My home is not very big at all, but still bigger than I need. I could get by with half the size for myself and my cats just fine. When I bought it the location was the most important factor, because I'd be taking care of a mom with dementia. Living in my old neighborhood where people know her and, more importantly, she knows them, is what mattered.

Because I'm single, I have been toying with the idea of finding something smaller. Cheaper to maintain and heat/cool (and clean!) as I get older. But something became immediately apparent as I was looking around... I wouldn't come out ahead on a downsizing deal, and it's proving really difficult to wrap my head around. Shouldn't the difference between the sale price of the bigger place and the purchase price of the smaller place be putting money in my pocket?

No. — At least not right now.

Smaller doesn't automatically equal cheaper.

Unless I gave up on home ownership completely and moved to an apartment. But given the money I've sunk into this place over the years, that's a short-term windfall that would likely cost me even more money long-term.

And so I guess I'm staying put for a while longer.

Which saves me from having to explain to my cats that they'd have to adjust their excessive lifestyle to live in less space. Something they probably wouldn't be happy about at all.

The big news today is that Sonos's CEO has finally stepped down after his company forced a shitty app release in order to meet a ship date on a calendar for headphones... not giving a crap that it fucked over longtime loyal customers in the process.

But this is a rather gross simplification of events of record.

• First of all, don't go crying for the now ex-CEO. He's getting $1.9 MILLION DOLLARS in severance. That's probably slightly more than the 100 people who got laid off because of a situation the now ex-CEO was presiding over.
• The new "Interim CEO" had a good message for Sonos staff that went out today. And he's worked as an engineer for Apple, so it's assumed that he understands the importance of earning and maintaining customer loyalty. But he also was leadership at Quibi, a disaster that's so massively huge that I'm surprised he's still able to work in the tech field. So while things are likely looking up, I'm tempering my expectations.
• The Sonos app, while greatly improved over the steaming pile of shit that initially got forced on everybody (hey, you can scroll through a playlist without constantly pausing now!), is still far from perfect. It's not intuitive at all. You can't configure it in a way that makes sense to you. Want to pin your playlists so you can get to them easily? FUCK YOU! And I just don't get it. There are plenty of talented UI architects out there, why isn't Sonos hiring people who understand elegance via simplicity in design? I'd assume that people developing the app at Sonos use Sonos, but you wouldn't know it given how the app works. Or doesn't. I still fucking hate it, even though it's mostly usable for what I need now.
• People are losing sight of the fact that not only was the now-ex-CEO in charge when the whole app fiasco happened... he also presided over the Sonos Arc's "Pop of Death" that didn't allow many customers to use its hallmark feature, Dolby Atmos, for nearly TWO FUCKING YEARS. He didn't give a single shit that the entire reason I purchased the soundbar was FOR DOLBY ATMOS. At no time did Sonos ask me (or anybody?) what our setup was so the could expedite a fix. Or ask us to ship our setup so they could figure it out. The CEO had them meander around FOR TWO YEARS working on other stuff before solving the problem. TWO FUCKING YEARS. This is inexcusable. This is unforgivable.
• I don't think I will ever forgive Sonos for all they've put me through. And if I could afford to replace my Sonos gear after lighting it all on fire in the middle of the street, I would do that. Probably. Sonos has gone from being a company I loved and advocated for to a company I loathe with every fiber of my being. And their management made it happen. Whether management can swing the pendulum back before they go bankrupt is anybody's guess.

Don't look now but the world isn't ending after all... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• AMNK! Oh look. This is my life right here...

And here's Part One...

Yeah. Just like that.

   
• This Moment! Well this was unanticipated. I had no idea that Able Heart had beautiful feel good tracks like this until it popped up in my feed...

Another artist I need to keep an eye on, it would seem.

   
• Viral! NEWSFLASH: Crucial Firefighting Plane Grounded In LA Because Of Idiot Drone Operator. Who gives a crap that homes are burning... I want footage to go viral on TikTok!

