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Give Me All You Got, Doc

Posted on Monday, March 18th, 2024

Dave!Today at my doctor appointment, I asked for ALL THE VACCINES! I figure science has given us these gifts from God, so I might as well accept them. Alas, all he had for me was the TDAP blend update, which I am very happy to get, seeing as how whooping cough is making its way through the valley. Again. Other than that, my doctor said I should get the shingles vaccine even though I never had chickenpox. So I am absolutely doing that.

Sadly, I have everything else he recommends. Which is a bummer given how many people are skipping vaccines, and I'm sure polio and all that other crap we had virtually eliminated are most certainly coming back. God. How stupid are we as a society?

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Bullet Sunday 847

Posted on Sunday, March 17th, 2024

Dave!Don't even worry about the fact that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Don't give it another thought. There's no need... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Biggie! This video shows the largest city on earth throughout history, and it's absolutely mind-blowing...

Fascinating how the USA doesn't even register until the end.

   
• Good on NASA! In a day and age when young Black men are getting told left and right that they have to cut off their locs or they can't be in school or can't be in sports... Tyrone Jacobs released his NASA headshot...

Tyrone Jacobs and his natural hair in front of an American flag for his NASA headshot.

If NASA doesn't have a problem with natural hair, why the fuck do schools think they have a right to say a damn thing? Newsflash: THEY DON'T. Same goes for tattoos. Same goes for any outward appearance which doesn't keep you from doing the job.

   
• Queer Comedy! Hannah Gadsby is headlining a gender-queer Netflix Special and I finally got around to watching it. I was expecting her to not touch on the controversy she had with Netflix because, well, how can you use your platform to criticize your platform? But she just went for it. Nothing held back. And Netflix is obviously airing it, so good on Hannah and good on Netflix, I guess...

It's not a home-run, but a lot of the jokes are very funny. I enjoyed it.

   
• More Clavell! The new Shōgun series is magical to me. I love that the Japanese is subtitled and not dubbed. The language is taking me back. And bless you, Hulu, for putting some money into this. It looks incredible. Sure they wander from the book a bit, but I think that their choices are interesting ones. And I love the cast...

If only we'd get a 12-part adaptation of Noble House next. Not a gutted version, but complete with the Cold War elements and fascinating look at Hong Kong through its people.

   
• Just Poor! Am I being punked? I do not in any way understand the acclaim for Poor Things. I fucking hated this movie despite loving the other films from most everybody in it. Yes, it’s gorgeous, the imaginative sets are genius, and the cinematography is incredible (the use of different lenses throughout is just =chef’s kiss=)... but the story is a big departure from the book. And absolutely not in a good way...

The cast of characters page from the Poor Things book.

The book is a wonderfully layered story of how men view women, and it uses the concept of “unreliable narrator” so that you truly don’t know who or what to believe. And there are multiple conflicting “truths” that are tainted by things like misogyny, perspectives, and even the wishful thinking of different characters. But the movie? Bella is a child’s brain in an adult body as a matter of fact, which makes the entire thing a fucking nightmare. It’s child porn with a loophole. And it lacks the subtlety and complexity that made the book so interesting. In my view, Bella loses a lot of her agency in the movie. Her experience and story is viewed entirely through the lens of men she encounters, even as she is rapidly maturing and coming to understand how the world works for a woman. Movie Bella really doesn’t face adversity to truly understand anything either. It’s all observational, and nothing feels earned as she wanders from place to place. And, good Lord, the music is a horrific assault that made me want to turn on subtitles and view it on mute. Who the fuck wants to listen to this? So many times I am able to dislike popular movies for myself, but appreciate that they exist for others. But this time? Hell no. I regret the precious time I wasted watching this mess. It gutted a wonderfully interesting book and turned it into soft core porn for the male gaze which is contrary to what I took away from the source material.

   
• Whistle Broken. John Barnett did not shoot himself? Or maybe he did. Regardless, I am putting the 100% entire complete blame on Boeing. The guy dedicated 32 years of his life to this company but had a conscience. So when management decided to ignore his concerns about declining quality and falsify data on serious issues with manufacturing, he reported the cover-up as a "whistleblower." And now he's dead. Right in the middle of the lawsuit against his former employer. Again, this guy devoted 32 YEARS of his life to this company. They then set out to absolutely destroy what life he had left because he wanted passengers to be safe. They finally succeeded. Regardless of whether he ended it himself or somebody did it to him.

