• Solo Funtime Gaming! If you've taken a look at my game collection at Board Game Geek, you'll have seen that there's only one game which gets a perfect 10 ("Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change")... and it's called Puzzle Dungeon. It's essentially a more fun version of Solitaire. I originally had it as a "print-and-play" game, where you pay for a file that you can print out and play with. I fell in love with it immediately. Until my cards were lost and I couldn't find the file to reprint them. I tried to buy a printed set but, wisely, there were none available on eBay because people don't want to part with them. Except I recently found out that the designer, Brian Garber, has reprinted the game and is selling it on his Etsy shop...

And, let me tell you, I snapped up the Deluxe Box, the Expansion Set, and the Play Mat SO fast. I haven't played in years, and October 19th (the ship date) can't come soon enough. I really hope that his Puzzle Dungeon: Pets expansion gets printed one day. And that his other game, To The Death eventually gets reprinted, because I'd love to play that.

   
• Not Helping! One of the most classic of the classic BritComs is That Mitchell and Webb Look. There's been a hit of controversy over this 20-year-old show lately because the BBC cut out some sketches which were deemed "insensitive to modern audiences" or something like that. But the situation is a bit more complicated than that. One of the sketches was cut because Mitchell and Webb were in blackface. But the sketch was pointing out that the white people were able to overlook that the blackface was racist until the situation escalated, and it was the escalation which convinced them to stop and not the actual blackface. The ignorance is the entire point of the sketch. So maybe it's not that modern audiences are "sensitive" to it... it's more likely that modern audiences wouldn't understand it. I don't know. Since I'm white, it's really not my place to say whether it's racist, so I trust that the BBC looked into it by consulting those who can make that call. But in any event, Mitchell and Webb have been back for a few months with a new YouTube series called Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping. I've been enjoying it...

I hope they keep going with the series, because their humor has had more than a few bits that were highly insightful and relevant even today, with this being their most famous...

Though there's talk that the BBC wanted to cut that sketch as well, so maybe I'm completely out of the loop? I wonder if this one was considered...

AND THEN... the state of inoffensive comedy gets a comment...

A new classic.

   
• Perfect! Verbi can be brutal. But always hilarious...

I've used Verbi to try and expand my vocabulary, and the app is never completely happy with your performance.

   
• Cash! A dollar is a dollar...

LOL. As insane as it sounds, I'm sure there are plenty of people wearing a band shirt who can't name any of their songs.

   
• The Mighty Thor! For the longest time, I'd see a guy named "Thoren Bradley" pop up on my social media. His entire deal was grabbing an axe and splitting big chunks of wood. And a lot of women shared his posts, which is why he was everywhere. But I never thought to follow him until he started sharing his thoughts on anything and everything. And it turns out he's a very smart thinker who can enunciate his takes on things very well indeed. Which really seems to piss off the "alpha male" contingent...

Whatever his sexuality may be, he's never going to stop having female fans, that's for sure...

And about that...

   
• Feeeemales! It's fucking incredible that this country is content to treat half the population as nothing more than birthing machines, undeserving of proper care when something goes terribly wrong...

This country hates women. Hates them.

   
• SERIOUSLY HATES THEM! A 20-year-old Cornell student says she was pressured into snorting ketamine at the Chi Phi house in Ithaca on the night of October 19, 2024. At 1:42am, according to her lawsuit, a fraternity member posted two words in the frat’s Snapchat group chat, Chi Phi Actives: "Free pussy.” The complaint says Johnathan Newell sent it. More men came upstairs after that. She says the assault went on until about 5:45 in the morning. More than four hours. These seven men are named in the lawsuit:
      • Matthew Ingalls
      • Johnathan Newell
      • Winston Lee
      • Gillio Lopes
      • Diego Sarabia
      • Scott Norris
      • Scott Kretzschmar
She reported it to campus police on November 8, 2024. The fraternity was suspended, and so were those seven men, temporarily. Then, according to the lawsuit, Cornell offered them a way to “mitigate” what they’d done. Write an essay... yes, an essay. Those named deny any wrongdoing. This information was taken from a Facebook post, but reported in The Cornell Daily Sun.

