Snow at last. Snow at last. I still think we're going to be in the middle of a drought come Summer, but on Friday there was finally snow. Quite a lot of it actually. But don't you worry about me... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Nowalla, Part Deux! Remember location-sharing apps from back in the day? The primary players were FourSquare and Gowalla. My hands-down favorite was Gowalla, which made exploring fun and had stamps you could collect. I was such a fan, that I bought my own Gowalla stamp for Blogography HQ...

Then one day Gowalla shut down after being acquired by Facebook (I'm positive that Facebook bought it just to kill it because they didn't want any competition for their "check-ins"). All the stamps I collected, all the places I logged, all the travels I shared, all the objects I found, all the spots I founded... not to mention my custom stamp... were gone. We were promised that we'd be able to download our data, but it never happened. I'm still a bit raw over it. Then it was announced that Gowalla would be relaunching back in 2021. I somehow missed that the new app was released in 2023. At which point it immediately ceased development. When I found it last week, I downloaded it just to see what it was like. And it was shit. All the charm was gone. And of course none of the stamps or any other stuff from the original was still there. It just lets you share your location with friends in a boring way... like Facebook... and they shouldn't have even bothered.

   
• Lil'! Just the internet doin' it's internet thing. And right now the internet is obsessing over Lil' Finder Guy. He briefly appeared in Apple marketing for their new MacBook Neo...

Now he's been modeled and is popping up everywhere...

From Basic Apple Guy

He's based on the Apple Finder logo which Apple appears to be playing with...

Apple marketing is waking up, it would appear.

   
• New! And speaking of Apple's MacBook Neo, the reviews are starting to hit and it's more impressive than I thought it would be. I selected this one to share, because it nicely puts things in perspective...

Nice! But not shocking. The A-series chip in an iPhone is very capable. I just wasn't expecting it to be this capable in a laptop. It's marketed to people who want to do simple things and have no need for the power of a MacBook Pro. But apparently you can still use it for Pro things.

   
• Human Clay! I had seen the story that Aardman, the company behind some of my favorite animation, was in danger of shutting down because the company making the clay they use was being shut down. It was nowhere nearly so dramatic, which I found out from this video I saw last night. Still, it's interesting...

If nothing else, I'm a little encouraged that this video dispells the idea that Aardman is going to give up on hand-hewn clay to tell their stories and start using 3D modeling instead.

   
• Crumbley! My undying love for Zoey Deschanel cannot be overstated. I thought I was alone in finding Crumbl cookies do not even remotely live up to the hype. Most times I find them to be a lump of sugar that are underbaked. Other times I enjoy the topping more than the cookie underneath...

I've had one cookie I enjoyed from Crumbl, and it was no more special than other bakery cookies I've had. It was essentially a soft version of a big OREO cookie with OREO crumbs on top.

   
• No Love Like Christian Hate! This is absolutely fucking outrageous...

If you're going to imply that Mayor Zohran Mamdani had something to do with 9/11 and call him an "enemy" because of his faith, then are you also going to tie every atrocity committed by Christians to every Christian in this country? All the shootings and bombings by self-professed Christians means that Christians are "the enemy within the gates?" It shouldn't be a surprise that Tommy Tuberville is dropping stupid racist shit like this. That's all he does. And he can't comprehend what "freedom of religion" means in the "land of the free" so ignorant dipshit bigoted crap and lies are all you get. And lest we forget that his "Tommy Tuberville Foundation" gave less than 18% of the money it took in to actual charity. So even if he wasn't already douchebag, he'd still be a piece of shit. Just look into how he treats our military veterans. How he treats any American who isn't Tommy Tuberville. This is the guy who calls Democrats "a satanic cult," but his every action just proves where true evil is, and it looks him in the mirror every morning. Tommy proudly processes to be a member of The Church of Christ, but is one of the lease Christ-like people on the planet. I have Muslim friends who are worth a hundred of him. A thousand of him. It's not hard when they're being compared to inhuman garbage.

   
• I'm a Meme! This is a better story than it has a right to be...

Fate, sometimes, has other plans.

   
• Aeon! One of the most amazing apps I use on a regular basis is Aeon Timeline. It's mainly a writing tool, but I started using it to outline projects at work and it's a complete and total game-changer. Of course if you are a writer, it is a godsend. I haven't found an easier way to organize my thoughts for events in time... no matter what they may be.

