I always have such grand ambitions for dinner.
In the morning.
But by the time I get home from work (especially with the wildfires raging) I am done. There's nothing left in the tank for me to even consider cooking something interesting.
So I rotate through the following list...
But what was really speaking to me tonight was corn tortillas.
Now, I need to preface what I'm going to say next by telling you that the last time I had corn tortillas, they were handmade by my friend's mother-in-law who is originally from Mexico. They were amazing. The stuff of dreams. It's just masa harina, water, and salt... but somehow tastes... more.
But the tortillas I had tonight?
Store-bought that expired on September 12th (relax, they were refrigerated) that I sprinkled with a little bit of pre-shredded cheddar cheese that expired on September 24th.
Which is to say... not great.
But it was less effort than making a spinach salad, so I'm calling it a win.
It was announced that a woman in her 60s went non-responsive while riding the Haunted Mansion this past Monday at Disneyland. She was later taken to the hospital where she died.
This is incredibly sad. She was likely visiting the park with family or friends, so now the Happiest Place on Earth will have sorrowful memories for them. The Haunted Mansion (one of my all-time favorite attractions) isn't all that scary, so I'm guessing that it was a medical issue which could have happened anywhere.
At the end of the day, there's danger in everything you do. Just walking out the door exposes you to danger. There's danger in your home. Crossing the street can be lethal, especially in a day-and-age when people are looking at their phones instead of watching the road. But you really don't anticipate dying during a theme park visit (there was another death earlier this year at Orlando's Epic Universe).
In an article over at Entertainment Weekly, a former creative director with Disney Imagineering said that they had discussed removing the hanging corpse of the Ghost Host which appears during the first part of the attraction in the stretching room. And while I understand this is easily the most triggering part of the entire ride, I really hope that they don't do that. It's a frickin' haunted house. Things like this should be expected. Furthermore, it's not all that easy to see in the first place. It's kind of obscured by a screen, and you have to know what you're looking at to really understand it. This is the last attraction overseen by Walt Disney himself, and they've already made some poor decisions by altering it (removing the axe from Constance Hatchaway was clumsy and ridiculous)... it would be nice that at least some of what he intended is preserved.
Our brave firefighters keep gaining ground on the wildfires in the area that have been burning for over five weeks, and it's looking like there's finally light at the end of the tunnel. Today the fire to the north reached 55% containment. And while the fire to the south was holding steady at 7% for weeks, today they announced that the crews there have managed to achieve 10%.
The bad news is that what kind of day I have depends entirely on how the wind blows, because the smoke is still pretty bad.
Every once in a while blue skies will arrive... for a while... which means my lungs won't feel as fuzzy, my eyes won't be burning as severely, my head will be less likely to start exploding, and I won't be coughing as much. I also won't have to take an excessive amount of allergy medication.
But it's always fleeting.
Which is to say that I still go directly to work in the mornings then go directly home afterwards. And still feel awful most days.
Thank heavens for grocery delivery! But even then, having to open the door to receive my order guarantees an instant headache until the air purifiers can get things under control again.
Can you believe that I honestly thought we'd make it through the Summer without a wildfire?
My mom was a huge fan of murder mysteries. She's the one who got me addicted to Agatha Christie novels. She also got me addicted to all those British "cozies" murder mysteries and Murder She Wrote, Perry Mason, Ironside, and a slew of others.
But the show I loved above all of them was Columbo, because it was so darn clever how the audience was shown the murder at the beginning so that they knew something Columbo didn't. The entertainment was not in figuring out who the murderer was, but watching Columbo figure out who the murderer was. And seeing him being underestimated at every turn when, in fact, he was always the smartest guy in the room.
Recently I started rewatching Columbo to decompress at the end of the day.
In many ways, the show holds up.
In other ways, I had entirely forgotten how insanely weird the series could get from time to time. In the second episode, for example, there's a long, very long scene of the murderer (Robert Culp!) cleaning up the scene of his crime... all reflected in another man's glasses! It was a bizarre stylistic choice. It was also pretty terrible, being wildly distracting and going on way too long.