   
• SPACE! ELEVATOR! I loathe the AppleTV adaptation of Foundation, but keep coming back to this awesome scene every time I see anything about building a space elevator. It's incredibly well-done...

The trail of destruction as the cable for the space elevator falls acrss the earth is epic.

   
• Baked! Have I mentioned that I still loathe my new Whirlpool oven? After finally fixing it so it will actually work (the element was not fully seated or something), I run into new things to loathe always. In addition to the control panel layout being shit, my latest consistent source of hate is that YOU CAN'T KEEP THE DOOR OPEN WHEN BROILING! WHO THE FUCK DESIGNS AN OVEN LIKE THIS? You can't look through the window to keep watch, it isn't tall enough. You have to constantly open and close the door to look. This is fucking madness. In all my years of using an oven, including my previous Whirlpool, you could leave the door open to broil. I will never buy another shitty fucking Whirlpool appliance again. What a waste of money for something so frustrating. — Seriously thinking of welding the fucking door sensor permanently shut. But then I'd void my warranty? Lord.

   
• Spring Break! NEWSFLASH: 2 bodies found in the wheel well of a JetBlue plane in Fort Lauderdale, airline says. WTF? So... let's think this through. You stow away in a wheel well where the landing gear goes after takeoff. Assuming you can avoid getting crushed by it, you'll then reach a cruising altitude of 40,000 feet where it's freezing cold and you can't get oxygen?!? I just... what could the motivation be for something like this? "Screw New York weather, I'm going to Ft. Lauderdale!" or something? I dunno. Maybe if they didn't have someplace warm to ride out the winter this would seem like a good idea... but if this "keeps happening" it seems as though there should be some kind of sensor to tell the cockpit if there is a presence in the wheel well.

   
Until next Sunday, assuming the earth is still here.

My cats have been even more lazy than usual today and I'm following their lead. Instead of cleaning the house, doing laundry, and taking care of all the boring and mundane human crap that I should be doing... I'm laying in bed and scrolling through the internet.

Which, as you probably realize, is mostly cat videos and cat content.

I saw this post from last August and it couldn't be more authentic cat...

   
This one killed me. Be sure to watch with the sound on because the hilarity is worth the effort...

   
I'd gladly go to Starbucks for a pup cup for my cats if it would make them like riding in the car. Just listen to this cat...

   
And now, this...

   
I'll stop there because I could drop dozens and dozens of other things that have been inundating my personal time lately.

And you, if you'll excuse me, I'm scrubbing the cat feeding station, cleaning the water fountains, filling the Litter-Robots, washing the kitty warming pad covers, and doing all the other cat-maintenance chores that Jake and Jenny demand of me.

Nothing happened today because I've been obsessing over a social media time-suck.

It's a tale as old as time.

A father, his two sons, and his son-in-law work together at a family realtor's office. One day, for whatever reason... be it boredom, nothing better to do, or an idea to "go viral" to drive more traffic to their firm... they make a video.

They apparently had fun doing it because then they made another. And another. And another. And eventually they're getting hundreds of thousands of views, and an occasional viral hit getting millions.

I've been following this group for quite a while, but this is the video which got me going back through their old videos this evening. Boy does it ring true right now...

   
So many of their ideas start from a mundane truth that's funny when viewed through the perspective they bring to it...

   
A lot of their best videos trade off their relationships as family...

   
As if that wasn't all enough... there's also surprisingly good dancing! And you can find it all right here.

This morning I woke up to scour the news to find out what's happening with the L.A. fires. It's a depressing necessity because closing my eyes to it isn't going to make it go away.

The only thing worse than the actual news are some disgusting "Christians" enamoured with the idea that the fires are "God's punishment" for Hollywood. Because isn't that the way it always goes? If disaster strikes a largely Conservative area, everything gets blamed on anybody except the people living there. It's the gays. It's abortion. It's Obama. However... the minute disaster strikes a largely Progressive area, it's because God hates them and they deserve His wrath. How "Christians" think that this kind of idiotic "logic" makes it okay for them to promote hate against people they don't like... IN GOD'S NAME... is absolutely wild. Just further evidence that many "Christians" today are Christians in name only, and have no real interest in living a life that honors Christ. Compassion and mercy have gone right out the window.