If you need to work with timelines for whatever reason, it's worth a look.

   
Since the snow hasn't all melted yet, I'm going to be cowering in my home all day. If I get ambitious, I might clean my house and wash clothes.

Jenny is a spoiled little princess. Furthermore, she knows it.

She is very aware that if she starts fretting or crying, I'll do whatever it takes to make her happy. And the older she gets, the more she exploits it. Wednesday night, for example, I moved her warming pad on my bed because it was cold and I wanted her to have a comfortable place to lay while she got her nighttime pets.

She did not like this!

She stood in front of the pad and started crying. But I couldn't move it because she was in the way. So she went from unhappy to frustrated and tried to walk around it. But there wasn't enough room, so she started meowing while I tried to move it around her.

It was an ordeal, to be certain.

And she was most put out over it.

Last night I went to bed with a headache. The cats, who care nothing about my bullshit, followed me up so they could get petted and sleep next to me. Eventually they both left, at which point I fell asleep.

Then, at 1:22 in the morning, I was awakened by both cats running into my room and jumping on me. A part of me wanted to go downstairs to try and figure out what got them so upset, but my head hurt too much. I figured I'd wait until they calmed down and left so I could go back asleep. Except they didn't leave.

So I did.

I took my pillow and went downstairs to sleep on the couch.

And when I woke up, this was my view...

Jake sleeps on top of me every chance he gets. Today I've been working on the couch, and he's been sleeping on my legs all day. So I'm not surprised that he sleeps on me at night too.

"Lower grocery prices on Day One."
—Some Lying Asshole

Yesterday after work I went to the grocery store for hamburger buns, bread, lettuce, and oat milk. I ended up forgetting the oat milk, so I wasn't able to have Captain Crunch Peanut Butter for dinner like I wanted, but I was able to have a Beyond Smash Burger, so it all worked out.

As everybody knows, grocery prices are astronomically high in the USA... and getting higher thanks to an ill-intentioned*, ill-conceived**, ill-planned***, ill-legal**** (haaaa!) war that's directly responsible for gas prices escalating which causes food prices to escalate even worse. That's on top of the fact that my local market in my small city already has high prices.

As I was standing there in the bread aisle, this is how my thinking went. "The buns I like are on sale, but they're still over $2 more than the cheap buns that aren't very good. Is it worth paying $5 for a package of hamburger buns that I know will make for a more enjoyable meal? I guess so. But damn." Sure, $2 doesn't sound like a lot, but it all adds up, which means I have less money to spend on something else.

I walk out of the grocery store having paid twice as much as I should have for a minimal amount of food, but am feeling grateful because at least I have the option to afford food. I'm betting a lot of people now-a-days would be grateful to have enough money to afford even the cheapest groceries available.

Somebody needs to study history. Starvation has always been a major catalyst for revolution, and we've got a serious problem which will only get worse now.

Especially if the next season of Ted Lasso sucks.

   
*You will never convince me that the "no more wars" president isn't actually starting a war to distract from the Epstein Files or his intent to suspend elections by encouraging a revenge terrorist attack on American soil. Probably both. More and more the Files reveal that he's fucking guilty of some heinous shit... and he can't afford to lose the mid-terms because it could flip the House and Senate, which would curb his insane power ploy to grift the country and stay out of prison. Or God-only-knows what else, since he's committing new crimes daily.

**Gas is already incredibly expensive. And, while the president doesn't set gas prices (despite the current president previously blaming other presidents for just that), a war with Iran... which controls the all-important Strait of Hormuz... would obviously directly affect gas prices. But he doesn't have to give a fuck, because the American people pay for all those Air Force One golf trips, not him.

***As in there was no planning at all. Remember when Hillary Clinton was mercilessly dunked for Benghazi? Well, thousands of Americans are stranded in the Middle East, Americans and innocents are dying, and the only thing the president can say about it is that "Things happened very fast." Jesus Christ.

****The president is Commander in Chief of the military, yes, but he does not have the ability to declare war, requiring the approval of Congress. You could even invoke his violation of the UN Charter given that this was not a response, but spun as a "preemptive strike" which is bullshit. Because either the president was lying when he said Iran's nuclear program was "obliterated"... or he's a dipshit who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

Preston Rakovsky does street interviews about love. The majority of the time, they're very much worth watching, and it's an account worth following.