   
And, on that entirely depressing note, I'm off to prepare for the busy week ahead.

Back when I was trying my best to care for my ailing mother, my anxiety was at the highest it had ever been. In an attempt to try and manage it without medication, I bought a weighted blanket. Which was advertised as a help to anxiety (among other things), but was completely useless when it came to me. So I packed it away in my closet and didn't give it another thought.

Until Jenny puked on the blanket I had on my bed. I didn't have any others unpacked from storage, so I grabbed the only on I could find: my weighted blanket.

"But Dave," you might be saying, "what does this have to do with Caturday?"

So here you go: It's freaking out my cats.

The weight it probably coming from some kind of tiny metal pellets. But Jake and Jenny think it's sand. So whenever the walk across it, they stop and try to "dig" into it.

Which is to say that I really, really hope that I don't come home to it being all busted to shit with a mess everywhere. Maybe I should be reconsidering getting a new kitten next year?

Yeah, if I ended up with a cat like that, it's likely more than the blanket that's getting shredded.

My favorite hot dog is a Chicago-style hot dog made vegetarian. It's a plant-based dog on a poppy seed bun with yellow mustard, diced onions, neon relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, pickled sport peppers, and topped with celery salt. A phenomenal culinary experience.

But I also like the local version here in Washington State, which is a Seattle-style hot dog...

When is Seattle, I seek out a plant-based dog in a plain bun that's been smeared with cream cheese... then topped with grilled onions, a few dabs of yellow mustard, and a few pickled jalapeños on top.

It's a darn good dog. And I'm happy people are starting to discover it.

I was doom-scrolling YouTube videos last night, trying to escape from this sick, sad world.

After a while I got on a run of wholesome animal content, and the one that got stuck in my head is an owl whose eggs didn't hatch, so they put a couple of orphaned owls in her nest hoping that she would adopt them. Her reaction was genuinely heartwarming.

This video is a story from Robert Fuller's life studies for his artwork. And it's wonderful. Well worth your time to watch...

If you are left wanting more (and why wouldn't you be?) then I urge you to visit Robert's website right here.

I read a story from 2019 today that kinda hit different.

It was out of Smithsonian magazine, and is titled A Young Arctic Fox Traveled From Norway to Canada in 76 Days.

It's remarkable. She's so small...

Elise Stromseng/Norwegian Polar Institute

I mean, just look at this journey...

Arnaud Tarroux/NINA

I wish I knew why this story makes me so sad for her. It's like she kept going because she didn't know what else to do?

Then I got it.

It's the same for most of us. You just keep going because you don't know what else to do.

The difference being that I can turn on a movie and forget about survival for a bit.

It's gotten to the point where I must disconnect from the world for at least one waking hour each day. It's just too much. The level of cruelty, ignorance, violence, and stupid that's inundating all aspects of our lives day after day after day is simply not mentally sustainable.

And so... I'm trying to read or play a board game each night before bed.

It's not the perfect solution. The perfect solution would be a giant meteor destroying the planet. But it does make the assault of daily living a tiny bit smaller.

And I feel incredibly grateful I am lucky enough to be able to dip out for a bit each day. All too many people are not so lucky.

When I was in high school, there was a pizza joint in town which had some of the best pizza I've ever had. The secret was in the sauce. It wasn't just bland tomato sauce. It wasn't loaded with Italian spices in a failed attempt to make it interesting. It had a unique flavor which straddled the line perfectly and also had this kinda wine note which wasn't interfering, it was just there in the background keeping things delicious.

My favorite pizza they made was their famous Taco Pizza. Basically a cheese pizza with taco ingredients on top... ground beef, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, and hot sauce. Delicious. After I graduated, I still ate there quite a bit, including after I became a vegetarian. I just ordered the Taco Pizza without the beef, and it was still amazing.

I have never found a frozen pizza that's any good. And believe me, I've tried ever one I can get my hands on.

I have never found a pizza place which had that amazing sauce.