But anyway...

I watched a lot of footage from the fires. But the one that hit me hardest was a video that Hallmark actor Cameron Mathison shot of his destroyed home. This looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic video game instead of reality, and it's a very sobering watch...

Yeah. Children are being murdered around the globe, but God is spending His time burning down Cameron Mathison's house. Get the fuck out of here.

From 1998 through 2001, I was flying to Los Angeles fairly regularly. I had a project in "development" (AKA "development hell") and was consulting after the rights were optioned. This was a crazy period in my life, and I was trying to get the most out of my time there. I made important connections that I still have today. I did new work that was interesting and challenging. I tried standup. I got to know the city fairly well. I met great people. I had a lot of fun.

Which is why the massive fires burning down parts of city are more than a little upsetting. I look at the map and it's very worrisome. The Hollywood Hills are on fire, and the area around the Hollywood Bowl have been evacuated. The Palisades are on fire, and The Getty Villa is there. West Hollywood is endangered north of Sunset Blvd., and iconic places like The Comedy Store are there. Sunset Blvd. itself is closed. To say nothing of the many houses that have burned. It's a horrific situation, and high winds are making a bad situation worse.

Santa Monica, where I've stayed. Pasadena, where I've worked. Hollywood where I played. I could wake up in the morning and find any or all of them engulfed in flames. I have a lot of memories tied up in Northern L.A., and my anxiety is in overdrive just thinking about what's happening there and all the people who have lost their homes.

And the animals, of course.

This is Lahaina, Maui all over again for me.

I think that if I hadn't been through wildfires in my past I wouldn't react so horribly when they strike places I know.

But I have and they do.

Stay safe, everybody.

As anybody who has read this blog for some time knows, I love LEGO building sets and really love LEGO video games. They're light puzzle games that are more fun than stressful, and I still play them often to relax. Over the years I've owned all of them, from Star Wars and Indiana Jones to Jurassic Park and Batman... and beyond! If LEGO has made it, I've bought it. They're clever, funny, and entertaining.

Today I discovered that Traveller's Tales (the company behind most of the games) had worked up a pitch for a LEGO James Bond game. It never occurred to me to pair them up, but now that their presentation video has leaked it's such a natural franchise to immortalize in LEGO...

Sadly, nothing ever came of the idea, which is a shame. I'd 100% buy it if it existed.

The Monday before Christmas, my work had a holiday luncheon. Usually these events aren't the best time for me because I'm a vegetarian trying to eat more vegan. So usually what I end up with is a piece of bread and some salad. But in the last couple years they've been kind enough to request something that I can eat.

This time they got me a vegan wrap that was incredible. Ridiculously delicious...

Ever since then I've been craving another. But I wasn't around enough to place a grocery order until this past Friday. When I ordered all the stuff needed to make an awesome wrap of my own.

And, because once you've prepped all the ingredients wraps are so easy to throw together, I've been eating them day and night, changing ingredients around to find the combination I like ...

After days of eating nothing but wraps for every meal, I have some tips for you...

1. Mixing all the contents in a bowl with the dressing before adding to the wrap is so game-changing. You get all the tastes in every bite.
2. I started with Italian dressing, but now I'm addicted to a kinda Southwest thing made from vegan mayo with vegan sour cream, chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder.
3. Spinach is so superior to iceberg lettuce in a wrap. Spinach has flavor, iceberg is just wet and crunchy. Still prefer iceberg in tacos though.
4. My favorite ingredients other than the Southwest dressing and spinach is... black beans, blackened corn, red pepper, black olives, onion, tomato, poblano, and crushed corn chips.
5. I nuke the wrap for 10 seconds just to make it a bit flexible before filling. Any longer than that and the wrap gets chewy. Not nuking makes it crumble.
6. At first I was wrapping the wraps with parchment to keep them together when I cut in half and eat them. Now I don't bother. Using a serrated knife allows you to saw through them while keeping the ingredients inside.