   
• Cancel, Please! Why don't streaming services allow you to block shows and movies? Take HBO Max, for example. I never want to watch Bill Maher. Ever. Never ever. I don't care who he has on. I'd rather light my pubes on fire and jump into a barrel of gasoline than watch that moronic self-righteous piece of shit asshole for even two minutes. But every time I start HBO Max, there he is. There's no way to block the dipshit. No way to get him off my TV. And no amount of ignoring him will get HBO to get the fucking message. On Facebook I can block somebody I don't want any contact with. But with HBO, there's no options at all. Can't even give him a thumbs-down so the algorithm will stop inundating you with his bullshit. It's nearly enough for me to cancel HBO, because having to look at Maher's smug face is tantamount to torture.

   
Hope the rest of your Sunday is a good one.

   

Caturday 347

Posted on Saturday, March 16th, 2024

Dave!When it comes to cat food, my cats can be picky. Or, in the case of Jenny, very picky.

I think she might not have a great sense of smell, because the only foods she recognizes as foods are pretty stinky. Namely: fish. I have tried all kinds of varieties of food and anything that's not fish is a tough sell.

I received a sample can a while back that I had kept in my car in case I ran across a hungry cat. But I rotate new food in so it doesn't go bad. When I looked at it I saw it was tuna, which is usually okay, so I fed it to my cats... who went absolutely bonkers for the stuff. They were so crazy for it that I ended up digging the can out of the trash so I could buy more of it...

I searched for "Seth & Chewy's Tuna morsels" and saw it was ridiculously expensive. Crazy ridiculously expensive. But I figured it would be a nice treat on occasion, so and bought some of it. But when it arrived, I opened the can and saw pasty, gross-looking "morsels" inside instead of the pink that the original can had been. Then I saw that I actually got "chicken & tuna" instead of just "tuna" because Stella & Chewy's has shitty product labeling that makes it hard to distinguish between flavors. All the cans are the exact same purple, and it's the little square around the flavor that's different.

But the cats loved it just the same, so crisis averted, I guess.

Something else they loved? These Tiny Tiger tuna cat treats...

Tiny Tiger cat treats

I am always trying new stuff just in case the stuff I usually buy is out of stock or discontinued. I especially like how small these treats are because the cats think they're getting more than they really are. Always a good thing when it comes to treats.

Fortunately, unlike Seth & Chewy's, Tiny Tiger has excellent color identity on their products. The chicken flavor is in a bright yellow bag instead of tuna's bright blue bag.

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i need a vacation

Posted on Friday, March 15th, 2024

Dave!   
A shitty end to a shitty week.

   

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Oh My Todd!

Posted on Thursday, March 14th, 2024

Dave!My favorite show running right now is So Help Me Todd. It was fantastic in its first season, but is now operating and an entirely new level. It's like the first season was a warm-up to find their footing, and now they've got it all figured out.

Nowhere was it more apparent than the current episode (which was pre-empted last week, but they forgot to tell AppleTV, so I got it a week early thanks to my Season Pass)...

Toss in the Hospital

If you're not watching, you really should be. Skylar Astin and Marcia Gay Harden are killing it.

   

When is a Cheese Not a Cheese?

Posted on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024

Dave!I have come to terms with the fact that ALL vegan "cheese" is going to suck. Yes... even that vegan cheese you think is awesome... it sucks at being cheese.

Which is not to say that some "cheeses" aren't good in their own right. Like Chao Field Roast. It's not cheese... but I do like it for what it is.

I've tried a few fake parmesans, but they are gut-wrenchingly awful. So I've been leaning hard into Nutritional Yeast, which I love. My beloved Caesar works extremely well with vegan mayo because there's so many other things in that dressing which are vegan and taste great, and extra Nutritional Yeast gives it a cheesy kind of bite...

Vegan Caesar Salad

Soooo... along with the many vegan recipes people have been kindly sharing with me... I think I'm set. No, I am not 100% vegan. I will likely revert back to being vegetarian when eating at restaurants and traveling and such. But I'm "vegan enough" for me now, and not suffering too much. Hopefully there's a health benefit in that.

