Yes. Yes I know that it's Tuesday. But I always have to juggle the last Bullet Sunday of the year around so I don't mess up my year-end Best Lists. But don't despair... because a special New Year's Bullet Sunday (on Tuesday) starts now...

   
• Resolute! My New Year's Resolutions are the same every year. 2012 was a piece of cake...

• Try a Pop-Tart flavor I've never had before. DONE! I tried Spider-Man, Pumpkin Pie, and Confetti Cupcake Pop-Tart flavors last year.
• Travel somewhere I've never been before. DONE! I visited Aruba, Cartagena, The Panama Canal, Costa Rica, Grand Cayman, The Bahamas, and Hamburg.
• Visit a Hard Rock Cafe I haven't seen before. DONE! Visited cafes in Aruba, Cartagena, Grand Cayman, Nassau, Hamburg, Four Winds, and Brussels.
• Drink a beer I've never drank before. DONE! This is an easy one, given my love of ordering beer in strange places. One of my favorites was Leffe, an Abbey Beer from Belgium.
• Get another Apple product. DONE! Bought the incredible new MacBook Pro with Retina Display (seriously the most incredible computer I have ever owned) and an iPhone 5.

   
And what am I looking forward to this year?

   
• Travel! Where am I going in 2013? No clue. I want so badly to return to Australia so I can visit the Southern half of the country and New Zealand. I have yet to visit India, someplace I have been longing to see. I have tentative plans to return to Singapore, but don't know if I'll make it this year. Antarctica has got to be checked off my list one of these days. Hopefully, no matter where I go, it will be someplace interesting.

   
• Movies! So many potentially awesome movies to look forward to in 2013. Star Trek: Heart of Darkness, Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Oblivion, Despicable Me 2, Pacific Rim, The World’s End, and lots more. So many promises of amazing movie experiences.

   
• Music! Macintosh Braun's album never came, so I guess that's dropping this year now. Depeche Mode, Adam Ant, Johnny Marr, and OMD have new releases planned for 2013... and I think Foster the People might be planning something... just to name a few.

   
• Fiction! Despite the odds stacked against new publications, Thrice Fiction Magazine continues to forge ahead. Really looking forward to what RW is going to find for our three new issues this year (our third!). Hoping to get another B&W Annual out in the Spring.

   
• Comics! Thanks to Comixology, I'm discovering and buying more comics than ever. I'm very excited to see what Snyder & Capullo have planned for Batman. Am dying to know what's going to happen in Invincible #100. Hoping to see something new from George Pérez and Arthur Adams this year.

   
• Apple! And, of course, there's whatever my fruit-adorned computer company has planned this year. What's next? Will the Apple Television finally appear? Will they finally get off their asses and let people delete shit from their iTunes download queue without having to send in a support request? Who knows. All I know is that I'm waiting...

   
I know a lot of people who did not have a good 2012. Mine was okay, as I thought it probably would be. This year? Not a clue. 2013 is the Big Unknown for me. I suppose that's just as it should be.

Hope yours is a good one.

I would like to send a big "thank you" to Congress, The President, and all our elected officials for their hard work on coming to a deal to avoid the so-called "Fiscal Cliff." Totally excellent work, guys. You completely lived up to my lofty expectations. That extra money coming out of my paycheck each month? Totally fucking worth it. I'd recommend that everybody involved get a raise, but you've already given yourself one.

Who says that the American government is filled with useless pieces of shit who are more interested in salvaging their cushy careers and getting their hands on special interest money than serving the American people? Not me! My confidence is running high that we're on the right track now, and everything's going to be just awesome as we barrel forward into the future...

Thanks once again to the best government money can buy! You guys rock!

Way back in the early days of this blog (as in, eighteen months into this blog) I did one of those "Fifty Things To Do Before You Die" that was published by the BBC. This morning I got an email from a friend who stumbled across it and wrote to tell me that a couple things on that list that I wanted to do I actually did.

I thought that was pretty cool, so I went back and pulled those items where the status had changed to see how many I had left that I wanted to do (here's a link to the rest of the original list, if you're interested)...

THINGS I DONE DID...

• Scuba dive on Great Barrier Reef, Australia (Wanna do it! Done it!)... I would want to re-up my certification first (it's been a while), but I would absolutely do this. Finally made it to Australia in September 2011, and diving the Great Barrier Reef was on my must-do list. Unfortunately, thanks to massive Cyclone Yasi that struck in February 2011, much of the beautiful corals were wiped out, and environmental factors mean they probably ain't coming back. Such a shame. But it was still a terrific experience.

• Walk the Great Wall of China (Wanna do it! Done it!)... Absolutely want to do this one. And I absolutely did do this one when I went to China the year after I completed this list!

• Catch sunset over Uluru (Ayers Rock) , Northern Territories, Australia (Wanna do it! Done it!)... And, again, when I finally get to Australia I probably will. Went to Australia, and absolutely fulfilled a promise to myself to do this. Truly an amazing experience.

• Hike up a glacier (Done it! Really done it!)... My home state of Washington has glaciers as well. Nothing like Glacier Bay in Alaska, but still. When I said "nothing like Alaska," I didn't realize how true that was until I actually went there, then took a helicopter to the top of a glacier and hiked around. Epic!

CHANGED MY MIND...

• Climb Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia (Wanna do it! Probably not!)... And when I finally end up making it to Australia, I probably will (despite my fear of heights!). Ummm... yeah... after seeing the climbers actually climbing the thing as I was walking over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I don't think there's any way I would want to do this.

• Explore Antarctica (Probably not! Wanna do it!)... Uh, why? I might consider it if they built an authentic Hard Rock Cafe but otherwise no. I have no idea what I was thinking. This somehow went from something I didn't want to do... to something I obsess about. I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to make this happen.

• Explore the Galapagos Islands (Probably not! Wanna do it!)... This is a preserved area, and only scientists, researchers and such are given permission to visit. Boy do I feel stupid. It's absolutely possible for ordinary citizens to visit the Galapagos Islands, it's just really expensive. Of course I want to go there.

• Ride a camel to the Pyramids, Egypt (Wanna do it! Probably not!)... Absolutely something on my list to do. Uhhh... yeah... went to see the pyramids in 2007 and felt absolutely no need to ride a camel there (I've ridden one before). Instead went inside The Great Pyramid of Giza, which was awesome.

STILL WANT TO DO...

• Walk the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, Peru, South America (Wanna do it!)... My brother and I were going to do this, but he decided to get in an accident and nearly blow his face off instead. Oh well, maybe one day.

• See elephants in the wild (Wanna do it!)... Since I'm sure the elephants at Disney's Animal Kingdom don't count, I do think it would be cool to go to Africa or India and do this one.

• Fly over a volcano (Wanna do it!)... While on the Big Island of Hawaii, I walked over a volcano, which seems much more impressive, doesn't it?

• Gallop a horse along a beach (Wanna do it!)... My riding skills are crap though.

• Watch mountain gorillas (Wanna do it!)... Who wouldn't?

• See tigers in the wild (Wanna do it!)... But don't tigers EAT you in the wild?

• Do the Cresta Run, Switzerland (Wanna do it!)... Heck yeah I would do this! Probably die while trying, but what a way to go!

• See orang-utans in Borneo (Wanna do it!)... Why not? Boy, sure a lot of wild animal watching on this list!

• Go polar bear watching (Wanna do it!)... Why not? Boy, sure a lot of wild animal watching on this list!

So that's like... eleven things from the list I still want to do. Half of them, I probably have a shot at. That's not so bad.

If only I have the time and money to get started...

Five days in, and I can't say that 2013 is shaping up to be much of an improvement over 2012. But, then again, 2012 ultimately turned out okay for me, so I suppose this isn't a bad thing.

Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I sat down and tried to figure out what I have to do to make this year something better. A lot of things were written down... people... places... goals... changes... but, in the end, everything kept coming back to one thing...

Money.

If I had more money, I could do this.

If I had more money, I could change that.

If I had more money, I could have those.

If I had more money...

...well, everything would be better, wouldn't it?

Some people say money is the root of all evil. And it's been said that money can't buy happiness. But if there is one thing I'm sure of, it's that money has no conscience and money can indeed buy happiness. And much, much more...

So, if you have a couple million dollars you're not using...

Pretty tough to write a Bullet Sunday when hardly anything has happened all week.

But there's a blog questionnaire that somebody tagged me for a couple months ago, so don't you fear... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

• What eye color do you find sexiest? Brown.
• White, milk, or dark chocolate mocha? I don't drink coffee. But, if I did, milk chocolate.
• If you could get a Sharpie tattoo on your back, what would it be? A pirate ship full of monkeys.
• Did you grow up in a small or big town? Did you like it? Small town. It was okay.
• Your favorite adult as a child? (and not your parents, if they were your favorite) Captain Kangaroo.
• What kind of smoothie sounds really good right now? Pineapple-Orange-Guava
• Most embarrassing moment from your elementary school years? Any time I had to perform in a school play.
• Most embarrassing moment from your middle school years? Having a false start at a track meet and not realizing it.
• Most embarrassing moment from your high school years? Pretty much every moment of every day.
• Pirates or ninjas? Why? Pirates. Because they're pirates.
• Have you ever climbed a tree more than twenty feet off the ground? Yes.
• Did you like swinging as a child? Do you still get excited when you see a swing set? There were no video games back then, so I guess so. Now-a-days? Not so much, no.
• If you could have any pet in the world, illegal or not, what would you get? German Shepherd puppy.
• What's your most favorite part of your body? My brain.
• What's your most favorite part of your personality? My sense of humor.
• Madonna or Lady Gaga? Neither? Both? Who cares? Seriously, who cares. But, yeah, Madonna all the way.
• Have you ever watched the Superbowl all the way through? No.
• Have you ever watched any major sporting event drunk? That's about the only way I've watched them.
• What's the most delicious food you've ever eaten in your life? Fettucini Alfredo at Ristorante Alfredo alla Scrofa in Rome.
• Margarine or butter? Which did you grow up with? I prefer butter, but mostly eat margarine (which I was raised on).
• Whole, skim, 1%, or 2% milk? (Did you know they make 1 1/2% milk?) I don't drink much milk any more, but when I do it's skim.
• Which continents have you been on? Africa, Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia. All I've got left is Antarctica.
• Do you get motion sickness? Any horror stories? No. Not really.
• Backpacks or satchels? Backpack.
• Would you wear a rainbow jacket? A neon yellow sweater? Checkered pants? None of those.
• What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Top Cat.
• If you had to have a cow or a pig, which would you take? Why? I'd rather have the cow, but a pig is probably cheaper to feed, so I'd take the pig.
• If you had to look at one city skyline for the rest of your life, which would it be? Seattle.
• Longest plane ride you've ever been on? 15 hours... Los Angeles to Sydney.
• The latest you've ever slept? Around noon, I'd imagine.
• Would you buy a sweater covered in kitten pictures? Would you wear it if someone gave it you for free? No. Probably if I had nothing else clean to wear.
• Do you pick at scabs? Not that I'm aware.
• Favorite kind of bean? Kidney? Black? Pinto? Black.
• How far can you throw a baseball? About as far as a ten-year-old girl.
• If you had to move to another country, where would you move? Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Have you ever eaten Ethiopian food? Vietnamese? Korean? Nepalese? How was it? I've eaten all of those. They were all fine, but I'd loathe to eat them on a regular basis. Since I'm a vegetarian, my options are usually limited.
• Small, liberal arts school or public university? Why? It wouldn't really matter. Wherever I needed to go to learn what I wanted to learn.
• A relationship with love or one with sex? A little of both would be nice... but sexual relationships are usually less complicated, so if forced to choose...
• Do you eat enough vegetables? Not even.
• Do you like horror movies? How about thrillers? I like most any kind of movie except musicals.
• Would you scratch a crotch itch in public? If I had to.
• Do you swear in front of your parents? Fuck yeah. They're old enough to take it.
• Coolest thing you've ever been for Halloween? Hologram Rimmer.
• If you could change your natural hair color, would you? To what? Back to Black.
• Do you want to get married? Have kids? Not any more.
• Do you use a reusable water bottle? If not, you should. I have a reusable cup that I use at work's water fountain. I have reusable glassware I use with my Brita water filter at home. No bottle except when I travel, and then it's not reusable because I wouldn't know where to fill it half the time, and don't really need something else to carry.
• City or nature person? City. Mostly.
• Have you ever used something other than "makeup" as makeup? (Like paint? Markers?) No.
• Can you walk well in high heels? Even if you're a guy? I've never tried. I'd imagine I could.
• Post 5 awesome things about yourself. BRAG AWAY! 1) I can draw a monkey. 2) I still blog every day even though blogging is dead. 3) I can drive a manual transmission. 4) . 5) I have a skull tattoo.

And... that's too many bullets. See you next week.

One of my all-time favorite books from when I was a kid was Curious George Goes to the Hospital.

Recently I was needing to add a cheap item to my order to push my order total above the FREE SHIPPING threshold. For some reason I remembered this Curious George book, so I ordered a copy.

I am happy to say that it totally holds up, even after all this time. If, for no other reason, than to see Curious George get high on ether fumes (turns out this is from an earlier George book, sorry!).

My review on GoodReads...
★★★★★
After re-reading Curious George Goes to the Hospital I am convinced that it is the peak of literary perfection, unmatched by any other human accomplishment. The entire spectrum of drama is fully represented in a tale so filled with wonder and delight as to make all other books redundant. The fact that the story's wealth of knowledge and inspiration is so remarkably accessible to persons of most any age is surely a testament to the unarguable brilliance of Margret & H.A. Rey. I loathe to attribute something as mundane as a "Star Rating" to such a transcendentally significant work which redefines the boundaries of human/primate existence, and so eloquently conveys the folly and ultimate triumph of monkeykind... but if forced to do so under the GoodReads review standard, I offer TWENTY-SIX STARS (of which only five are be visible for some reason). You owe it to yourself... nay, you owe it to ALL HUMANITY... to read this literary masterwork and thrill to the sublime illustrated artistic triumphs which accompany it. Curious George Goes to the Hospital is, quite simply, the most profoundly perfect book ever created, and shall undoubtedly remain so until the end of time.

Obviously, I give the book my highest possible recommendation. If you haven't read it yet, I'd get on that.

Look, I fully realize that food manufacturers have to exaggerate how great their stuff looks on their packaging. I realize this because I make a living creating perfect photos for food manufacturers to use for just that purpose. The idea is that the photo is representing the absolute best-case scenario for the product. Everybody knows to lower their expectations, so no harm no foul, right?

The problem is that sometimes the packaging photo so grossly over-exaggerates the look of the product as to be complete fiction. I wrote about this before when I posted my IN-DEPTH SPECIAL REPORT for Hello Kitty Pop Tarts...

Not only is the pink frosting on the box not even remotely the same color as the putrid magenta glop that's been smeared on the Pop Tart, but they grossly exaggerated the number of kitty sprinkles you'll get. In cases like this, it's not a "best case, idealized scenario"... it's an outright lie.

But it's a fucking Pop Tart, so what can you do?

When shopping at the grocery store, I saw that Kashi had added a new Four-Cheese variety to their pizza line-up. I kind of like their Mediterranean flavor, so I thought I'd give the new pizzas a shot and bought three of them. The picture on the box just looked so darn appealing!

Unfortunately, reality had to come along and fuck everything up...

So... you tell me... Four Cheese Pizza... or BARELY Cheese Pizza?

Other than the three badly-distributed slices of Provolone, the other cheeses are nowhere to be found. Just a tiny sprinkling of assorted shreds scattered around the crust. The pizza was mostly sauce, not cheese at all. So I'm chalking this one up as a BLATANT LIE. And, unlike a Pop Tart, it's not like you can so easily write off.

I don't know if this is a design-issue or an implementation-issue, but I'd appreciate it if Kashi would actually put a half-way decent amount of fucking cheese on their Four Cheese Pizza. I shouldn't have to have to deal with this kind of disappointment when it comes to pizza-related life choices.

Happy Birthday iPhone!

Can you believe it's only been six years? I can barely remember my life before iPhone. Probably because I don't want to imagine a time when I didn't have my iPhone.

Thank you Steve Jobs.

Last Sunday I did a blog questionnaire meme somebody had given me that I have been putting off forever. After posting it, I was told that if I was really ambitious about killing a blog meme, I should answer this Hundred Questions Meme.

And since it was a different hundred questions than I had answered before, here it is...

The totally awesome Mobile Exploration Lab from Question #3.

1. Are you young at heart, or an old soul? Uhhh... why can't I be both? I'd say both.
2. What makes someone a best friend? They don't want you to change into somebody you are not.
3. What Christmas (or Hanukkah) present do you remember the most? Micronauts Mobile Exploration Lab. No joke. This thing was incredible because it was so frickin' unique. And I liked the Time Traveler guy I got with it.
4. Tell me about a movie/song/TV show/play/book that has changed your life. The book Illusions by Richard Bach changed my life in that it forced me to start looking at the world (and life) in an entirely different way.
5. Name one physical feature that you like about yourself, and one you dislike. I like my height. I dislike my eyesight.
6. Would you like to reconnect with any friends you've lost contact with? There are a few, yes. And one in particular.
7. What's more important in a relationship: physical attraction or emotional connection? Emotional connection.
8. Name a movie that you knew would be terrible just from reading the title. The most current would be Battleship.
9. What holiday do you most look forward to? Independence Day. Not necessarily because it's such a great holiday for me... but because I've had some really wonderful Independence Day celebrations in the past.
10. How is the relationship between you and your parents? Excellent, I think. Probably because I didn't end up being a serial killer.
11. You've got the TV on, but you're not really watching. What channel is the TV on? Hallmark Channel.
12. Name a song that never fails to make you happy. Oh hell... most anything by The Beach Boys. I'm not even a huge fan of the band, but songs like Wouldn’t It Be Nice or God Only Knows or Don’t Worry Baby or even Kokomo... the band excels at feelgood music.
13. You know at least one person named Michael. Tell me about him. I know at least a dozen people named Michael. Believe it or not, they're all really nice guys... I don't know a single bad Michael.
14. Have you ever read the "Missed Connections" on Craigslist? Have you ever posted one, or wanted to? I've read them for entertainment on occasion. I have never posted one, but there was one time I really, really should have. She was in the Denver International Airport back in 2009 and I remember her like it was yesterday.
15. If you could pick anywhere to live the rest of your life, where would it be? Edinburgh is my favorite city on earth... but I really want to say Maui for some reason. What an awesome place to grow old.
16. Can money buy happiness? Without question. It's just that some times it's harder than others.
17. Do you drink? Smoke? Do drugs? Why, or why not? I drink socially because I enjoy it and deserve it. I smoked for about nine months years ago when I was going through a very bad time, but gave it up because I was sick of the smell and all my food tasting bad. I don't do drugs because I question the health risks and my addictive personality.
18. Is there anyone close to you that you know you can't trust? You don't have to give names. Unfortunately, yes. If I had a choice, they would not be close to me... but I really don't have a choice. Yet.
19. Where was your favorite place to go when you were a little kid? The library. The place was absolute magic to me. Or maybe my grandma and grandpa's house.
20. Have you ever spent a night in the hospital? I could swear I once had to when I had an infection while having my adenoids removed, but my mother says I haven't.
21. Do you enjoy being with only one or two friends, or with a large group of people? Depends on the friends. Usually I like a larger group, but there are some friends I like so much that I don't need more friends when they're around... and wouldn't want to share them if there was.
22. Do you like the type of music your parents listen to? Do your parents like the type of music you listen to? Not with my dad, both ways. A little bit with my Mom, both ways.
23. Have you ever been bullied? Have you ever bullied anyone else? Not really... at least not to the extreme that people think of "bullying" now. I have never really "bullied" somebody either, but there have been things I've said which probably hurt people and I regret having said them.
24. If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? Cheese pizza.
25. If your partner wanted to wait until marriage before having sex, would you stay in that relationship? This will probably get me some hate-mail, but no. Sorry, but sex is a very important part of a relationship, and I think it's just being responsible to make sure you are sexually compatible with somebody before committing to spend the rest of your life with them.
26. Do you believe in a god? Yes. But probably not in the same way most people do. Without getting into a long conversation about it, I believe in something "more than us." I choose to call this "God," but don't think of it as an all-powerful being filled with petty human failings like rage and jealousy.
27. Of all the social networks in the world, why use Twitter? I honestly have no idea. Except there are some famous people using it that I like keeping up with.
28. What's your favorite hashtag to track? #IDon'tGiveAShitAboutHashtags.
29. Would you call yourself/your family "middle class?" Probably.
30. Name a TV series you didn't enjoy until after it ended. Hmmm... that's a toughie. Perhaps Six Feet Under? That was one of the best endings to a show ever.
31. Have you ever bought a product from an infomercial? No. But that's not to say I haven't wanted to.
32. If you could give up your car and never have to drive again, would you? MY car? In a hot minute because it's a piece of shit. If I had a nicer car? Probably not. I like driving and the area I live in kind of requires it.
33. If you go back to one point in time to give advice to yourself, when would you go and what would you say? Back in the pre-Return-of-Steve-Jobs era of 1997. "Don't buy all that useless crap! Buy Apple stock with your money!"
34. What's your "quirkiest" habit? Not tying my shoelaces.
35. What is "normal?" Are you normal? I don't really know how to define normal, but it's probably not me.
36. Someone close to you is dying. You have the choice to let this person live for 10 more years, but if you do, you cause the death of 10 strangers. You don't have to see them die. Do you take the offer? No. As tempting as that would be, I can't interrupt the natural process of somebody dying to kill ten people.
37. What is one thing you could never forgive? People who cause mental or physical harm to children or animals.
38. Would you rather be in a relationship after the honeymoon period ends, or be single? A part of me has experienced so much pain in a relationship that I don't mind the idea of being single for the rest of my life. But, if the right person comes along, I would change my mind, I'm sure.
39. Is it possible for guys and girls to be just friends? Yes.
40. Where do you and your friends go to hang out? I like bars. Bars that have darts are best.
41. Write the first sentence of your obituary. Internationally beloved billionaire playboy David Simmer II passed away today on his 100th birthday when a pile of his money fell over, smothering him.
42. What is the best TV theme song ever? I am guessing Human by The Pretenders, which was the theme song for Jeremy Piven's Cupid. But probably because it's my favorite show of all time. If I were being honest, it would probably be either the theme from Mission: Impossible or Perry Mason.
43. When you were young, what would you dream you would be when you grew up? At one time or another during childhood I wanted to be a fireman, airline pilot, doctor, and a chef. I ended up being a graphic designer, so I guess none of my career dreams came true. Now I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.
44. When you're alone in your own home, do you walk around naked? No.
45. What gets you out of bed in the morning? My job.
46. Do you want to have more friends than you have right now? I wouldn't refuse a new friendship. Can you really have too many friends?
47. What part of the past year sticks out in your mind? Getting a tattoo. Seriously, I love it more than I ever thought possible, and can't wait to get another one.
48. You win a scratch-off lottery game that gives you $2000 a week (after taxes) for the rest of your life. Do you keep your job? No. I would be traveling non-stop. But I would probably help out remotely if they needed me.
49. Could you be in a long-distance relationship? If you're in one, what makes yours work? As in serious relationship? I've tried it. It didn't really work out.
50. What's the best route to your heart? Acceptance.
51. Have you ever met someone through the internet, then met them in real life? Absolutely. Several times. It's the best part of the internet.
52. What is your favorite sport? Hockey.
53. What has been troubling you lately? So many things.
54. Did you enjoy your high school prom? If you haven't gotten there yet, do you look forward to it? If you didn't go, why not? It didn't suck as much as it could have. But... not really.
55. What do you use more often: your intuition or logical reasoning? Logical reasoning.
56. Do you know what makes you happy? I really don't. My friends and family, certainly... but I can't think of any overreaching "thing" that will ultimately make me happy.
57. Tell me about the last book you read. I haven't had the time to read a book in ages. It was probably either Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory or Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal both amazing books by Ben Macintyre that prove truth is stranger than fiction.
58. What is the nicest compliment you've ever been given? That I'm kind-hearted.
59. Who was your first crush? Linda Carter's Wonder Woman.
60. Do you believe that there is life on other planets? Yes.
61. Predict what your life will look like a year from now. Probably much the same. That wouldn't be a terrible thing.
62. Often, people will ask how your last relationship ended. I want to know how it began. She said "yes."
63. Where is your favorite place to go out and eat? Ristorante Alfredo alla Scrofa in Rome. More realistically? Johnny Rockets.
64. What is something you want to change about your current situation? Lack of personal time.
65. Early bird or night owl? Night owl.
66. Are there any childhood possessions you still hold on to? My LEGO.
67. Give me an unpopular opinion you have. I don't like Adele's music. At all.
68. What was the last song that was stuck in your head? Hate You by 2NE1.
69. Where do you live? Be as general or specific as you want. I live in my home.
70. Do you believe in giving kids medals and trophies for participation? I am incredibly torn about this. On one hand, I think it's absurd that everybody has to be a "winner" because then nobody really is. On the other hand, too many things are a competition that really shouldn't be.
71. What was the longest car ride you've ever taken? I took a very lengthy trip where I drove to all the Hard Rock Cafes in the American Southeast.
72. Have you ever taken part in a protest? Yes. But not a physical one with signs and chanting and stuff. The ones I've joined have been online protests against stupid shit like ACTA.
73. Would you ever use an online dating service? Never say never. But probably not.
74. What is your ethnic heritage? I think it's probably something like Dutch and German with a hint of English and Scottish.
75. Describe a person that inspires you. Somebody who works hard for all that they have.
76. If you earn minimum wage doing what you love, would you? If I could survive on it, sure.
77. Do you believe in luck? Not really. But I consider myself "lucky" nevertheless.
78. Describe the last time you were very angry at someone. They were unapologetically ignorant about a subject, but professed to know everything about it anyway. Nothing makes me quicker to anger than ignorance.
79. Do you want to live until you're 100? If I have any semblance of a quality life, then yes. If not? Absolutely not.
80. Do people change? If so, how do you keep a relationship together when both of you start to change? Of course people change. But that's not to say you can't change to appreciate their growth.
81. Have you ever risked a friendship by telling someone you liked them? No. And that's a regret I probably won't get over.
82. Would you rather be alone doing something you enjoy, or doing something you don't like with your best friends? While being with a best friend is always a treasure, I think it's always more fun to be doing something you love.
83. Do you practice what you preach? Not always. But boy do I ever try.
84. If you take precautions to stay safe, do you ultimately act more recklessly? No. If I am taking such precautions (usually while traveling) there is good reason for it, and I take it seriously.
85. What do you value more in a significant other: Attractiveness or intelligence? Intelligence.
86. Are you hard-headed? Some might say that I am, but I really try not to be.
87. Have you ever laughed uncontrollably when it was socially inappropriate? Yes. That's alcohol for you.
88. When have you felt most alive? Skydiving. You never feel more alive than when you're doing something that could result in your death.
89. Would you prefer to live? A city? The suburbs? The countryside? The mountains? The city... if it was the right city.
90. Do you often skip breakfast? Mostly, yes.
91. How do you know what true love is? You use the love formula. "Add up the number of times that you think about the lady each day. Subtract from the total the number of times you think about yourself each day. If the remainder is more lady, and less yourself, then it's love." I learned that from Peter O'Toole in one of my most favorite movies, Creator.
92. Would you want to know the exact date and time you were going to die? No.
93. Where is "home" for you? I'm here right now.
94. What song best describes your life right now? Work Hard by Depeche Mode.
95. Do you want to be perfect? Nah! What fun would that be?
96. What have you never tried, but would really like to someday? What's holding you back? Visiting Antarctica. Time and money.
97. How do you express your creativity? In just about everything I do... my work... my hobbies... this blog.
98. Describe your neighborhood. Residential. Quiet.
99. Name something you only liked because it was popular. The Macarena.
100. Give me the story of your life in six words. Listening. Learning. Trying. Traveling. Doing. Growing.

Ta daaaaaa!

I love toys. Or, I suppose I should say "I still love toys," since adults aren't supposed to play with toys. And my toy of choice? LEGO!

When they came out with LEGO Star Wars sets and games, I was ecstatic. It was a match made in heaven. Then came LEGO Batman sets and games, and I was in Toy Nirvana. Two of my most favorite things in the world together at last!

And now LEGO has gone retro and combined a childhood favorite with their latest line of sets... LEGO Chima...

Looks kind of like Lizard Men vs. ThunderCats... Go Lion-O!

But it's not Lizard Men or ThunderCats that I'm talking about. It's what you can do with the LEGO Chima characters that has me all nostalgic...

The zip-cord pull that makes the LEGO Chima Racers go is the same technology used on a toy I loved as a kid called SSP Racers (which you can read about at Retroland)...

They were a lot of fun because everybody on the block had one, and we'd all get together to race. Mine was the purple "Laker Special"...

Photo taken by Mr. F.M. on Flickr

I don't have any plans of buy the LEGO Chima sets, but this walk down memory lane sure has me wanting my old SSP Racer back. I could probably play with it for a full 15 minutes before getting bored.

Good luck tomorrow, guys!

Stop staring at those Golden Globes... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Good. If you have a passing interest in astronomy... or even if you just like staring at beautiful stuff... then you have got to check out Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog over at Slate. I've been a fan of his for years when he was at Discovery, but he's really been be posting some amazing images lately...

You'll probably want to look at the Big Picture over at Bad Astronomy.

No shit, go check out the hi-res on this one. Mindblowing.

And in-between, Mr. Plait is still dishing up fascinating facts about the universe... and cool stuff worth knowing about our home back here on earth. Be sure to check it out.

   
• Cookies. Look, if a site requires me to enable cookies in order to use their shopping cart, that's fine. If I want to shop there bad enough I'll enable the stupid cookies, even though I don't want to. However... I am NOT going to be forced into enabling cookies just for looking at your website. And if you go to Target.com, that's exactly what they do ON PAGE ONE...

All I wanted to do was to find a local Target store at a given address. Why in the hell does that require cookies? Stupid. Stupid. STUPID!

   
• Backlog. Being a man and talking about rape and violence against women can be a tricky situation... even if you are condemning these reprehensible acts of brutality and cruelty. I've learned the hard way how just one misinterpreted word can get you verbally eviscerated, regardless of your good intentions. Even trying to be sympathetic can sometimes get you smacked down. Ultimately, it all comes down to one thing... "You're a man. You'll never know what it's like."

And women are, of course, correct. Men can't know what it's like for a woman to deal with rape... or even the fear that comes from the threat of rape.

So this is a subject I shy away from, even though I have strong feelings about it. Namely, that rape is an unforgivable criminal act which should result in the rapist being evicted from humanity. Permanently.

But, back to reality...

