It is astonishing to me the mental gymnastics that people are doing in order to justify protecting pedophiles. I would have never in a million years have thought that people would ever endorse such a thing.

And yet here we are.

And I have no fucking clue why. The further down the rabbit hole I fall, the more inexplicable it becomes.

And, no, Pam Bondi did not actually say this. But her actions make it clear she might say this.

In all honesty... does a system deserve to stand if it built around protecting those who would sexually assault children?

Hell no.

So burn this mother-fucker down. I don't give a shit who gets prosecuted or what the consequences are.

Sucked in again!

I haven't had access to Hallmark Channel since May 2024, but wanted a mindless watch on my flight home. So I ended up buying a movie called The Royal We for a bargain $8 on the iTunes Store. I picked it because I really like Mallory Jansen.

Turns out it's everything you could want in a Hallmark flick. It was so good that it instantly became one of my favorite Hallmark flicks. Sure it's the tired old "I'M SECRETLY A PRINCESS" movies, but that's not really the focus, which was a refreshing change. They also bypassed the "I'm so goofy and inept" idiocy that plagues secret royal movies. Nice.

SO... if you've been missing my Hallmark reviews and you're looking for a great Hallmark watch, here's your film.

You're welcome!

I've said my good bye to Aaron, have returned home from Kansas City, and am more exhausted than I can process, but never you fear about bullets gone missing... because a Very Special Ace Fontana Memorial Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• It's a Cluster! I headed to Seattle on Wednesday afternoon and spent the night at the airport so I wouldn't have to stress about making my morning flight (Seattle traffic can be notorious). And all day Wednesday and very early Thursday, I was desperately trying to check in with Alaska Air, but couldn't. Worried that something was wrong, I got to the airport three hours early for my 8:21am flight. And was met with a massive crowd of people. Nobody could check in. You had to stand in line for hours to get a boarding pass, and it was so badly organized that nobody really knew what to do. I barely made my flight. — Look, I know technology goes wrong sometimes... but when you have ZERO plans for how to handle things when it does (especially when you knew there was a problem the previous day) that's a serious fucking oversight. I love Alaska Airlines, but this was one of the biggest cluster-fucks I've ever seen in 45 years of travel. That's saying something.

   
• In Remembrance! Aaron's Celebration of Life was well-attended, and there were two things I took away from it: 1) Aaron touched a lot of people, and if only a fraction were able to be there, we may never know how many people that is... and 2) It was sobering to find out that our friendship, which I thought was atypically special, wasn't all that unique at all. Everybody there felt as though their friendship was atypically special. How many people have the ability to make most every person they meet feel like that?

His 51st birthday is on Tuesday and, as I found out on Saturday, it's hard to celebrate his life without him in it.

   
• Arena KC! Aaron's band performed at his celebration, which was bittersweet. Made even more so because they had just completed a new promo video last month...

A rock star from start to finish.

   
• An Aaron By Any Other Name! While I was waiting for my plane in Kansas City, I was looking through the many, many photos I had collected of Aaron over the years. One caught my eye, because it was double-Aaron...

I first knew him by his blogging handle, Jester. Then I knew him by his name, Paul. Then I knew him by his stage name, Ace. And then I knew him by his middle name, Aaron, which he took as his name because he thought he was more an Aaron than a Paul. But no matter what I was calling him, he was always a great friend.

   
• FindMy! It's interesting to note that the only person I've ever had in Apple's "FindMy" service was Aaron. Because we were either meeting up when I was in town for work or we were meeting up in some random city with other people, it was just easier to use the technology of the day to make our lives easier...

I don't think I ever bothered to open the app unless I was specifically trying to find him. Which is a shame. Because if I had opened it when I was in Anaheim last February, I would have seen that he was in the city at the same time. But, alas, I never knew he was there until he saw that I was in the city and texted after I had already flown home.

   
• The Football! My hotel was across the highway from Arrowhead. Just think how close I was to where Taylor Swift likes to watch her boyfriend play football!

Of course that's also where she played her KC stop for the Eras Tour. And where Travis Kelce attended the show in order to try and give her a friendship bracelet, which is far more historically significant than some silly sportsball game.

   
• MCI! I love Kansas City International Airport. It's beautifully maintained. It's smartly organized. There's plenty of places to sit. There's good variety of things to eat. It's just a generally great place to fly into and out of. In other words, the complete opposite of the shit-show that Seattle-Tacoma International has become. =sigh= I probably wouldn't be so jealous if only Seattle didn't keep ripping out seats to put in retail shops... and could manage to keep all the escalators running for more than five fucking minutes.

   
• Bright Light! Bright Light! For nearly a decade I had to stop driving in the dark because I couldn't see properly. Even the smallest light source would flare out and obliterate everything. Then I got the lenses in my eyes replaced and, suddenly I could see at night again. Driving back across the mountains from Seattle in the dark was a relaxing experience... except not really. It's shocking (or not) how many people drive with their brights on. And though it doesn't blind me any more like it used to, it is irritating. Whether they are coming at me or are behind me (or coming at me with regular lights and then turn on their brights before they fully pass), it's set me back to square one. I don't remember it being like this before I stopped driving at night but, given the way things are going, I shouldn't be surprised.