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It’s a Britt-Show

Posted on Tuesday, March 12th, 2024

Dave!The annual rebuttal to the State of the Union address is a thankless job which never goes well on either side of the aisle. And yet, for reasons which escape me, politicians are always lining up to take on the task. I honestly don't see an up-side of any kind for doing so. Best case scenario is that you perform so well speaking out against the president that you impress people enough to further your political career.

But that would take somebody who's truly crafty, clever, and smart... with charisma to match.

Katie Britt has none of those things.

But boy did she ever think she did. Which just goes to show that people are never lacking the ability to overestimate their smarts. She's about as smart as a stick of butter, and she put that on full display for everybody to see (much like I put mine on full display with this blog!).

She also was willing to show what a lying piece of shit she is, but that's neither here nor there given how politicians don't seem to be penalized for lying.

Absolutely everybody who saw her heinously embarrassing performance of the rebuttal was just waiting for her to be the subject of Saturday Night Live's cold open and, well, SNL wasn't about to pass that up (as I noted on Bullet Sunday). Here it is again in case you're one of the three people who hasn't yet seen it...

And now Katie Britt is doubling down on her stupid shit as if her speech was perfect, and is blaming Democrat lies (instead of her own?) for the perceived problems with all the stupid shit she said. Which is baffling. President Biden has done plenty of things that are worthy of scrutiny... so why make shit up? Why over-dramatize it when it speaks for itself? Just point out where the problems are, explain why you thnk they're bad, offer up real solutions, and tell people why you're a better alternative.

It seems as if doing that is a no-brainer, but... well...

Remember how I said that best case scenario is that you perform so well speaking out against the president that you impress people enough to further your political career? Worst case scenario is that you perform so badly that your political career is over.

If there's any justice in the world, that's exactly what we have here.

   

Death. DEATH I SAY!

Posted on Monday, March 11th, 2024

Dave!One of the most amazing shows to come along in the "pirate" genre (or any genre, really) in decades was HBO Max's Our Flag Means Death. Running for two seasons, it was a critically acclaimed show that sought to subvert as many tropes as possible while going for the absolute jugular in entertainment value. Its premise is simple... what if real-life historical figures Stede Bonnet and Edward Teach (AKA Blackbeard) were gay pirates who fell in love on the high seas? The implementation is anything but simple, however, because the show has complexities that drive it into some truly interesting territory...

Of course the fact that the two lead characters were gay was a huge point of contention for a lot of people, but that's nothing new. And the fact that they were played by straight, married actors Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi is neither here nor there, because anything gay is "bad" regardless of who's involved. Used to be that people could be gay in media so long as it was never explicitly stated or it was straight people playing gay to ridicule them... but along comes Our Flag Means Death making absolutely no effort to conceal or ridicule a gay pirate romance (just to have fun with it), and of course people lose their fucking minds.

And even though independent tracking shows that the show was phenomenally popular and well-received, HBO decided to cancel it anyway. Because who the fuck knows why. Streaming services are doing everything they can to drive loyal viewers away, so what's one more thing? The reason I renewed HBO for another year last time was specifically because I wanted to see the second seasons of Our Flag Means Death.

But, oh well. Unless they come up with another show I'm just dying to see, I'll be glad to have one less renewal to pay for this year. What else is there on "Max" that's worth paying for anyway? Last Week Tonight maybe. Everything else I can wait on. Because it feels like Warner Bros. Discovery is going to go under any day now, and perhaps their assets will be sold of to Netflix or somebody. Though it's not like Netflix is a beacon of hope when it comes to show renewals.

Bring on another stupid-ass reality series that nobody gives a fuck about, I guess.

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Bullet Sunday 846

Posted on Sunday, March 10th, 2024

Dave!Another Spring. Another clock adjustment to screw up my day. But I am not deterred... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• What Was I Made For? I don't watch the Oscars. I do watch moments from the Oscars after I hear who won. The first thing I watched was Robert Downey Jr.'s acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor (he killed it, as you knew he would). The second thing I watched was Billie Eilish perform her Oscar nominated song for the audience (she killed it, as you knew she would). But the best part was her reaction to receiving a much deserved standing ovation...