Certainly preventing rape should be goal #1. But if rape occurs, then making sure the rapist pays for his crime and ensuring he can't rape again is imperative. Thanks to a post over at SueBob's blog, I've learned that there exists a massive backlog of rape-kit evidence that has yet to be processed. Meaning there are rapists out there who are free to rape again since the evidence of their crime is sitting in a room somewhere instead of getting them convicted. If this makes you as angry as it does me, there's a site called End the Backlog you should take a look at.

And if you're looking for a place to donate some money, Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation "helps survivors of sexual assault heal their minds, bodies and spirits and reclaim their lives," and is deserving of your support.

   
• Accused. Of course, being a man, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that being falsely accused of rape can have consequences every bit as horrendous. You. Can. Lose. Everything. Your family. Your wife. Your children. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your job. Your livelihood. Your life. And, even if the truth eventually comes out, your life will never be the same because the original accusation never goes away. People may learn that you're innocent, but you'll always be that guy who somebody accused of rape. And don't get me started on how damaging false accusations are to actual rape victims trying to build cases against the bastard who violated them. Every lie that comes to light makes it that much harder to prove a truth.

So, yeah. If you are a rapist, you deserve everything you get. And more. But if you're innocent? That's the stuff of every man's worst nightmare. Case in point? Nancy Grace's relentless, ruthless public persecution of the Duke Lacrosse Team for gang rape. Day after day she poured on the outrage, pronouncing them GUILTY despite the three accused players' repeated denials (not to mention inconsistencies from the accuser). And when the guys were found innocent? Not even an apology from that fucking publicity whore, Nancy Grace (may she burn in hell for all eternity).

All I'm saying is that the consequences of falsely accusing somebody of rape should be so severe that it's not a viable option when a woman wants to deal damage to a man. Or when she wants to escape the consequences of a consensual act. Or for any reason, really. But it's a scary area to tread because you don't want to make it so that women who have been raped are afraid to come forward. I don't pretend to know what the answer is here, but when working to make sure rapists are punished, I'd hope that the accused innocent will be considered in the conversation.

   
• Guilt. "A New Hampshire lawyer who works with a virulently anti-gay Christian-right organization has been found guilty of child pornography charges after videotaping her own daughter having sex with two men on multiple occasions." —Salon

I am done being shocked by fucked-up news like this. These assholes ruthlessly vilify consenting adults over their sexuality... and it always seems like those who yell the loudest are the most guilty of doing horrendous shit...

"My favorite book is The Bible!"

This piece of crap worked overtime to persecute and deny equality to innocent people... but then spent her off-hours forcing her FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER to repeatedly have sex with TWO MEN while she filmed it. Apparently she felt her professional life was somehow "compensating" for the fucking atrocious stuff she did behind closed doors. Which begs the question... what's going on with all these other anti-gay bigots who are screaming to the rafters with their less-than-righteous fury? I am sickened at the possibilities. But no longer surprised when it shows up in my newsfeed. How sad is that?

   
And... I really, really wish I had another day in this weekend.

In the 1992 movie The Distinguished Gentleman, Eddie Murphy plays a con artist who figures out that the most profitable con jobs of all can be found in American politics, so he bluffs his way into Congress.

The movie was widely panned by critics. They just couldn't say enough bad things about the film, and most movie-goers seemed to feel the same way. Not me. Yes, it felt like Eddie Murphy was making the shit up as he went along, and the movie would have benefitted greatly from a tighter script... but, overall, it's a pretty funny film.

And a very disturbing film as well...

Early in the movie Eddie's character, Thomas Jefferson Johnson, has just arrived in Washington and is meeting with a lobbyist representative named Terry Corrigan who matches lobbyists to politicians who share their views. Terry asks Thomas how he feels about sugar subsidies. Thomas doesn't know how he feels about sugar subsidies, so he asks Terry whether he should be for them or against them. Terry says something like "Shit, it doesn't matter to me... I can get you money on both sides." This kind of shocks Thomas, who says "Terry, tell me something. With all this money coming in from both sides, how does anything ever get done?" Terry's reply? "It doesn't. That's the genius of the system!"

The rest of the film is how Eddie and his friends try to maximize the money they can get out of the system, all while being in a constant state of shock at just how fucking easy it is for a Congressman to rake in absurd amounts of cash. At the end of the movie, Eddie's character makes a statement about how all his con-jobs in the past are nothing compared to the massive cons going on every day in the US government, except with Congress it's all perfectly legal.

The movie is as relevant today as it was when it was made twenty years ago, and I still think it's worth checking out. And here's why... As crazy and as exaggerated and as outrageous as the situations are in The Distinguished Gentleman, I am absolutely certain that what goes on in real-life Congress is a thousand times worse. And the more I read about what's happening with the assholes we elect into office today, the more I'm convinced that has to be true.

At least in the movie version I can have a laugh while getting fucked by Congress. Reality is not quite so entertaining.

And... something unexpected just came up.

Instead of blogging, I have to hop in my car and drive a lot.

Picking up from yesterday's unexpected journey...

The 3-1/2 hour drive to Spokane is not one of those awe-filled journeys that you look forward to. It's pretty much 30 minutes of civilized nothing followed by three more hours of nothing nothing. The Columbia Basin is vast, flat, and uneventful, with only a few farms and a lot of road to distract you from the tedium. Not to say that there can't be some pretty moments in the summer when the crops are out... I've seen some amazing sunsets, for example... but mostly? Not a lot to look at.

And now it's the middle of winter, which means there's even less to look at than usual...

The truth is that I never minded the drive that much, because there was always the best pizza on earth waiting for me when I arrived in Spokane at David's Pizza. But then this happened...

Needless to say, my trips to Spokane are not quite what they used to be. The owner of what was once David's Pizza is co-owner of a bar/restaurant called Famous Ed's where they claim to serve the same pizza... but not so much. The crust at David's was crispy with a nice snap to it when you took a bite. The Famous Ed's crust is tough like shoe leather and has to be torn off the slice. There's also something different about the sauce, but I can't put my finger on it. David's just had a better flavor profile somehow (though I'm sure it's the same recipe). The biggest problem is that Famous Ed's is always changing the toppings for "The Da Vinci"... last time they added clove garlic and salt... this time they added green peppers (which totally overpowered the feta and pesto notes that make this pizza so amazing). Oh well. They were running a special where you could get a large for the price of a small, so at least I'll have something for breakfast tomorrow...

For those who have never been here, Spokane is an interesting place. It's more like a humongous town than a big city. It stretches for absolute miles, but it never seems densely populated because it's so spread out. Even the downtown area, which is fairly cosmopolitan, never really seems like you're in a modern metropolis. The end result is actually kinda nice... you have most of the stores and services of a big city, but without the massive crowds and craziness.

Meaning "Children of the Sun" in the Native American Salishan language, Spokane (the second-largest city in Washington State), has a few claims to fame that I know of. It was the site of the 1974 World's Fair Expo. It was the setting for the Johnny Depp movie Benny & Joon and the Madonna-soundtrack-fueled film Vision Quest. It's the city where future Ted Mosby (from How I Met Your Mother) designs his first skyscraper (though, honestly, the idea of a skyscraper in Spokane is ludicrous, as I had previously talked about). Spokane is also home to the Lilac Festival in mid-May, which is kind of a notable event. At least it is here in the Pacific Northwest. And then there's the Bloomsday Run, which claims to be the largest timed race in the USA. And, of course, Bing Crosby grew up here and this is the city where Father's Day was invented.

Most important of all, Spokane is home of Gonzaga University Basketball, which is all kinds of famous. Oddly enough, some out-of-staters have asked me where the "City of Gonzaga" is, not realizing that the college is named for a Jesuit saint and not a city (the university itself having been founded by the Roman Catholic "Society of Jesus").

The geography of Spokane is also worth mentioning, because that massive blob on a map of Eastern Washington is not really all Spokane. It's divided into two parts... Spokane and Spokane Valley...

The city of Spokane Valley picks up at the eastern edge of Spokane proper and extends almost to Idaho. If you ever question which city you're in, all you have to do is look at north-south streets. In Spokane, they're labeled as "streets" but in Spokane Valley they're labeled as "roads." The distinction between the two cities is kind of important, and some Spokane Valley locals will be offended if you say they're from "Spokane" (just as a Spokane resident might be offended if you were to say they live in the "Spokane Valley," which has a specific meaning in this part of the state). It's not quite so contentious now, but decades ago it was kind of a "West Side Story Jets and Sharks" situation where Spokane kids and Valley kids did not mix. Even today, both cities have separate ecosystems for living, shopping, and eating... they're just not so isolated as they once were.

And that, as they say, is that.

Probably more about Spokane than you wanted to know, but that's what you're paying me for.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETTY WHITE!

And so I didn't get to leave Spokane yesterday as planned.

In an attempt to make the best out of the situation, I decided to go to Pita Pit for a falafel sandwich last night. It was delicious. Back home, most people don't even know what the heck "falafel" is, so I don't pass up opportunities like this.

On the way back to my hotel, I passed two guys fighting over change on the sidewalk. One of them screams "MY DARK SIDE IS COMIN' OUT AND YOU DON'T WANNA FUCK WITH MY DARK SIDE!" The other guy pushes him away, grabs the quarter off the sidewalk, then runs off screaming "I'M THE JEDI MASTER, BITCH!!"

How cool was that? Witnessing this exchange made me feel better about not being able to go home.

Sadly, this moment of happiness was fleeting. Lately I've been having an even worse time sleeping than usual, and last night I got no sleep at all. Methinks it may be time to revisit my insomnia with a new doctor. Not that doctors have been much help in the past, but I suppose I owe it to myself to keep trying.

Breakfast this morning was the same as yesterday morning... leftover pizza from my dinner two nights ago. Since I don't have any plates, I had to get a little creative in finding something for my pizza slices to sit on while heating...

Anyway...

The drive home was pretty uneventful.

Normally, that's a good thing when traveling... but on such a long, boring drive, a little bit of "eventful" would have been nice. Especially since I was working on no sleep.

Oh well. I survived it. I'm home. Anything on top of that is gravy.

I fly a lot.

And flying a lot means that I get benefits and privileges which help to make my constant flying suck less. I've laid it all out here before but, in summary, it involves things like First Class upgrades, early boarding, free luggage allowances, etc. etc.

For as long as I've been flying, these perks have been earned by flying a certain number of miles within a airline partner program. For example, to earn "Platinum" status with the Delta SkyMiles program, I have to fly 75,000 miles. That's pretty easy for me to do, because I can add up the miles from Delta, Alaska Air, Korean Air, Air France, or any other SkyMiles partner airline.

But all this changes in 2014.

In order to qualify for Platinum status with Delta I not only have to fly 7,500 miles, but I ALSO have to spend $7,500 on Delta flights that are in my name as shown on the following chart...

Which means none of the money spent on Alaska Air, Korean Air, Air France, or other partner airlines means shit (well, unless they are Delta-coded flights, and most of the ones I fly are not).

The upshot of all this is that I'm fucked.

I don't spend $7,500 on Delta flights because Seattle isn't a very big Delta direct-flight hub, which means I will be lucky to make Gold status in 2014.

UPDATE: After complaining about the "Million Miler" changes (which I talk about below) to a Delta rep, I was told that the $2,500 does not apply to Million Miler Silver status, and I would enjoy Silver benefits no matter how much (how little?) I would spend. I sincerely hope this is true, as it really is the right thing to do... but the below information was posted to a frequent flier forum after another SkyMiles flier had asked a Delta rep, so I dunno which is true. I guess we find out in 2014.

But the bigger problem for me is when I reach Million Miler status... probably in 2015. Once I fly a million SkyMiles, I get permanent Silver status, which I was looking forward to using in my later years when I'm not flying as much. But now that permanent Silver status ain't worth shit unless I spend $2,500 each year. And that probably won't be happening when I've retired and am living on a fixed income.

Which means the goal I've been working towards for decades is now practically useless.

So typical.

Over the years I've flown with Delta even when other airlines were cheaper because I thought I would be rewarded for my loyalty down the line. My million mile payday. But companies just don't give a fuck about their customers any more. The only thing they give a shit about is how much money they can squeeze out of you right now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Delta screwed me... that's all companies do any more.

Now we get to sit back and wait for all the other airlines to follow suit.

They are, after all, companies too.

IT'S SATURDAY!

I'm so happy I could just shit because I only had to work a half-day today. Of course, a "work day" for me is 16 hours long, which means my half-day is the same as most people's full-day, so I guess I should be as excited as I think I am...

I miss animated GIFs. They seem to be a dying art in the age of YouTube videos. If you're reading this in a feedreader, then odds are that it dropped support for displaying animated GIFs because nobody cares any more. I can only guess web browsers will eventually follow suite.

I was thinking of that this morning when I found a box of VHS tapes filled with awesome television shows that cannot be found on DVD. The VCR I had been saving to play them wouldn't even turn on, so I guess that's the end of that since the alternatives are pretty terrible. Kind of makes me nervous to try turning on my LaserDisc player.

I remember when records gave way to 8-track which, in turn, gave away to cassette tapes. Those, of course, gave way to CDs. Now all music is digital, so I guess it's only natural that video catch up.

The shame of it all being all those terrific television shows and movies that get left behind.

Like animated GIFs in the wind.

There's a grave disturbance in The Force, but never fear... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Rancor! My love of all things LEGO Star Wars is well documented. But LEGO has stepped it up a notch by releasing a new version of the cool Gamorrean Guards that I'm only just now seeing. As ugly as the old version was, this new version is cute as hell..

Photo from Warehouse 19, Sweden

Awwwww! You can get one in the "Rancor Pit" set, which conveniently interlocks with the Jabba's Palace set (how sweet is that?)...

Now that Disney owns Star Wars, I don't know how worried I should be about the license that LEGO had with LucasFilm to make awesome sets, video games, toys, and such. Since most of the cool stuff that's happening with Star Wars is coming from LEGO now-a-days, I hope that Disney is smart enough to keep a good thing going.

   
• Infinity! Speaking of Disney... they unveiled their mysterious "Project Toy Box" gaming universe at long last. And it's not anything quite like anybody expected. Called Disney Infinity, it copies the whole Skylanders concept from Activision where players collect real-life toys and play with them inside a video game. The result is somewhat... muddy. In order to have characters from all kinds of different animated styles plus live-action characters be able to interact with any semblance of sanity, a brand new common "Disney Aesthetic" has been created. In some cases it's very good (characters from The Incredibles look great)... in some cases it's a pleasant surprise (characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean films look pretty cool in their animated form)... and in some cases it's pretty bad (my beloved Sully from Monsters. Inc. looks like shit). Overall, I guess I'm just "meh" over the whole idea...

©Disney and ©Disney/Pixar

©Disney and ©Disney/Pixar

Where things may become interesting is when Disney starts leveraging more of their vast array of properties and licenses. They've got LucasFilm, which means you could theoretically have Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker playing along with Captain Jack Sparrow and Perry the Platypus. They also have Marvel Comics, which means Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, and the entire Marvel Universe may eventually drop in. They've got all the various Disney Channel properties available... which means we could finally get that Hannah Montana vs. Darth Vader deathmatch battle we've all been dreaming about...

And don't forget all the Buena Vista movie characters and ABC Television characters that Disney has in their pocket. With that in mind, you can see where Disney's gaming universe might become something monstrous and huge.

I'm not sure that it's something I'm going to buy into... especially since Mickey Mouse isn't even available yet... but I will be following Disney Infinity with no small amount of interest.

   
• Ads! I hate television commercials. Partly because they interrupt the shows I'm watching... but mostly because they're all annoying, stupid, and just plain suck. Which is why when a GOOD television commercial comes along, I nearly die of shock. It's so rare that this happens... especially outside of the Super Bowl... that I feel compelled to congratulate the people responsible. The latest commercial I'm loving is this very clever ad from TD Ameritrade...

Clever. And smart. And effective, if theirs is a service you're looking for.

   
• LIES! I really hate Subway® because of their Subway® Sandwich SpokesWhore, Jared Fogle®. And now I find out that they LIE about the size of their shitty sandwiches! It's probably been happening for years, but somebody finally called them on it...

Footlong® Photo by Matt Corby

And Subway's® lame response? "With regards to the size of the bread and calling it a footlong®, 'SUBWAY FOOTLONG®' is a registered trademark as a descriptive name for the sub sold in Subway® Restaurants and not intended to be a measurement of length." This is despite the fact that in their annoying commercials there are people holding their hands up to indicate that a "Footlong®" is INDEED a unit of measure that's a foot long (as noted by BuzzFeed)...

I wish there was some way that Jared Fogle could be blamed for this scandal so he could be brought to trial and sentenced to death. Justice has been denied us long enough!

   
• Stream! I don't know how it is that I've never heard of "Can I Stream.it?" before, but what a frickin' amazing service! You type in a movie or TV show, and it will tell you if you can rent it, buy it, stream it, or otherwise get it over the internet from a variety of services (including the iTunes Store and Amazon)... or even purchase it on DVD or Blu-Ray. As if that weren't enough? If it's not available, Can I Stream.it? will even notify you when it's released in the format you choose...

How handy is that? If you're looking to fill in your digital library or find out if something you want to see is available for rental, "Can I Stream.it?" is worth checking out!

   
And that's all she wrote for Bullet Sunday. This week. Don't worry... Bullet Sunday will be back next week. I promise. So don't leave angry comments... or threatening comments... or weepy comments... Bullet Sunday is still going strong, never fear! See you at next week's Bullet Sunday for sure. Totally.

I started today the same way I start every Martin Luther King Jr. Day... by listening to his brilliant and beautiful "I have a Dream" speech in its entirety. In my humble opinion, it's probably one of the best-known speeches that most people never bother to listen to. That's a real shame, because it's famous for a very good reason.

Anyway...

I get MLK Jr. Day off, so I really, really didn't want to go into work today. But it ended up being unavoidable. Now I'm back home where it's 4:00pm, all my energy has been sucked dry, and I don't feel like doing a damn thing. Except watch Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country which is playing on television.

And it's while watching it that I've suddenly realized something I never knew...

Scotty is one badass motherfucker and a stone-cold killer!

For reals. Let me walk you through it. SPOILERS AHEAD!..

At the end of the film, Captain Kirk discovers a massive conspiracy to destroy a peace conference which involves Starfleet, The Klingons, and The Romulans. To foil the conspiracy, he beams down to the peace conference with his crew. The first thing he does? Tell Scotty to check out the back...

Meanwhile, a Klingon assassin is going to kill the President of the Federation of Planets...

But Captain Kirk saves the President, no problem...

One of the conspirators is Lt. Valeris, who is caught by Spock...

Another conspirator is held by Chekov...

Dr. McCoy captures a Romulan conspirator...

Then Sulu captures Admiral Cartwright, yet another conspirator...

As for Scotty?

That's a different story.

Mr. Scott finds the assassin hiding in some kind of balcony... so he kicks the fucking door down...

The assassin turns his head to see what the ruckus is...

While his gun is still pointing in the opposite direction out a hole in the glass...

Does Scotty then say "Drop the weapon!" and take the assassin prisoner? No. No he does not. Even though he's not in any immediate danger, he pulls out his phaser and shoots the guy...

Which blows him through the fucking window...

Plunging him to his death...

What does Scotty do then? He marches to the front of the crowd like a boss, gun in hand...

Then stands in front of everybody to soak up the applause for a job well done...

Everybody else on the Enterprise takes prisoners. But Scotty don't play that. If you're up to some crooked shit, Scotty shoots your ass dead and pitches you out the fucking window. Making him one of the baddest motherfuckers in the galaxy and a stone-cold killer...

Who knew? Sure he could get a little excitable from time to time, but Scotty's the quiet one of the group! Just goes to show that you never know who the true badass motherfuckers are.

Even in outer space.

Live long and prosper, everybody.

Let's see how many 16-hour workdays I can manage before I die... shall we?

This afternoon I made a call for work and got confused when the other party suddenly said "IT'S BACON!" in the middle of our conversation. Not knowing what was going on, I paused and said... "uhhh... okayyy..." The guy then said "Sorry, it's an inside joke." I assumed it had something to do with those stupid "Beggin' Strips" commercials, but couldn't figure out what I said to get that response. All afternoon my mind was kind of distracted by the notion of "inside jokes"... mostly because I no longer have any.

All the inside jokes I had evaporated when one of my best friends died.

Howard and I had dozens, and they've been running through my head all evening. Here are a few of my favorites...

   
BLACK ANUS
Howard and I used to go to Star Trek conventions because we were geeks who led boring lives. Once we had checked into our hotel rooms the night before the convention, we decided to find a restaurant for dinner. After washing up I went to Howard's room and knocked on the door. When he opened it he was laughing so hard he was crying. I kept asking him what was up, but he was laughing too hard to tell me. Eventually he picked up the phone book Yellow Pages and handed it to me. Under the "RESTAURANTS" category, one of the first places listed was "Black Angus," but somebody had scratched out the "g" so it read "Black Anus." Needless to say, this was a never-ending "in-joke" between us from that point on. Anytime we met up to eat, Black Anus was always on our list of possible restaurants. And heaven help you if we happened to actually drive by one. The longer it went on, the funnier it got. Years later we went to a technical conference and decided to actually eat at a Black Angus because we thought it would be the funniest thing ever. Turns out it wasn't as funny as we thought it would be, and the whole "Black Anus" joke died a quiet death.

   
FIRE! HOT!
Back in the good ol' days of computing, Apple had a voice recognition technology called "PlainTalk" which was about as bad as you would expect 1990's voice recognition technology to be. But it was new and exciting so I installed it on my old Mac Quadra and wrote a bunch of AppleScripts for the "Speakable Items" folder that could perform simple tasks. At the time, Beavis and Butt-Head had just become The Next Big Thing, and Howard was obsessed with the show...

So, naturally, when Howard dropped by my place to check out my PlainTalk installation, the first thing he said to my Mac was "Fire! Fire!" And what did my Mac do? It spoke back and said "Hot!" To this day, I have no idea how or why it did what it did. We could never repeat the response. But from then on, ANY time we heard the word "fire" we would shout out "hot!" Things went terribly wrong when a co-worker was telling us how her mother just lost her house in a fire. Both of us instinctively started to say "hot!" but managed to stop ourselves. But we didn't manage to stop ourselves from laughing. Awkward...

   
FRED HERSHBERGER
A mutual friend of ours was married to an absolute jerk that neither one of us could stand. For years we wondered why in the hell she was married to the dumbass. One day we were talking to another friend of hers and the subject came up. It was then that the bomb dropped... apparently this guy we hated had a huge penis. For some reason, we found this hysterically funny. Since his name was Fred Hershberger*, we would say "Fred Hershberger" instead of "penis" from then on. My last words to Howard on his wedding day were "Try not to wear out your Fred Hershberger on your honeymoon."

   
Needless to say, I miss those inside jokes. Though I suppose it's not really the jokes I miss, but the person I shared them with.

Heh. Black Anus.

   
   
*Obviously his name was not Fred Hershberger. I just made that up to protect the identity of the well-endowed.

The geek news of the day has been burning up the internets, so everything there is to be said about it has probable already been said.

Not that it's going to stop me from adding my two cents over J.J. Abrams directing the next Star Wars film. As somebody who has been obsessed with the films and the culture surrounding them for most of my life, it would be impossible for me not to say speak my piece because I've never been one to hold my peace.

In many respects, J.J. Abrams is a no-brainer to helm the next generation of Star Wars movies. He very successfully relaunched Star Trek, so he can obviously handle a special-effects laden sci-fi film... even if his annoying over-use of stupid fucking lens flare was such an amateurish style choice as to be laughable...

To be completely honest, flare aside, I loved the Star Trek reboot. It was respectful to the source material as much as it could be (for what it was). It had really good pacing. It had excellent structure with a definable beginning, middle, and ending. Characters were multifaceted and interesting (despite the fact that they were retreads of television icons). The threat was viable and felt dangerous. But, most important of all, it was just good Star Trek and a lot of fun.

So... maybe.

But that's just one film. What about the rest of his work?

As a "Television Guy," Abrams has a pretty big body of work there with writing, directing, and producing. Of his shows, Alias is my clear favorite... for the first couple seasons. After that, it just spiraled out of control in a gradual slide towards an unsatisfying conclusion. Which is pretty much the story of most his stuff, including Felicity, Lost, and Fringe. His other major works... Undercovers, Alcatraz, and Revolution, never managed to grab me at all. A truly mixed bag.

So... maybe?

But it's his film work that tells the tale. Since Abrams' projects always start strong, a movie would seem to be the ideal format for him. There's no room for that slow decline that plagues his television projects. Mission Impossible III is a good example. I thought it was a fresh and interesting take on the franchise that was really well thought out. It also ended with a satisfying bang that capped it off perfectly. Just like Star Trek. And while I thought that Super 8 was a whiny, corny, disastrous mess, there's no denying it was a well-made film. The true test, of course, will be when Star Trek Into Darkness comes out, because that will tell us if the first film was a fluke.

So... maybe.

In the end, about all I can say for certain is that J.J. Abrams can't do any worse than the shitty Lucas prequels.

For one thing, he can write dialogue that's not cringe-worthy.

And he seems to put things like "story" and "characters" above special effects.

I also get the feeling that he won't dumb everything down to a 2-year-old level by accenting the film with burp and fart jokes.

And it feels like he might have the cojones and integrity to stand up to Disney and not turn his movie into a 2-hour toy advertisement filled with stupid shit like Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks.

So... maybe.

As a huge Star Wars fan, I want so very badly for J.J. Abrams to get a fantastic script from Oscar-winner Michael Arndt and turn it into the most mind-bogglingly amazing Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back. This is an impossibly high expectation but, after what I've been through, I deserve it! We all do. And the wait is going to be torture.

So... hopefully.

Flipping through my photos often results in my find two shots that would be better if they were spliced together. Sometimes it works out better than others.

Totally drawing a blank tonight.

Having a blog about nothing in particular means that sometimes nothing in particular shows up.

Don't pop that viagra just yet... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Credit! I pay for everything with my credit cards, because both my VISA and American Express earn me air miles and travel perks. So long as I pay my credit cards off at the end of each month, it's a winning scenario. At least is was until now. Because now stores are allowed to pass along the credit card fees they pay on to their customers. Which means any store not willing to absorb the fees are going to be adding 1.5% to 3% onto the total of your bill. Pile $25,000 onto your card for the miles each year and that could reach $750 annually. Suddenly those "free" air miles just got really expensive. So expensive that it's not longer worth it. If a "free" roundtrip domestic ticket is 25,000 miles (which cost $750 in fees), it's cheaper to just pay the $250-$400 it would cost to buy it outright. This really sucks, but I guess we need to wait and see how many companies start charging a fee before we know how bad it sucks.

   
• Sin of the City. The horrific nightclub fire in Brazil which killed at least 233 people is a sad reminder of how life can imitate art which is imitating life. Duran Duran's incredible "Wedding Album" features a song called Sin of the City which pretty much spells it out...

Kind of makes you wonder if you're taking your life in your own hands when you go out for a night on the town. Safety code violations are so commonplace and so rarely enforced in many places on this earth that it can be like playing Russian roulette. Eventually the tragedy will strike... it's just sheer chance that it will be on the day you are the one experiencing it.

   
• Asteroids! All this talk about companies wanting to send ships into space to mine asteroids makes my mind zero-in on one thing every time...

Of course, now that Atari is in bankruptcy and finally set to die once and for all, I suppose I should stop clinging to the past and look to the future...

I wonder if these companies remember that the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3,720 to 1?

   
• WTF?! I guess marriage equality opponents are finally starting to realize that more and more people want their gay friends, family, and neighbors to be able to have the same right to get hitched as everybody else. This has resulted in some of them abandoning their absurdly ridiculous arguments against same-sex marriage... for even more absurdly ridiculous arguments?!? You know, I honestly try and respect views and opinions that are different from mine... but this has to be the stupidest fucking thing I've heard in ages: Only straight couples should be allowed to marry because only they can have a child unexpectedly, where gay couples have to plan for it? Seriously? THIS is what passes for a logical argument now-a-days? It's witnessing this level of idiocy that is eventually going to be the death of me. My brain simply cannot process this fucked-up shit, and one day it's going to hemorrhage... just you wait. When the blog entries stop, that's when you'll know I've finally had too much.

   
• WTF?! Part Two You know that you've been blogging too long when you get an email criticizing you for using a split infinitive. What fascinates me most here is not that somebody decided to go all grammar nazi on me, but that they thought I was unaware of what I had done. As if it were impossible for somebody to intentionally ignore a grammar rule that they feel is stupid (see what I did there?). I suppose that I could invite them to kindly go fuck themselves, but I wouldn't want to mistakenly cause their brain to forcibly hemorrhage. I can so relate.

   
Annnnd... tomorrow is going to be a long day, so I am going to regretfully take my leave of you now.

I once told a woman "You're only beautiful on the outside," because it was the meanest thing I could think of saying. She had hurt me, you see, and I really wanted to hurt her back. Unfortunately, she completely misinterpreted the comment and took it as a compliment. On the surface, it seemed like a total insult failure. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had scored a crushing victory. Not only did I call her an ugly human being, I apparently did it in a way that this vain moron wasn't aware... thus sparing me from the regret and bad feelings that inevitably follow after I say something mean to somebody.

Except, in this case, any regret would have been short-lived.

This woman went on to do some pretty heinous things to a surprising number of people. She truly was an ugly witch, regardless of how nice she looked on the outside.

This had me facing regret of an entirely different kind. I regretted that I hadn't clarified my insult when I had the chance. Opportunities missed and such.

That was years ago.

This weekend I discovered that she had eventually become as ugly on the outside as she was on the inside.

As in, yikes.

So do yourself a favor, kids... have a good heart so you can stay beautiful at your core and not be eaten up with ugliness from the inside out.

Oh yeah... and stay away from drugs. Because, holy crap can they do a number on your looks.

Tonight I finally got around to the massive amount of mail that's been piling up. Thanks to internet banking, I pay all my bills online, so any mail that comes in isn't critical (it's usually junk mail) and can be safely ignored.

Amongst the crap was a new credit card for an account I had closed over a year ago. At first I was mad that I was probably charged some kind of annual fee for something I had canceled and wasn't using, but there was none of that. Just a friendly reminder to activate the new card and destroy the old card. Well okay then... no harm, no foul... I'll just call and cancel the account again.

Which, of course, was easier said than done.

The Customer Service Representative was sorry to learn that I had received a card I didn't want, but she could find no record of the account being closed. "Ah." I said. "That explains it then. Can we just go ahead and close the account again?"

The answer? "No."

"Uhhh... no?!??????" I replied, trying my best to make sure my disbelief was evident.

"No. I am unable to close this account. For that I need to transfer you to a Relationship Specialist."

Before I was able to say "Relationship wha-?!?", I was clicked-over to another line and listening to music-on-hold designed to make one think very hard about whether they wanted to live another day.

Not only was I in a relationship I never knew about, now I was being fed a mix-tape guilt-trip for wanting to end it.