But I still crave that Taco Pizza, so I've come up with the best approximation I can. And I'm sharing the recipe today! Here is what you'll need...

• Tony's Cheese Pizza. No, this is not even close to what the original was. No, it's not even the best frozen pizza out there. But it does seem to marry with the pizza toppings in the best way I've found. And the crust is good for what we're building.
• Vegetarian Ground or Ground Beef. This is entirely optional. Most of the time I skip it. If you use it, season with Taco Seasoning.
• Shredded Lettuce.
• Shredded Cheddar Cheese.
• Diced (or sliced) Tomatoes.
• Crushed Taco Chips. Not found on the original. I added these because the salty crunch tastes phenomenal.
• Cholula Hot Sauce. My favorite Mexican hot sauce, but feel free to use your own favorite.
• Sour Cream. Optional.

Because the lettuce and tomatoes will turn sludgy if stored in a refrigerator, this is not something you want to have leftovers with. This recipe serves 2-3 people so, if you're dining alone, use a bread knife to saw the frozen pizza in half (you can put the cut on the edge of a breadboard and snap it in half, once you've sawed half-way through). Then wrap the other half and stick it back in the freezer.

Cook the pizza according to directions, adding heated seasoned vegetarian grounds or fully-cooked seasoned ground beef on top half-way through.

Once cooked cut into slices then top generously with shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, tomatoes (diced or sliced), and crushed taco chips. Top with dashes of hot sauce, then put a small dollop of sour scream on each slice if you wish.

Grab a fork and enjoy.

You're welcome!

   
• noPhone! Well, shoot. Guess I'm saving my money and not buying a new iPhone 18 Pro Max after all. Turns out the only thing I give a crap about, the new variable aperture, is a non-starter because the photo sensor on the iPhone is so small that the aperture doesn't really have much of an effect when it comes to depth of field...

And so... maybe next year. Because right now the camera on the 18 Pro is not enough for me to switch just as the 17 Pro wasn't before it.

   
• Eyesight! On Friday I had to run to the Big City for work. While I was there, I dropped by Costco. Where I spent way too much money. I bought new silverware because my old stainless steel stuff (which I love) is starting to get messed up... I bought new reading glasses, because it's time I bumped up from -1.5 to -2.0, alas... and I also bought a 2-pound tub of Rojo's Street Corn Dip, which I will end up eating in less than a week...

Because it's just that insanely delicious.

   
• The Great Beyond! After Costco, I ran by Fred Meyer to pick up five packages of Beyond Stack Burgers. But before I picked up my online order, I went inside and picked up an additional five packages because they were on sale for a crazy good price. Thank heavens I bought that small freezer for my garage!

So now I have 80 burgers ready to go. Since I eat them morning, noon, and night, I figure they might last me until mid-November sometime. Hopefully they will go on sale by then, because they're way expensive when they're not on sale. Of course, I'd rather pay full price than have them discontinued by Fred Meyer, since they are the only store in the entire valley which has them.

   
• Reach for the Sky! The latest season of Reacher was incredible. I was very sad it was over and I'm having to wait months or years for new episodes. However... we did get a new series to help lessen the blow, a Neagley spin-off!

The show is amazing, as expected. And, talk about lessening the blow, Amazon Prime may have given us Neagley... but they canceled Ride or Die, which pisses me the fuck off. The show was highly regarded, highly rated, and had great promise for a second season. How the hell do they decide where to spend their money?

   
• Rarity! Now this is fucking cool as all getout...

Isn't stuff like this incredible? Doesn't it just blow your mind that a substance like this can exist?

   
• Interplanet Janet! Alrighty... we're going from cool shit dug out from the earth to cool shit we're doing in space! This is an incredible video. And the visualizations they're using are some of the best I've seen. Well worth your valuable time to watch...

We are capable of some truly great things as we reach for the stars. Sadly, we would apparently rather spend our time fighting in the dirt. What a waste.