   
And now I really should get some sleep. Or try to.

Welcome to another Caturday Pupperday!

I am in Kansas City, far from my cats, so I'm having to make due with Aaron and Henry's dogs this time. It made for a nice change given how adorably enthusiastic dogs are to see you when compared to cats. Especially when you find out just how little dogs seem to care about respecting personal space. I had dogs all over me, and it was pretty great...

The first lapdog was a (relatively) small poodle who was very polite. Just wanted to sit on my lap for a while and be petted...

Fortunately, when my lapdog left, there was a backup lapdog to take their place...

Then a backup to my backup lapdog entered the picture...

And then a backup for my backup's backup lapdog entered the picture. Absolutely no understanding of physical space. Climbed right up on my lap, my chest, my face, and eventually my head...

Then it was a big change in a small package. I had met Asher when Aaron and Henry were living in San Francisco. She patiently waited her turn for pets as a replacement backup lapdog...

Then it was time for a brief return of one of the backups for belly rubs...

Meanwhile, back at home, the home security system alerted me that Jake and Jenny were sleeping.

No worries I'm sure when I return on Sunday afternoon they will be upset that I smell like dog, but eventually wanting lap time of their own.

I said I was done with commenting on Bad Bunny's Halftime Show, but the hate... it just won't stop.

The things people are saying just blow my fucking mind. On top of the blatantly racist hot takes on somebody daring to sing in Spanish during the Superb Owl... or denying that Puerto Rico is a part of the USA when it's a US territory... and now we've got next-level racism coming at him in the form of The Great Replacement Theory? What the ever-loving fuck?

Just look at this bullshit...

"America first."

Puerto Rico is a part of "America"... a territory of "The United States of America." So what the fuck are you even talking about, you dipshit white supremacist piece of shit? This country's entire purpose is to be a melting pot of cultures. I wonder if this asshole makes similar declarations for Oktoberfest celebrations around the country? Probably not... that's European and white. It's just Cinco de Mayo, Bad Bunny, or anything where people are celebrating while non-white.

Meanwhile, Bad Bunny just goes about being the adorable human being he is.

Like he was when he went on Hot Ones last year...

Yeah. Tell me again how this guy is a threat to American "culture."

Bad Bunny is American culture.

Back when I used to travel constantly, I took my laptop and had all my work files on Dropbox so they were accessible no matter where I was at.

But my personal files back at home were problematic. I'd go to look at some of my photos while on the road and the Plex server would glitch. I'd be on vacation somewhere and find that I couldn't reach my files back home. It was a serious problem, because sometimes the files or documents I needed were urgent. I once had to have a friend run to my house, print out a document, take a photo of it, and send it to me while I was rushing around an airport. Not fun at all.

So when I traded in my old NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive for a new one, a priority was figuring out how to have a clean tunnel back to my house for whatever I needed to do.

I was about ready to give up when I saw TailScale mentioned in a NAS forum. For personal use it's free, so I really had nothing to lose.

It took some doing to get everything working on my NAS (it's not a click-and-install deliverable, so you have to learn how to run it as a Docker container), but once you get things running? You have your own personal network between all your devices! Just install the client app on your computers and phones and whatever via a VPN, then point your apps to the private address assigned to them, and you're done!

Now I can watch my videos streaming from my Plex server with zero issues (this is something that has always been problematic via Plex itself). I can use my iPhone to look at all my photos being indexed and served from Immich with ease. My personal document library is available anywhere I have internet. And Tailscale is blazingly fast about it, which is so nice.

If you're wanting to have a private network where all your devices can talk to each other securely, then Tailscale might be for you. All the information you need is on their website. And if you're looking for a VPN solution for your work, then Tailscale seems reasonably priced.

One more thing about the Mr. Good Bunny Superb Owl show before I move on...

I love that the guy who got married at Bad Bunny's Superb Owl halftime show is just a guy. A nurse, from the looks of it. Not some social media influencer or other nonsense (he's gained Instagram followers since his wedding, but he's only posted some random pics).

This is just a guy who had Lady Gaga and Bad Buny sing at his wedding in the biggest televised event of the year. And his new wife's Instagram is private. So... yeah... influencer-free and perfect...

Photo from Tommy's Instagram

One thing you can't deny is that they're an adorable couple...

Photo from Tommy's Instagram

Photo from Tommy's Instagram

The entire show was a celebration of love and joy, but Benito sings in Spanish, so let's shit all over it, I guess. Gotta keep the faux outrage machine churning to distract everybody from the actual problems plaguing us.

For the life of me, I cannot wrap my head around the Bad Bunny hate that's ongoing.

I've been a fan of his music since I first heard Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana (YHLQMDLG), which was the album of 2020 during the pandemic. But I've been a fan of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio since his appearance in Bullet Train where he was fantastic. They wrote his character a good backstory and gave him an awesome fight scene.