And so there I sat as the minutes ticked by... listening to sad music and feeling guilty. Rehearsing what I was going to say over and over in my head so I could end the relationship gently and avoid all the usual screaming, biting, and punches to the face that tend to happen. "I'm sure you're a wonderful card with a lovely interest rate... and some guy will be really lucky to have you... but... I've found another card that gives me what I need in a way you never can. I'm so sorry, but I'm just in it for the air-miles." I thought that was the perfect approach, but then realized I would hate if somebody used me for air-miles, and decided that the classic It's not you, it's me! approach was probably safer.

She took it pretty well.

At first.

But then things turned nasty. It was kind of a "I was there for you when you needed me... and now I'm being discarded... ON THE PHONE!" kind of vibe. This was punctuated at the end of the call when I was asked to destroy all evidence of the relationship. Usually, this involves texts, photos, emails, and such... but this relationship was different. "Please destroy any cards, PINs, cash advance checks, or any other material associated with this account." And by "account" I'm sure she meant "relationship."

I was feeling pretty bad as I was read the riot act. Then, out of the blue, things turned sunny again...

"If your needs should change in the future, please think of us!"

How nice was that?

It would seem that I am finally getting the hang of this relationship stuff, and can actually get out of one amicably for once!

Unless another card randomly shows up because "there's no record of the cancelation." Then I guess I have a stalker. A stalker who has all my personal information, my Social Security number, and my financial records.

When did relationships get to be so hard?

My love of animation knows no bounds.

And while a part of me will always believe that the hand-drawn stuff will never be eclipsed as the ultimate expression of the art-form... there is no denying that the miraculous work being done by Pixar and others in the realm of computer animation bodes well for the future.

And then today I see that John Kahrs and Disney has come up with a way of making CG look very much like traditional hand-drawn animation with a beautiful and touching short film called Paperman...

Absolutely magical.

I've lost track of the number of times I've watched it.

No, it's not in the same league as a Hayao Miyazaki film. And I wouldn't say that it reaches the heights of Disney classics like Snow White and Jungle Book or even The Lion King and Lilo & Stitch. But the technology is young. And the results are mind-blowing. And there's no telling where this might lead...

My only worry being that this will be the final nail in the coffin for hand-drawn animation. And as great as this new technology might one day be, I think there will always be a place for putting a pencil to paper... then putting your heart into making something come to life, frame by frame...

Ones and zeroes has a hard time competing with that. But it's getting closer every day.

Uh. Yeah. About that blog post...

Usually I just bang out my Blogography entry at the end of the day once I've caught up on work and life. I have no idea what I'm going to write about, I just fire up MarsEdit and away we go. Most of the time this works out okay, but not always. Today was kind of different though, because I had an idea for a post that had been brewing all day long. It came to me in the morning, then kept building and building. By the time I was driving home from work, I pretty much had the entire thing composed in my head, and was quite pleased with myself for having such a great post idea during the usually-boring days of winter.

But then I decided to catch up with the world during dinner, which turned out to be a big mistake.

Because that's when I saw this...

And it's been all I can think about ever since.

On May 3rd we're getting another Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man movie.

Written and directed by Shane Black!

What else is there to blog about?

When I woke up, there was a dull ache in my frontal lobe. I thought maybe I had smacked my head on the nightstand or something, and tried to ignore it.

By the time I got to work, the pain had escalated to something impossible to ignore, so medication was in order. Alas, it was over-the-counter medication which did absolutely nothing.

I lasted three hours before I couldn't take it any more. It was time to take my head home before I puked on my desk or something equally disturbing...

And so here I am... too drugged up to concentrate on work, but not drugged up enough to sleep.

About all I'm good for is a quick blog entry, which is serendipitous, I suppose.

Having missed most of my work-day yesterday because of my aching head, I was determined that I would wake up early this morning and get caught up so I could spend some time working on the upcoming issue of THRICE Fiction. But the pills I had to take for the pain thought otherwise, and I ended up being mostly dead for most of the morning, so that plan went right out the window.

For lunch I ended up eating at the Olive Garden where I ordered the Fettuccine Alfredo. Which isn't really Fettuccine Alfredo because the sauce seems to be mostly cream, instead of the parmesan/butter mix that comprises the original. Oh well. It may not taste as good, but it's still a decent plate of pasta.

While eating my Not-Alfredo, I notice a kid at the table across from mine staring at me. Since he was sitting at a huge table filled with nothing but adults that were ignoring him, I figured he was bored enough to find me an interesting distraction. But that wasn't it at all.

He was studying how I ate my pasta.

Apparently the concept of twirling the noodles into a spoon with your fork was something new to him.

He gave it his best shot... until the person next to him told him to stop playing around, then cut his spaghetti into pieces, ruining it.

Oh well.

Hopefully when the kid gets old enough to strike out on his own and escape from these people who don't know how to eat pasta, he'll remember that he once saw a better way.

Amazing how much my hopes for the future depends on people forgetting what they were taught today.

Cancel your post-Super-Bowl plans... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Poop! On March 1st, one of the greatest innovations in toilet technology ever conceived will finally be available... THE DIGITAL 2-IN-1 POTTY WITH ACTIVITY SEAT FOR iPAD! Or, as I like to call this stunning testament to genius... the iPotty...

Why this isn't available in adult sizes, I will never know. If you want to order one, Amazon is accepting pre-orders!

   
• Bowl! I really don't give a crap about football in general, and the Super Bowl in particular, but my love of a good television commercial definitely have me looking forward to the big game. Or, since I don't watch the thing, I guess I should say after the big game... where I rush to see all the ads that aired.

This year was a massive disappointment. Most of the ads sucked ass (that idiotic GoDaddy ad was just fucking gross), and there was only one... ONE commercial that I felt was Super Bowl worthy...

And even that was a bit manipulative and predictable.

What happened to the epic Super Bowl commercials of yesteryear?

   
• Closing! One of my favorite guilty pleasures is searching the internet for "The World's Most Dangerous Airport Landings." There are several really good lists, and a number of scary videos... all glorifying those airports that are insanely difficult to land at. Later this month, one of those airports... Ecuador’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito... is due to close. I am very familiar with it, because it's appeared on a number of those "Most Dangerous" lists I love, and for good reason. It's right in the middle of a big city, is surrounded by mountains, is plagued by nasty cross-winds, and is at a high altitude...

Having trouble finding it? Yeah... that's just one of the problems...

Photo was uncredited, but I got it from Flying Magazine.

I always thought it would be cool to have bragging rights to have landed at one of these crazy airports. Guess there's one less chance of that happening now. Though I'll bet the people whose homes are surrounding Mariscal Sucre aren't sorry about that.

   
• Trek! The Lone Ranger, Man of Steel, Oblivion, Monsters University, A Good Day to Die Hard, Gravity, World War Z, Elysium, Despicable Me 2, Thor: The Dark World , Oldboy, Pacific Rim, R.I.P.D.... the list of awesome-looking movies coming out this year is nearly endless. But there are two that I am looking forward to above all others. This is the first...

Talk about boldly going where no Star Trek has gone before... Into Darkness looks amazing.

   
• Metal! And, numero dos... the ramp-up to Iron Man 3 is going to be excruciating. The new Super Bowl ad seems to indicate that the film will hit all the right notes...

Of course, after this installment, I'm just going to be pining away for Iron Man 4, so I guess it's always something.

   
And... time to take my busted body to bed.

I never got to see the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, in theaters. I had to watch it on a plane the first time I saw it. But that tiny seat-back screen made it impossible to see the beautiful cinematography that made the movie so compelling, so I watched it again tonight (iTunes has it available in HD a week before the DVD/Blu-Ray hits on the 12th... just $14.99!).

I really liked this film, even though I thought the story was kind of small for a James Bond flick. The villain isn't out to conquer the world or cause mass destruction or steal tons of money... he just wants to kill M. It makes for a more personal movie, I guess, but kind of one-note...

And now a few SPOILER-FILLED notes from this long-time James Bond fan...

• While I love Adele the person, I am not a fan of her music. Can't stand it, to be honest (and I fucking hate... hate her big hit Rolling in the Deep). But her theme song for Skyfall is spot-on. It has a very James Bond retro feel, but is thoroughly modern in its approach. It is so good that it makes me want to give her music another chance. Maybe
• That being said, I found the opening credits a bit convoluted and overdone. They started out promising (and very Bond), but ultimately end up a big-ol'-toss-in-the-kitchen-sink mess.
• As I mentioned, this film is absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography is stunning at every turn, and the film truly is a work of art in that respect. The assassination scene in Shanghai is the most eye-popping bit of film I've seen in quite a while.
• Daniel Craig so totally owns the role of James Bond in this film that it makes me almost forget that Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and George Lazenby ever inhabited it. He's damaged and broken in a way that you'd really expect James Bond to be in order to act like he acts and do what he does.
• When I saw the movie on the airplane the first time, I was really annoyed by Javier Bardem's baddie character, Raoul Silva. He seemed so flighty and non-threatening. Now that I've seen it on a screen considerably larger than 6-inches (with a sound system that actually works), I was blown away at just how chilling and subtle his performance was. Different for a Bond villain, but not in a bad way.
• SPOILER! As good as Ralph Fiennes is as an actor, I am finding it inconceivable that the next Bond film won't have Dame Judi Dench as M in it. She was absolutely magnificent in the role, and made it her own in a way that few actors could. From a story standpoint, I know why they did what they did... but I still think it was a very stupid move that will ultimately hurt the franchise.
• SPOILER! The post-end-game twist of making field agent "Eve" actually be "Eve Moneypenny" was a clever one. But here's the thing... they made such a big deal over the idea that "being an agent in the field isn't for everyone" as a foreshadowing to Eve leaving the field to sit behind a desk... but, holy shit, Moneypenny was fucking awesome in the field! She kicked ass in the opening, and was balls-out fearless in following her orders. What a shame.
• SPOILER! It didn't help that they made Moneypenny so brutally hot. She made for one smokin' secret agent!
• SPOILER! First they made M a woman in GoldenEye. Then they made Felix Lighter black in Casino Royale. Now they've made Ms. Moneypenny black as well. And while I applaud the franchise's efforts to embrace diversity, I have to question whether flipping genders and races of established characters is the most compelling way to do this. Why not create memorable, fascinating, original characters for women and persons of color? Like Halle Berry's awesome "Jinx" from Die Another Day? Why not give us a baddie who's a black woman, for example? Because, seriously, how amazing would Angela Bassett be as a Bond villain? Just so long as you don't make her Blofeld.
• SPOILER! When I first saw that the new Q was a young kid, it made perfect sense. Boy genius on the cutting edge of tech? Sign me up? But how fucking stupid did he turn out to be? Not only did he NOT confiscate M's laptop so he could scrub the virus and try to track it back to its source, he plugged in an unsecured laptop into MI6's local network?!? No IT tech guy smart enough to be running Q Branch could possibly be this idiotic.
• SPOILER! I am conflicted over the big reveal of Bond's back-story. On one hand, it completely screws the character when a key piece of his composition... his "mysterious past"... is no longer mysterious. On the other hand, Bond seems a little more "real" now. I can't decide if it was worth it.
• All things considered, this is one of the best Bond films in the series. If there's anything coming up short, it's shoehorning the whole "politics of MI6" into the story. The courtroom drama was neither interesting or necessary. In fact, I'd argue it actually worked against the story.
• When it comes to the next film in the franchise, I sincerely hope that we're going to get a globe-spanning criminal mastermind that pushes the stakes to a new level for the new James Bond. Daniel Craig hasn't really had that yet, and he deserves it. Well, either that... or the return of Jaws!

And, on that note, I guess it's 007 out.

And so the Monopoly people selected the winning and losing tokens for their latest game sets.

The loser? My favorite token, of course. The iron is no more.

The winner? It's the cat...

It's a pretty cool token, really, though I was hoping the robot would win. But why couldn't they have dumped the stupid wheelbarrow or the stupid shoe instead of the iron?

Oh well. Guess I'll be the top hat from here on out. Who has a favorite token?

After reading my take on the latest James Bond feature, Skyfall (which I said was "one of the best"), I was asked "Well, if this wasn't THE best... which movie IS your favorite?"

The easy answer is to toss out Goldfinger or From Russia with Love... maybe Dr. No... but the truth is that I didn't know. And since your favorite James Bond films probably says a lot more about you than what toothpaste you use, I wanted to think on it.

And so I did. My ranking of all twenty-four films follows.

1. Goldfinger. It's quintessential Bond in every possible way. You've got the famous original (Sean Connery) battling one of the best villains in the franchise (Auric Goldfinger!) with the most famous henchmen (Oddjob!) and the perfect Bond girls (Pussy Galore! Jill Masterson!) and a Bond-worthy plot (attack Fort Knox!) and a Shirley Bassey power theme song (HE LOVES ONLY GOLD! HE LOVES GOLD!). This is everything James Bond is in a single film, which is why it tops a lot of "Best of Bond" lists... including this one.
2. Casino Royale. After years of fumbling, the entire franchise is rebooted with Daniel Craig finally bringing back James Bond as a force to be reckoned with. I am the first to admit that the film does drag a bit... with too much emphasis being put on a card game that is more like a rulebook for Texas Hold'em Poker than a vital story element... but just about everything else is exactly what you want in a 007 film. The contemporary plot was driven by money manipulation, but didn't end up as boring as it would seem. On the contrary, the action was gritty and real in a way that the franchise needed to stay relevant in today's more brutal, less elegant world. I know it's probably heresy to say so, but Craig became my favorite James Bond after just this one outing. The theme song You Know My Name by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell was a rockin' kick to the head, and exactly what was needed for the first film in a new James Bond series.
3. From Russia with Love. It's been said that this film is the closest to the original James Bond novels. Having never read them, I don't know if that's true, but I do see the film as a much grittier take on the character than we're used to. The plot is Cold War relevant, with 007 having to assist with the defection of a Soviet asset. Unfortunately for Bond, he also has to deal with SPECTRE, who is hell-bent on revenge because he killed Dr. No. The result is a movie that predates the gimmick-laden films that would follow, and relies on smarts and action to tell one of the best 007 stories (indeed, many people name this as their favorite). It also has some of the most memorable moments, including Rosa Klebb with her deadly shoes and that classic slugfest on top the Orient Express. A part of me wants to give the theme song a break because it's from a different era, but Matt Monro's efforts here seem painfully boring to me here in 2013.
4. For Your Eyes Only. Yes. Yes I know. Most people consider this to be another Roger Moore flop that strayed from the original Bond formula too far (even though it was designed to be just the opposite). But I think that's the reason I like it so much. It's an entirely different take on classic James Bond that's done really, really well. And it was the first Bond I saw in a movie theater, so it kind of rings nostalgic to me in that respect. The location shooting in such locations as Greece, Spain, and Italy featured some really cool visuals and epic stunts that define the series, and that formed a base for a good story to be told. Basically, 007 is trying to recover a computer with deadly security consequences for the entire world. Along the way Bond hooks up with a revenge-minded Melina Havelock, whose deadly mission both helps and hurts his own. Couple all that with a flawless performance by Topol, not to mention one of my favorite theme songs (Sheena Easton!), and this movie deserves a lot more respect in the Bond universe than it gets.
5. Skyfall. A much smaller, more personal kind of Bond film... but not in a bad way. I've already talked about it here.
6. Dr. No. As the first "real" James Bond film to come out of Ian Fleming's novels, all the visual stylings of the character were invented here. Including the iconic intro sequence looking at Bond through the barrel of a gun. The plot revolves around Dr. No and his ties to SPECTRE (which would propel the entire film franchise for decades to come) and his plot to sabotage an American Project Mercury human spaceflight launch. Along the way we are treated to many of the things that would become staples of the character, including the original "Bond Girl," Honey Ryder, as played by Ursula Andress. Honey emerging from the ocean in a white bikini is probably one of the most famous Bond moments in history, and that scene alone would put the movie in my top ten. Fortunately, there was a lot more going for it, pushing Dr. No up to #6. The theme song here was THE James Bond theme song, which is timeless and flawless in a way that most movie tracks can only dream about. A pity it ran short and they filled the remainder of the opening with a bunch of crap, including Three Blind Mice.
7. The Spy Who Loved Me. Okay, I admit that part of my nostalgia for this Bond installment is due to the masterful opening credits with Carly Simon belting out Nobody Does it Better, but that was only the beginning. The insane story involved villain Karl Stromberg wanting to destroy the planet so he could start an entirely new civilization under the ocean. As Bond investigates, he runs across a Russian agent (the ever-so-dreamy and flawless Barbara Bach) working to stop Stromberg's mad plan. But... uh oh... she's also the wife of a Russian spy that Bond killed in the movie opening. Drama! Probably the thing most people remember from this film (other than the theme song) was an appearance by classic Bond villain Jaws, a ruthless killer with a mouth full of metal. Overall, this was a really good Bond film that cemented my love for the character... even though I saw it after both Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only.
8. Die Another Day. When Pierce Brosnan took over the role of James Bond, I was ecstatic because I had long thought he was perfect for it. Much to my shock and horror, I ended up thinking he was ill-fit for the role. He over-intensified absolutely everything, and could never capture the casual cool that is a trademark of the character. Every line was delivered not with the winning confidence of the world's foremost super-spy, but as a desperate life-and-death gambit. Like he was wound too tight or something. Ironically, it was Brosnan's final film, Die Another Day, where he finally seemed to calm down and inhabit the character. Or maybe I was just transfixed with Halle Berry being the best "James Bond" in years... talk about casual, cool, and confident! The plot was a good one and revolved around a power-mad North Korean general wanting to eradicate South Korean defenses so he could invade. The theme song was an auto-tune mess by Madonna, but it had a throbbing electronica feel and I still liked it (much more than Madonna's terrible cameo in the film).
9. Moonraker. This film has one thing going for it that ranks it a bit higher than it probably should be... the world-domination plot is about as Bond as it gets. Yes, injecting the Space Shuttle into the story was an obvious attempt to get a jump on the actual missions that were coming up two years later and to cash in on the Star Wars phenomenon, but I didn't think it was done badly at all. Bond girl Dr. Holly Goodhead was a beautiful, refreshingly competent update from the usual eye-candy, and villain Hugo Drax was classic Bond all the way. As if that weren't enough, the movie was beautifully shot in locations like Venice and Rio de Janeiro, featured some killer visual effects, and had an amazing theme song by Shirley Bassey! Hell, it's James Bond in space! What's not to love?
10. A View to a Kill. I'm probably going to catch some shit for this film being being in my top-ten, but come on! The villains are CHRISTOPHER WALKEN AND GRACE JONES and the theme song is an awesome track by DURAN DURAN! Yeah, the Nazi-super-child computer-chip world-domination plot was a bit out there. And, yeah, Roger Moore was too old to really do the story justice (opposite Tanya Roberts!) in his final 007 flick. But, ZOMG!, CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, GRACE JONES, AND DURAN DURAN!
11. Thunderball. SPECTRE is up to their naughty hijinks yet again... this time stealing some nuclear bombs to terrorize the earth. Probably most famous for having 007 in a jetpack during the film opening, Thunderball seems to be a love-it or hate-it affair with Bond fans. While I do love it overall (it's Connery, after all), I find big portions of it to be extremely boring. Still, it does have a lot of trademark action and those killer underwater battles going for it. The theme song, crooned with almost gag-inducing drama by Tom Jones is one of my least favorite (ANY WOMAN HE WANTS, HE'LL GET! HE WILL BREAK ANY HEART WITHOUT REGRET!).
12. Quantum of Solace. It's unbelievable how Daniel Craig's Bond could have such a huge clunker in-between two amazing Bond entries (Casino Royale and Skyfall), but here it is. Overall, it's not a bad film... just a huge mess that made it difficult to enjoy what good bits were there. The theme song was another mess entirely, taking two artists I like (Alicia Keys and Jack White) and somehow delivering something totally sub-par.
13. Tomorrow Never Dies. I can appreciate the concept of a media mogul wanting to terrorize the world in order to make headlines for the news outlets he controls... we see that in the real world every day... but it didn't hold enough weight to anchor a James Bond film in any serious way. Even when that mogul is played exceedingly well by Jonathan Pryce. About the only thing that kept this film from floating away completely was the sublime presence of Michelle Yeoh as Chinese super-spy Wai Lin. The theme song was sung beautifully by Sheryl Crow (with a vocal range I didn't even know she had), but was ultimately boring and predictable ("Martinis, girls, and guns! It's murder on our love affair!").
14. Goldeneye. As I mentioned in Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan fell far short of my lofty expectations as James Bond, and his first turn at 007 is replete with reasons why. CIA agent Jack Wade (confusingly played by The Living Daylights villain Joe Don Baker) said it best when he called James a "stiff-ass Britt"... because Brosnan's every word felt stiff, forced, and overly dramatic. A complete departure from the smooth, classy Remington Steele take I was expecting. The plot was good enough (rogue Russian colonel Arkady Ourumov gets control of the all-powerful GoldenEye satellite)... the casting was good (Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp, and Dame Judi Dench's first film as M!)... and the score by one of my favorite musicians (Eric Sera) was top-notch... but it just didn't come together as well as it should have. On the plus side, we did get Tina Turner belting out the theme song this time around, and she killed it.
15. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This is that infamous Bond movie with one-off 007 George Lazenby who stepped in when Sean Connery wanted too much money. He then went on to dis James Bond and declare he'll never do another one, which was a big "fuck you" to fans that makes me not like this film as much as I could have. Indeed, it's Telly Savales' Blofeld and Diana Rigg's all-too-short Mrs. James Bond that make me like it this much. Anyways... this is a decent story with a bitter ending that gave us All the Time in the World, so it's not all bad.
16. The Man with the Golden Gun. Christopher Lee was the perfect choice for the titular villain in this Bond outing, but there were simply too many absurd clichés to push this film to where it needed to be. Hervé Villechaize as "Nick-Nack" was bad enough, but kung-fu schoolgirls and other attempts to inject comedy where it doesn't belong sabotaged what could have been a really good 007 movie. Still, it did have some exotic location shooting in Thailand which was cool. The theme song was pretty bad, aiming for fanciful frenzy and energy, but ultimately falling flat.
17. The World is Not Enough. Utterly forgettable Pierce Brosnan flick thanks to a boring plot about blowing up a pipeline (or whatever), not to mention the casting of Denise Richards as nuclear physicist(!) Dr. Christmas Jones. About the only thing I enjoyed from this film was the fantastic theme song by Garbage... Shirley Manson's haunting vocals oozing over a creeping melody set the stage for a much better movie than what we ended up getting.
18. You Only Live Twice. The theme song was a pleasing but drowsy rendition by Nancy Sinatra that works okay, but could have (should have?) been much more. Which is pretty much what I feel about this gadget-infused take on Bond. The story is confusing and crazy, involving SPECTRE, rockets, and a plot to start World War III. About the only memorable thing I took away from this movie (which I haven't seen in years) was the exotic Japanese locations and outlandish scenarios. Everything else is a forgettable blur.
19. License to Kill. Timothy Dalton's second and final 007 flick has two things going for it. First of all, the theme song by Gladys Knight was pretty darn good. The other thing was that the story had a very different Bond being all manipulative and devious, which I loved. The problem being that Dalton shitted all over it. He was an awful, awful James Bond. In my fan-boy fantasies, I picture Daniel Craig stepping in and totally owning the script, elevating the film much higher in my list. But that's not what we got. Instead we get a third-rate drug kingpin takedown flick with actors that felt like they'd have a hard time getting cast on a television show. After this we got Pierce Brosnan as 007, which was a huge step up... but not quite the slam-dunk I was hoping for...
20. Never Say Never Again. This cash grab by an aging Sean Connery can be safely ignored since it's not an official Eon film production, but that's not its greatest sin. No, that would be that it's a remake of a Bond flick that Connery had already done... Thunderball. All that being said, this is not the worst James Bond film because it did feature brilliant casting and a really good director who knew how to push all the right buttons. Among the best was Fatima Bush (Barbara Carrera), whose deranged bad-girl villainy was worth the price of admission. The theme song this time around was pretty but forgettable, and felt more like a lounge act than anything else.
21. Diamonds are Forever. Sean Connery was lured back to Bond by a massive payday after skipping out on the previous installment, but his heart just wasn't in it. The plot is about diamond smuggling, but it really doesn't matter... this by-the-numbers Bond installment was pretty forgettable, including the theme song by the otherwise amazing Shirley Bassey.
22. Live and Let Die. Maybe it's because I thought the whole blaxploitation genre was a bad fit for a James Bond flick, but I just could not get into this film. That's surprising considering we have a truly great theme song by Paul McCartney and Wings, Jane Seymour, and a pretty good two-two-two-villains-in-one idea (played brilliantly by Yaphet Kotto). But we also have some truly corny moments and characters (including the horrific Sheriff J.W. Pepper), along with a laughable voodoo-themed drug plot that felt like it would work better in a cheesy porn flick. So, no, I was not impressed with Roger Moore's first outing as Bond, and thought this feeble attempt to cash-in on the blaxploitation gravy-train to be pretty much crap.
23. The Living Daylights. Hmmm... what do I remember about this one? Well, a-ha sang the incredible theme song brilliantly. And I think this was Timothy Dalton's first bland, dull, lifeless, Bond entry. Ooh! And there was a girl with a cello and drugs on camels... or something. Blergh. You know you're in trouble when the only thing you liked best from the film was the theme song. But it's not the first time (see: Live and Let Die).
24. Octopussy. Ye gads. Just as I absolutely fucking hated Star Wars II: Revenge of the Sith when Chewbacca broke character (and universe) by doing the "Tarzan yell" as he swung through the trees, I fucking hated Octopussy for the same reason. It's meant to be funny but it's tragically stupid, and sucks you out of the film you're watching. As if that weren't enough for me to take a shit on this Bond installment, 007 dresses up AS A FUCKING CLOWN! Absolutely everything in this film... from the nonsensical plot to the cliché-laden characters and story... is dreadful. Whomever pitched the idea of James Bond joining the circus should be shot. The icing on the cake was the theme song by Rita Coolidge, All Time High, which was a sleepy, boring ballad that started the film off with a snore.

And that's a wrap. My hope is that Daniel Craig (who is contracted for two more films) will continue doing amazing things with James Bond before the inevitable passing of the torch. Time will tell, but looking at the latter half of this list has me dreading that day.

So this is where "society" is at now...

I choose to believe that everything means something.

Because of this, the cornerstone of my entire belief structure is that nothing occurs by chance and everything turns out exactly how it was meant to be in the end. This is not always an easy things to put your faith in, however. When misfortune strikes... when something goes terribly wrong... when people are suffering... it's difficult to take it on faith that this is the way it's supposed to be. That everything will work itself out in the end. And yet, there's some comfort to be found when you believe that even tragedy will ultimately lead us to where we need to be.

Some people feel this is fate or destiny. Others attribute it to God's will. Still others feel it is a lesson designed to teach you something for your next life. And some just think The Universe has a way of sorting things out. Regardless, it's certainly a kinder way of dealing with adversity than believing tragedy happens for no reason at all. Because if all the world's suffering is for nothing, that would make life almost unbearable, wouldn't it?

Sure there are some lazy, self-involved assholes who use this as an excuse to stand idly by, ignore people in need, and let the world go to hell, but this does not deter me. Even politicians are here for a reason.

Sometimes I think that reason is so that I have somebody to despise, but that's okay too.

Some days...

Ever feel like there's something missing, but you don't know what it is?

You Northeasterners can put down that snow-shovel... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• SNAKE! Happy Chinese New Year! This is the "Year of the Snake" or, to be more accurate, the "Year of the Water Snake." Water snakes are mostly poisonous and deadly, so I can tell already this is going to be a rough year...

   
• Nemo! Speaking of rough years... I've been watching the northeast winter storm coverage with more than a passing interest. All the snow they're getting on the other side of the country is snow we're not getting here in Washington State. Heck, I gave up wearing a coat two weeks ago because it's been so warm. And while I'm happy on the outside that the winter was mild and relatively short, it's worrisome that we could end up in a drought this summer. I guess the best we can hope for is that we at least get another couple snow dumps in the mountains over the next month before Spring is really here.

   
• Archer! One of my favorite television pastimes is Archer, which is a kind of an animated James Bond spoof gone terribly wrong. The result is almost always hilarious, and I find myself watching the episodes multiple times. If you're a fan like I am, there's a fascinating look at the real-life people who inspired the look of the characters on the show...

Totally worth checking out, which you can do by clicking here.

   
• Rejected! LEGO has finally released an awesome MiniFig of one of my favorite super-heroes after Batman, it's AQUAMAN...

And the minute I got my hands on him, I wanted a LEGO Aquaman keychain. And so I wrote to LEGO Customer Service to beg for one...

Dear David,
   
Thanks for getting in touch with us.
   
I’m sorry, but even though I think your Aquaman key chain would make a brilliant LEGO® set, we can't accept your suggestion. I know this might be disappointing to hear, but we have a team of experts in Denmark whose job it is to dream up new LEGO sets, themes and toys. They tell me it takes years to plan everything. They need to test all the new ideas, talk to the factory about how to make them, work out what sort of box is needed and then deliver the new sets to all the shops in 130 countries! This means that there's a good chance they could already be working on something similar to your idea.

Yeah, right. It takes years of planning to take a MiniFig they already have and shove a metal loop in his head that they already have to make a keychain. AND THE KEYCHAINS AREN'T SOLD IN BOXES... they don't have any packaging at all! Obviously a form letter reply, but whatever. Maybe I'll have to buy a few Aquamem and experiment with turning them into keychains myself.

   
• iCrap! Dear Apple. How long is it going to take before you fix all the busted shit in your iCloud syncing? I am so fucking sick and tired of not being able to sync my keychains... LIKE I COULD WITH MOBILE-ME BEFORE YOU REPLACED IT WITH THIS iCLOUD CRAP. And why do you make it so difficult for third party apps to sync their settings and shit? It's just sad that I have to keep a DropBox account to sync all the shit that your half-baked "solution" can't handle.

   
• iCrap! Dear Apple. Why in the hell do you force your iCloud customers to download videos before we can watch them? You stream to AppleTV, why won't you stream to my Mac or my iPhone or my iPad? Why? If you can't figure the shit out, why don't you talk to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Redbox, Vudu, CinemaNow, or any of the other dozens of services that are streaming all the time. Because this is fucking bullshit.

   
• iCrap! Dear Apple. Seriously, how fucking embarrassing and pathetic is it that you've had almost TWO YEARS now to get this iCloud crap sorted out, and you're still sitting on your asses? You're sitting on BILLIONS of dollars... FIX THIS SHIT!

   
And... time to pack...

Back in 2005, I threw my tall hat into the ring to be considered for Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. I don't know if you heard, but I was not elected, despite my astounding credentials.