But this time? It's so great that I am compelled to share it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video... just this series of photos. The original is on Instagram here.

Peyton nailed it. He's got it figured out.

We are constantly under assault from those who wish to steal from us, harm us, or otherwise make our lives miserable. From telemarketers to spam emails, fuckers are everywhere.

And now there's AI. As with so many applications of this new technology, it's making our lives demonstratively worse. Then today I saw this...

Soon enough, AI will be too smart for tricks like this.

And then we're even more fucked than we are now.

I am used to multi-tasking. I do it all day long, and it doesn't matter if I'm at work or home. As I'm typing this, I have another window monitoring a data import for work, I have a video playing on my television called Betelgeuse Is "Eating" Another Star…and its Concerning, I've got a second video playing in the corner of my laptop where William Osman is responding to "Uncle Roger cyber bullied me", all while being careful that I don't smack into Jake who is sleeping against me. As if all that wasn't enough, I'm off-and-on answering a work email while thinking through some problems I'll have to resolve when I get back to the office.

I think nothing strange about doing a shitload of things at the same time. It's just how I am.

At least I didn't think it strange until the astronomy video Just. Got. Interesting, and I had to set aside everything else so I can focus on how the companion star is revving up Betelgeuse. Then it seems very strange that I am trying to do so much while something so interesting is being explained.

And... I'm back.

Though I just started the latest Kurzgesagt video, Let’s Travel to the Scariest Place in The Universe, so my attention to this blog entry may be fleeting.

But here's the thing about multi-tasking all the time... I find it almost impossible to wind down and do important things like... relax... and sleep. You would think that I would burn out and crash but it never happens. And that's getting to be a serious problem for me.

I am averaging just three to four hours of sleep a night.

The problem, however, is not that I am dragging ass all day and can't function... that's never been an issue (maybe because I traveled constantly for decades and jetlag wasn't an option). No, the problem is that I feel like I'm losing years of my life. Like I'm being burnt out day after day and it's only a matter of time before my brain implodes or my body gives out.

I'm not sure what to do about it.

Perhaps it's a problem which will resolve itself as I age. I simply won't be able to keep up with constant activity, so I'll slow down naturally.

Perhaps one day I'll discover that magical combination of meditation and exercise which fixes my ability to wind down.

Or perhaps I'll drop dead from pent-up exhaustion.

Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to finally getting a good night's sleep.

I honestly don't understand why the fuck people concern themselves with what other people are eating. Or, even worse, condemn people for their choices. A lot of times this comes down to "food influencers" shaming everybody for content. Telling people that their cheaper foods are garbage and they should be eating expensive organic stuff instead. Whether people can afford it or not. Or, in the case of truly fucking shitty "food influencers" (like the Queen of Bullshit Misinformation, "Food Babe" Vani Hari) dishing outright misinformation about food, and condemning methods of food production which they deems "bad" even though science may not support the claim. But influencers doesn't give a fuck. All they care about is the clicks for cash.

In my case, I simply don't want to kill animals to eat. Period. That's what guides my dietary choices. And, lucky for me, food options exist which help me achieve my goal. And, much to my joy, these options are getting more versatile, convenient, and delicious all the time. I am currently hopelessly addicted to Beyond Stack Burgers. I would eat them morning, noon, and night if the coconut oil content didn't cause me digestion woes. So instead I just eat them morning and night.

And, yes, I know what the fuck is in it. The ingredients are right on the package, so I don't need some shitty "influencer" to read them to me: Water, Pea Protein, Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, 2% or less of Methylcellulose, Potato Protein, Apple Extract, Salt, Pomegranate Concentrate, Vinegar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Potassium Salt, Dextrose, Spices, Faba Bean Protein, Vitamins and Minerals (Zinc Sulfate, Niacinamide [Vitamin B3], Pyridoxine Hydrochloride [Vitamin B6], Cyanocobalamin [Vitamin B12], Calcium Pantothenate [Vitamin B5]), Vegetable Juice Color (with Beet).

And, yes, I know what the fuck the nutrition values are. That's printed right on the package too. The only problematic values to me are saturated fat (from the coconut oil) and the sodium (260mg).

