Tickets

I last saw Depeche Mode on August 17, 2009 at the Hollywood Bowl. The cost was about $70 in Section S. This time it was almost $400. 😲 I wouldn’t do it if they weren’t one of my favorite bands. With Fletch recently passing, I felt I ought to try and see them again. Once again, tickets were mobile only. In case you’re wondering, the “Add to Google Wallet” doesn’t do anything on GrapheneOS with Sandboxed Google Play services. I also don’t have the wallet app. There is some pop up action but it quickly reverts back to the ticket barcode screen.

Tickets

When the event went on sale back in November, I wasn’t able to get tickets. Demand was crazy and so were the prices. A day prior to the show date, they announced that some additional tickets were released so I decided to give it another look. They appeared to be on the side, almost behind the stage so I was going to pass again. However, the resale options caught my attention and the price was more reasonable compared to when they first went on sale, so I decided to go for it. This was the day before the show. I think this is the first time I’ve used Ticketmaster’s Verified Resale option. Pretty seamless experience. Of course, I still really hate the mobile ticket thing. I’ll pay extra for a printed ticket and I have when that is an option. In this case, there wasn’t which is increasingly common. So this is my ticket stub keepsake:

Originally, I was looking for a RSS reader and considered things like Tiny Tiny RSS, FreshRSS, Miniflux, etc. Then I came across maubot and its RSS bot. I figured I’ll give that a shot since I already run a Matrix homeserver. This isn’t a general how-to. I’m just documenting my experience and issues I ran into. Please refer to the actual docs.

Installing maubot

I used the Docker install. I use the Docker Compose plugin so after the initial docker run as per the docs and editing the config file, I added a service in my docker-compose.yml:

I’ve been using GrapheneOS since 2019 with a Pixel 3a. Support ended May 2022 so it’s on to the next phone. The Pixel 6a will be supported for 5 years (up from 3 years). This is a big plus. More on the 3a vs 6a comparison later.

Installing

Normally, OEM unlocking would be available when first receiving the phone, but in this case the 6a needed an OTA update and then a factory reset in order for OEM unlocking to work. After doing that, I went to enable OEM unlocking but it was still greyed out. Huh. Before I could really start to worry, the option finally appeared. Probably still had to do a network check.

I’ve switched my site from WordPress to Hugo. I was intrigued by Markdown and the ability of just focusing on the content and not having to deal directly with HTML. I hate HTML. Then I went down the path of choosing a static site generator. There’s a lot of them but I chose Hugo because it’s fast and not written in Javascript. I may start learning Go as well. I didn’t need a full-blown CMS for this site anyway and could do without having to update WordPress/theme/plugins periodically. Plus editing the site on the command-line is fun too. Let’s see if I start posting more often.

I was surprised this tour how they came back so quickly. I previously went to the Nokia Theater show on 09-25-11. I was kinda disappointed the set was so similar. They just swapped out The Great Debate for Outcry, which I prefer anyway. But still I’m eager to see Mangini’s take on more DT material. The venue this time was a little smaller and they did have a few sound issues throughout the night as you can hear on the recording. But on the plus side they really turned up Myung’s mix later in the set, which was awesome.