Instead the The College of Cardinals elected Darth Benedict XVI, who went on to disgrace The Church and worked overtime to reverse much of the good will that Pope John Paul II worked so tirelessly to build with other faiths and the world.

Well, now that His Holiness has decided to resign, The College of Cardinals has a chance to rectify their poor judgement and make the choice they should have made all along...

   
I hereby announce that once again I am putting forth my name for consideration to be elected Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, and Servant of the Servants of God.

Partly because I think the PopeMobile would be a great way to pick up women... but mostly because I look great in really tall hats and a dress.

And I'm already infallible, so there's that.

So inform your priest... write to the bishop of your local diocese... contact your favorite cardinal... pray to The Almighty... and tell them all that DAVE IS MY POPE!

DAVE 2013!

So now what?

Back in June when I got my first tattoo, it was the culmination of 26 years of planning. I kept delaying, thinking that maybe I'd change my mind... or decide I want something different... or otherwise regret my decision. But the ink I wanted never changed, so I finally found the perfect tattoo artist and decided to just go for it.

Turns out my only regret was that I didn't do it sooner.

I loved my new ink, and was content that I'd finally gotten the tattoo bug out of my system.

I was wrong, of course, and knew almost immediately there was no way I was going to wait another 26 years to get another. I did decide I'd wait at least a year so I could come to fully appreciate my first tattoo though. It seemed only fair.

I managed to make it eight months...

My original plan was to do something fairly elaborate and interesting on my opposite upper-arm. But five months of working on ideas didn't produce anything that grabbed me.

So instead I decided to go with a tattoo band around my forearm that I could complete in stages.

A lot of ideas went through my head for the first piece, but ultimately I decided on my birthday. In Buddhism, your birth is a highly important day for a number of reasons. Mostly because it's a celebration of the day that you were given the ultimate gift... the gift of life... but it also symbolizes other high concepts like suffering (by your mother during your birth) and sacrifice (by your parents to care for you)... along with love, light, hope, and dozens of other aspects of the human condition. And since my birth-year looks very cool in Roman numerals, that was what I decided on.

And now every time I see my new tattoo, I'll be reminded of everything my birthday represents, and that the best way to honor all that is to live my life to its fullest.

I love it, of course.

One piece down, five more to go...

   
UPDATE AUGUST, 2013: Part two has been added.

I had a free couple of hours to head into San Francisco for cookies.

It was incredible out. Beautiful blue skies and sun. And I saw sea lions. And made a trip to the Museum of Modern Art. And ate at Johnny Rockets for lunch. And I got cookies.

Now it's back across the bay for me.

Oh... And Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

Just a typical day, really.

Went to the Jelly Belly factory.

Partied with rockstars until 2:00am.

Sat around with Kitty One.

Went to see West Grand Boulevard in concert.

Ate Cambodian food.

The secret to Aaron's sexy-smooth vocal stylings? Cherry Coke Slurpee!

Don't worry about five awesome days of crazy keeping me down... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Grohl! After seeing former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighter front-man Dave Grohl interviewed on The Colbert Report, I was compelled to check out his new documentary film, Sound City...

It's brilliant. A total love letter to old-school music production by some big names in the business... including Paul McCartney, Trent Reznor, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Lars Ulrich, and more. If you love music, this is a documentary that's well worth checking out.

   
• Cruise! The media has been in a frenzy over the horrors that plagued Carnival's cruise ship Triumph. And the stories were pretty nasty. I mean, once you're pooping in a bag and standing in line for four hours to get a ketchup sandwich, you're pretty much having the worst vacation ever...

Photo by Scott L./Wikimedia

Now, I've never been on a cruise where I had to poop in a plastic bag and eat ketchup sandwiches... the cruises I've been on have been perfectly lovely. So when I hear the public outcry from people vowing to NEVER EVER GO ON A CRUISE because of this misfortunate incident... well, it sounds like a pretty big overreaction. For every cruise disaster blown up by the media, there are thousands upon thousands of cruises that go off without a hitch. Including all six I've been on. And while it's not my most favorite way to vacation, I will absolutely go on more cruises in the future. The advantages of travel via cruising are just too numerous to ignore. But, of course, the media won't be covering that.

   
• Jelly! I'd much rather post my own stuff than repost things from others, but I just can't help myself this time around. This cartoon from Cyanide and Happiness is one of the funniest things I've ever seen...

Seriously. I can't look at this without busting up.

   
• The Bay! I have no idea how many times I've been to San Francisco, but it's a lot. I love the city. But more than that, I love the fact that I've been to the city so many times that I don't have to play tourist. I can actually spend my time enjoying it without having to rush from attraction to attraction... I've pretty much done them all.

About the only thing I have to do is buy fortune cookies from The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company. Five bags of those will keep me happy for a month or so.

   
• Water! As I had mentioned last Bullet Sunday, I have a real worry about the lack of snow this year bringing drought come Summer. After flying over the mountains the other day, I think my fears are justified...

It's the middle of February. Now take a look at a photo I took of the same area back in APRIL of 2011...

By April of this year, I fear we'll have nothing left in the mountains. Hope we get plenty of rain.

   
And, on that somber note, I guess it's time to catch up on some sleep.

I've been back from Oakland for one day.

And while I already miss my friends (and civilization), what I am missing right now... and quite badly... is food. Here in my little corner of Redneckistan, my culinary options are severely limited.

Just days ago I was eating an amazing falafel wrap...

As for today? It's a box of shitty dehydrated julienne potatoes in "cheese" sauce...

So gross. And exactly the kind of thing that makes you lose your will to live.

Reeeeeaaaly looking forward to me next trip.

After a random look at my blog stats, I saw traffic coming from a website I'd never heard of before. So I clicked through to see what was going on and found this...

NOM lifts pro-gay blogger's personal travel photo

I'm already I'm filled with dread, and I haven't even read the story yet.

And, sure enough, it was my photo they were talking about. The "National Organization for Marriage," which I can only describe as the preeminent anti-marriage-equality hate-group, is using a photo I took as a part of their anti-gay propaganda campaign...
   

   
Having something you created being used to peddle bigotry and discrimination is not an easy thing to accept. Especially when it contributes to creating an environment so hostile that LGBT youth are killing themselves rather than having to endure it.

Groups like NOM go against absolutely everything I believe in. But having them drag me into their persecution of the LGBT community is only half the problem. The other is my belief in a free and open internet. Which is why my Creative Commons License (appearing on every page of this site) allows non-commercial usage of the stuff I share here. Granted, NOM violated this license by failing to attribute the photo to it's source in a way that shows I don't endorse their bullshit... but otherwise? Their non-profit status (which is another topic entirely) means that their use of my photo is most likely permissible.

And it's this dilemma that has me frustrated to to tears. How do I reconcile my belief in sharing information on a free internet with my desire to keep my works from being used to hurt people by hateful bigots like NOM??

I thought I might find help in the "moral rights" clause of the license...

"In addition to the right of licensors to request removal of their name from the work when used in a derivative or collective they don't like, copyright laws in most jurisdictions around the world (with the notable exception of the US except in very limited circumstances) grant creators "moral rights" which may provide some redress if a derivative work represents a "derogatory treatment" of the licensor's work."

Except they make it clear that the USA is a "notable exception," which means this is practically worthless.

So what to do? Two things I feel very strongly about seem to cancel each other out. Have an open license, and your works can be repurposed to hurt people. Have a restrictive license, and you're inhibiting the creativity of others to build and share on your work.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe you can't have it both ways.

All I do know is that I don't support NOM's ruthless persecution of a group of people under the pretense of "protecting marriage." And, make no mistake, it is persecution. They don't like gay people, so they fight to keep them from having the same freedoms as everybody else. And if spreading misinformation and outright lies is what it takes, they'll do that. If allying themselves with individuals or organizations which advocate violence against homosexuals will forward their cause, they'll do that too. Whatever it takes to keep homophobia and fear alive so they can maintain this absurd illusion that marriage is somehow "endangered" by a mythical "gay agenda" that's out to destroy society.

This situation shouldn't be upsetting me as much as it is. It's the internet, after all.

But gay kids are being bullied. Gay kids are killing themselves. And it's groups like NOM that are creating a society which encourages these horrible things to happen.

And being party to that... even unwillingly... is more than I can take.

It's been a sucktastic week so far.

I really wish I could go into a com fora the rest of it, but I'll consider myself lucky if I can just get a couple of hours sleep tonight.

   
And now in a totally unrelated topic... remember when Wheel of Fortune had a "Shopping Showcase" where the winner of a round could take their money and shop for absurd prizes?

Whatever happened to that? Without the Showcase thing, Wheel of Fortune is kinda boring.

Back when I was in San Francisco, I went into a Walgreen's so I could pick up a new pair of reading glasses. Now that I'm in toric contact lenses, I apparently need them to see my iPhone easily.

As I walked in the door, I heard a woman say "CAN YOU HELP ME? CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME?" I turned around to see an elderly woman clutching a store shelf, looking like she might fall over. "What can I do to help?" I ask. "I NEED TO GET A PRESCRIPTION FROM THE BACK AND I CAN'T WALK ON THAT SLICK FLOOR OR I'LL FALL!" she said, pointing to the tile that started three feet in front of her. "Okay then, take my hand and I'll get you there." I say.

And so I led the old woman back to the prescription department... s-l-o-w-l-y.

As we walked in slow-motion, she went on to tell me how she had been standing there for quite a while, asking everybody who walked by (including employees) for help. Nobody did. I was the first person to even look at her. "Maybe they were in a rush? I'm not in any hurry, so I don't mind," I offered, trying to sound optimistic.

Not that I believed it for a minute.

The truth is that nobody wanted to be bothered to help her.

As depressing as it is to see all the horrific crap going on in the news... as disheartening as it is to hear about all the violence and persecution and terror that permeates our lives... why is this the thing that gets stuck in my head? Seriously, It's been bothering me all week.

There are so many big problems in the world that we can do nothing about... that make us feel powerless.

You'd think we'd seize every opportunity we can to fix the problems we can do something about.

But we don't.

I don't.

Except this time I did. Maybe it's the thought of all the times I didn't that haunts me.

The Oscars are on Sunday. Here are my picks.

BEST PICTURE: My pick is Django Unchained, which I enjoyed more than all the other films combined (excluding Beasts of the Southern Wild and Les Misérables, neither of which I wanted to see). It won't win, of course, but it completely deserves to (like Inglourious Basterds before it).

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE: Heaven only knows that I wanted Pixar's Brave to blow me away... but, while it was jaw-dropping beautiful to look at, the story just didn't measure up. ParaNorman, Wreck-It Ralph, and The Pirates! Band of Misfits were all good films, but it's Frankenweenie that was my favorite.

BEST SHORT FILM: John Kahrs' Paperman is haunting and beautiful and has Disney magic all over it. The other nominations are great, sure, but Paperman is genius.

BEST DIRECTOR: Ang Lee's absolutely masterful handling of Life of Pi makes him my clear favorite. But who doesn't think Spielberg will take it for Lincoln? But the bigger question... how in the heck did Quentin Tarantino get overlooked for Django Unchained?

BEST ACTOR: While I thought Bradley Coooper gave a winning performance, it's pretty hard not to pick Daniel Day-Lewis for his amazing turn as Lincoln.

BEST ACTRESS: This was a toughie, but I give the nod to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook. She just seemed more necessary to the success of her film.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Yeah, Tommy Lee Jones for Lincoln with Christoph Waltz a close second for Django Unchained.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Hated The Master so Amy Adams is out. Didn't think Sally Field disappeared into her role enough in Lincoln. Refused to watch Les Misérables for Anne Hathaway. Thought Helen Hunt was "okay" in The Sessions, but not remarkable. So I guess that leaves Jacki Weaver for Silver Linings Playbook... although Anne Hathaway is almost certain to take it.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The easy choice would be Life of Pi, but I think too much of what made it cinematically amazing was the special effects. Django Unchained would be a solid choice, but I'm going to have to go with Roger Deakins for Skyfall. A big part of what made it such a good film was the stunning cinematography, and the film is definitely Oscar-worthy.

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS: For all the reasons I think Life of Pi should not get "Best Cinematography," I think it probably deserves the Oscar for "Best Special Effects." That being said, the incredible visuals of The Battle for New York in The Avengers (not to mention the hundreds of other effects plus Hulk and Iron Man) make me wish a tie could happen here.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: I'm not a fan of Adele's music, but have always liked her as a person in interviews and stuff. And yet... Skyfall was about as good a theme as James Bond movies get, and Adele blew the doors off it.

BEST WRITING, ORIGINAL: I have gone round and round on this, trying to decide between Django Unchained and Moonrise Kingdom, and can't decide. I would be equally thrilled if either won, though Zero Dark Thirty probably has the edge.

BEST WRITING, ADAPTED: Just about everyone (including me) thought that Life of Pi was unfilmable... and yet, here it is. It would be hard not to reward that ingenuity.

I got almost nothing done today. But it wasn't for lack of trying.

I actually started working when I woke up at 4:00. But since I didn't get to bed until 2:00, I was asleep again at 7:00. At least I was until I was awakened at 7:30. After that, I tried working off and on all day, but could never quite get into it. About the only accomplishment I can lay claim to is backing up my photo library and geotagging a couple hundred photos (I swear by all that's holy I will NEVER buy another camera without GPS).

Other than that? Nuthin'.

Which is tough considering all the stuff I've got on my to-do list.

In other news, I've taken up cigarettes again...

Judge me all you want, but nothing calms my nerves like a nice candy cigarette.

Another boring February Sunday got you down? Don't despair... because and even MORE boring Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Oscars! Meh.

   
• Over! By this time next week, Tiwlight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part Two will have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray. And then it's over, right? I mean, it's the final shitty movie of the shitty Twilight movies based on the shitty Twilight books, isn't it? I won't have to be subjected to any more of this crap... right?

   
• Overer! And speaking of over... the three internet trends I am so over with this month are...

• The Harlem Shake.
• Screaming Goats.
• Bacon.

   
• Hook! I have to admit that I haven't seen a single episode of Once Upon a Time. I'm not into fables and fairy tales, so the show is not my cup of tea. But I keep seeing these television promos which feature a surprising element...

That's Colin O'Donoghue, who apparently plays Captain Hook. But I don't care about that. I mean, yeah, I guess he's a good-looking guy and all... and I'm sure he's a decent actor and everything... but I'm talking about something more important than any of that...

EYELINER! Or, as I like to call it, "Captain Jack Sparrow Guyliner"...

Apparently it's impossible to be a pirate now-a-days unless you've got eyeliner on. I approve completely. Mostly because I can totally rock the guyliner look...

But also because I'm totally a pirate at heart. The day this goes mainstream, I am so there.

   
• Suck! I am one of those rare people who believes in paying for the stuff I want. If there's a game I want, I buy it. If there's a movie I want, I buy it. If there's a television series I want, I buy it. If there's a song I want, I buy it. Thanks to Apple's iTunes, most any media I want to own can be purchased quickly and easily, so I pay the price. Until now. I went to purchase the latest season of Archer only to find that FX Network has placed ads in each episode. That's right, I'M PAYING FOR ADS! Well fuck this shit. FX Network is out of the damn minds if they think that I am going to pay for advertising when there are alternatives for getting Archer ad-free.

   
And now... time to call it a night. Tomorrow promises to be a long, long day.

I'm drinking chocolate milk and watching Castle reruns.

I swear it's true.

Lying or Wrong Speaking as it's known, is something to be roundly avoided according to Buddhist teachings. Outwardly, this is to promote harmony and good will, but that's not the only benefit. It all basically boils down to this: "If you can't speak truthfully and honestly, keep silent, because anything less only causes harm to others... and yourself."

Don't get me wrong, it's tough... really tough... to be honest all the time. But ultimately I find it makes my life easier, so I try my best to speak the truth whenever I can (I'm a terrible liar anyway). Sure I fail from time to time, but my effort is genuine, and this has paid off for me more often than not.

But Wrong Speaking encompasses more than just lying. It also refers to saying rude or hateful things. Or spreading gossip. Or speaking harshly. Or promoting violence. Or any of hundreds of other things that might hurt people... or reflect badly on you as a caring, open-minded, considerate individual.

Not lying is a piece of cake compared to all that.

And yet... I keep trying, because I think Right Speaking an admirable goal.

The problem is that keeping silent when you have nothing positive to add to a conversation can be easily misinterpreted. People might think you're not paying attention. Or disinterested. Or uncaring. Or mute. Or just plain rude. To compensate for this, I have been making an effort to find positive things to say in a negative conversation.

So now people just think I'm crazy.

I'm not sure if this is better or worse than people thinking me inattentive, disinterested, uncaring, mute, or rude.

But, hey, that Jay Leno sure is a breath of fresh air, amirite?

When getting out of the shower each morning, I delay putting on my glasses for a while.

Partly because they start fogging up if I wear them right away... but mostly because I like living in a blurry world for a little while each day. There's something beautiful about an environment which lacks definition and detail... and where color and light battle it out for your attention without distraction...

But then you try to put your underpants on your feet because you can't see they're not your socks, and you think that maybe it's a good idea to put your glasses on again.

It was fun while it lasted.

The sadistic idiot who designed the new sidewalks in town has randomly placed dips and curb-stops where they have no business being. This makes walking down the street a perilous ordeal and a real challenge, even if you're being careful. I know this because I tripped over a cement block jutting out into the sidewalk which sent me crashing to the ground on Monday.

So now I have a skinned knee, a scraped elbow, tore-up hands, and aches that run down my entire body. I think I must have pulled a muscle somewhere and that's thrown everything out of whack. Today it's gotten worse, and just getting up and walking is fairly painful.

Which has me thinking back to when I was a kid. I used to take falls much worse than this and bounce back in minutes. Now it's two days and counting. I have to wonder if twenty years from now such a fall will result in a broken hip.

Something to look forward to, I suppose.

In the meanwhile I guess I just have to be more careful and not risk my life by walking on a sidewalk or other similar dangerous activities.

And load up on pain relief medication.

I'd blog more about how getting old sucks, but it's almost midnight and apparently I need my rest.

CGP Grey, whose fantastic videos I have posted here a number of times, made a new video just for me last week:

HOW TO BECOME POPE!

And now that Il Papa has left the building, and the position is officially available, I thought it important that I take a look...

Wow.

Okay, I'm pretty sure I can create a bishop vacancy... accidents happen all the time. Then I'm confident it's just a matter of a lot of money greasing the right palms to slide into a bishopship. No problem there, as Kickstarter was made for this kind of thing.

But becoming a cardinal?

The current Pope has to appoint me to cardinalship.

And he just retired, so that's a problem.

Maybe if I can just go all Mission: Impossible and eliminate a cardinal so I can impersonate him with a face-mask and get the rest of the cardinals to elect me Pope? I do look good in red...

After impersonating a cardinal with a good chance at Pope, then getting the other cardinals to vote me Pope, I can then take the name Pope Dave Two the First. THEN I can go pray in private at the Sistine Chapel, remove my disguise, and emerge with my own face. Then I'll just convince everybody that God came down and re-made me in his image. Which should be simple thanks to my God-like visage.

Easy. LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN, PEOPLE!

But first, it's time to watch more CPG Grey videos. What a time-suck his YouTube Channel is...

Okay, now let's get to work...

I'd like to think I'm respectful of people's opinions, even when they differ from my own. Especially when they differ from my own. I'm not saying it can't be frustrating, or I'm above poking fun at opinions I don't agree with... but I think it keeps life interesting to listen to what others think. Sure it might be easier if everybody thought the same way as me about things... but it would also be boring.

Where I have a problem is when people make opinions while being unintentionally uninformed or after having been misinformed (either intentionally or unintentionally).

I try harder than most to make sure my facts are correct so I won't be guilty of these crimes of ignorance. But, hey, mistakes happen to the best of us, and so I try to be tolerant even then.

Except...

There are those who make opinions while being intentionally uninformed, and that's what drives me bat-shit insane.

It's only gotten worse on the internet, because people feel less accountable for their opinions when they're bashing them out at a computer. I see it most every day.

For the sake of not being dragged into a fight involving faith or politics, I'll leave those piles of shit out of this, but that's where the most grievous offenses lay. People become so completely absorbed by a religion or political party that they refuse to listen to anything that even hints at a contrary viewpoint. Even cold, hard facts.

Though I may be over-exaggerating here, because I've seen the same kind of ignorant behavior over comic book characters.

Anyway...

The thing that got me thinking about intentional ignorance tonight is product reviews.

Whether it's book reviews on Amazon... or game reviews on the iTunes App Store... or movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes... or wherever you find people spewing their opinions, intentional ignorance abounds.

• I never read this book because my cousin's brother's best friend said it sucked, but... I'm reviewing the story anyway!
• The game was more than I wanted to pay, so I've never actually played it, but... I'm reviewing the app anyway!
• I didn't watch the Oscars because I hate Seth McFarlane, but... I'm reviewing his hosting performance anyway!
• I hated the book so I never watched the movie, but... I'm reviewing the film anyway!

Which all basically boils down to this...

• I may be an intentionally ignorant piece of shit, but... I'm not ashamed to be a total dumbass and put my worthless opinion out there anyway!

Which inevitably has me screaming at my computer display... SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU ASSHOLE! Not that that really helps anything, but at least I get the rage out of my system.

Sadly, there can be no end in sight. Intentional ignorance is here to stay, and there's nothing we can do about it. Except to accept that it's inevitable and too many people on this earth are too stupid to want to change it.

Feel free to disagree with my opinion, I don't mind. Really I don't.

Unless you didn't bother to actually read this, in which case... SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU ASSHOLE!

Looking strictly at the numbers, this blog is either a raging success or a dismal failure.

83,214 visitor "sessions" were reported at Blogography for the month of February (which is 9,795 less than January... maybe because it was a short month?). According to the documentation, "A session is initiated when a visitor arrives at your site, and it ends when their browser window is closed or there is a period of inactivity." On daily average, 624 people are accessing my webfeed, so I'm guessing around 17,500 of those monthly "sessions" are from regular readers, though not everybody uses a feedreader, so that number is probably a bit higher.

And the bulk of my remaining traffic? Search results. The majority of which are visitors from Google hoping to find something here. That's what happens when you've been blogging daily about random crap for nearly a decade.

So, from a numbers standpoint, I don't know if "83,214 sessions" last month is good or bad. Probably good for a relatively unknown blogger like me. But a terrible failure if you're a popular blogger like The Pioneer Woman (who undoubtedly gets millions of visits each month).

But I don't sell ads or make any money off Blogography, so the numbers don't really matter. I write here so my friends & family can know what I'm up to... and to keep track of what's going on in my life (five years ago today I was flying back from a TequilaCon Planning meeting in Portland!). From that perspective, Blogography is incredibly successful.

All the great people I've met and the wonderful friends I've made from blogging is just the icing on the cake.

Which is a fact I clung to this morning as I discovered yet another one of the blogs I read has closed up shop. This comes right on the heels of another blog folding earlier in the week (didn't see that coming).

We're dropping like flies.

I'm coming up on my ten-year blogiversary this April. I have no plans on stopping.

Which makes me either a raging success or a dismal failure.

It's getting harder and harder to tell.

This whole "Sequester" bullshit got you down? Well that's only the tip of the iceberg... because and even MORE boring Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Artisan! The craftsmanship that went into the album cover for John Mayer's Born and Raised is pretty spectacular. And the behind-the-scenes look at how it happened is absolutely worth your valuable time...

In a day and age when computers are rapidly redefining art, it's wonderful to see that there are people keeping old-school craftsmanship like this alive... even when using a computer. If only I had skills like that.

   
• RoboHepburn! And speaking of computers redefining things... the estate of Audrey Hepburn has authorized her computer-generated likeness for use in a chocolate commercial...

More than a little creepy... what with her being dead and all. It doesn't help that the video has a kind of "painterly" feel that seems to only add to the unreality of it. Still, it was kind of charming, and you can't really blame Galaxy Chocolate from wanting her in their advertisement...

I guess it's only a matter of time before actors just have to literally phone in their lines.

   
• Mashup! Usually I find music mash-ups to suck copious amounts of ass. They're lazy and/or stupid and rarely prove a point. Until now. Somebody named "pomDeter" has mashed up Nine Inch Nail's brilliant Head Like a Hole with Carly Rae Jepsen's vapid pop anthem Call Me Maybe to create Call Me a Hole...

Yeah. Genius. That's gonna be stuck in my head for a while. What makes it even better? The mashup was suggested by Ms. Jepsen herself!

   
• Supreme! Just when you think Ellen DeGeneres couldn't possibly be a more remarkable person...

...this happens. Ellen has a way of calling people fucking stupid and paranoid in the nicest possible way. Hopefully The Supreme Court will see that American citizens are rapidly moving past homophobic bigotry and will follow suit.

   
And... my website is down. Guess I won't be posting Bullet Sunday on Sunday then.

Lately I've been having moments where I find myself not breathing and I have to remind myself to take a breath. It's very annoying. And has me wondering what in the heck is preoccupying the part of my brain that's supposed to handle the breathing. I suppose it's better than suddenly finding out your heart isn't beating, but still.

So far as Mondays go, this one was pretty heinous. Despite working my guts out from dusk 'til dawn I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped. I suppose that was to be expected, because, well, Monday. What was not expected was finding out that my automated backup utility was, in fact, not backing up anything at all. This was discovered right after I had congratulated myself because a missing file could just be downloaded from my backup. Except it couldn't, because I didn't have a backup, which made me very cross indeed.

Nothing like spending two hours re-doing work you had already finished.

As if that weren't enough, I am still having problems with my blog. For reasons I can't figure out, the back-end that manages everything has suddenly decided to randomly fail while I'm updating stuff. This has resulted in my map page having no map, and my archive page being a disorganized mess.

I'd fix all that, but I have bigger fish to fry.

Like making sure I keep breathing.

Well this day didn't get off to a good start either!

Sometimes events happen in life that are too traumatic for words. They can only be expressed in song.

So now, in the tradition of Bitch Got Three Spaces, Blogography proudly presents yet another Grammy-worthy edition of Song Lyrics from Redneckistan...

Eggo Didn't Leggo My Waffle
Lyrics and Music by Blogography Gangsta.
Sung by Blogography Gangsta (featuring Killa Kyleon, Ice Burgandy, and Gucci Mane).

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Got my butter!
Got my syrup!
Got my fork and knife!
Now all I need is a delicious Eggo waffle
To complete my life!

Open the freezer!
Open the box!
Open that plastic wrap!
What the hell? they gave me half a waffle
Now I think that I might snap!

Eggo ruined my breakfast,
The most important meal of the day!
This ain't no way to be livin',
Ain't nothin' goin' my way!

Yeah, yeah, yeah... yeah!
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.

Pray for peace!
Pray for freedom!
Pray for world harmony!
Lord, they done gave me half a waffle
Why have you forsaken me?

Rage on Eggo!
Rage on Kelloggs!
Rage on breakfast too!
Don't need no haters messin' with my waffle
Or else I'm comin' for you!

Eggo ruined my breakfast,
The most important meal of the day!
This ain't no way to be livin',
Ain't nothin' goin' my way!

Yeah, yeah, yeah... yeah!
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

— All lyrics copyright ©2013 by Blogography.

I am so tired of throwing money away on crap.

I buy a new pair of jeans, and the zipper-pull breaks off the first time I wear them. The landline phone I have at work broke within the first week. My car has been a piece of shit from day one. It goes on and on. As I was cleaning out some old storage boxes this past weekend, I ran across tons of crap that was either broken or not working as advertised. I saved it all in the hopes that one day it might be fixed and become useful so I didn't waste money, but I was only fooling myself.

And it never ends. For the past week when I change the channel to Comedy Central, this is what appears on my television...

It's Stephen T. Colbert! I guess... the sound is all choppy too.

Any time this has happened in the past, the cable company is all "Uhhh... I dunno... it's probably not our fault... maybe you should call Comedy Central."

Really? Why in the hell should I be the one to call? YOU'RE the one that takes my money each month, assholes!

And, of course, they don't provide a credit on your bill for service failures either. Which is irritating, but not nearly as irritating that they just don't give a shit.

Of course, I'm paying them to not give a shit, so I guess it's all my fault in the end. Too bad satellite isn't an option for me. But maybe buying the shows I want to watch from iTunes and dumping cable is.

And so it begins again.

For the past three months I've stuck pretty close to home. Sure, I flew to my sister's house for the holidays in December, made a quick trip to Spokane for work in January, and took a wonderful trip to Oakland to visit friends and get a tattoo in February... but the bulk of my Winter was spent taking a vacation from travel.

Now the vacation is over, and the next nine months are back to travel as usual.

A part of me is sad about that. It's just so nice to stay in one place for a while... but, on the other hand, holy crap am I happy to get back to big city living. I've only been in Chicago for three hours now, and I already feel a change coming over me. This is normal. This is the way life is supposed to be. This is where I belong. At least until I've been on the road for nine months, at which time I'm sure that I'll feel the same way about being home in Redneckistan. But until then, I'm quite happy to be metropolis-hopping.

One of the things I love about being in cities like Chicago is the food. But perhaps not in the way you think.

It's not because the city is filled with five-star fine-dining options... though I do enjoy treating myself to five-star cuisine from time to time... no, it's the variety of things I can get here that I can't get back home.

Case in point... can you guess where I was dying to eat in Chicago the minute I landed?

Burrito Beach.

Not a five-star restaurant, but instead a local fast food chain of Mexican grill restaurants in the Chicago area. Heaven only knows I can get pretty good Mexican food back home... but I can't get Burrito Beach. And I love Burrito Beach. Their grilled rice & bean burrito tastes amazing, and I'm a huge fan. It costs under $5. And it was delicious.

Another thing I'm craving? A Chicago-style vegetarian hot dog. Can't get a veggie dog back home... and certainly not Chicago style for $4.18... or any price. Tomorrow is the day, and this is what I'll be dreaming of tonight...

Yet another food I'm dying for? A falafel sandwich. Just a simple, $4.99 falafel pita sandwich. Back home, most people don't even know what the fuck falafel is. It's one of my favorite foods on earth, and yet there's no place that serves it in all of Redneckistan.

I could go on and on (don't get me started about the amazing pizza here).

People make fun of me because I travel all the way to big cities and, for the most part, don't take advantage of the haute cuisine that's available. But it's not because I'm cheap... or can't appreciate it... or am opposed to it... it's because I'm too busy stuffing myself with all the simple foods I just can't get when I'm at home.

Hell, it used to be that my favorite restaurant in all of New York City was McDonalds Times Square because they had a McVeggie Burger.

When it comes to the food you love, the price doesn't really matter.

Even when it means the price is five dollars.

Just one day in Chicago.

A really pretty day in Chicago.

   
The end.
   

I don't like theater.

I hate musicals.

I have a general distaste for ridiculing somebody's faith.

Which makes the idea of seeing the smash musical The Book of Mormon a strange prospect...

   
I enjoyed it.