Wraps are such a healthy thing to eat with all those veggies. I hope I never get tired of them. Or at least not so tired that I stop eating them altogether.

I'm just a boy. Standing in front of the blogosphere. Asking it to love him... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Well Hello Hello! YouTube's algorithm has found me some really cool content over the years. But sometimes it comes too late. This small channel of blacksmithing videos was being shut down. The two guys who created it could never seem to get any traction, as they were continuously buried by the algorithm. But then? YouTube promoted their final video. And it finally took off. They ballooned to 15,000 subscribers, and a lot of people who would have watched had they only known about it, commented as such. And so here they are... coming back...

Kinda a happy ending for everybody. I hope they can keep growing their channel. If you want to take a look, it's pretty cool.

   
• Future Dutch! So there I was taking a phone call after putting my television on pause. Eventually the Google screensaver engaged, and I came very close to saying WHAT THE BLADE RUNNER ALTERNATE FUTURE IS THIS SHIT?! And noted that the title of the photo included "Vinkeveen" from the Netherlands. So I looked it up and Google Maps and, sure enough...

© Google Maps

© Google Maps

© Google Maps

That is very cool, isn't it?

   
• Oh, Grand! Just a reminder to everybody who hasn't already used a VPN to watch the new Wallace & Gromit movie on the BBC (they've had it since Christmas)... Netflix finally got off their asses and has it available for streaming in the USA. I'll be watching it again just to show Netflix that this is the kind of awesome content I want to see... not another pile of shit that Zack Snyder crapped out his ass...

The movie is just amazingly well-done and well worth your valuable time.

   
• The Prologue and the Promise! I recently watched a video on the history of Walt Disney World's Epcot. That lead me to a video on one of the earliest pavilions in Future World called Horizons. I always thought it was a bit shit to two times I visited before they closed, but there was a giant mural inside that I loved. Never really knew who painted it until I watched this video. Apparently some genius at Disney thought to hire renowned futurist painter and celebrated "space" artist Robert McCall to create it. And it is stunning...

© Disney and McCall Studios

© Disney and McCall Studios

You can read more about this amazing work (plus see many others) on the artist's website here.

   
• Mixbox! WELP! Looks like somebody finally solved the thing I hate most about painting digitally... pigments never work as they should. Programs like Photoshop and Procreate use an additive model which turns everything into a muddy mess. But now a company has come up with a model which simulates actual pigments. This is incredible...

I hope that the Mixbox technology is added to mainstream apps very soon now... it's amazing to me that it's taken this long to get here.

   
• IT'S THE FOG! The Mystery Government Fog is out to get us! DEFEAT THE FOG 2025! (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick).

FINALLY! The threat of alien spores is being taken seriously by the health care community! Thanks, Dr. Eric!

   
• Unsurprised! My grievances against PayPal are well documented. They stole money from me. They said that a customer didn't get merchandise I sold to them and reversed the money. I provided USPS tracking showing the delivery. I provided an email from the customer saying that they received their order and that they didn't receive a refund. PayPal didn't give a single fucking shit. They kept the money. And since they are not governed by banking regulations, there's NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. After pestering them for months, they simply stopped responding. So I closed down the Artificial Duck store and was done. I never made a single dollar profit on the shop, sold everything at cost and exact shipping, and did it for the fun of it all. There's no way I could continue and take a loss because payments are revoked over a total lie.

And now it comes out that these heinous fucking assholes at PayPal are just as bad as we knew they were. They've been fucking over their advertisers and their customers with their "Honey" service. Get a load of this...

Nothing would make me happier than PayPal being sued out of existence and shut down. But that will never happen. They get protection from shitty fucking laws that our government creates because our government is too busy sucking Big Business dicks to give a shit about protecting the citizens that elect them. Welcome to the hellscape that it The United States of America.

   
Alrighty then. Until next Sunday then!