But the rest of the episode was a great watch, as always.
And the series proved to be excellent inspiration for another awesome show that worked in the same way, Poker Face. You can almost feel how Natasha Lyonne was doing her best to channel Peter Falk! And why wouldn't she? Falk's Columbo is one of the most brilliantly-realized characters in the history of the genre.
You don't get 9 seasons and 14 specials without being brilliant.
Insomnia got you down like it's got me down? Maybe reading something boring will help you to fall asleep. You're lucky I have the perfect solution... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Ophelia! Taylor Swift released the video for The Fate of Ophelia (one of my favorite tracks off of The Life of a Showgirl), and it's beautiful. And probably very, very expensive...
What's remarkable is that Taylor both wrote and directed it. Which is to say she might have the chops to do that if she ever gets tired of making music.
• What Are You Doing Here?! In a day and age where every moment brings new horrors... I love moments like this (language NSFW)...
I have so many friends around the globe. I'd love to drop in and surprise them like this.
• Rollercoaster! And now I want a rollercoaster in my back yard too...
I wonder if my HOA would allow it?
• Great American Cities! My list... which includes my priorities of art, culture, American public consciousness, world consciousness, and food: #1 is New York. #2 is Los Angelas. #3 is Chicago. #4 is Boston. #5 is San Francisco. #6 is New Orleans. #7 is Seattle. #8 is Atlanta. #9 is Miami. #10 is Las Vegas.
Now, this list is always going to be subjective, but the fact that New Orleans wasn't even considered at any metric feels insane to me. It's my favorite American city, so maybe I'm biased, but WTF? And, my God, Las Vegas wasn't considered? To many people in the world, it is the metric from which American excess is pinpointed. The omission that I'm going to catch heat for is Washington D.C., which would have made my list easy... except the art and culture is being gutted now, so I'd prefer to leave that option to the past. Hopefully it can return one day. There's other cities which seem somehow wrong to omit from my list. Minneapolis. Honolulu. San Diego. Nashville. Memphis. Philadelphia. San Antonio. Santa Fe. Portland (both of them). St. Louis. Savannah. The list goes on and on. There's a lot to love about so many American cities which could make them contenders when you consider the metric which makes them special.
• Drone... um... Strike? A drone show goes terribly, terribly wrong in China...
I can't for the life of me figure out what happened here. If I had to guess, the combination of a drone show with a fireworks show wasn't timed properly the fireworks took out the drones? This is awful.
• Science, Bitch! A critical video that everybody needs to watch. Especially if you're buying into the anti-science bullshit that's fucking us over and killing people...
I am beginning to think that humans going extinct out of fucking stupidity is the best-case scenario for the planet.
• Follow the Money! Sooooo... states that put more dollars into the government than out are getting their funding cut? This is repugnant. I can't recall any other administration so intent on fucking over people who didn't vote for them like this. Presidents Biden, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, etc. tried to be a president to everybody, even people who didn't support them. They were presidents for the entire country instead of just the Americans they like...
Maybe these states should start withholding their money from the fucking government and let everybody else sort out their own shit. This is beyond fucked up. Especially since that $8 billion is probably going to all his wealthy owners and in his own pocket.
And now I'm going to bed early. Though I don't know why because I can never seem to sleep.
Now that it's not so hot out, the cats are loving being out in the catio all day. At least on the days that there's not so much wildfire smoke that I close the door because I'm concerned about their little kitty lungs.
In addition to being outside where they can look at the world, the main reason the catio is so appealing is that they get to visit with the other animals of the area. Mostly cats. An occasional dog. Sometimes a deer or a raccoon.
Right now Jake's favorite visitor is Rusty.
Rusty is actually a very sweet dog from next door that plays in the field behind my home. But she does not like cats. And if my cats are out there, she's perfectly happy to bark and howl at them. Something Jenny is terrified of and will run back inside immediately.