Not really my thing, but South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone kept it funny enough that I didn't mind all the singing and dancing that usually causes my eyes to roll back into my head. The icing on the cake was the set design, which was really well done.

As for ridiculing the Mormons...

This was a tough one for me. I have Mormon friends who are some of the nicest, most generous people I've ever met. And even though I disagree strongly with the church's monetary political maneuverings against things like marriage equality (which should result in them losing their tax-exempt status)... I don't find their religion to be any more strange or as unusual as any other religion.

And that's where I had a problem.

I'm sure the Christians in the audience were laughing their heads off at some of the more outlandish things that come from The Book of Mormon. "Ha ha ha ha! Those Mormons believe some crazy shit... that's so funny!" Which only leads me to believe that they've never actually read their Bible, because it's filled with all kinds of stuff that's equally hard to believe. Unless you have faith in it. Like the Mormons do in their sacred texts.

Whenever a satire like this is made spoofing Christianity or Islam or Judaism or whatever... people go ape-shit. But the Mormons? They have a sense of humor about it all. They take out ads in the Playbill...

   
This made me feel a little less guilty for laughing along with the crowd, but I couldn't get it out of my head how a chunk of the audience would have a very different reaction if it was their faith that was being poked fun of.

Anyway, back to the show...

   
The Book of Mormon is a play in two acts. It tells the story of two young Mormons who get sent on a mission to a poor and war-torn area of Uganda. One of them is Elder Price, who is the perfect example of the Mormon faithful, and confident he will succeed in his task to convert Africans to Mormonism. The other is Elder Cunningham, who is basically playing Jonah Hill acting more annoying and stupid than usual, and is the polar opposite of Elder Price.

As the story proceeds, Price starts losing his faith as the task at hand ends up being much more difficult than he ever imagined... and Cunningham becomes an accidental hero thanks to his talent for telling lies. Hilarity (and I mean genuinely funny hilarity) ensues.

Overall, the play is as good as everybody you've ever known who has seen it has said it is. I think it gets a bit sloppy and disjointed in the second act, but it's not a deal-breaker. Parker and Stone (along with Robert Lopez) reveal true genius here, and there's some unexpected sweetness woven into the story that makes it pretty irresistible.

But not for everyone.

The two people sitting next to me arrived very late, taking their seats just as the Hasa Diga Eebowai number was in full swing. It's basically a song where the natives are saying "fuck you, God" as a way of dealing with the abject misery that fills their every waking hour.

They left at intermission and never came back. They let their displeasure be known, however... their Playbills were ripped to pieces and laying on the floor.

I guess everybody is entitled to their opinion, but how in the fuck can you show up to The Book of Mormon at this stage of the game and not know what you're in for? I guess they are just really uninformed. Or totally stupid. Or both.

Oh well. It certainly made me more comfortable to have the extra room.

So... for anybody in Chicago who has a tolerance for naughty words and a bit of blasphemy... I recommend seeing The Book of Mormon if you get a chance. The cast was incredibly talented, the story inspired and, even if you hate musical theater like me, there's enough to make it worth your time and hard-earned money.

Extended winter weather got you down? Well don't despair because a toasty warm flurry of bullets is headed your way! An all-new Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Neighbors! I got back from seeing The Book of Mormon around 10:45pm. Taking account that stupid-ass Daylight Saving Time was going to be screwing with the clocks again, it's actually more like 11:45pm, since I'd be losing an hour's sleep. But a mere 15 minutes after my head hit the pillow, some kind of impromptu midnight party started up in the hallway. Unable to get any sleep with all the racket, I wrote my blog entry in the hopes things would settle down after I was done. No such luck. The noise went on until 3:30am, despite signs like this being posted...

Not even a kind reminder does any good, because these assholes don't give a shit if there are people trying to sleep. They only care about themselves. It bugs the crap out of me but, unfortunately, there's no ramifications for for their behavior so nothing is likely to change. A call to the front desk quieted them down for about 15-20 minutes, but then it started right back up again.

Well, things need to change. There needs to be ramifications for this kind of behavior. I don't know if it's a punch to the face or somebody getting their dick kicked in, but I am sick and tired of paying big money to get a good night's rest when I travel only to have to put up with this bullshit.

   
• Sanity! And speaking of stupid fucking Daylight Saving Time... there's an official petition being presented to The White House that needs your signature. As a reminder of just how utterly stupid DST has become, I once again present the genius of CGP Grey...

   
• Cake! When I landed at Chicago O'Hare International Airport last Thursday, I bemoaned the fact that nobody was waiting to greet me with cake and balloons...

But then today when I went to RW's house to discuss the upcoming issue of THRICE Fiction and other related business, not only did I get a delicious plate of cacio e pepe for lunch... but also, at long last, my cake!

Bob's wife, Lynne, didn't stop there... oh no. Inside? CHOCOLATE PUDDING!

AND WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR LUNCH THAT WAS SO GREAT?

   
• DOL! What's one of the things I hate most in life? Renewing my driver's license at the dreaded Department of Licensing. I fucking loathe that time-sucking vortex of joyless horror. Which is why I was happy... positively thrilled, actually... to find out I could renew my license online this year. Seriously one of the best days of 2013 so far... if not one of the best days of my entire life.

   
• No Go! The official airport shuttle for Chicago O'Hare is called "Go Express." For a fairly reasonable rate, they offer door-to-door service to and from the airport. But there's a problem. Here's what they tell you the van will look like on their website...

But here is what it really looks like...

The only place it says "Go Express" is on a tiny panel on the very front of the sign-board that's on top, everything else is advertising. So if you don't see them as they pull into your hotel, and all you have to look for is the side of the van... how in the fuck are you supposed to know that this van is from Go Express? Well, you don't. Which causes all kinds of unnecessary confusion for people who just want to go to the airport. Apparently a few advertising dollars is more important to this company than consideration for their customers. I mean, seriously, can't they even slap a "Go Express" magnetic sign on the door or something? Does anybody care about their customers any more?

   
• Paint! I've fallen in love with encaustic painting, which is a technique where pigment-infused wax is melted and painted onto a surface, then fused in place. It's very beautiful, and receptive to all kinds of interesting artistic manipulations. Unfortunately, the tools and supplies to create encaustic works are really expensive. Too expensive to be buying a bunch of stuff just so I could goof around and try it out.

Well imagine my surprise this morning when I found out that there is an encaustic studio in Seattle which offers classes! Unfortunately, the 2-Day course I would want to take is THIS WEEKEND, but I am definitely going to sign up for a future introductory class when I get a chance. If anybody is interested in signing up with me, please let me know, and I'll email you when I get the dates!

   
• w00t! And, lastly, now is the time on Blogography where we dance!

Wow. Looks like we had a seven-shooter this Bullet Sunday. Time to pack up my suitcase for a return home in the morning.

Today would have been the 61st birthday of one of my all-time favorite authors, Douglas Adams.

Sadly, he died twelve years ago, leaving a void in the universe where his wit, humor, and astounding talent once resided. Best known as the author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he was also a big supporter of the environment and tireless advocate for wildlife conservation... in particular those animals which are most threatened. One of his lesser-known works, Last Chance to See, is among my most favorite books, and documented Adams' attempts to see some of the world's most endangered animals... perhaps for the very last time.

Today Google came up with a Google Doodle in his honor...

It features his most famous phrase "Don't Panic" from his most famous work and it has been words I've tried to live by for decades.

I've met the man at book readings three times. Each time I was allowed to get an item autographed, and these pieces are among my most treasured possessions...

• The deluxe leather-bound edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• A copy of Last Chance to See.
• The credit card application prop from the Infocom game Bureaucracy.

The credit card form was chosen very carefully, as I wanted something unique that he probably hadn't autographed very many times. As I handed it to him, he said "Well this is a first!" as he signed it, and then told me that if I got the credit card approved with his name on it, to please restrain myself when using it.

My favorite memory of Mr. Adams was at a reading for one of his books... I'm thinking perhaps Mostly Harmless, but it could have been The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Anyway, at this particular reading he had a sign language interpreter that he decided to torture for his audience's amusement. All of a sudden he'd read a paragraph impossibly fast, then put the book down and stare at the interpreter while looking at his watch and tapping his foot as he waited for her to catch up. Later in the reading he got to a passage where the character had an impossibly long and complex name (akin to Hitchhiker's "Slartibartfast"). After saying it, he immediately glanced wryly at the poor girl so he could watch her struggle to spell out the name. It was all in good fun, and the interpreter got a hug at the end, which was just the sort of wonderful thing you expect from Douglas Adams.

I cherish everything he wrote, and have read his books many times over. But oh how I wish he had lived to tell more stories. Just as it always goes, you can never get enough of the good things in life.

Happiest of birthdays to you, Mr. Adams.

Today is National Alfred Hitchcock Day. I enjoy his films, but am not a huge fan. What I am a huge fan of is the recent movie about Hitchcock starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Dame Helen Mirren. It details the making of Psycho, the most famous and successful of his films. The story behind the film was far more interesting than I thought it would be. And it was perfectly cast. I don't know that Anthony Hopkins looked much like Hitch, but he felt like Hitch. And Helen Mirren... well... it's Helen Mirren...

   
Well worth your valuable time. You can rent it at iTunes, or own it for $15.

And speaking of really good films... Disney has decided to release a series of shorts starring Mickey Mouse in June. As a teaser, they released the first installment, Croissant de Triomphe, at Disney.com...

   
It's wonderful. And it has a number of things going for it...

1. It features beautifully stylized hand-drawn animation.
2. It has lush textures and a gorgeous background color pallet.
3. It uses black-and-white Mickey instead of racist caucasian Mickey.
4. It's set in Paris... and is in French!
5. It actually is clever and amusing.

Heaven only knows I'd like to see Disney produce more 2-D animation to offset the escalation of 3-D stuff. This is a good start. Go watch it immediately at Disney.com

My favorite television show of all time is the "original" Cupid starring Jeremy Piven and created by Rob Thomas. A very close second is Veronica Mars starring Kristen Bell and created by Rob Thomas. But even though Cupid is the show I love best, it's Veronica Mars that I miss most. When the show was canceled, it felt like there was a lot more of the story to tell. Story that needed to be told.

There was talk of a Veronica Mars movie off and on, but nothing ever came of it.

Until today...

   
With the blessing of Warner Brothers, creator Rob Thomas has opened up a Kickstarter project to raise the two million dollars needed to finance the film.

I donated more money than I could afford, but this is one of those things in life that I just couldn't pass up. I love television, and Veronica Mars is the best of the best that the medium has to offer. The possibility of finally get some kind of resolution for the characters is something you can't put a price on.

Well, apparently you can, it's two million dollars, but still...

If you are a fan (and why wouldn't you be?) you can donate to the cause (and get some nice rewards) by heading over to the Kickstarter page.

   
UPDATE: As of this moment (2:45pm PDT), the movie is nearly 3/4 funded at $1,484,219. On the first day. This is amazing, because odds are that not only will the film be funded... but it will well exceed the original goal of $2,000,000. Which means a bigger budget for an even better movie. There's a widget that will let you follow the project's progress, though it seems a little behind the actual total whenever I've looked at it...

   
If you have not seen Veronica Mars, this astounding record-breaking Kickstarter campaign should convince you that it's imperative to take a look. The DVD sets are pretty cheap at Amazon. And the show is also available for sale on iTunes (and other digital services, I'm sure). And you don't have to spend a dime to watch episodes for FREE at the official WB website. Nobody I has ever convinced to give it a try has been disappointed. Highest possible recommendation!

   
UPDATE: Funded IN ONE DAY. Fuck you, television network studio system!

   
I have to say... the ramifications of this are just massive. The possibilities are very exciting. Now shows which have a dedicated audience may be able to survive outside the studio system. Or... be made and distributed directly to fans outside of the whole television network bullshit system from the start.

We can only hope. I am so tired of watching shows I love getting screwed by television networks who want big money or nothing, and don't give a shit about their viewers.

This afternoon I was in a rush to finish a project before deadline.

So of course I stabbed my knuckle with an X-ACTO knife. The gushing blood was disturbing. But it was the searing pain that made me lose my will to live. By the end of the day my knuckle was swollen to double-size and I couldn't move my finger. "WELL THIS IS JUST GREAT!" I screamed to nobody in particular. "IT'LL PROBABLY GET INFECTED AND I'LL HAVE TO GET IT CUT OFF!"

But eventually the bleeding subsided so I decided to take an aspirin, put my finger on ice, and go on living.

Lucky you.

The swelling on my poor stabbed finger had mostly gone away by the time I woke up this morning. It still hurts like hell, but that's what happens when you poke yourself with a scalpel. I probably bruised the bone, so it's going to be tender for a while. Darnit. Oh well, I suppose it's a nice match for my knee injury... which is still scabby after sixteen days.

Starting tomorrow I'm on vacation for a week and three days. Well, kind of a vacation. I'll still end up working a bit... I just won't be working here. Instead I'll be working (and getting drunk) in multiple vacation-like locations. Including a place I love but haven't seen in nearly a decade. It's long overdue.

Which brings me to a realization I've been working through lately.

More and more when I visit a place... especially a place I've been to several times... I find myself thinking "Is this it? Will I ever come here again?" I believe it all started when I was on my last trip to Cologne wondering if it would be my last trip to Cologne. I used to go every year. Then every other year. And now? Every three years? Five years? Never again? It messes with your head.

Which is fine, because it takes my mind of my aching finger.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day.

Like every St. Patrick's Day, I'll find myself wanting to return to Ireland. I haven't been there since 2004 (to see the new Hard Rock Cafe), so I'm due. But I don't want to go until I have at least a week to explore the west coast, which is why that trip probably isn't going to happen any time soon. That makes me have the sads

Anyway... this is my favorite of all the St. Patrick's Day DaveToons. I'm repeating it because I doubt I could come up with anything better given that I've got about six shots of Jägermeister in me...

Hope yours is a happy one!

Put down that St. Patrick's Day bottle of Guinness... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Metroland! One of my all-time favorite bands, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), will be releasing yet another glorious album come APRIL 9th! Titled English Electric, they just released a video for the first single, Metroland...

Beautiful, as I knew it would be. I cannot wait to see them in concert come April. The last time I saw them live was fantastic, so it's sure to be a good show.

   
• Kicked! Earlier in the week I mentioned the Veronica Mars movie project over at Kickstarter. I had pledged a chunk of money which came with a reward to attend the Los Angeles premiere. I received a "congratulations" notice from the Kickstarter website. Then I received a receipt from Amazon Payments confirming my donation. But a couple days later when I went to view my account, I saw that my pledge was missing. So I contacted Customer Service to ask why... only to learn that it was rejected because that reward level had "sold out." This is a load of crap. Apparently I was just supposed to ignore the two confirmations I got, since I received NOTHING telling me there was a problem. And, obviously, I had no idea there WAS a problem. Otherwise I would have pledged to attend one of the other premieres. Which, of course, have sold out. So now I am left with nothing because Kickstarter has a stupid-ass website that is incapable of reserving a reward properly. Oh well, guess this is the universe telling me I couldn't afford it anyway. Stupid universe.

   
• Enraged! I saw a video from an airport in China a while back which showed a man going apeshit because he wandered off for breakfast and missed his boarding time. Apparently he wanted them to call back the plane or something and, when they wouldn't, he started tearing the place apart...

As somebody who has spent their share of time in airports, I can say that I've never seen it get this bad in person... but I have seen travelers rip into airline employees for something that was actually their fault. My favorite being a girl who was late for her flight to Hawaii because she was sick, and was somehow convinced that this was not her fault. This resulted in a phone call to daddy telling him to make this mean person let her on the plane. Never mind that it had left 20 minutes ago... logic need not apply. Just like when a person arrives at the airport 10 minutes before a flight and gets pissed off because the security line is moving so slow. THEN they expect you to let them cut ahead in line so they don't miss their flight. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on for hours. I wonder what it is about going to airports which makes people leave their brains (and courtesy) at home? This has me really excited to be flying out tomorrow.

   
• This is CNN? Two students RAPE a girl, and what does CNN do? Heap pity on THE RAPISTS for the difficult life ahead of THEM?!? Oh how terrible that THEIR "promising future" has been destroyed just because they RAPED somebody...

Are you fucking kidding me? But of course FOX "News" has to prove that nobody is a bigger piece of shit than them when it comes to ruining people's lives... they decided that the 16-YEAR-OLD RAPE VICTIM isn't deserving of any kind of privacy, AND AIRED HER FULL NAME. Fuck integrity! We just want to make the news exciting for our viewers so we can keep that advertising money coming in! This is such a sick, fucked-up, sad society we live in. I don't even know what to say any more.

   
I really don't.

Left for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on-time for once.

Finally had my first problem with Apple Maps giving me crap directions.*

Discovered that the WiFi didn't work on my flight to Atlanta.

Grabbed my phone after landing to get the gate for my connecting flight, only to find out that my connecting flight had been canceled. Apparently there was a hail-storm in Atlanta, which caused cancelations and delays across the board.

Delta re-booked me on a new connecting flight... which just happened to be on the exact same plane with broken WiFi that I just climbed out of.

Finally made it to my destination.

Now trying to write a blog entry at my airport hotel with a melted brain.

It's been one of those days.

*I've been using Apple Maps exclusively since the last iOS update. I have had -zero- problems, and vastly prefer the Apple Maps over Google Maps for a half-dozen reasons I won't bore you with here. And every time I read a story about errors with Apple Maps, I ignore it because it's never happened to me no matter where I've traveled.

Until today.

Here is where Apple Maps thinks my off-site Airport Parking is located...

I didn't even look at where the pin dropped, because I assumed it would be correct. I just started up turn-by-turn directions and was on my way. But, as I got closer, I started to feel that something was wrong. I had never been through this area any of the dozens of other times I've used the off-site parking. That's because the location is actually here...

Yes... all the way across a river and the highway. Which is not a simple course correction. It is, in fact, 15-20 minutes away (depending on traffic)...

Lucky for me, I had plenty of time to get to the airport. But had I been running late? I would have been totally screwed by Apple Maps because the data they're using in this case is completely wrong.

Apple makes it easy to report an error, and asked me to drag the pin to the correct location, which I did...

Apparently Apple purchased their map data from TomTom. This was probably a mistake, because an error like this is pretty obvious.

Oh well. I guess they had to start somewhere. Given time, I'm sure Apple will get it all sorted out. But, in the meanwhile, I guess I'm going to have to double-check the routes I am given every damn time I use the product.

Otherwise there's no telling where I might end up.

One of these days I am going to visit New Orleans and never leave.

It was here in The Crescent City that my life of travel began. Back in 1983 at 17 years old I took my first "real" trip on my own with no parents and no rules. Many important things were found... and lost... in New Orleans 30 years ago, and the city has had a hold on me ever since.

This is my first visit to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region in 2005. My previous trip coincided with the 200th anniversary of The Louisiana Purchase in 2003, and I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it has been an entire decade since I was here last. It doesn't feel like it's been that long.

But a visit to the National World War II Museum makes me feel the time passing. When I last visited there in 2000 after it opened, it was called "The D-Day Museum" and half the size it is now...

The new "Victory Theater" expansion houses a special "4-D" movie titled Beyond All Boundaries which features narration by Tom Hanks and other stars. It was pretty good. What was not good was the boring-as-hell Final Mission submarine "simulation" which felt pointless and stupid. Not at all worth the extra money to see. But even if you skip Final Mission, walking to the massive Freedom Pavilion is still worthwhile because of the planes they've got on display...

There are walkways which literally allow you to walk around the full-size aircraft suspended there...

NOT for the faint of heart, however. Those upper walkways really took a toll on my sanity given my crippling fear of heights. Not that they don't warn you...

The exhibits in the main museum are still nice, and has some terrific artifacts to look at...

After an early dinner, it was time for a trip to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, which always looks so tame during daylight hours...

Dessert was (obviously) freshly-cooked beignets at Cafe Du Monde...

Dusk falls over Jackson Square as I walk the riverfront...

Apparently Bad Monkey now has his own Mardi Gras beads...

Things start to heat up on Bourbon Street as the sun goes down. Never mind that it's a TUESDAY, it's time to get your party on...

And, lest I forget the reason I came here... Hard Rock visit No. 150!

It's a nice enough cafe... but it's decorated in the shitty "new-style" hipster lounge motif that I hate. The original New Orleans Hard Rock may have had a less-desirable location on Jackson Square, but at least it had a beautiful selection of memorabilia and the classic Hard Rock stylings that define the chain.

And so ends my first packed day in The Big Easy.

I awoke to rain and overcast skies on a cold New Orleans morning.

My motivation to get out of bed and wander out into that dreary morning was effectively zero. But to waste a day in one of my favorite cities on earth would be a terrible sin, so I sucked it up and decided to visit some places I hadn't been before.

I started out with The Pharmacy Museum, which is a little place on Chartres Street I had never even heard of. As far as museums go, it's pretty tame... but it only costs $5 and there's loads of beautiful old bottle labels to explore...

They also have a collection of very old eyeglasses and other cool stuff, but a French tour group had their shit spread out all over the cases and would not fucking leave the exhibit, even though there were people trying to take a look. The worst part? THEY WEREN'T EVEN DISCUSSING THE STUFF IN THE ROOM! They were talking about historical figures or something (I'm guessing they didn't want to take it outside because it was raining). What a bunch of rude assholes thinking only of themselves and ruining the experience for everybody else.

Tired of walking in the cold, I decided to take in a couple of book shops, then grab lunch before heading back to my hotel room. But I kept seeing advertisements for Mardi Gras World that looked interesting. I had never visited there before because it used to be across the river. But now it's moved down by the convention center, so I decided to take the piece of shit Riverfront Streetcar* and take a look.

Mardi Gras World is a working facility where they build most of the floats for the 12 days of Mardi Gras parades that happen here every year. They're rather ornate affairs, and the work that goes into building them is pretty intense. So intense that as soon as one Mardi Gras ends (as 2013's just did in February) they immediately start work on next year's 500 floats...

There are dozens of huge warehouses packed with floats and the equipment needed to pull them through the streets of New Orleans. The factory tour only runs through half of one warehouse, but it's still a lot to see...

Every year, each of the "krewes" responsible for the various parades come up with a new theme. Since the theme is always changing, they have to start from scratch every year. This means building or remodeling all the various big props that are stuck on the floats...

The tour lasts about an hour and, much to my surprise, the clouds and rain had completely disappeared by the time I was finished, and it was all sunshine and blue skies...

Now that I wouldn't be slogging around in the cold and rain, I decided to use the free ticket I got from my hotel to visit the Ogden Museum of Southern Art...

From their roof terrace, you get a great view of the massive expansion efforts going on at the World War II Museum I visited yesterday...

On the top floor of the museum there's an exhibit dedicated to the elaborate Indian costumes used during Mardi Gras...

And, of course, paintings and photos and sculpture featuring Southern life... including this painting of the levies...

Next door to the Ogden Museum is the Civil War Museum at Confederate Memorial Hall. It's a very nice place, and has quite a few very old artifacts from the war...

Unfortunately, there's no photography allowed... but the guy manning the ticket desk said it was okay if I took a long shot of the beautiful building interior...

After going back to the hotel and working for a few hours, I decided to go hunt down a falafel wrap for dinner...

Dessert was at Cafe Du Monde again, of course...

And thus ends my second (and last) day in The Crescent City. Hopefully it won't be another ten long years before I can visit again... and hopefully that visit will be longer than two days!

   
*Streetcars in New Orleans are always late, never seem to run on schedule, and will skip a stop at random with absolutely no warning. I started at the Ursulines Street stop where the streetcar was 12 minutes late. The stop for Mardi Gras World was the end of the line (John Churchill Chase stop), but the operator decided that he'd randomly eliminate it, forcing me to get off at the Julia Street stop. No warning. No Explanation. No notice of any kind at any station or on the website. Nothing. Just get the fuck out and walk 20 minutes around the convention center because he felt like it, I guess. So, yeah, the streetcars may be a charming New Orleans throwback, but they are complete bullshit for actual transportation needs

Wah.

If I had any sense in my head, I would have stayed in New Orleans. Instead I took a couple of flights across the US to come back to Seattle. Where it's raining and cold. As if that weren't bad enough, the forecast is for snow. Which is not such a bad thing, because we really need some more snow in the mountains to avoid a drought come summer.

I miss beignets at Cafe Du Monde already.

Remember the good ol' days when killing a taxi driver was only a misdemeanor offense?

Time to get ready for the weekend!

If you don't hear from me by Tuesday, alert the authorities.

I am not much of a gambler so I avoid it. This means that going to a casino is kind of a treat for me since it happens so rarely. That being said, I am kind of lucky at gambling... even though I don't believe in luck. Maybe it's the magical combination of alcohol and all that cigarette smoke?

In any event, going to a casino with a bunch of friends is pretty much the perfect birthday, so here I am.

I used to play blackjack quite a lot and have tried other table games, but it's not very enjoyable because I spend most of my time being paranoid that I'm going to make a mistake. So most of my time is spent playing the slots because the machines do all the work for you.

Many years ago when I first went gambling, it was in Las Vegas because that's about all there was in my neck of the woods. Slot machines were pretty simple and looked something like this...

If stuff lined up, you won. If it didn't, you probably lost. Simple.

But eventually slot machines started looking like this...

Now there were three lines you could win on (sometimes five lines if your machines played the diagonals). This allowed you to place multiple bets at the same time, and the more you bet the more "lines" you were playing. This both increased your odds of winning... but also sucked your money away faster. Still, it was all pretty simple. If stuff lined up on one of the lines you were playing, you won something. If not, you probably lost.

Then, like everything else, slot machines eventually went digital. The "wheels" were simulated and, since it was all a computer program, things could get a bit more complex. Things didn't necessarily have to line up on straight lines any more...

This was a bit confusing, because you didn't always know how you won or why you lost. "Lines" weren't always "straight lines" any more, and so it was getting harder to tell what was going on. In the past, you got a momentary thrill when you saw you had won, and the machine paused long enough before telling you so you got to enjoy that moment. But now? There's so much to look at that a small pause in the action isn't enough time for you to figure out what just happened. Instead you just get annoyed waiting for the machine to let you know what the verdict is.

And today? Well...

I have no fucking clue what's going on any more. I just press the "play" button and watch stuff fly by. The images on the screen mean absolutely nothing to me...

Tonight I played $20 and ended up with $77. Don't ask me how. I saved that ticket and then played $40 which went all the way up to $480... then dwindled down to $0 three hours later. Again, don't ask me how.

So it looks like I'm ahead $17, since I spent a total of $60 and have $77 to show for it.

Tomorrow I'll either lose all of it and be down $60... or I'll have won a million dollars and be ahead $999,940.

Whatever the case, don't bother asking me how I did it, because the machines are so damn complicated anymore that I just won't know. I'll just be happy to be alive.

At least until I have that one drink too many.

It may be my birthday, but that's no excuse to skip blogging... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Thanks! To the many, many people who sent such kind birthday wishes via Facebook, Twitter, email, and blog comments... thank you from the bottom of my heart. It really does mean a lot to me that people take the time to say such nice things, and I was smiling all day long as I checked my iPhone for new messages. Here's to surviving another year.

   
• Winning! For anybody just dying to know how my gambling bout ended today, I came out $324.35 ahead. The $77 from yesterday (which I spent $60 winning) was gone within the first hour. I was going to stop, but then remembered that I got "Player Points" (or whatever) for my birthday which netted me $20. I rolled the $20 into penny slots for about an hour and built myself up to $105. From there I went to dollar slots and amassed $385.35 in winnings pretty quickly (20 minutes tops). I wasn't having much fun anymore, so I stopped. Subtract the $60 I spent gambling yesterday, and it's $324.35 of cream. Which paid for my very nice hotel room (on special) and most of my dining expenses. Which means I basically had a free weekend at the casino with friends for my birthday. Can't really complain about that.

   
• Cleansed! Well, okay, I can complain about one thing... the "Fiesta Breakfast Burrito" (hold the sausage) that I had this morning. Within a half-hour of eating it, my insides felt as though they had been run through a food processor, and it took a steady diet of Imodium all damn day to keep my ass from exploding. Not the best way to spend a birthday, to be sure... but it was awfully tasty going down, so there's that.

   
And in other news...

   
• Response! I remain completely dumbfounded that it took a 16-year-old girl being raped in Steubenville for some people to understand that having sex with a woman who is passed out is considered rape, and that rape is wrong. I am even more dumbfounded that a video like this is necessary to explain how guys should act when they come across the situation...

Yes... the answer is NOT TO RAPE THEM. Holy crap. THIS is the society we live in now?

   
Until next week...

And so my week of vacation is over. I know I should be saying something like "Wow! That week flew by awfully fast!" but it really didn't. I guess it's because I crammed so much into it? With all the New Orleans and the casino and the celebrating? I dunno. But it definitely feels like I got a full week's worth, that's for sure.

And now it's back to reality for two weeks. Yay.

And speaking of reality...

It will come as no surprise that I loathe politicians. Mostly because I am bitching about them all the time on this blog. Democrat, Republican, whatever... there are so very few that I actually like or respect that they might as well not exist at all. Especially scum-sucking Senators and piece of shit Congressmen who always seem more interested in getting reelected or getting their hands on special interest money than actually serving their constituents. Who gives a shit if something fucks over American citizens if you can make a buck off it, right?

Well, I give a shit. And I think voters have a right to know which dicks that candidates are sucking in order to get elected. They deserve to know where all the money is coming from, and which companies or individuals own the asses of our worthless politicians. So you can imagine just how positively thrilled I was when I saw a new petition for the White House...

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: Require Congressmen & Senators to wear logos of their financial backers on their clothing, much like NASCAR drivers do.
   
Since most politicians' campaigns are largely funded by wealthy companies and individuals, it would give voters a better sense of who the candidate they are voting for is actually representing if the company's logo, or individual's name, was prominently displayed upon the candidate's clothing at all public appearances and campaign events. Once elected, the candidate would be required to continue to wear those "sponsor's" names during all official duties and visits to constituents. The size of a logo or name would vary with the size of a donation. For example, a $1 million dollar contribution would warrant a patch of about 4" by 8" on the chest, while a free meal from a lobbyist would be represented by a quarter-sized button. Individual donations under $1000 are exempt.

Yes.

YES!

And I am not joking around here. I could not possibly be more serious. If a politician is being paid off by a lobbyist to vote a certain way... then they should have to own up to it. Maybe if we saw a massive "BIG OIL" patch on their jacket, we'd know that their ass has been bought and paid for, and they will probably fuck over Americans by voting for huge tax breaks for oil companies... even when those companies are making record profits. And what about tobacco companies? And drug companies? And food industries? The list of lobbyist corruption goes on and on.

In all honesty, I don't think this petition is out of line. What's out of line is our politicians selling us out for a buck behind closed doors.

If you feel the same, go sign it.