Billie Eilish looking shocked after getting a standing ovation.

I've linked to a brilliant video explaining how her brother Finneas created the music for the song, but here's him and Billie talking about it...

Good Lord they're a pair of talented siblings. Her explanation of the directions she could have gone, but chose not to, is why the song his so heartbreakingly beautiful. And why it deserved the Oscar win...

That video was shot in a single take. It's one take. One. Ironic after the amount of time spent on the song itself. If you've seen Billie's career over the years, you will recognize where those Barbie outfits came from.

   
• Guy! The Gentlemen was great. I loved it. But this is Netflix, so I'm not getting attached for a Season 2, even though I'd love to see it...

If I have a criticism, it's that Guy Ritchie has a consistent problem. He is always introducing stupid characters who only exist to fuck things up, and they continue to fuck things up the whole way because the other characters don't ever seem to do anything about them. Which is absurd, because especially in these types of worlds, nobody could afford to indulge stupid like this. Stupid characters would be eliminated... or, at the very least, be neutralized so they can't keep doing stupid shit and fucking things up. It's fun at first, but eventually it's just moronic and boring. But anyway... it's still a great series, mostly driven by the performances of the main two characters and an entertaining story. Still have no idea how this fits into the movie that it's named after.

   
• On The Daily! I've seen a lot of those "A Photo A Day" videos where somebody takes a picture of their face daily. This is the best one I've ever seen...

Amazing. He's done videos with more frames added, and apparently plans to keep making more, which I sure hope he does.

   
• Strangers! Turns out that sometimes the critical acclaim is justified. I was finally in a mental place where I could watch All of Us Strangers on Hulu. It debuted last month, but February is a really tough stretch for me every year, and watching a movie about the overwhelming power that grief has over our lives needed to wait. Until now...

It's an incredible film. Highly recommended if you want to be completely shattered for an hour and forty-five minutes. I cannot get over the performances. There are four principal actors, all of them deserving of all the awards, and what they accomplish here will haunt me for a very long time. One of the most important characters in the film is the music, and I think the key to understanding what's happening sits with the song selection. I, obviously, can't discuss that without spoiling the film, so I'll leave how that works up to you.

   
• Spirit! "It's a love story, you asshole."

The fact that Nick Offerman threw himself into the episode of The Last of Us so completely is what made it so gratifying.

   
• Shitt! Everybody in the entire country was likely expecting that Katie Britt's fucked up rebuttal to the State of the Union address would lead off Saturday Night Live's cold open. What was likely not expected was that Scarlett Johansson would be selected to do the honors. And she was flawless...

It was my opinion that all they needed to do was repeat Britt's speech word-for-word and the comedy would come naturally (they did this with Sarah Palin, and it was glorious). This was not that. But it was darn close. Good Lord how do idiots get voted into office.Oh. Never-mind. That's easy. They push hate to all the things the majority of their voters hate.

   
And now I'll get through the last day of my weekend... WITH ONE LESS HOUR IN IT.

   

Caturday 346

Posted on Saturday, March 9th, 2024

Dave!I'm not writing this on Caturday. I'm writing it on Sunday because Daylight Saving Time starts early in the morning, which is always an adventure.

Of course this is the good time change because the cats get fed an hour earlier, which they will never complain about. The problem is that my new feeders don't reset their clocks, and so I have to manually feed the cats their dry food until they miraculously get themselves set straight.

The irony is that my Chewy order arrived on Friday, which was very exciting for Jake and Jenny...

The cat food drawer full to the brim.

But today-yesterday (Caturday) was less exciting. Jake had a sneezing fit...

Jake sneezing.

And Jenny demanded belly rubs riiiight up until the breakfast alarm rang...

Jenny getting belly rubs.

After cleaning out the closet to make room for the Litter-Robot last week, I found one of the collapsible cat tunnels I bought when they were kittens. Which made them act like kittens all over again...

Jenny looking through the tunnel while Jake waits to pounce.

Jake pounced on the tube once Jenny entered.

Jake ran.

Jenny ran after him.

Bedlam ensued.

Just another Caturday.

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