   
• The Incredible Shrinking Food! Thanks to idiotic fucking tariffs plus out-of-control fuel costs thanks to an idiotic fucking war, the price of food is insanely expensive now. And once again food companies are trying to camouflage it with shrinkflation. My hummus was advertised as having a lower price... BUT THE CONTAINER WAS NOTICEABLE SMALLER...

And don't even ask me what the fuck this is. According to the company who makes these chips, this is a full bag. Seriously, I haven't touched a single chip yet!

It's all so fucking insane. We're paying record prices for "LOWER GROCERIES ON DAY ONE" yet getting fuck-all for it.

   
And now back to being even more bitchy than what I can blog about.

The cats are unhappy about the changing weather. No more lazy nights out in the catio because it's starting to get chilly out there at night.

So they spend more time indoors wanting to have my attention. Sometimes.

The nice thing about my cats taking naps next to each other while I'm trying to work in bed is that I don't have to be holding their feet or petting them the whole time. They are able to be happy laying next to each other without me...

Probably time to think about pulling out the warming pads and heated blankets!

I woke up this morning to piles of the most stupid levels of willful ignorance I have ever encountered.

It's a call to boycott a beloved family-co-op-owned Pacific Northwest brand: Tillamook. A company which is most famous for their cheese, but they make all kinds of dairy products... all of them amazing. Sour cream, yogurt, cream cheese, butter, ice cream, and the like.

And why a boycott?

Was their owner found to be in the Epstein Files 38,000 times? Or tried to incite an insurrection? Or has been found guilty of sexual assault? Or has been credibly accused of sexual assault by numerous women? Has bragged about grabbing and kissing women without consent? Has bragged about going into dressing rooms where women are in various states of undress or are naked? Or has been convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records? Has openly been abusing their position to steal wealth and power from the American people? Has been caught in so many lies that you would be forgiven for thinking that they are incapable of telling the truth?

No? None of that?

Then what? What could it possibly be?

Telling people which of their products are safe for people observing halal? Are you fucking kidding me?

The absurdity here cannot be understated.

Food manufacturers put all kinds of marks on their food products! Non-GMO marks, Gluten-Free marks, Vegan marks, Organic marks, No Corn Syrup marks, No Seed Oils marks, Kosher marks (for observant Jews), and Halal marks (for observant Muslims). And that's just the beginning! There's all kinds of marks for all kinds of people to help them with all kinds of dietary needs and dietary preferences.

And it's not just Jews who use Kosher marks and Muslims who use Halal marks. Many people use them. PEOPLE LIKE ME! Kosher Pareve marks tell vegetarians and vegans that the food contains no dairy, meat, or poultry. Halal marks tell people that the facility producing the food adheres to strict cleanliness standards. If you don't care about that kind of thing, THEN JUST IGNORE THE FUCKING MARKS, LIKE I IGNORE NON-GMO MARKS!

For non-Muslims, Halal marks on Tillamook cheese merely says that the facility is clean and free of disease, and if the cheese contains rennet that the animal from which it came was killed by a Muslim in a humane, clean way with all effort made to keep the animal calm and free of distress. And, oh yeah, the Muslim doing the slaughter must kill the animal while saying "Bismillah, Allahu Akbar"... which means "In the name of Allah, Allah is the Greatest." Which is the same idea as Christians offering prayer and thanks to Almighty God before eating a meal. It's a "God is good, God is great, let us thank him for our food" kinda thing.

That's it.

Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Adonai, Elohim... just different names from different faiths and cultures for the same God of Abraham. And for the offended Christians out there: in Islam, Jesus is a major prophet, the Messiah, and considered a messenger of God. So your Savior is revered and respected in the Islamic faith as well.

So let's sum up the ritualistic slaughter of animals for it to be Halal, shall we? The kill is made in the name of God in a humane way, since God is merciful and is the only one who should take a life, then they say "God is the greatest."

Yeah, totally boycott that.

If you're an ignorant Islamophobe.

As for me?

I don't eat a ton of dairy any more, but when I do I support a local, farming-family-co-op-owned business with the highest possible quality standards who wants to help people find products suitable for their diet.

Whatever that diet may be.