He appeared on Carpool Karaaoke which was fun. Just look at James Cordon having a blast here...

And he hosted SNL twice where he was charming and funny from beginning to end...

His Jeopardy sketch was so good...

But I think my favorite sketch of his was this one...

Or maybe this one...

But when it comes to the Superb Owl halftime show... what more could you fucking want? He's from Puerto Rico, which makes him all-American. He's a multi-platinum artist whose music is popular around the world. He's a phenomenally talented performer, in any language. And he has good videos for his songs...

I thought his halftime set was amazing. He put on a fantastic show. And it was nice to have something different. On top of all that, if anybody would take two minutes to Google it, he told a story which is special to him.

But he sings in Spanish, so everybody unloads, like this xenophobic racist piece of shit...

And, as usual, it's Jon Stewart who had the perfect perspective on it all...

The United States of America is a MELTING POT. We are a mix of cultures and faiths and backgrounds and beliefs and languages which make us stronger together. Bad Bunny's show was an opportunity to let loose and have fun with a guy giving it his all to entertain us. You didn't need to understand the lyrics, everybody could just enjoy the vibe. Join in and celebrate what was handed to us. But oh no. If it's not somebody singing about beer, pickup trucks, and shooting guns, it's "UnAmerican."

How fucking sad.

Could somebody refresh my memory... was there this kind of faux-outrage when the Macarena by Los Del Río was topping the music charts? This has to be the stupidest manufactured outrage I've ever seen. There's serious shit going on, but let's all be distracted by the music at a fucking football game. Okay.

Jesus.

Fortunately the voice of reason came from fucking Elmo, of all people... errr... Muppets...

Amen to that, little monster.

Books have been written about Gen X and our mentality when it comes to dealing with the world around us. I think way too much is put on the fact that we were incredibly independent due to being latchkey kids (meaning we came home from school to an empty house because our parents were both at work) and not enough put on how we were incredibly independent because we had disconnected lives. There were no mobile phones everywhere to keep us attached.

I remember very well how I could "go out to play" when I got home from school and just... disappear. I could walk downtown or to the park so long as I was back in the neighborhood before dinner. I could hang out with friends at their houses. I could run wild on the hill behind my house (and the rest of the block). When it was dinner time dad would whistle and, if I didn't hear it, the message would be passed on to me by other kids or (more likely) their parents. After dinner I could go back outside until the streetlights turned on. Then it was homework and television time until it was time for bed.

Being disconnected was a very powerful thing as a kid (and as adults, before mobile phones fucked things up).

I was thinking about that today when I saw a kid walking home from school talking on his mobile phone. Not a teenager, but a fairly young kid.

He was never out of touch... unless his battery died.

No matter where he wanders, he's never more than a phone call away from his parents. Or even his friends, assuming they had access to a phone with which to call him.

It just seemed so... odd... to me.

When I was a kid, you made plans with your friends for after school face-to-ace while you still could. Otherwise, you might not be able to find them. You wrote notes. You left word with others. You called and left messages somewhere. It was a different world. But we adapted to it because it was all we knew.

In that respect, I'm glad that I grew up as a Gen X kid. It was the last generation of true freedom.

Not having something stupid or embarrassing I did go viral for the entire world to see is just icing on the cake.

Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks! You may be thinking that Bullet Sunday will be canceled because of the Superb Owl (I am not calling it by its real name because you can be sued for that), but you would be wrong... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Loot! This is not a Superb Owl commercial. It's a fake commercial from the television show Loot. And yet, it really should be a real commercial, because...

Can Maya Rudolph do any wrong? A completely serious question here.

   
• Doggy! If there's anything that will get me to go to the theater to see Supergirl, it's Baby Krypto...

I'm sure the rest of the movie is nice too.

   
• Daddy! I sure hope that Instagram is fucking working again and the right video is here, because damn!

Nothing beats a good joke before having to go back to work in the morning!

   
• Unreality. Watch this and be unshocked that this is how the world works...

Nobody and nothing matters more than corporate profits.

   
• Unreality: Part Two! Lest you think that the USA government is alone for being one of the most horrifically corrupt pile of shit on the face of the earth, here's a video for you. I swear, governments just don't seem like the ever operate in the best interest of the people they are supposed to be serving...

And now is where you fall down a Boy Boy rabbit hole like I did, because they have some phenomenal videos about things that will make you think. Assuming you have an open mind to do so.

   
• Together! I like it when content creators put some creativity in their stuff. This is pretty funny...

There's so many shitty content "creators" who just play other people's content and react to it. They don't even try. Yet they probably get gabillions more followers than people who put the effort in.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Trump wanted Dulles Airport, Penn Station named after him — in exchange for releasing federal funds. CAN YOU FOR EVEN FOR ONE SECOND IMAGINE WHAT THE REACTION WOULD HAVE BEEN IF OBAMA HAD TRIED SOMETHING LIKE THIS? CAN YOU? I MEAN, SERIOUSLY... CAN YOU JUST FUCKING IMAGINE???

   
And there you go. If you'll excuse me, I'm back to not watching the Superb Owl.