But Jake? Despite how loud and scary Rusty might be, he somehow finds the courage to confront her (in the second half of the video, you can see Jake swiping at her through the fence as she's reflected in the door window)...
And Jenny?
During one of the times Jake was outside hissing and swiping at Rusty, she was happy to just sit next to me on the couch and watch the madness from a safe distance...
My guess is that she's just not up for the drama.
I wake up every morning and look out the window to see what kind of day I'm going to have. If I can see the surrounding hills, it's probably going to be a fairly good day (at least to start... who knows where the wind will take us). If I can't see the surrounding hills, I'm pretty much guaranteed a day of misery from the minute I walk out the door. And today was one of those days. We were socked in and I could smell smoke on Jake when he walked in, which means he was out in the catio.
But, as I lay here now at night? I can see a star.
Sure it's just one, but it gives me hope for tomorrow. It would be nice to be able to go outside instead of hiding in my house all weekend.
And now... for all the Swifties out there, today was the day...
The album that changed my mind about Taylor Swift was 1989. It was pop perfection and had the lyrical masterpiece that is New Romantics. Then she followed it up with Reputation and Lover and I was convinced that she was going to be on my "Best Of" list until I was dust.
But then she took a turn with Folklore and Evermore which lost me. Fortunately Midnights was a return to the Taylor I enjoy listening to, and I thought maybe... but then The Tortured Poets Department had only one song I truly liked (along with a smattering on the first part that were okay) and I thought "Well, it was fun while it lasted."
And now we get The Life of a Showgirl.
It runs the gamut, going from pop optimism and clever musical turns to a dis track on (assumably) Charli XCX and a bouncy song about her fiancée Travis Kelce's dick being as big as a redwood that opened her thighs.
In the end, this album is a partial u-turn back towards the 1989 era. Though it does get dragged down by a few tracks that won't be added to my playlists any time soon.
As for the others? Thank you, Taylor! I'm enjoying them.
I'm a big LEGO fan.
Not just of the cool sets they release... but the video games and shows/movies as well.
But it goes beyond even that. I'm a big fan of the books about LEGO. The reference books, the set encyclopedia books, the minifig timeline books... and the history books. I love reading about how LEGO started and the road that lead to where they're at now.
Which is why running across this video which explores a part of LEGO I never heard of before was pretty shocking...
Modulex?!?
As a concept, it's fantastic. Architects being able to explore building design with smaller LEGO bricks that are constructed around architectural needs? Cool!
Had I known about them at the time, I absolutely would have bought some just for fun, having been an architecture nerd since birth.
I really hope that somebody writes a book about it.
I couldn't be a bigger fan of Honorary Doctor of Science, Dame Jane Goodall.
I learned about her as a kid. I think it might have been with a Schoolastic book or something. After that, I heard about her off and on for many, many years. Mostly in talk show appearances, which she continued to appear in until quite recently...
Wonderful.
It's remarkable to think about how she started her career over 60 years ago when she was 26 years old...
And never stopped. Becoming a legend in the conservation of chimpanzees and their habitats...
But what made me really fall in love with Jane was after Gary Larson made a cartoon around her in The Far Side...
Somebody from her institute lost their shit and fired off a scathing letter, incensed that Larson would dare to call Jane Goodall a "tramp." Which, of course, is not at all what's happening. But, well, you know... some people are easily set off.
But not Jane Goodall, who said that she found the cartoon funny. She said that it was her favorite rendition of her in pop culture. Which is probably why she wrote an introduction to one of Larson's The Far Side Gallery books.
And why Gary Larson visited Goodall's lab in Tanzania.
And why Gary Larson let Jane put the cartoon on a shirt and let her keep all profits for her institute...
It's difficult not to be saddened by her passing, but more difficult to not feel amazed by what she did with her 91 years on earth...
Rest in Peace.
Your humanity towards wildlife made you more human than most.
Why do I watch the news? It just keeps getting worse and worse.
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