But God-forbid I be allowed to make decisions for myself without somebody stepping in to tell me where I'm going wrong.

Lately I've been inundated with videos about why plant-based meats have "failed."

Most of it is the shitty fucking influencer brigade, praising people for finally coming to their senses by dropping horribly "unhealthy" fake meats and going back to real meat (mad cow, cancerous tumors, feces, steroids, and all). Because nothing screams "health" than having cow shit in your hamburger, I guess.

But the real story is more nuanced and interesting than that. Which is where actual journalism comes into play... like this story from Business Insider...

I'm glad they didn't leave out the fact that real meat is heavily subsidized by the government while plant-base "meat" is mostly left to fend for itself. This, coupled with the economics of scale, put fake "meat" at a disadvantage compared to the slaughterhouses. I'm happy to drive a (relatively) cheap car so I can afford my chosen diet (among other things), but a lot of people aren't. Though given the current high price of food, the extra money is a drop in the bucket compared to the total grocery bill which is hurting vegetarians and carnivores alike.

If "food influencers" truly gave a shit about people's well-being, they'd put their energy into advocating being able to afford food in the first place.

But that doesn't pay as well, so here we are.

I may be fucked up because the fucking clocks were fucking changed again, which is fucking rough because I'm hard at work on this fine Sunday, but don't worry about bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• For the Love of God, Make the Stupid STOP! Look, more people want us to go on permanent Daylight Saving Time than don't. Some of us are so fucking desperate to stop dicking around with the clocks that we're even considering permanent Standard Time (which is not a better option, but it is the only one you can make happen without getting the fucking dumbasses in Congress to ACTUALLY FUCKING DO SOMETHING). This is all so stupid. Just do it. Just make Daylight Time permanent and fucking MOVE ON FROM THIS BULLSHIT.

   
• Nacho! One of my favorite chefs is Saúl Montiel, who appears on Epicurious often. He's entertaining and a genius in the kitchen. Even when he's cooking with meat, I learn new things that I can then adapt into a vegetarian recipes. Yesterday I found that he recently made Perfect Nachos that are vegetarian from the jump. They look incredible...

Damn that looks delicious. No clump of stuff dumped on top of the chips, and when you grab one chip you don't take the entire plate of cheese as you would with cheddar. My next grocery order is going to include the ingredients for this bad boy. Best cooking tip you'll ever get from me... go to the Epicurious page and search "Saúl Montiel" to get more awesome tips than you can shake a spatula at.

   
• YOU FOLD IT IN! After Catherine O'Hara's passing, I'm seeing a non-stop parade of clips with her in them. But this is the first time I've seen her in LEGO. It's one of her most classic scenes...

Oh how I miss Schitt's Creek.

   
• Libarry! Every time I see the Obama Presidential Library in the news, I wonder what in the hell they were thinking...

I detest this design. It looks like a brutalist nightmare... lacking warmth, beauty, elegance, or architectural fluidity. It could have been so much more. I often wonder what type of statement these oppressive-looking monuments are supposed to be making. Whatever it is, this one feels opposite of the presidency it is supposed to be representing.

   
• Lanterns! It's interesting how James Gunn is trying his best to differentiate all the DC projects so they're not merging into sameness. And while I can't say that the concept for a cosmic-spanning character like Green Lantern to be trapped in a distinctly earth-bound scenario, I do appreciate that Lanterns is striving to be something different...

And then there's the rumor that Gunn wants to bail from his contract a year early because he feels at odds with his studio's new Paramount overlords. And wouldn't it be interesting if he returned to Marvel? Seems like Paramount would do just about anything to avoid that.

   
• NEWSFLASH: LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy. For better or worse, I put my name on the shit I say. My name is at the top of the sidebar of every entry on Blogography. And my real name is used on all my social media as well. And, believe me, I struggled with whether or not I wanted to go that route. In The Beginning Times, it felt like more people were using a pseudonym than their real names, but I ultimately decided to skip past that. Who cares what I say? And then I got a reader showing up where I live, and figured I may have made a mistake (the threats were also having me re-think things). But now, decades later, it turns out that staying anonymous is a thing of the past. AI can unmask you with "surprising accuracy." I wonder if this will cut down on the number of people making "anonymous" threats? One can only hope.