Today's the day our Supreme Court gets to decide whether they are going to be on the right side of history.

I find it absurd that a country founded on personal freedoms is set up so that nine people are going to tell gays and lesbians whether or not they can marry the person they love, but here it is. They'll either decide that taxpaying gay Americans are equal citizens deserving of marriage... or they'll decide that a citizen's freedom to marry should be regulated by the government and it is the law, not love, which dictates who can or cannot be married.

What a load of crap. Because, honestly, why should anybody give a shit what two consenting adults do with their relationship? Marriage equality has been legal here in Washington State for months and you know what's changed? Gay people can get married... THAT'S IT! No straight couple has suddenly been told they can't get married any more. Nobody is being forced to get "gay married." The sky hasn't fallen. Life goes on.

Unless you're gay, marriage equality DOES NOT AFFECT YOU.

But equality for every American affects everybody. Here's hoping the Supreme Court is smart enough to see that.

Today was the second day of deliberation by the Supreme Court regarding marriage equality. This time focusing on DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and whether or not one state refusing to recognize a same-sex marriage from another state is constitutional. For example... if a same-sex couple legally married in Washington State moves to Idaho... all of a sudden they're not married any more. Idaho doesn't have to recognize the marriage thanks to DOMA. As if that weren't pathetic enough, DOMA also allows same-sex marriages to go unrecognized at a federal level. So much for federally granted spousal benefits (among other rights and protections) for gay and lesbian spouses.

There are many reasons why DOMA is, in fact, unconstitutional. But the biggest reason is that it creates a second class of citizens when it comes to rights and benefits. States have the right to allow marriage equality but, thanks to DOMA, those marriages are not really equal because they aren't really recognized state-to-state and federally. So much for state's rights and equality under the eyes of the law for gay and lesbian couples.

Unless the Supreme Court is completely ignoring The Constitution, they have no choice but to strike down DOMA...

Constitutional Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

But is the Supreme Court enforcing The Constitution REALLY going to be good news?

From 2008...

   
I guess not! THANKS A LOT, THE GAYS!

"With the president's signature, agriculture giants that deal with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds are given the go-ahead to continue to plant and sell man-made crops, even as questions remain largely unanswered about the health risks these types of products pose to consumers." — RT.com

So much for transparency in government decision-making... and transpareceny with the food you buy. I can only guess that Barack Obama will be taking a job at Monsanto at the end of his term. This is hard to see as anything less than a government conspiring against its citizens so that they are uninformed about the foods they eat.

I once again have to wonder what it's going to take for Americans to finally get fed up with a government that is BOUGHT AND PAID FOR by increasingly powerful corporations. No longer are we a government of the people, for the people, by the people... we're just up for the highest bidder. Republican... Democrat... whatever... political parties are just a tool to keep Americans at each other's throats while the real people in charge continue to shape the country to serve their interests.

And that does not include us.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about just three days ago... politicians being bought-off in plain sight without consequence. Pieces of shit like Senator Roy Blunt who worked overtime to fuck the American people get to keep smiling and keep getting paid with taxpayer money with no mark of shame for the massive betrayal he's party to.

If it were up to me? I'd tattoo that shit on his fucking forehead...

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK BECAUSE I'M RICH, BITCH!!!

Seriously... go read that article on Blunt... it is far worse than you're thinking. He's sucked so much special-interest dick that I have to wonder how much Photoshop it took to erase the scabs from his lips. This shit-stain is neck-deep in special interest money that fucking BOUGHT AND PAID FOR HIS SORRY ASS. He doesn't work for the people of Missouri or American citizens... he works for the bio-tech industry and just happens to be a Senator on the side so he can be more effective at his real job.

What does it take to be hung for treason in this country any more? This worthless piece of garbage CONSPIRED AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS AND THE US GOVERNMENT! All with -zero- consequences, because that's how we roll in this pathetic joke of a "democracy."

I wish this bullshit could surprise me anymore.

But I digress...

Many happy congratulations to President Obama and Congress for once again fucking over the country and selling out its citizens! I wish there was some kind of award we could give all of you to recognize this unprecedented level of caving to the special interest lobby... but, apparently, you're just doing your job. I wouldn't want to embarrass you.

This morning something popped into my head that I wish I could forget. It was the memory of a bad situation which I handled poorly and have always wished that I could go back and change. But, of course, I can't change it, so now I get to be haunted by it from time to time.

Some people have pointed out that bad memories and the mistakes we make all go into the makeup of who we are. If we could go back and fix our mistakes, then we wouldn't be the same person any more. We are defined and re-defined by our experiences, good or bad, so we shouldn't seek to eliminate unpleasant things from our past... but instead try our best to learn from them so we can become a better, wiser people in the process.

It's probably true.

But don't think for a second that if there was a memory-erasing machine like they have in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that I wouldn't have them blast out a chunk of stuff that I'd just as soon forget.

Because being haunted is nothing like they showed on Scooby-Doo.

I love bread.

Especially when it's freshly-baked. A freshly-baked loaf of bread can heal a bevy of ills and compensate for a multitude of sins. Or maybe it's just an excuse to eat my weight in butter. Regardless, it's nice to spend time in the kitchen kneading a loaf to life so you can smell it roasting in the oven until that sublime moment you can slice it up and eat it...

This isn't a very pretty loaf. It was going to be a French bread, but my circle-pan wasn't long enough so I had to smoosh it down to fit. I guess it's kind of a lumpy boule now.

Oh well. It sure tastes delicious, and that's all that really matters.

Like most things in life.

Don't think the Easter Bunny can stop the power of the blog... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• The Bible! Whether you believe in The Bible or not, you have to admit there are some really good stories in there. And, while the good book has been plundered for entertainment fodder many, many times over the years... somebody is always thinking they can do a better job. This time it's Survivor creator Mark Burnett and his wife, Touched by an Angel actress Roma Downey (who cast herself as the Virgin Mary, natch). This ten-part mini-series airing on The History Channel is called The Bible, and I have to say that it's pretty darn good. The stories are relatively true to the source material, are easy to follow, are shot beautifully with good special effects, and features a capable cast. Including Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado as Jesus...

And President Barack Obama as Satan...

No... wait a second... that's a guy named Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni, who "just happens" to bear a resemblance to President Obama. Everybody involved is saying it's just a crazy coincidence but, considering Ouazanni has fairly pale skin and looks quite different in real life (based on Google Image Search results I've found), that may be a bit of a stretch.

Oh well. As I said, overall I enjoyed the series, and the finale which aired tonight was darn fine television. If I had a bone to pick, it's that I think some very interesting points from these Bible stories were glossed over or changed so they could focus on amping up the stuff they considered to be "more dramatic." That's kind of a shame, because they didn't really need to do that... The Bible has plenty of good drama without going over the top. For example, Matthew (one of my favorite characters in The Bible) was severely short-changed. The guy was a tax collector that had all kinds of wealth and power, yet he gave it all up without so much as a blink for a life of poverty just because Jesus asked him to! That's pretty ballsy, and they really should have given the guy more screen time... or at least made you feel the sacrifice he made while taking a literal leap of faith.

I dunno... I've studied The Bible extensively but, since I'm not a Christian, perhaps my viewpoint on things wouldn't have been the best approach. I just think the show would have been better served if they spent a little more time on important details instead of dozens of shots of Roma Downey's face either in shock or crying. Anyway... I highly recommend The Bible for both it's excellent production and entertainment values... even if you're a non-believer like me.

   
• Do It! Today is World Backup Day!

Have you made sure your data is backed up and your restores are working? No? Well, you should probably do that soon. Data is a terrible thing to waste.

   
• Delta! I'm about as big a fan of Depeche Mode as it gets... but, anymore, I don't even know what I'm listening to. I can appreciate that a band needs to grow and change, but I don't like their latest album, Delta Machine, because it's simply not the band I know...

Everything they released up through Songs of Faith and Devotion was genius. Ultra was a bit of a misstep, but still excellent. Then things went terribly wrong. Exciter was truly awful. Then the band kinda redeemed themselves with Playing the Angel and Sounds of the Universe because I could actually enjoy the music on them (for the most part). Now they've gone completely off the rails again. I have a feeling that what comes next will be the breaking point for me. Kind of scary for a band I've loved for over 30 years now.

   
• iCloud! For the most part, I am a total Apple Whore who loves everything the company puts out with a fiery passion. Unfortunately, there are lapses in my faith from time to time. One of the biggest? It's the massive failure that is Apple's "iCloud" service. It is truly a pile of shit that does not work very well. As if that weren't bad enough, it is LESS CAPABLE than the service it replaced, "MobileMe," because it can't even sync your frickin' keychain data. With each passing day I despise it more, and pray to Steve Jobs that they will finally fix the steamer. So far nothing. And it's getting so bad that even Apple developers are staying away. This article has an excellent summary of just how bad the situation it.

   
And now? I need a chocolate bunny. Happy Easter to all who celebrate the holiday.

Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you.

Though I would never actually want to kill a bear, so that saying doesn't make much sense for me. Unless I'm "getting" the bear so I can give him a hug. A bear hug!

In any event, the March issue of THRICE Fiction actually slipped a day into April, and there are a lot of excuses I could give as to why that happened. But, the honest truth is that the issue just ended up being a much bigger project than usual (54 pages!), and I didn't budget enough time to get things done.

Oh well. It turned out great, so hopefully our readers will think it's worth the wait...

Download the issue for FREE by visiting the THRICE Fiction website!

The cover this time around was a fun one. Fearless THRICE Fiction editor RW Spryszak told me that he kept on seeing "a man standing at a bus stop in the rain" for the cover as he was reviewing submissions. I thought this was a great idea for a Spring issue, so it didn't take any amount of convincing for me to take the idea and run with it. Especially since I could do a kinda tribute to one of my favorite films of all time... Hayao Miyazaki's wonderful My Neighbor Totoro...

But since Totoro is trademarked, I decided to use geese instead. I also thought geese would be funnier.

The original cover image is composited from 23 separate photos from locations like Costa Rica, Maui, Barcelona, Vancouver, Seattle, and Fiji (among others)... plus one very important piece of stock photo art...

The process of stitching all the photos together into a single cohesive image is long and tedious (as I explained in a step-by-step for a past cover here). Once that's been completed, parts were painted over in Photoshop, then run through various filters to add rain and make the image look kinda-sorta like a painting. As usual, it would probably have been faster had I ACTUALLY painted the thing, but at least this way I didn't get any paint on my clothes. Anyway... here's the end result...

And that's that.

For a look at the rest of the artwork in this issue, click onward to an extended entry...

I am not much of a shopper. Most of the shopping I do is under protest because there are few activities I loathe more than having to drag myself through a mall. I don't like the crowds. I usually don't like the salespeople. I don't like the prices. And, most of the time, I don't even like the products. It's for this reason that most all of the things I buy are purchased online. No crowds. No salespeople. Good prices. And every product you can imagine.

But, for things like clothes, online is not always the best option when all things are considered.

So most times when I need new threads, I brave a trip to the mall.

Where, if I find something I like, I buy several copies so I can put off my next trip as long as possible. If I find a great shirt? I'll buy a half-dozen. Find a good deal on jeans? I'll buy ten. Find a pair of shoes I like? I'll buy out their entire stock on-hand. Etc. Etc.

And it's all good.

Until my supply runs out.

Last year I finally had to retire the last pair (of four pairs) of Nike trainers that I had purchased five years earlier. It was a solemn occasion filled with all kinds of grief. Not only because I was having to trash a pair of shoes that I really liked... but because it meant I would have to go shoe shopping again. It was such a tragic event that it made me wish I had a time machine. Not so I could go back and kill Hitler or anything worthwhile like that... but so that I could go back and buy all four pairs from "Athletic Attic" PLUS have them order another ten pair. That way I wouldn't have to go shoe shopping until at least the year 2022.

Fast forward to today, and I had to toss out the last of the six Eddie Bauer Henleys I purchased nearly thirteen years ago. This really sucked, because I don't like the newer Eddie Bauer Henleys. Which means I'm going to have to eventually go out to a (=shudder=) mall so I can find a suitable replacement.

When I'd rather go have some teeth pulled.

Oh well, at least I'll have something to blog about.

When I was looking for geese to use on the cover for THRICE Fiction No. 7, there was one goose that wasn't going to work... but I liked the way he looked, so I shoved him aside. Today as I was working on another project, he popped up...

   
This is one of the geese that hang around the courtyard at Barcelona Cathedral (also known as "La Seu"). As I started snapping photos, he became curious about the noise from my camera, and just kind of stared at me until I stopped.

Silly goose.

The big news today is the passing of famed movie critic Roger Ebert, which I'll get to in a minute. But also passing today is Carmine Infantino, a prolific comic book artist whose work when a long way towards shaping the comic books as we know them today. The man redefined The Flash, for heaven's sake, and paved the way for The Silver Age of comics.

Despite all his influence and success, I was never a fan of Carmine Infantino. I thought his art style was sketchy and sloppy. I felt his anatomy and proportions were off-putting. I didn't care for the way he used (or didn't use) perspective. And I never like his background art for those rare times he bothered to actually put any detail into his backgrounds. Don't get me wrong, the guy knew how to illustrate a story... I just didn't care for the way he did it...

And yet, it would be impossible for me not to admire the guy who did so much for the comics medium that I love. For that I thank you, Mr. Infantino... rest in peace.

As for Roger Ebert...

Photo by Buena Vista Television/AP Photo

For me, he was THE film critic. Along with Gene Siskel, he created At the Movies, which was a program I obsessed over in the 1980's. I love movies, and back then there wasn't an internet to hang out with fellow buffs to discuss them. Instead there was Siskel and Ebert every week. Of the two, Ebert was the one who was closest to my tastes, and his "thumbs up" sent me to the local movie theater more times than I can count. He expanded my love of cinema, helped me to find films that I still love to this day, and was a tireless voice in the movie geek community that I valued right up until his death. Even when I didn't agree with him.

But movies were not the only thing Roger Ebert helped to open my mind to.

His astounding positive outlook in the face of devastating health problems were inspirational in a way that I can't even begin to enunciate. The guy was in hospitals all the time, he lost his jaw, he lost his ability to speak and eat, he was dealing with crap that would crush the spirit of most anyone. And yet... he refused to let it get him down. He kept working. He kept inspiring. He kept living...

Photo by Associated Press

"I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute to joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

We should all do so well to leave such a legacy. Rest in peace, Mr. Ebert.

I guess it really is all downhill from here.

Not much I can do but try and enjoy the ride.

When looking back through old photos, I was shocked to find out just how fashionable I was when I was a tyke.

What I wouldn't give to have some of these outfits today.

In my size, of course.

   
Especially that last one. Because... damn.

Don't go going off all half-cocked... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Cheese! April is National Grilled Cheese Month, and grilled cheese sandiwches just happens to be one of my favorite foods on earth. Sadly, most people seem to think that a grilled cheese consists of a slice of cheese melted between two slices of bread in a skillet. Not even close. Great grilled cheese sandwiches are creative culinary delights that are a little more interesting...

I've already blogged about my "Death By Cheese Sandwich," which is one of my favorite recipes... but lately I've been experimenting with shredded cheese recipes (which melt so very, very beautifully) and adding things like sliced green apples or tomatoes to my sandwiches. The last batch I made had Feta Cheese mixed in, which was mind-blowing. Next up I'm going to try a recipe which is made with potato chips. The varieties of grilled cheese deliciousness are endless. Which is why I want to encourage everybody to take National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month by the balls and seek out a few of the more inventive ways of cooking one of the world's most classic foods. Go! Go! Go!

   
• Hannibal! Let's just get this out of the way... I feel that Sir Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs is one of the most inspired performances in all of cinematic history. It is one of the few times I can use the adjective "flawless" when describing what actors do. With that in mind, I put my expectations into low-gear when tuning into NBC's efforts to turn the character into a Dexter-style television series...

So imagine my surprise when I start watching the premiere episode of Hannibal only to find that creator genius Bryan Fuller wisely decided to sidestep a failed attempt at mimicking the Anthony Hopkins movies. I was riveted as I watched a much more flawed and interesting version of investigator Will Graham (played by Hugh Dancy) rope me into one of the best homicide dramas in recent memory. As the show continued to play out, I found myself excited at the prospect that this might actually work out.

But then Hannibal Lecter showed up and everything went sideways.

No offense to Mads Mikkelsen, who is a fine actor (he was really good in Casino Royale)... but the guy is horribly miscast as Hannibal Lecter. For reasons that escape me, he's playing the part as about as flat and uninteresting as it gets. I certainly wasn't expecting Sir Anthony Hopkins, but I was expecting to see some of the sparkle and charm that makes Hannibal such a compelling character. Well, there's none of that here. It's the idea is that Lecter is so charming and fascinating that you don't want him to be evil. The fact that he IS a psychotic serial killer is what makes him so terrifying. With Mads Mikkelsen being so eerily lacking in charm, he comes off as exactly what he shouldn't... a psychotic serial killer! I dunno. I'm going to keep watching in the hopes that Hannibal grows on me because Will Graham is so beautifully realized here... but, unfortunately, I can see a day when Lecter's half of the coin pushes me over the edge.

   
• Bridegroom! "It's not a gay thing. It's not a straight thing. It's a human thing." — I was really happy this Kickstarter project got funded, and I can't wait to see what Linda Bloodworth-Thompson has done with a story that everybody needs to see...

   
• NIK! When Google bought out NIK Software, I was gutted. They obviously bought the company to get their hands on Snapseed, and I worried that the rest of their brilliant apps would be tossed aside. That may yet come true but, in the meanwhile, Google has dropped the price of NIK's plugin suite to a astounding $149! If you're a photographer who uses Photoshop, scrape together the $149 and RUN, don't walk, to their website and snap it up before Google changes their mind. Color Efex and Silver Efex are sheer magic for punching up your images, and all the rest of the tools are just gravy. If 70% off and my praise doesn't compel you to jump onboard, they have a 15-day free trial available.

   
• WTF? Seriously. I wants to die now.

   
• Mini! More and more I have been uploading double-sized photos to my blog, then manually down-sizing the dimensions in the HTML. This makes it so that readers with a Retina Display get a much better quality photo to look at...

Detail of Non-Retina low-res on the Left... Retina double-res on the Right

The problem is that readers without a Retina Display (or equivalent) are downloading a bigger image file, only to have their browser throw out every other pixel. Kinda a waste of time and bandwidth but, sorry, one day all displays will be "Retina" in quality, and I'm trying to future-proof my images here. To make this as painless as possible, I am using a tool called JPEGmini to reduce the size of my large images (small images don't net much of a savings). So far, it's worked surprisingly well, and my largest images are being reduced as much as half. Yes. Half. But the best part? The image quality is maintained! Looking as hard as I can, I can't spot any difference between the original and the JPEGmini version! It's been working so well that I've taken to compress my camera libraries as well. If you're looking to save some space with your JPEGs, I highly recommend giving JPEGmini a try (there's a free version to check it out, so what are you waiting for?).

   
• Veronica! If you loved me, you'd donate one measly dollar to the Veronica Mars movie project so it can become the most backer backed project in Kickstarter history. If you don't love me, then you can still donate a dollar and pretend to love me... I'm perfectly fine with that. Just five days left...

   
And now... TIME TO MAKE FRESH BREAD FOR MORE GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES!

What a hunk of crap.

A little less than a year ago I was on a Kickstarter high, backing a lot of projects that looked interesting and useful. One of those projects was for the "Pebble Smart Watch," where my $115 pledge would get me an actual watch once the unit went into production.

My thinking was that something like this would be really useful when I travel. Often times I'm in strange places or potentially dangerous situations where I don't want to be flashing my iPhone around. Why invite somebody to steal it? Enter Pebble. This "smart watch" communicates with iPhone and can display notifications for calls, emails, texts, and such. It will also allow you to do simple tasks like control your music. So, cool, I can monitor my notifications without having to whip out my iPhone every time. Sounds good.

Eleven months later, guess what shows up in my mailbox? That's right, Pebble!

And it's pretty shitty.

First of all, it's huge. Massively huge. If you have boney little toddler arms like mine, it might as well be a brick...

As if that weren't bad enough, look how THICK this fucker is...

Oh... and did you notice all the little specs of dust in the case seams? IT CAME THAT WAY! I just took it out of the box, and it comes pre-dirty. And given the number of ugly seams scattered all over Pebble, I can only guess that it's going to look even worse once I actually walk around with it and it gets exposed to the elements.

What's so shocking is that this makes the bulky old Casio Calculator Watch I had in high school look positively svelte. Seriously, until you strap one of these massive things to your wrist, you have no idea how obtrusive and uncomfortable an accessory can be. There is no fucking way I am going to be wearing this around day to day.

If I were to actually consider wearing this pile of crap, I'd probably take time to do a complete review of the thing. Since I'm not, I can say this from the five minutes I played with Pebble...

• Big as a brick. Display buried beneath enough plastic to choke a horse. Clunky, obtrusive, ugly design. Seams catch dust and grit before you've even taken it out of the box. Makes watch tech from the 80's look positively futuristic.
• Tells time. And does so with switchable watch "faces"... most of which are hard to read.
• Displays notifications from your iPhone or Android smartphone via battery-sucking Bluetooth. Suffers separation anxiety when your iPhone drifts out of range for too long a period of time. Does not want to automatically connect back to iPhone when it comes back in range.
• Controls your music (play/pause, next song, previous song) and displays the currently playing track (I admit this would be cool if you're playing unfamiliar music).
• Comes with a charging cable that attaches magnetically to the watch from a USB charger (not included) or any device with a powered USB port. Time will tell if Apple sues for trademark violation over their "MagSafe" patent.
• Has a forthcoming free developer kit which will allow custom apps to be built. I'm not sure how much interactivity Apple allows iPhone to have over Bluetooth (I'm sure Android will be easier), but this could prove very interesting for Pebble owners.
• No instruction manual or documentation of any kind. Everything is online.

And that's about it, really.

Rumor has it that Apple is working on a "smart watch" of their own. Why I didn't wait for that, I will never know.

So...

If you've got big wrists and like the retro-future possibilities that Pebble is promising, this may be a watch for you (hey, I'll sell you mine for $50 plus shipping! SOLD!)... otherwise, I'd give Pebble a pass.

Sleeping is not something I'm good at. At least not any more. I think I used to be, but that was a long time ago and I just don't remember. Last night was worse than usual because I had a lot of stuff to get done before catching my flight this morning. I also had a lot of stuff on my mind, which is always a sleepy-time deal breaker for me.

Arriving in Salt Lake City International Airport was made interesting because a couple Mormon missionaries were onboard. After having been away for two years with precious little communication with friends and family, there was quite a crowd waiting for them (as you might imagine). Posters and banners were on display, and a wave of cheers erupted as the missionaries descended on the escalator into the airport lobby.

It was a beautiful sight.

For the life of me I can't wrap my head around the commitment it takes for these kids... as young as 18... to give up everything and everybody they know so they can be sent to God-knows-where for two years of their lives. It's a leap of faith that boggles the mind. Many times, they're being sent to a foreign country where they won't even know the language. They're partnered up with somebody they barely know. They're given a near impossible task of converting the natives to a new religion. To this day I honestly can't decide if it's an adventure of a lifetime... or the height of insanity.

Luckily, I never had to find out personally.

But I have talked to Mormon friends and acquaintances who went on missions, and they all say it was the best time of their lives. A part of me is skeptical but, I'm here to tell you, the stories they have to tell are about as fascinating as you'll ever hear. The trials and tribulations of being a missionary for the Latter Day Saints may be rewarding, but it's also no picnic.

Which is why I'm always as nice as I can be when I encounter them in the wild (especially in foreign countries) or when they show up at my door. They've got it tough enough, and giving them a break is the least I can do.

Anyway...

I didn't hang around the airport and party with the missionaries since Marty was nice enough to pick me up so I could have dinner with him and his family. No offense to the Mormons, but Marty makes sure there's beer available when we party.

Today was kinda a play day where I had no real agenda. That's the good news.

Today was filled with disappointments. That's the bad news.

But, all in all... any day away from the office is a good one, am I right? I mean, sure, I worked a bit... but most of my time was spent looking for things to do in Salt Lake City that I haven't done before. I've been here many, many times, so that is a bit of a challenge.

My first stop was decided last night when I saw "BRUGES WAFFLES" flash across my hotel television's concierge screen. "Wow. I could go for some authentic Belgian waffles!" I said to myself. And so I got up and walked the three lonnnnnng blocks to the waffle shop in time for...

   
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 1
On their website, Bruges Waffles says that they have "authentic caramelized waffles," which is exactly what I wanted. The reality? Not so much...

Don't get me wrong... it was a delicious waffle, and the cream was out of this world. Overall, a wonderful breakfast. But where is the pearl sugar that makes that delightful speckle of caramelized bits that I love? I sure couldn't find them. If they were there, my waffle would have looked like this...

Photo from A Feast for the Eyes... which has a recipe for the waffles you're looking for!

And let me tell you... those pearls of caramelized sugar are what makes a Belgian waffle go from "good" to "FOOD OF THE GODS!"

Next up? I wanted to visit the Natural History Museum of Utah. I had been there before years ago, but they relocated to a new building in 2011, and it's supposed to be pretty spectacular. The problem is that there's no real "elegant" way of getting there via public transportation. By car, it's a 16 minute drive from downtown to their location on edge of the University of Utah campus. But I had to spend an hour and fifteen minutes taking the Blue Trax Line to the Red Trax Line all the way out to the University Medical Center... then catch a campus shuttle over some gawdaful roads to get to the museum where I was faced with...

   
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 2
The Natural History Museum of Utah is, indeed, in a spectacular new location and has some exhibits that are incredibly well done. The dinosaur exhibits alone are worth the price of admission. Honestly, if you're in Salt Lake City, you owe it to yourself to check it out... it's totally worth it, even if you have to go through public transportation hell to get there.

HOWEVER... when I was there it was absolute bedlam because (I'm guessing) there was a school field trip going on. This wouldn't have been a big deal, except the kids were running around going ape-shit insane. Museum staff didn't even attempt to reign them in, which was just senseless. And the "chaperone adults" that were accompanying the kids didn't bother to "chaperone" at all. They just lounged around while kids were yelling, screaming, running, kicking, and beating on the displays. It was beyond crazy. Even if they didn't make the kids behave, you'd think they would AT LEAST attempt to keep walkways clear so people could get around the museum... but... no. After 45 minutes, I couldn't take it any more and left. But I still got to see some cool stuff...

The dinosaur exhibits are truly first class.

RAWRRRRR! Says the ancient giant crocodile!

The dioramas were nicely done too... if you like looking at dead stuffed animals.

The "Sky Deck" offers amazing views of downtown Salt Lake City and beyond.

There was a really nice weaving exhibit that was much more interesting than I would have thought.

I complained about the ordeal of using public transportation to get to the museum, but there's one cool bit I should mention. When I was ready to leave, I checked my phone to see how often the campus shuttles ran. Much to my shock and delight, they have a web app that shows you where the shuttles are AND you can tap on a station to get an estimate as to when the next shuttle will arrive there...

Now THAT'S cool... and so useful! I wish the TRAX light rail system here had the same feature.

The one thing I wanted to do above anything else while I am here is to visit The Leonardo so I could see the awesome-sounding MUMMIES OF THE WORLD exhibit. Unfortunately, that brings us to...

   
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 3
The show was sold out for the day. And the next day. And the next day. Talk about a soul-crushing sense of defeat... I missed getting to see mummies, dammit!

Last night Marty had mentioned that The Apple Store had relocated from The Gateway to a new shopping mall built by the Mormon church called "City Creek Center," so I decided to stop because I really want a different case for my iPhone 5. When I first got it, there were like -zero- cases available, so I thought I would have a better selection now that seven months have passed. You can probably imagine that this brings us to...

   
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 4
The iPhone 5 case selection at the Apple Store is only barely better than it was back in September. They don't even have a simple bumper I can buy... they come attached to a hunk of ugly plastic. And the rest of the cases they have are pretty lame. WAH! Oh well... City Creek Center is really a beautiful mall (if you're into that kind of thing) so I was happy I got to see it...

After bumming around beautiful Temple Square for a while (which is never a disappointment), my waffle started wearing off so I decided to head back to the Bruges Waffles shop again for a late lunch. They advertise having "wonderfully crispy 'frites' or fries, with 10 delicious homemade mayos." Now, as anybody who has read this blog for even a little while knows, I am absolutely crave "patatjes met" (Dutch Fries with Dutch Mayo) and also love "frites avec mayo" (Belgian Fries with European Mayo). So this was kinda a no-brainer idea, right? Not really...

   
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 5
Patatjes Met? More like Patatjes Meh. First of all, the mayo is NOT creamy, delicious, Dutch/European-style mayonnaise with that delicious taste I love. Nope... it's no different than the clumpy, egg-flavored American mayo you get out of a jar. In fact, I would't be surprised if that's exactly what it is. The "homemade" stuff they're talking about must be American jar mayo mixed with spices or whatever. "Disappointed" doesn't even begin to cover it. But that's just the beginning, because then I got the "frites"...

They weren't "bad"... but they also weren't the big, crispy, golden frites you get in Belgium. Not by a long shot. Too many of the fries were limp, waggy, and overly-greasy. But making matters worse was that a full half of my frites were crusty little nubs that aren't fit for dipping... they're barely fit for eating...

BULLSHIT! Even the worst frites shop in Belgium would never serve this. I make better fries at home. Hell, McDONALDS makes better fries than this. The entire time I was eating this mess, all I kept thinking about was flying to Belgium and getting me some real frites. Or, better still, flying to the Netherlands and getting me some delicious patatjes met...

Oh damn. Just look at those beautiful fried potatoes! AND LOOK AT THAT LUSH, CREAMY, FLAVORFUL MAYO FOR GOD'S SAKE!!! This is the stuff you want!

WAH!

Not wanting to risk any further disappointment, I headed back to my hotel so I could rest up and get some work done.

And now it's time to leave all my disappointment behind me so I can put some pants on and head out for an evening that promises to be anything but disappointing...

Last night Marty (of Banal Leakage fame) and I went to see OMD play at The Depot in Salt Lake City.

As expected, it was mind-blowing amazing show. They played a nice mix of both new material and beloved classics. And, just like the four previous times I've seen them live, played them extremely well. Along with Depeche Mode and Matt & Kim, OMD is easily one of my favorite live bands, and any opportunity to see them in concert is a no-brainer...

The tour is in support of their new album (released just two days ago here in the US!) called English Electric. Overall, I like the album very much, and there's some pop music treasures on there that I'll be listening to for a very long time. However... OMD being OMD, they decided to add a bunch of "experimental" stuff that I didn't care for at all. Luckily, it wasn't enough to torpedo the whole album (see: Dazzle Ships), but oh how I wish the band would stick to cranking out the beautiful pop music that I love them for and just stop with the self-indulgent artsy crap (or whatever)...

