figure that out and figure out how to change to the floor you're on. The map can't be rotated on the device, so you have to mentally impose the presented model of the space onto your physical perception of the space in order to figure out which direction you need to move to get to the next tour item. (You can physically rotate your phone, but since it's a fixed isometric drawing, my brain had a hard time with it, and I gave up trying that.) One nice thing was being able to access numbered items via direct entry. Occasionally the tour would refer to gallery numbers, which was problematic because the signs showing the gallery numbers were very discreet and with poor contrast, perhaps in low-lit areas. The real-world headphones-and-number icons indicating an available audio guide were very small and should have been larger—large enough to see from a distance. Sometimes the numbers did not seem to match the item. I took a break after finishing the third floor and realizing that it was past noon. I walked to Sunset Squares and had a terrible time trying to place an order via their QR code mobile ordering system using Square. I entered my credit card number and then selected the button to continue, but it would not progress, and my inputfields failed to show the dots one usually sees that hide the number. I was so frustrated that I didn't want to talk to anyone and simply left. Neither did anyone approach me to welcome me or ask if I needed help. I walked to Villon, where service was slow and somewhat inattentive, but I was glad to be in a nice environment. I didn't want a full meal, so I ordered and enjoyed toasted banana bread with whipped honey butter and an iced coffee with milk. I would have preferred something less sweet, but smaller portion size won over my other possible savory choices, which were all either much larger or not exactly what I wanted (e.g., side dishes). I returned to the Asian Art Museum, visiting the remaining floors and special exhibits. Rode Muni to the Castro and walked to the Castro Art Mart where I watched and enjoyed good performances by drag king Mike Strapon and drag queens Lindsay Slowhands, Vendetta, and drag queen and hostess Dulce de Leche and browsed the vendor booths selling art. Rode Muni home, stopping at the West Portal Branch Library to use the restroom. Along the way I realized that I had had night mode on in Firefox, the default browser on my phone, and that this might have been part of the earlier ordering problem with the Sunset Squares and Square. Dinner at home with Patrick: pork fried rice with pineapple, green onions, yellow pepper, and brown rice; water. Patrick had a chocolate pudding left over from a lunch Uber Eats order. We watched The Sandman s1:e9 on Netflix instant watch. Patrick went to bed and listened to an audiobook on Hoopla which I showed him how to set up. I washed dishes. Unloaded photos from my iPhone 12 mini. Uploaded photos to Flickr.