   
• Frod! I think I shared this years ago. I bears re-sharing....

I do the same thing... for my cats.

   
• Denial Isn't Just a River In Egypt! Every time washed up, bargain basement Hercules homophobe Kevin Sorbo opens his mouth... it's either to say something shitty. Or work in movies like Meet the Spartans so he can kiss dudes...

That's it, Sorbo, put your back into it! Such a hypocrite. Lord what a piece of shit.

   
And now I'm going back to work. Feel sad for me since my circadian rhythm is fucked.

On my Immich photo manager there's a "ten years ago" section which has been displaying pictures of Jake & Jenny when I got them a decade ago. Which means they're over ten years old? It doesn't seem possible. It seems like yesterday.

I took a lot of movies back then. And all of them are adorable. To me. Probably not to many other people though. I mean, look at this...

But it's the photos of Jake with Mufasa that are my favorites...

Even when Jenny wants to take Mufasa away...

Awwwwwwwww.

In world news... "In Sweden, new legislation has made it illegal to leave cats alone for long periods of time. This law is designed to improve the welfare of cats, ensuring they receive social interaction and care. It is part of Sweden’s broader animal welfare policies, which aim to protect pets and ensure their well-being." — This is interesting to me. I mean, I don't like leaving my cats, but there are times I have to. At first I was hiring a pet sitter to come take care of them, but that traumatized them more than being alone. They would hide when the sitter showed up, then not come out... even after they left. So I stopped doing that. Instead I make sure there are feeding robots and litter robots and water fountains and warming pads and the like. It's better for them.

I saw this and it reminded me of Jake...

Cheesecake eventually got switched to a new food that deflated her gassy tummy and helped her lose weight. Jake's just fat.

And... Starbucks is "expanding" to Tennessee.

AKA: They are slowing relocating to Tennessee to escape the absurd taxes here in Washington State.

We're losing businesses at a steady stream while legislatures sit on their hands. MUCH LIKE THEY'VE BEEN DOING FOR DIGITAL DRIVER'S LICENSES AND PUSHING CONGRESS TO ALLOW US TO ADOPT PERMANENT DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME LIKE BRITISH COLUMBIA TO THE NORTH OF US HAS. Senators Patty Murray* and Senator Maria Cantwell* and my Representative, Kim Schrier, might want to look into saving Washington from themselves. Because if any more major companies move out, they'll likely make up the difference by raising our taxes even more. At which point people are going to be voting for whomever runs against them... no matter how big a dumbass they end up being.

I mean, just look at this bullshit... we're #2 in regressive tax policy circa 2024. After Florida. FLORIDA!

By "regressive" it means that the burden of taxes are mostly on low-to-middle-income families. And that should really tell you something. Because if most of the tax burden is on us... and businesses still want to leave because of high taxes... exactly how fucking high are our taxes? Monumentally huge. Insanely huge.

There's only so much gas in the tank.

And speaking of gas... it's averaging $4.50 in Washington State? Since Trump blamed Biden for that even though the president doesn't have much to do with gas prices, do we now get to blame Trump?

I swear... the broken way the USA governs itself is beyond stupid. At what point are Americans of all political parties going to come together for the common good and start over with a system which hasn't been corrupted to the point of idiocy? Americans can disagree on issues. That's bound to happen. But there are major points where we agree, and we should build from that. Not continue to pay a government huge amounts of money to act against our collective best interest.

But it's all special interest and billionaires running the show, and they don't give a crap about us.

   
*I am still raw over the fact that Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell voted against cheap drug re-importation from Canada over "safety concerns." AKA: They didn't want to jeopardize the cash flow from Big Pharma. Like we're supposed to believe that Canadians are dying left and right over "bad prescription drugs." Murray, facing massive backlash, eventually flip-flopped on her position... I have no idea where the fuck Maria Cantwell is standing. Probably wherever is paying her the most.

UPDATE: And, right on cue, look what popped up on my Facebook feed. An ad from Washington State House Republicans...

My GOD Democrat politicians are fucking stupid. They do stupid this shit while the Republicans walk all over them to gain followers, then whine like dumbass dipshit assholes when they lose elections. It's useless hand-wringing while wailing "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN TO US?!?. Democrats just LOVE to lose. They're designed that way. Or so I would assume. I mean, look where we are now.