Still, well-worth a listen if you've liked their stuff in the past.

I've put a setlist review in an extended entry, if you're so inclined...

Back to reality. For a few days anyway.

While hanging out at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on layover yesterday, I ran across a couple who were on their way to Australia so they could hike around the Outback for two weeks. I thought this sounded like a great vacation... assuming I could ever get used to all the bugs...

It's certainly beautiful enough to lure me back.

And now I suppose I should unpack my suitcase so I can get it packed up again on Sunday.

This is a blog post I've been holding for nearly a week. It concerns my home state of Washington suing a florist who refused to service the same-sex wedding of a long-time customer (now that we have marriage equality here). The story itself is a sad one... and most certainly controversial... but that's not the reason I've been sitting on it. The reason is that I just can't form a solid conclusion on the subject, and it's been driving me crazy.

But before we go there, an interlude...

My personal beliefs don't allow me to give money to strangers when I can't verify how the money will be used. So, for example, when a homeless person approaches and asks me for my spare change so they can eat, I always say "I'm sorry, I don't have anything I can give you." This way, even if I do have some change, I'm not lying because (philosophically) I really can't give it to them. They might use the money to purchase something harmful to themselves or others, and then I would be a party to it. Instead, if they're hungry, I'll offer to buy them some food to eat. This is a win-win solution because they get the food they need and I get to help out without violating my beliefs.

But, like everything in life, it's not really so cut-and-dry. Can you ever truly verify what happens to the money you give? Let's say I help a stranded motorist buy gas so he can get home. But once he gets home, he siphons the gas from the car and uses it to burn his house down with his wife inside because she was cheating on him. And what if the owner of the gas station uses their profits to bet on dog-fights which torture and kill innocent animals? By trying to help, I just enabled two people to commit terrible acts, even though I never intended it to happen that way.

The reality is that the only way i can truly control what happens with the money I earn is to never spend it. Since that's not really an option, I just do the best I can to be as responsible as I can... then hope for the best. Money may indeed be the root of all evil, but I'm trying to stem the tide where I can.

End interlude.

With all this in mind, I feel like condemning the florist shop owner is kinda hypocritical. Her beliefs don't include same-sex marriage, so isn't she just doing the best she can to stem the tide? And, since this is America, shouldn't she have the freedom to follow her religious convictions so she won't be responsible for contributing to something she feels is wrong? In her own way, she may even be trying to keep her long-time customer from doing something she considers harmful. And for this she's going to get sued?

That doesn't seem fair. For better or worse, American citizens have the freedom to be raging bigots if they want to be. So why shouldn't this freedom extend to shop owners? If they want to hide behind religion so they can avoid doing the right thing, shouldn't that be their right? It's certainly the right of the customer to let the entire community know that the florist is a homophobic piece of shit. And since more and more people are standing on the right side of history to support love and equality, won't the florist eventually go out of business because she'll keep losing customers? Why do we need to bring in the lawyers and start a lawsuit when the problem will solve itself?

Perhaps we should have faith in the free market to work these things out. If businesses want to live in the dark ages, let them die out as society leaves them behind. New businesses will take their place, and life goes on.

Right?

Well...

I may not always agree with Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter), but there is one thing President Obama said as he was campaigning that really resonated with me when it comes to a person building a business... they didn't build it alone. This was explained beautifully by Elizabeth Warren...

"I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

It's this overriding truth which has me not giving a fuck if the florist's freedom to be a bigot is infringed upon. That gay couple she refuses to service? Their tax dollars contributed to the system that allows her business to exist in the first place. But, more importantly to me, my tax dollars contribute to the system that allows her business to exist. The idea that some homophobic asshole can benefit from my tax dollars, then turn around and discriminate against customers holding a perfectly legal event? It pisses me off. Washington has legalized marriage equality. If you don't like it, then pack up your flowers and move to a state where you can benefit from tax dollars that support your bigotry. Otherwise, you deserve to get sued.

Right?

Well...

And if my tax dollars are already supporting a bunch of things I don't believe in, then what difference does it make that a florist I don't believe in is getting tax money?

Right?

Well...

What if this bigoted florist was refusing to sell flowers for a wedding because the bride and groom were black? Or short? Or left-handed? Gay friends have told me that their sexuality is not some "lifestyle choice" they make, but instead a part of who they are. They were born that way, and nothing can change it. Just as straight people don't "choose" to be straight, they don't "choose" to be gay. I choose to believe them... partly because they are my friends and I trust them... but mostly because it would be fucking insane to think that homosexuality is some kind of massive deception by gays around the world and throughout all of history. And, since it would be discriminatory and illegal to deny floral service to a bride and groom with red hair wanting to get legally married... it should be discriminatory and illegal to deny floral service to a groom and a groom with gay hair wanting to get legally married.

We have chosen to make laws against discrimination. Here in Washington, we have chosen to extend that to include discrimination against same-sex marriage. If you break the law, there should be consequences. Like getting your ass sued.

Right?

Well...

And it goes on and on.

Marriage equality is something I support 100%. Love is love, and gay couples have every right to celebrate their love in marriage the same way that straight couples do. Anything less is not fair... it's not right... and it's not human. I believe this so strongly that I want to cheer on our Attorney General as he fights discrimination in Washington State. That's his job, after all.

But a part of me will always wonder if this is the best approach. She's withholding flowers... not urgent medical care... not life-sustaining goods... not some other critical need... it's flowers. Might it be better to just boycott her homophobic ass and let nature take its course? Let her business inevitably die out on its own instead of turn this florist into some kind of misplaced martyr for "religious freedom" that slows down our march to equality acceptance? That seems like it might be a better route to take.

Right?

Well...

This is not about fucking flowers... this is about dignity, respect, and human rights! It's about...

Oh hell. At some point I really just have to stop this.

Am I doing the smart thing and packing my suitcase right now? No. Instead I'm here blogging... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Awarded! I pretty much think that all award shows are crap, but the MTV Movie Awards at least show stuff you want to see. Not just with the nominees, but also in the commercials, which featured looks at upcoming hot movies... including two I'm dying to see: Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness. I think I've rewound and rewatched both spots on my DVR at least a half-dozen times now. Here's hoping they live up to the hype.

   
• Beebus! I know Justin Bieber is young and all... but holy shit...

I've been to the Anne Frank House. It is a very somber and emotional ordeal to experience how her family was forced to live and what they went through to survive. Once you've seen Anne's hopes and dreams on display throughout the museum, you're reminded that she ultimately didn't survive, and it's like a punch in the gut. You feel it.

But all Bieber seemed to take away from the experience was how cool it would be if she were alive today so she could be his fan. I honestly don't know if I should chime in on what a fucking moron he is... or just feel sorry for the little wanker being so blissfully clueless about anything except his own ego.

   
• Graze! In the UK they have a service which delivers healthy snacks directly to your mailbox once a week called "Graze." They're kind of famous for their olives, but they've got a pretty big assortment of nifty treats. Not so long ago, they launched here in the US, and I've been a member for the past twelve weeks. To make a long story short, it's probably not the greatest value for your money, as the four portions you get for $5 (delivered) are pretty small. That being said, I do like the variety and convenience...

Recently Graze sent out paper doll bunnies to their members(?!?). I have no idea why, as it seemed like a huge fucking waste of money. I would have been happier to get a dollar off my next box or something useful like that, but oh well.

About the only thing I don't like so far are their "flapjacks," which are a slimy granola bar of some kind. Other than that, everything is pretty decent. For some reason we Americans are denied the olives, but hopefully they'll be added at a later time. I think the service is still in beta, so signing up is limited to invite codes... but they should be launching for reals any time now. Might be worth checking out when they do.

   
• Coachella! Tonight OMD played Coachella and YouTube was streaming it live. While not quite the same experience as being there, I was really happy to see the show from the comfort of my living room...

Oh how I love this band. If you wanna take a look, YouTube may still have it up.

   
• Opener! Speaking of OMD, their opening act was a guy calling himself Diamond Rings. Surprisingly, his band exceeded my expectations in just about every way. Most of his music is inspired directly from 80's acts, and Marty and I spent his entire set tossing out which bands were the template for the song he was playing. I ended up buying his latest album off iTunes, as it has some good tracks...

If you're into 80's pop and looking for something new, Diamond Rings is worth a listen.

   
And... now I suppose I should pack that suitcase.

Boston is a city I love.

I've visited many times.

I have friends there. My favorite baseball team is from there.

Not surprisingly, the explosions that targeted The Boston Marathon shook me quite badly. I've stayed at the Lenox Hotel which got evacuated today. I've been to the Boston Public Library, which is just across the corner. I've walked down Boylston Street (where the explosions occurred) more times than I can count.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by this senseless tragedy.

The nice thing about working in Anaheim? DISNEYLAND!

It's the perfect place to take extended lunch hours for a ride and a meal. And, for this week at least, visiting an exhibit on Iron Man Armor to promote Iron Man 3... arriving in a theater near you on May 3rd!

They relocated Tony Stark's "Hall of Armor" to the Innoventions pavilion in Tomorrowland...

But the best part? You can SUIT UP to BE Virtual Iron Man!

It kind of works like an Xbox Kinnect game, where you stand in front of a screen with a camera to control the action...

When you start up, the armor comes flying onto you so you can dance, shoot stuff with your repulsors, and fly around...

Really, really cool.

I opted for a pricey (but delicious!) lunch at Wine Country Trattoria, because you can get a dining package which inclides priority viewing for Disney California Adventure's "World of Color" show. The dessert plate was awesome...

Off to Paradise Pier for the show...

I didn't want to get soaked, so I decided to watch from the second level reserved area, which was perfect. It reminds me of a show I saw as a kid called "Dancing Waters" which was at Sea World in San Diego...

It's all water, colored lights, lasers, and projected animation.

Pretty cool. And totally worth buying that expensive lunch pacakge to get such great "seats!"

YESTERDAY...

The drive over the mountain passes was pretty harsh. It was snowing like gangbusters, and there was water a half-inch thick on the roadway...

But, when I got to Seattle, the sky was on fire, so it all turned out okay in the end...

Annnnd... I'm spent.

Today I actually got to spend a little time in the parks, which was fun. The weather consisted of flawless blue skies with a nice breeze to take the edge off the heat.

And now some quick comments on the rides I got to see as I rushed around The House of the Mouse...

DISNEYLAND!

• Jungle Cruise. This ride needs a major overhaul, as it just isn't aging well. Making it be self-aware and "funny" (when it used to be narrated seriously) hasn't helped much.
• Indiana Jones Adventure. A bumpy, jumpy jeep ride through vaguely Indiana-Jones-esque settings. I always thought this ride was kinda disappointing because it doesn't seem very immersive (even if the queue is beautifully themed). With the exception of three appearances of animatronic Indiana Jones robots, it could be anything.
• Pirates of the Caribbean. The theme park ride to end all theme park rides and my all-time favorite. Unlike Indy, this attraction is sublimely immersive. It helps that the Disneyland original is 16 minutes long when all the clones in other Disney parks are half that.
• Haunted Mansion. While still a nice attraction with some great effects, it sure seems like they could upgrade this older ride with some amazing new technology. Oh well. Still a classic.
• Tarzan's Treehouse. I can't really figure out why the Disneyland treehouse was re-themed for Tarzan when the Disney World version is still "Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse." I do like the Tarzan version better... but wish the character sculptures were animated.
• Splash Mountain. Closed for temporary ride break-down.
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Compared to the Disney World Pooh attraction, this is lame. Compared to the Tokyo Disneyland Pooh attraction, it's complete shit. Why Japan put the money into a great Winnie the Pooh ride when the US versions are cheap and crappy remains a mystery.
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Closed for refurbishment.
• Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. I used to think this shooting attraction was pretty amazing... until "Toy Story Midway Mania" hit the scene. It's still fun, just not as cool as an experience as the later shooting rides are.
• Space Mountain. Closed for refurbishment.
• Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. I have mixed feelings on this. The "Nemo" parts are great... even if they are dark and hard to see. But everything else, which is most of the ride, if so painfully boring because nothing is happening. They really need to refresh this so it's all Nemo all the time.
• Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. The original ride was great, but the update that happened back in 2011 made it remarkable. Even though I've ridden the Disney World version a dozen times to see all the random scenarios play out, this was the first time I got to see "hologram Yoda," which was very cool.
• Disney Railroad, Main Street. Closed for temporary ride break-down.

CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE!

• California Screamin'. While not the most exciting coaster in the world, it's such a long, smooth, beautiful ride that it is nevertheless one of my favorites.
• Toy Story Midway Mania! One of the best new Disney rides to come along in years. It's a brilliant take on video games that only Disney/Pixar could imagine.
• Grizzly River Run. A really fun (and wet!) attraction that simulates turbulent river rafting. A vastly superior ride than its bastard twin sister, Kali River Rapids, over at Disney World.
• Soarin' Over California. Closed for refurbishment.
• Radiator Springs Racers. I thought this was a nicer, smarter, cuter take on the technology from Epcot's "Test Track"... but it's hardly worth the 90+ minute wait to get in.
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. While not as immersive and interesting as the superior Disney World version, it's still a fun "faster than gravity" fall ride.

If you're thinking "Holy crap that's a lot of closed rides! you'd be right. And the horrible thing is that they're mostly the big "E-Ticket" rides that people most want to see... Splash Mountain, Space Mountan, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Soarin', Dinseyland Railroad... so it's a major bummer. Especially Space Mountain and Soarin', which are only closed because (apparently) Disney stupidly ignored OSHA warnings that were given last year. Oh well. I've riden them all before... many times... but it makes me sad for all the people who came all the way to Disneyland to experience them, only to be told "no."

Anyway...

After dinner I stopped by to see Abigail for a few minutes and get a new wallet, so that was a nice end to my day.

Now it's off to sleep before another busy day tomorrow...

No work today and a late flight home.

It was a golden opportunity to goof around Disneyland and California Adventure so I could do all the little things I never got around to for the past two days. Which, given the massive number of attraction closures, wasn't a lot. California Screamin'? CLOSED. Soarin' Over California? CLOSED. Radiator Springs Racers? CLOSED. Space Mountain? CLOSED. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad? CLOSED. I mean, come on... even the frickin' "Golden Zephyr" was CLOSED...

And The Jungle Cruise is scheduled to close for refurbishment next week too.

Though it's not like Disney has to give a fuck. People don't pay to ride the rides... they pay to enter the park. So long as they open their doors, they're making money, regardless of how many attractions they're actually bothering to open. The problem is that with so many of the most popular rides being closed on a busy day like today, all the rides that are open are overwhelmed with massively long line. It makes for a pretty shitty day at Disneyland.

Well, not so much for me. I've ridden all the rides here dozens of times. But can you imagine the family who saved for three years to take that magical trip to Disneyland only to arrive and find tons of shit closed? Pretty harsh.

Oh well. Even with half the good shit not being open, Disneyland is still a fun place to be, I suppose. And I did get to ride Mickey's Fun Wheel, which I've never done before...

There's quite a view from the top...

I also stood in line for an hour-and-a-half to ride "Toy Story Midway Mania" because it's Just. That. Fun.

Time to fly...

The best piece of advice I give when people ask about visiting Disney World in Orlando is to stay on-site in a Disney hotel. It's part of the experience, it has all kinds of benefits, and even the cheapest Disney property assures you of a clean, comfortable, convenient place to stay. If I had the option of going to Disney World today and staying off-site... or saving my money for an additional six months so I could stay on-site... I'd wait the six months.

Disneyland is a little different, because the off-site hotels are often just as close and convenient as The Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel... even though you don't get the "Magic Mornings" early-entry and other benefits. The exception would be Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, which sits inside California Adventure...

The hotel has its own private entrance to both California Adventure and Downtown Disney, which is pretty special.

But the biggest draw for me is that it's yet another architectural triumph from Peter Dominick, who designed Disney World's awesome Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge. Sadly, he died back in 2009, so I guess this is the last Disney hotel we'll be seeing from him. Staying at his hotels is an experience every bit as awesome as visiting Disney World or Disneyland...

The "Downtown Disney" private entrance to The Grand Californian.

Even the frickin' front doors are magnificent...

No joke... just walking up to those big main doors with the sun shining through is an amazing experience.

The rooms are quite nice, and everything reminds me very much of staying at Disney's Wilderness Lodge...

And now... a word about the view.

Since I was already paying the huge expense of staying at The Grand Californian, I felt I might as well go all the way and get a "Premium View" room... which either faces Downtown Disney, the parks, or the pool courtyard. Downtown Disney is noisy, and I've seen many noisy pools, so I picked the "Premium Parks View."

Only to find that my third floor room had no view of the parks. All I could see was trees. And the snout of Grizzly Mountain... if I went to the extreme edge of my balcony and leaned out.

So I went back down to the lobby and complained. There it was explained to me that the trees have grown over the 13 years the hotel has been open, so the lower floors don't have the view they used to. This was kind of upsetting, because they still sell them as Premium Park View Rooms! If they KNOW that there's no view, why do they still sell them as such? Well, money. And "technically" it still is a "parks view" since the parks are in that direction... you just can't see them.

In any event, I got moved up to the fifth floor, which was better... but still not the sweeping view of the parks I had imagined. Mostly just trees...

You can see a little Space Mountain and Soarin' Over California easy enough to the left. And if you squint you can see Tower of Terror and Cars Land. And there's Grizzly Peak hiding behind a tree there. So, yeah... it's a parks view. Just not much of one.

So, if you stay at The Grand Californian, skip paying extra for a "Premium View" that's not very premium. If you must have a "Premium View" room, I'd probably go with the "pool courtyard" view. Sure you've got kids screaming at the pool all day long... but at least there's something interesting to look at.

Anyway...

I didn't have any camera except the one in my iPhone, so I don't have any photos of this amazing hotel.

Well, okay, I have two I took one night...

Overall, I give Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa my highest recommendation if you're visiting Disneyland. Yes, it's expensive. Very expensive. But it will enhance your Disney experience, and is likely worth the money (though I'd probably skip the "premium view" expense). I had a terrific stay, and would absolutely stay here again.

I'm trying not to work all weekend.

Trying not to let a truly crappy week of bad news keep me down... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Czech! I know I shouldn't have been shocked when Twitter exploded with morons wanting to bomb "Czechoslovakia" as retaliation for the Boston bombings... but I admit that I honestly was. Partly because "Czechoslovakia" ceased to exist in 1992 after splitting into two countries (Czech Republic and Slovakia). But mostly because the Czech ambassador had to make a public statement explaining that the Czech Republic and Chechnya (where the bombers originated) ARE TWO SEPARATE COUNTRIES. The level of idiocy at work here just boggles my mind. I mean, if you're going to stupidly advocate bombing an entire country, shouldn't you at least make sure you have the right one? I'd hate to lose Prague, one of my favorite cities on earth, because "Czech" sounds suspiciously like "Chechnya" (as if blaming all Chechens for the act of two men with only remote ties to the country wasn't idiotic enough to begin with). If only ignorance was fatal, this country might actually stand a chance.

   
• OMNI! In what I can only describe as "wonderful," The Internet Archive has now put every episode of OMNI Magazine online, and they're free to access for everyone!

This groundbreaking magazine was something I treasured, and the copious number of talented writers who contributed to it are like a laundry list of genius. Absolutely worth your time to check out.

   
• CISPA! Why politicians keep dragging the CISPA "cyber security bill" back from the dead is a complete mystery to me. No American citizen in their right mind would want corporations and the government to have this kind of invasive power over their privacy, and yet here we go again. And what's even more horrific than the bill itself, is how many dumbfuck politicians voted for it to pass The House. TWO HUNDRED EIGHTY-EIGHT to ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN? SERIOUSLY?!? President Obama has promised to veto this shit if it somehow passes The Senate, but I'm disgusted beyond reason that it's gotten this far. How. Much. Longer? How much longer are American citizens going to put up with this?

   
• Sequestration! And so it begins. I would once again like to take this opportunity to offer a big FUCK YOU to our government for being so astoundingly incompetent. Again. I'm sure that crippling the airline industry will get our economy right back on track. Seriously, how much longer are American citizens going to put up with this?

   
• Gaudi! Having been to Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece, The Sagrada Familia Basílica three times now, I can say without hesitation that it is one of the most remarkable architectural achievements I have ever seen. Even if it still isn't completed. I could wander around for hours and never get bored just looking at it...

An absolutely magnificent photo of the ceiling taken by SBA73

Which is why I was happy to see an article at The Verge concerning completion of the structure pop up in my feed reader. Apparently 2026 is the date... I hope I'm around to visit one last time so I can see it completed.

   
Annnnnd... midnight is approaching. I suppose I should at least pretend to get some sleep.

This morning when I woke up I had an awesome idea for a blog post, but have since forgotten what it was. I can only guess I was going to talk about the perils of not writing things down after you turn 40, but who can say for sure?

Fortunately it's Earth Day today, so there's that to talk about.

Uhhhh... yeah... be kind to the earth... or whatever.

Well that didn't go very far now did it?

Except... Earth Day is also the anniversary of my becoming a vegetarian. I gave up meat on this date back in 1988. Which means it's been 25 years since I've had a hamburger.

A quarter-century since I've had a chicken nugget.

And 9131 days since I've eaten bacon.

   
No. I don't know how I've survived this long either.

And so I broke my tooth.

I don't know how I did it, but I ended up with this sharp crag that kept jabbing my tongue and catching food. My dentist was out last week, so a stand-in dentist ground it down. This kept me from going insane while I was at Disneyland, but didn't solve the problem.

Today was the day for that.

When it comes to dental work, I can't even stand to get my teeth cleaned. So you can imagine how I react to tooth reconstruction. The stabbing. The numbness. The grinding. The scraping. It's all I can do to keep from screaming the whole time. Fortunately, I have a really good dentist, so it was over before I knew it.

The good news? My repaired tooth is beautiful. It fits my bite like a glove.

The bad news? Something is bruised inside my jaw. Once the anesthesia wore off, I was in really bad shape...

   
Luckily, I still have some Oxycodone left over from my last kidney stone, and it's doing a wonderful job of keeping me from jumping into oncoming traffic to get rid of the pain. I can only hope that whatever is killing me will get better overnight, because I do not have time for this...

Awwww! Who doesn't love Sweet Brown? Especially now that she's doing ads for a dentist!

And now I suppose I should take more prescription drugs and call it a day.

But first? Chocolate pudding.

I don't take sick days.

Well, I rarely take sick days. It's such a rare event that I can't even remember the last time I've taken one. I go to work even when I'm sick, because that's just the kind of dedicated trooper I am.

But today was different because my aching jaw resulted in a migraine that was exponentially worse. Even looking at a computer screen for longer than 5 minutes made me want to vomit, so it was kind of pointless to go into work. Instead my activity was limited to taking painkillers and anti-nausea medication. It doesn't get much more fun than that.

With nothing to do but lay in bed all day, I tried to get a handle on my short-term goals for the remainder of the year (I gave up on long-term goals ages ago). I didn't come up with much...

• See Iron Man 3.
• See Star Trek Into Darkness.
• Finish the tattoo on my forearm.
• Figure out a way to visit Hard Rock Cafes in Singapore and Helsinki.
• Draw more.

That's actually a pretty ambitious list, considering I don't have time to get any of it done.

And... I think my five minutes are up.

Still in pain. But instead of doping up and laying in bed, I doped up and went to work today. I figure if I'm going to be miserable, I might as well try and be productive.

It didn't go very well. I got some stuff done, but never felt like myself. Sometimes in the middle of a project I'd forget who I was and what I was doing. Then I'd have to start all over again, which is the opposite of productive. Oh well. At least my mind was taken of my brain exploding. Kinda.

In happier news, I bought a new heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer for making bread...

Previous loaves were mixed by hand... but I could never get the recipe-stated 7 cups of flour into the mix. My arms would start to die at 6 cups. But this mixer easily manages to take the 7 cups, which makes for a much nicer, more elastic dough.

And now for my review of the KitchenAid KV25MCX Mixer (which is a model made for Costco).

I have mixed feelings on this product, and really wish I had researched more before making my purchase. The only thing I did know was to make sure I got a "fixed-head" mixer instead of a "tilt-head" mixer. "Fixed-head" mixers are supposed to be more powerful, which is what you want when you are kneading bread. I also heard that KitchenAid was a high-quality, made in the USA brand.

The problem is that this model has a "wide" bowl, which is what you don't want when kneading bread. Apparently, wider bowls allow for too much slop, which makes the bread want to climb up the hook more easily instead of staying in the bowl. The problem is nowhere near as bad as I've read, but it does happen every once in a while during the mix. The good news is that wide bowls are better for just about everything else. Except I'm going to be using it for bread 95% of the time, so I guess I should have looked for a more appropriate model.

In non-bread-making news, the mixer is awesome. The wire whisk aerates like a champ. The flat beater is nicely designed to mix thoroughly, quickly, and with minimal mess. I like the controls. I thought I'd be unhappy not having a tilt-head, but the bowl-raise alternative isn't bad at all, even though it's a bit less convenient.

When it comes to build quality, my initial impression is favorable. It's looks tough and feels solid. KitchenAid claims the gears are metal, which should make for good longevity. The problem is that customer reviews claim that not all the gears are metal, and some people are reporting that their gears are stripping after 4-8 months of use. Needless to say, this would suck ass when I paid $330 for a professional, high-quality mixer. But KitchenAid has a one-year warranty, so hopefully I'm covered.

If I was starting all over again, I would have probably invested the extra $110 and got the Pro Series 600, which apparently excels at bread-making. Oh well. Live and learn, I guess.

After three days, I'm finally starting to feel better. Not that I'll be doing cartwheels in my living room or anything...

After missing one day at work... and running at half-speed for two more... I've gotten incredibly behind. There are piles of projects on my desk, and I have no idea when I'm going to be able to get caught up.

So, naturally, I put in 16 hours today.

That really put the "turd" in my "Saturday." Especially considering I barely made a dent.

Right now, all I can think about is escape...

Well, escape and a Choco Taco...

Though that probably goes without saying.

You'd think I'd be tired of blogging after ten years, but obviously I'm a glutton for punishment... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Blogiversary! And it really has been ten years since this iteration of Blogography began. I bought the domain in March of 2002 and farted around with a hand-coded blog for a year. But then I ended up deleting it and starting over on April 28th, 2003. I managed to salvage a few old entries so, technically, Blogography began on April 18th, but I prefer thinking of the 28th as my blogiversary because that's when Apple's iTunes Music Store debuted as well. In any event, I should probably be celebrating that I made it this long...

Or committing myself to an insane asylum for keeping with it for this long. One or the other. Maybe both.

   
• Pot! Google's auto-complete is sure revealing. Guess it's a good thing it's legal here now...

   
• Chase! And so I bought the latest LEGO video game for Nintendo 3DS. It's called LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins...

It's frickin' adorable.

It's also one of the most frustrating pieces of shit excuses for a video game I've ever played.

Billed as a prequel to the police-themed LEGO City Undercover for the Wii U system, this is a scaled-down version of the massive "sandbox" world of the original, but squeezed to fit in a 3DS. Even so, it's still a huge world filled with puzzles to solve and nifty stuff to collect. Along the way you have missions to accomplish which move you through the story and introduce you to the various areas of LEGO City. All of which are beautifully rendered, and yours to explore as your alter-ego, undercover cop Chase McCain. In an effort to mix things up a bit, McCain can adopt different undercover "disguises," each of which grants him new and unique abilities. It's all very clever and can be a lot of fun... when you're not screaming curse words at the game for being so horrendously frustrating.

I've been playing LEGO video games for years. And there's one thing they can never get right... vehicle control. Any time you have to drive ANYTHING in ANY LEGO game, you're assured of shitty, frustrating, worthless controls. Forget trying to actually accomplish something, you're lucky just to keep the damn car on the road. And there's a lot of driving in LEGO City Undercover. As if that weren't bad enough, certain scenarios require precision acrobatics that are beyond frustrating and pretty much destroy the game. It's astounding how the game can be so forgiving in some areas, but ruthlessly unforgiving in others, and it's enough to drive you insane.

Ultimately, there's enough humor, fun, and surprises to make me glad I bought LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins, but I sure wish that somebody would tell developer Traveler's Tales that frustrating does not equal fun. FIX THE FUCKING DRIVING CONTROLS NEXT TIME, ASSHOLES!

   
• Repugnant! Some people are such huge pieces of hypocritical garbage that they're pretty much irredeemable. Despite my defending her in the past, Sarah Palin has totally crossed that line. She probably crossed it a long time ago, but this latest round of bullcrap is what got me to take serious notice. What a fucking useless shit-stain on the fabric of society.

   
• Fugly! Wondering for the hundredth time why in the hell the United States has some of the ugliest fucking money on the planet. Seriously, Yes, I've harped on this before, but the latest release for the $100 bill is the worst yet and near vomit-inducing...

I know that rampant counterfeiting has made it so that certain design compromises have to be made to implement security measures... but this is fucking ridiculous. As if it weren't bad enough that our currency isn't worth a shit, we have to be embarrassed with this ugly, amateurish excuse for "design" that looks like shit too. Why can't they hire an actual graphic designer for important stuff like this instead of letting somebody's kid at the US Mint slap it together in Microsoft Word. Your (hideous) tax dollars at work, people!

   
And now I'm going to go contemplate whether I can survive ten more years of blogging.

Odds are, you've heard of "Google Glass"... the computer you wear like a busted pair of sunglasses that can take photos, shoot videos, and do much of the stuff you can do with regular Google (such as search, get directions, send an email, check the weather, etc.). All in all, it's an impressive use of tech that could be a hint at how computers will even further integrate into our lives in the future.

If you haven't seen it, here's a first-person promo piece...

The problem most people have with GooGlass (as I call it) is twofold. First of all are the privacy concerns. Somebody wearing a unit could be filming you as you're having lunch or something. Second of all are the rudeness concerns. Somebody wearing a unit could be ignoring you as you're talking to them and instead concentrating on a video of kittens playing on the Glass screen.

I admit these are valid concerns.

But my problem with GooGlass is much bigger...

Photo courtesy of Google... because, well... you know...

   
Is there any way of wearing this crap on your face that doesn't make you look like a complete douchebag? (doucheborg?)

I only ask because I honestly don't think there is.

Maybe GooGlass will prove so compelling that people won't care.

It's like parachute pants are happening all over again.

A fellow cinephile and I were chatting about the large number of awesome movies being released this year, and decided we should make lists of our most anticipated films so we could compare them. We started with 10 films each, then added another 10 to create a "Top 20" list. After some discussion, I added 5 more films, which means I now have a "Top 25 List of Dave's Most Anticipated Films" for the remainder of 2013.

I should probably come back and grade them all after I've seen them.

1. Iron Man 3 (3 MAY) — I haven't been this excited for a movie sequel since The Empire Strikes Back. Robert Downey Jr. has created one of the best cinematic adaptations of a comic book character ever, and now he's teaming with writer/director Shane Black, who is literally the perfect candidate for the job. The resulting movie has no choice but to be frickin' amazing, and I can't wait.
2. Star Trek Into Darkness (17 MAY) — The first film did the impossible... rebooted Star Trek in a way that this here die-hard fan absolutely loved. All I've wanted to do since seeing it was experience more. Here it comes.
3. Red 2 (JULY 19) — In what I can only describe as "shocking," the movie version RED was actually superior to the comic book original. Partly because it seemed more focus and funny, but mostly because is was so impeccably cast. Here's hoping the sequel is more of the same.
4. Elysium (9 SUGUST) — I have no idea what this film is about but am dying to see it. It's enough that it's Neil Blomkamp's follow-up to his smash debut District 9.
5. Thor: The Dark World (31 DECEMBER) — Overall, I loved the first Thor film. They hit all the right notes and really did the character justice, which I wasn't expecting. Now that the set-up story is out of the way and everybody's seen exactly what Thor is capable of (thanks to The Avengers), there's an opportunity here to build a truly great super-hero franchise by focusing on the character's other-wordly Asgardian roots, and this movie looks to be doing exactly that.
6. Man of Steel (JUNE 14) — I still HATE HATE HATE what they did to Superman's costume (seriously, this is about as the shittiest thing since Green Lantern) but the latest trailer looks pretty impressive. All I can do is hope that the film ends up being more faithful to the source material than I'm expecting. Even with my expectations in check, I'm pretty anxious to see this movie.
7. Pacific Rim (12 JULY) — Giant. Fighting. Robots. The new trailer for this sci-fi flick is painfully epic, and I can't wait to see Guillermo del Toro's Aliens vs. Human Controlled Robots movie.
8. Kick-Ass 2 (16 AUGUST) — The Red Mist is out for revenge, and his targets are Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl! Fortunately there are other heroes joining their ranks (including an nearly unrecognizable Jim Carey as Colonel Stars & Stripes). The original film was a guilty pleasure I've watched more times than I'll ever admit, and it looks like the sequel is ramping up the action to new levels of absurdity. How can I say no to that?
9. Despicable Me 2 (3 JULY) — This animated feature caught me completely off-guard. I had low expectations when I started watching it on a long plane trip, but ended up loving the film. Now I'm a die-hard fan of the little minions from the story, and can't wait to see the sequel. And, speaking of surprisingly good animated films, when are we getting a sequel to Megamind?.
10. The World's End (23 AUGUST) — Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. What else is there to say?
11. Monsters University (21 JUNE) — Hands-down my favorite Pixar film is Monsters, Inc.... it was genius on too many levels to count. And, while I'm not enthused about the prequel premise they've got going on here, I am very much excited to revisit Mike and Sully one more time.
12. The Lone Ranger (3 JULY) — As a huge fan of Johnny Depp in just about everything he's ever done, my expectations are high. His reimagining of Tonto looks fascinating, and the trailer looks action-packed, so I'm in.
13. Riddick (6 SEPTEMBER) — And we've finally arrived at Chapter 3 of The Chronicles of Riddick film series. The first film was awesome. The second was a major step down but still decent. This installment is anybody's guess. But I'm a sucker for sci-fi so I won't be missing it.
14. The Hangover: Part III (24 MAY) — The first Hangover is one of my all-time favorite comedies. The sequel copied just about everything from the original, then shitted all over it... but still, it was funny. This time around it sounds like Todd Phillips learned from his mistake and came up with something new. I'll give it a shot.
15. R.I.P.D. (19 JULY) — The comic book was kind of hit-or-miss for me, but a movie might be a good fit since they can pick out the best bits from the "Rest In Peace Department" stories. Besides, who wouldn't want to see a team of undead cops hunt down criminals? If that wasn't enough to sell the film, it's starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges.
16. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (20 DECEMBER) — The first Anchorman wasn't a great film... but it was packed with so many great moments that a sequel simply had to happen. Everybody's back for the second go-round (thankfully), and we're adding Harrison Ford and Josh Lawson to the cast. It can't possibly live up to my lofty expectations, but I want to see it anyway.
17. World War Z (21 JUNE) — The book was epic. The audiobook was beyond epic. The movie looks visually interesting, but I'm just not sure of how it's going to translate. Brad Pitt wouldn't have been my first choice here, but he's passionate for the project, which could go a long ways towards selling me on it.
18. 300: Rise of an Empire (2 AUGUST) — A prequel to 300 explaining how crazy Xerxes became The God King? Sign me up.
19. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (4 OCTOBER) — While I loved the comic book and thought the first Sin City adaptation was great, it seems like too much time has passed for another movie. I still want to see it, I just wish I was a bit more enthusiastic.
20. Jack Ryan (25 DECEMBER) — I really enjoyed the Jack Ryan novels by Tom Clancy, and some of the films have been good too (despite starring different actors like Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck). This time it's Chris Pine (Capt. Kirk) in the role, which should be interesting. What worries me is that this time the story isn't based on one of the novels, which could go either way.
21. Gravity (4 OCTOBER) — The premise of this film is just too fascinating to deny (and the fact that it's by Alfonso Cuarón doesn't hurt either!). Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are astronauts alone in space after things go very, very wrong and their ship explodes.
22. Machete Kills (13 SEPTEMBER) Look, I'm going to give anything Robert Rodriguez puts out a shot. This sequel to the nasty, violent original may not be the most important film of this year (or any year) but I'm betting it will be entertaining.
23. The Seventh Son (18 OCTOBER) — This by-the-numbers battle of good vs. evil fantasy flick has a frighteningly large probability of being a disaster... but it's based on The Wardstone Chronicles (The Spook's Apprentice, to you Brits) which has me intrigued.
24. Oldboy (11 OCTOBER) — The original Korean version of this film is a total master work and an amazing film. That being said, there is no need for a shitty American remake. Except... SPIKE LEE DIRECTING?!? Could not be more curious about how he's going to handle the material.
25. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (13 DECEMBER) — This movie is here because I can't very well leave it off my list. Even though I probably should. Peter Jackson has taken one small book and stretched it out so far that there's more filler than substance, and it's just an awful mess. I mean, seriously, THREE FILMS?!? At most this should have been two films, and I really think it could have been done in one. In any event, I am anxious to get the middle chapter out of the way so we can finally be done with this damn thing next year.

   
That's a lot of movies.

Our local Sears store is closing.

I am not entirely surprised by the news, but I am a bit saddened. For the longest time during my childhood, Sears was the place to shop in our valley. There wasn't much competition, and the internet wasn't a Thing yet, so you went to Sears. My first computer, an Atari 800, was bought at that Sears. All the software I saved my allowance to buy came from Sears (mostly INFOCOM games like Zork). Appliances and tools all came from Sears. Clothing came from Sears too. And if there was something Sears didn't have that you needed, you could order it from their catalog.

So yeah, I have fond memories of Sears and it seems strange to think about it closing.

I haven't shopped there in years, of course.

The last thing I bought at Sears was a Kenmore washer and dryer... or maybe it was some Craftsman tools... but that was at least a decade ago. I feel bad about that, but they just don't have anything I want to buy. Not any more...

   
I drew this Atari 800 for the cover of Kevin Savetz's terrific book, Terrible Nerd!

   
And now I think I'll have a beer and reminisce about the good ol' days when I was a kid and the Sears Christmas Catalog was my world.

Much like Apple.com is now.

Today was hot. Next week the forecast looks to be very hot.

It seems like Spring has already gone, and Summer has magically appeared. Meanwhile, one of the mountain passes was closed because of heavy snow. I don't even have an opinion on that.

The good news is that all the flowers are popping up, which makes for a nice distraction as you're walking down the street...

   
The bad news is that my allergies have started up and are trying to kill me.

Here's to two weeks of watering eyes and a runny nose.

One of the nice things about having a blog that's been around a while is that you have a record of what you were doing in years past. In my case, it's a record that spans ten years, which is pretty good.

Except not always. I was a sporadic blogger in the beginning and sometimes weeks passed between entries. So, in the beginning at least, there are stretches which are entirely unknown. Later years are better, however...

1. 2012 • Taking a look a religious lunacy and cartoons.
2. 2011 • Waiting for Judgement Day and contemplating the end of the world.
3. 2010 • Getting some terrible news from a friend.
4. 2009 • Returning from TequilaCon 5 in Albuquerque... The Spice must flow.
5. 2008 • Attending TequilaCon 4 in Philadelphia.
6. 2007 • Looking for socks before a trip to Greece.
7. 2006 • Hanging our with Bad Monkey.
8. 2005 • Reading a bunch of critically acclaimed blogs... all of which are either dead or long since abandoned.
9. 2004 • Watching two chick flicks... 13 Going on 30 and Mean Girls.
10. 2003 • Unknown. See, I told you.

Of course, that's just the stuff I decided I could write about. Who knows what was going on between the lines.

Probably stuff I'm better off forgetting anyway.

Happy Star Wars Day!

Which would be a lot more fun if I had internet. Oh well.

Darth Monkey would say "May the Fourth be with you"... but they don't do that on the Dark Side.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Hopefully you're somewhere drinking way too much while having the time of your life. Meanwhile I'm sitting on my couch working while the internet keeps fading in and out.

It's a real party.

Or could be, if I had some tequila...

In any event, NO BULLET SUNDAY FOR YOU! It'll have to wait until tomorrow when (hopefully) I'll have my internet fixed.

Don't get confused that bullets are flying on a Monday... because Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Downey Jr.! Marvel's box office streak continues. Iron Man 3 had the second biggest domestic opening of all time ($175.3 million), second only to Marvel's The Avengers (which bowed last summer with $207.4 million). This is a continuing, shining example of how staying faithful to the source material with popular characters will result in popular movies...

I can't wait to see it! I just have no idea when I'll have time to.

   
• Gates! Look, I understand that Bill Gates has to continue to support Microsoft even though he's not running the place any more. I get it. The company made him billions upon billions of dollars, and he's obligated to say fantastic things about it no matter what happens. Anything less would be ungrateful.

But really?

Really?

Look, if I am going to be doing a lot of data entry or typing a lot of text, I'm going to use a computer. But for surfing the web, taking notes, checking and writing email, reading books and comics, and dozens upon dozens of other everyday tasks? I grab for my iPad. It's not the best tool for typing, of course, but it's really comfortable and useful for a lot of the stuff I do on a regular basis. So, no, Bill... I am not a frustrated iPad user. What I WAS was a frustrated Windows 8 user. So frustrated that I took your new piece-of-shit operating system and tossed it in the garbage after downgrading to Windows 7, which was at least tolerable. So... Bill... before dumping all over iPad with your pathetic whining, you might want to take a look at the turd that you're claiming is such a superior experience. Because it's not. It so totally and absolutely is not.

   
• Rollins! I just tuned into Hawaii Five-0 tonight only to see that it's guest-starring Henry Rollins and Mare Winningham as child kidnappers! Yes... THE Henry Rollins!

As a big fan for a very long time, it was cool to see Henry Rollins playing a bad guy on TV. His performance was pretty darn good given that he didn't have a lot to do... however... there was a problem.
      << SPOILER ALERT >>
At one point, Henry's character has been caught. But he refuses to talk, so the cops decide not to be cops and beat the shit out of him to get the info they need. The first thing to enter my head was "Well this is going to be hilarious!," because the idea of two Hollywood actors beating up Henry frickin' Rollins is absurd. Even if he was handcuffed. But then the camera turns away, which means that the people making the episode also thought the idea of two Hollywood actors beating up Henry frickin' Rollins was absurd. And that made it even more hilarious.

   
• Restless! So... turns out that "Restless Legs Syndrome" is not the load of bullshit I always thought it was. I've had leg pains for as long as I can remember, but it's always been fairly mild and ignorable. Over the past year, I've been having increasingly odd and un-ignorable "rolling pains" that move up and down my legs. It kind of feels like electricity on the inside that will give me mild shocks in random places, then tingle and go dead. But it only seems to be a problem late in the day when I've been sitting at work... or sitting on the couch... or sitting on a plane... or laying down in bed. But when I move my legs, the weird feeling subsides. This means I am constantly shifting my legs, often-times without even realizing it. So it looks like I now have a neurological disorder. Which makes me wonder yet again "What's going to go to shit on my body next?"

   
• Riker! HOW DID I NEVER NOTICE THIS?!?

So... bad back... or lifestyle choice?

   
And... no internet. Again. This is getting silly.

When I was a kid, I wanted a model train. I loved trains.

For one reason of another, I never got one. And this actually ends up being a good thing, because I've gotten to the point now where I absolutely fucking hate... HATE... trains. And I really don't want any fond childhood memories of them.

BECAUSE TRAINS ARE STUPID NOISY AND THEY'RE ALWAYS GETTING IN THE WAY!

I've lost count of the number of times I've been just on the verge of falling asleep... only to have a train blow through town with its whistle blowing every ten seconds. GAH!

Then yesterday I had an errand to run. I took the first left to cross the railroad tracks only to have a train blocking me. It kept going slower and slower until it just stopped on the tracks. Not waiting to wait, I unleash a slew of curse-words, back-tracked, then headed back down the street... where I took the second left onto 9th Street. Only to have another train (or maybe it was the same one) blocking my path. For the second time, it kept going slower and slower until it just stopped on the tracks... WITH ONLY THREE FUCKING CARS LEFT TO GO! Which meant I had to BACKTRACK AGAIN after unleashing an even bigger slew of curse-words. Fortunately, 5th Street has an underpass, so I didn't get screwed again, but still... this is pretty stupid...

And I thought just waiting on a train was a pain in the ass. Nothing like taking a 20 minute trip and turning it into 40 minutes. GAH!

Stupid trains.

Most every single thing I do for my job is with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign. These are the apps I need to do whatever it is I do, and my work would be very difficult indeed without them.

Not to say that there aren't alternatives... there are plenty... but when it comes to the feature-rich tools I know best, and the ability to work together in the way I need them to, Adobe is the only game in town.

It used to be that Adobe apps were purchased like most any software... you buy them. Well, not "buy" per-se, it's more like a "one-time permanent lease payment"... and once you pay your money you can use them for as long as they work for you. This "Creative Suite" can then be upgraded every year or two when Adobe finishes up a new version.

Last year Adobe introduced a new way of using their products... renting. They call it "Creative Cloud" and for fifty bucks a month, they're all yours to use as much as you want...

The good news is that, so long as you keep paying, your apps are always up-to-date. You always have the latest features, and Adobe rolls them out when they're ready rather than making you wait for the next release. That much is really sweet.

But two days ago Adobe announced that "renting" their "Creative Cloud" is now the only way to go. As of now, they are discontinuing "Creative Suite" (for the most part) with the current version 6.

I had already moved to Creative Cloud last year, so this doesn't really affect me. But what if it does?!?

This could be bad.

Because what if Adobe discontinues an app?

As unlikely as it may be, let's say that Adobe kills off Illustrator in a couple years. You can't rent it any more. It's gone. And since you aren't able to buy it, you can't access any of your files created with it. You can't open them. You can't print them. You can't export them for use with another program. All your years of hard work essentially vanishes overnight. Everything you've created in Adobe Illustrator has to be recreated from scratch in a different program. Unless some other app comes along that reads the format.

But that's not all though. There's all kinds of doomsday scenarios that come to mind. What if Adobe doesn't kill an app... but instead raises the price of using it to $1000 a month? Pretty much the same thing, isn't it? You're trapped. You pay what Adobe wants or else you lose everything. Or maybe they don't raise the price... but all of a sudden your financial situation changes and you can't afford the rent? Again, pretty much the same thing. You're locked out and all your stuff is inaccessible.

So I guess this is bad.

And right now I'm more than a little worried.

Adobe needs to do two things to make me feel a bit better about this New World Order...

ONE
Release free "reader" programs for all their apps that at least let you look at your work. And print it. And possibly convert it to an open format so you could take it elsewhere if something happened that you couldn't use Creative Cloud any more. Knowing that I could at least see my work... and ideally export it somehow... would go a long way towards easing my mind and helping me to accept our Adobe Overlords.

TWO
Create smaller bundles of apps. As I said, I use three apps from Creative Cloud. THREE OUT OF WHAT... THIRTY?!? Give or take (some of these are services, not apps, that I won't use)...

It feels like a complete rip-off that I have to pay for development of huge bunches of crap I will never (or rarely) use. Even if it were to only save me $10 a month... perhaps by renting a "designer bundle" with only the "Big Three" that I need or something... well... I would feel much better about my rent. As it is, I think it's absurd that I am forced to pay for shit like "Flash Builder Premium" that I would sooner light on fire than ever load onto my computer. This is like the cable company all over again, and it's not a good thing.

Realistically, Number Two will probably never happen. But Number One pretty much has to. If it doesn't... if there's a risk that all my work could become inaccessible tomorrow (for whatever reason)... well... is that a risk I can really afford to take?

Perhaps it's time to start exploring some of those other options?

Tomorrow I'm heading to the East Coast for one day.

Well, technically, it's three days... one to get there... one to work... then one to get back.

Or I suppose I am actually flying to the East Coast for two hours, which is about how long my work will take me. After that, I'm just goofing off to kill time.

In any event, there are some things that emails, video chats, and overnight delivery can't fix, so off I go...

And there goes my weekend.

I always love watching lightning crash outside an airplane window.

But not as much as I love thunderstorms causing a landing delay.

Okay... I'm totally lying. I don't love either of those things. But that's just part of the travel game, and it does happen from time to time. All you can do is hope that you've drank enough alcohol that you don't mind so much. Otherwise? Not fun. Well, it is fun to track your flight path after you've landed and see what crazy loop-de-do holding pattern your flight took...

Flight tracking map courtesy of FlightAware!

   
And so now it's 12:40am after one long-ass day of travel and all I want to do is go to bed.

But my internal clock is still on West Coast time and there are people screaming outside my hotel room, so I guess you really don't always get what you want.

And speaking of that...

   
Guess it's a good thing I brought a raincoat.

And so tragedy strikes... my MagSafe ver. 1 to MagSafe ver. 2 adapter has gone missing somewhere between Seattle and here.

Which means I don't have a way of charging my Mac Book.

Which means a recap of my way-too-short adventures in Washington, D.C. will have to wait until tomorrow given that my battery is at 4% and falling.

Not to mention that I have to get up in five hours so I can fly back home.

Assuming the assholes making noise outside my hotel room shut the hell up real soon now, I may actually get a couple hours sleep.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America... because a Very Special Washington, D.C. Edition of Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Pret! I headed into the city early for work because I knew that Union Station DC had a Pret shop inside. As I have said many times, my all-time favorite breakfast is a Pret Egg and Fire-Roasted Tomato Sandwich, so missing out was not an option...

As expected, it was frickin' amazing... and a fantastic start to my day.

   
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum! One of the best museums I've ever had the pleasure of visiting is the World War I Museum in Kansas City. The design of the exhibit space is just exceptional, and a commenter told me the same guy (Ralph Applebaum) also designed The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. So, naturally I was curious. Add to that the fact that my very good blog friend, Mr. Shiny, is married to one of the curators, and I was compelled to pay a visit...

Not surprisingly, the museum is stunning. As expected, the exhibit spaces are wonderfully orchestrated to tell the story of one of this planets' greatest atrocities... and it's done so well that you feel it. I had planned on spending a half-hour wandering around, but was here nearly two hours. Deeply moving and extremely popular (get there early!), the museum gets my highest possible recommendation.

   
• National Air and Space Museum! This trip to DC, I decided to put aside my usual stops and visit some of the places I haven't been to in a while. Like the Smithsonian's Air and Spaaaaaaace Museum...

I swear... everything looks the exact same as when I was first there in 1996! They aren't too big on updating the main exhibits, I guess... which is a shame. But, still, some cool stuff...

And I could never get tired of looking at the original USS Enterprise model...

   
• Crapital! Why oh why do they have to put up garbage in front of beautiful buildings like the US Capital? There's a tent, some kind of screens, and other crap junking up the place, which is just wrong. When visitors walk by, they shouldn't have all the obstructions and distractions...

Because, seriously, if you came all the way to the US Capital, would you want THIS to be the photo you show all your friends when you get back?

   
• National Gallery of Art! I've been here most every single time I've come to DC... which is why I was going to avoid it this time. But I just couldn't do it. The place is packed with treasures and FREE! So I took a half-hour to wander a bit, which is when I found this beautiful table that I don't remember seeing before...

It's just like the chess table on the Millenium Falcon!

   
• National Archives The line was really short as I walked by, so I decided to drop in to the National Archives and see if we still had a Constitution. Between the Tea Party Right wanting to strip everybody of all individual rights except guns... and the Extreme Left wanting to eliminate individuality entirely, sometimes I have a hard time remembering. Turns out we DO! Though it's badly faded and hard to see. Just like real life... and just like this scan of the Declaration of Independence...

   
• Vietnam Memorial! By the time I got to The Wall, it was pouring down rain. This made the sculptures for the Vietnam Soldier's Memorial and the Vietnam Women's Memorial look even more beautiful than they usually do...

Ever since my first visit to The Wall, I've returned every time I'm in Washington, D.C. to pay my respects to Roderick L. Mayer, a MIA/POW whose memorial bracelet I've been wearing for the past 17 years...

And since every time I post about my dedication to MIA/POW issues I get hate-comments from people telling me that this is all a big myth, I'm just going to post a clickable copy of a letter to Roderick Mayer's parents, then tell any detractors they can go fuck themselves (John McCain and John Kerry included)...

   
• Korean War Memorial! A hauntingly beautiful memorial, and one of my world favorites. I found this documentary video which explains the thought that went into it...

It really has to be seen in person to get the full experience... and, if you're ever in DC, I highly recommend it.

   
• Lincoln! Another memorial monument that I absolutely love is Abraham Lincoln's. Visiting is akin to a spiritual experience...

And, of course, the view from the top of the steps is pretty special...

Even if the 2011 earthquake has busted the Washington Monument to shit and it's all covered in scaffolding now...

At some point, you have to ask yourself if it isn't worth knocking the thing down and building a new one from scratch. Yeah... yeah... yell at me all you want, but I'm sick of having busted shit in my photos. Historical conservation aside, it's kind of bullshit to visit a place and have nothing but photos of scaffolding or construction crews (like last time) to show for it. Apparently they're going to finish with the restoration sometime next year. Hopefully the wait will be worth it, and the monument won't fall to pieces again two years later.

   
• National World War II Memorial! I'm just going to come right out and say it... I have never liked this installation, and wish that they had come up with something more meaningful and thoughtful than this lame excuse for a memorial...

It's just so boring, repetitive and tacky. And I don't "get" how it honors World War II vets... if anything, it looks more like it's some kind of monument to US states and territories...

Compare it to the Korean and Vietnam memorials, and it's just so forgettable and unimpressive... even though it's so big. Probably because it's so big? I dunno. All I do know is that those who fought and died in World War II deserve something better than this.

   
• Shiny! Tired and soaking wet, I was pretty much done with Washington, D.C. when 5:00 rolled around. Fortunately, Mr. Shiny (who you should know from his most excellent co-hosting duties on the Hey! That's My Hummus! podcast) rescued me from my day and whisked me off to dinner with his family. But before we got there, he took me to see the Peeps & Co. Store in National Harbor and a really cool statue called "The Awakening" that's across the street...

Poor guy looks to me like he's drowning in sand.

Dinner with the Shinies was a lot of fun... until they brought the hummus...

Just because he has a podcast called "Hey! That's My Hummus!" doesn't mean he gets to eat it all. I love hummus! I guess I should be thankful that Faiqa wasn't there, or else I would have had to fight off two people! Fortunately, my delicious black bean burger had hummus on it, so I was totally taken care of in the chickpea department.

And, just like that, my one funtabulous day in Washington, D.C. was over. Hopefully next time I'll get to stay a while.

   
• WTF?! And jut because I can't end Bullet Sunday on such a happy note... Holy. Fucking. Shit. Not only is Newt Gingrich confounded as to what to call a "smartphone"... he seems genuinely perplexed by multi-functional modern technology. And this is a guy who could have been elected President of the United States of America!

"This pencil also erases. It has an eraser right on the top of it. So it's not a pencil. It's not an eraser. It's something new. A new technology that's only beginning. And we here at Gingrich Productions have spent weeks trying to figure out what to call it..."

I'm horrified that this kind of absurd cluelessness completely defines our country's government. Legislators are making laws about things they don't understand and are too lazy to actually take the time to educate themselves about. This is exactly how idiotic shit like ACTA happens, and we all pay the price for our political leaders being intentionally uninformed morons.

   
And... it's late. Happy Mother's Day, everybody!

My 6:00am flight out of Baltimore meant that I had to get up at 3:45am. This gave me 30 minutes to pack, shower, put on pants, brush my teeth, check out of my hotel, and catch the shuttle to arrive at BWI at 4:30am. Getting up at 3:45am is no fun at all. Especially when your internal clock is three hours earlier than that.

What was fun was using iPhone's Passbook...

This very cool bit of tech puts stuff like tickets, boarding passes, loyalty cards, membership accounts, and other things all at one place. Buy an Amtrak ticket? It goes to Passbook. Check in for your flight? Your boarding pass goes to Passbook. Check in at your hotel? Open up Passbook for your loyalty card.

And it's always handy.

When I arrived at the train station, my ticket was on my lock screen.

When I got to the airport, my boarding pass was on my lock screen too. One swipe, and it magically appears...

So cool. As somebody who travels a lot, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes my life easier.

The problem is that not enough companies are using it. Many airlines I fly, like Alaska Air, aren't using it. Most of the hotels I stay at, like Hilton, aren't using it. And it would be nice one day if credit cards could be added, because that would lighten my wallet considerably.

I think that Apple made the right move with Passbook because it doesn't require companies to install new equipment for NFC (or whatever)... everybody can use the scanners they already have.

It's just a question as to when (if?) these companies will return the favor and give their customers the convenience of implementing it.

I have never been a fan of war movies.

Probably because the war movies I was most familiar with growing up were the John Wayne war glorification films that put a heroic gloss on war that made it seem like some kind of desirable activity... instead of the horrific failure of the human condition that it really is. There were exceptions, of course (Grave of the Fireflies comes immediately to mind), but the vast majority of films I saw were whitewashed pro-war propaganda.

But then war films started changing.

And the turning point for me was Saving Private Ryan.

Here was a film that was showing us heroism amongst the brutality of war, and it was achieved by being honest about just how horrible and terrifying it is for everybody involved. No glossing over the death and destruction with lame-ass "ACK! You got me, you dirty Nazi!" style casualties... Saving Private Ryan blew people apart with bloody abandon, illustrating that just surviving a war with your sanity in tact was a heroic effort.

Then came A Very Long Engagement and The Hurt Locker and Band of Brothers and Letters from Iwo Jima and Defiance and Zero Dark Thirty and even Inglourious Basterds... and numerous other movies which, while not entirely propaganda-free, at least tried to be more honest in their depiction of war. But, most important of all, they were simply very good films.

Which all leading to (what is now) one of my most anticipated films of 2013, and it finally has an international trailer...

I fully admit that when I first read about the film being made, I was intrigued. Stalingrad is one of the most brutal battles in world history, and getting a modern film on the subject made by actual Russians could make for a very interesting flick. But then I heard it was going the Titanic-love-story-against-disaster route and I lost interest. And then I heard it was being filmed in 3-D and really lost interest.

But now this cinematic and stylish trailer has arrived, and I can't wait to see this film.

I can only hope that the story and acting lives up to the promise of the visuals.

Despite what you may have read, this is not the best Iron Man movie ever made.

The best Iron Man movie ever made is The Avengers. And that's because, so far as comic book super-hero films go, that movie was insane. Finally... finally we got to see all-out super-hero action taken to the degree it's at in the comics, and Iron Man was a huge part of that.

So I guess that Iron Man 3 would be the second-best Iron Man film ever made.

More or less...

Co-written and directed by Shane Black, the writer genius behind Lethal Weapon and The Long Kiss Goodnight, Iron Man 3 is a very good film in a surprising number of ways. Even if you were take Iron Man out of the equation. Which the movie does... a lot... because Tony Stark is the star of this show. Iron Man is relegated to a supporting player (albeit an important one).

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark so flawlessly that you're always left wanting more... on the other... well, you're going to an Iron Man movie to see Iron Man.

Putting all that aside, the film feels very Shane Black. Which is mostly a good thing.

There be spoilers from here on out, so don't click through to the extended entry unless you've already seen Iron Man 3...

Spanky the Cat finally went to the vet and got a clean bill of health. And a sex change. Turns out that it's a "he" instead of a "she." Oh well. He's in good shape, which is all that matters.

Much to the relief of everybody in the neighborhood, who's glad he's still hanging around...

The trip must have been exhausting, as Spanky fell asleep shortly after he got back.

The cost of a trip to the supermarket has reached such epic heights that I've developed a genuine fear of grocery shopping. The panic sets in the minute I enter the parking lot, and all I can think of is how I am not escaping for less than $50 no matter how little I have on my list. This is especially scary when you consider that I'm vegetarian, don't eat a lot, actively look for sale items, and buy the cheapest option whenever I can.

I have no clue how large families can afford to feed themselves now-a-days.

Guess I'm going to have to start buying in bulk, look into buying a FoodSaver, and start freezing everything.

Or start a garden.

Or beg for food in the streets.

For the past seven months I've been saving for a new camera and I finally ordered it today. It arrives tomorrow. But after my latest trip to the grocery store, I'm starting to wonder if I should have kept the money in savings so I can eat.

Nah.

Priorities and all that.

Fred Armisen and Bill Hader will be sorely missed now that they are departing from Saturday Night Live. And, given their incredible body of work and the dozens of characters they inhabited, it's hard to see anybody stepping into their shoes any time soon.

But the real damage in Armisen and Hader leaving comes from the astounding number of imperessions they contributed. According to the SNL Archives, Armisen had 98 celebrities in his arsenal, and Hader added another 82. That kind of versatility is tough to come by and a part of me wonders how the current cast is going to fill the massive hole left now that they're off the show.

On the plus-side, appearances by Hader's "Stefon" will hopefully be rare from here on out...

I fucking hate Stefon.

Every time he appears, it's the SAME DAMN SKIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Maybe I found it mildly amusing when he appeared the first time, but each subsequent appearance was awful.

And yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, I know people who just love Stefon. To each their own, I guess... but I just don't get it.

Of course, Armisen and Hader aren't the only members of the cast moving on.

Odds are running high that Jason Sudekis won't be returning. That's going to really hurt.

And come next January, Seth Meyers will leave to replace Jimmy Fallon on Late Night when Jimmy replaces Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. It's going to be really interesting to see who takes over the SNL News desk when that happens. There's a peculiar kind of talent needed to pull it off, and I'm not seeing that in anybody left.

In other words, it's not looking very good for Saturday Night Live. Kenan Thompson is the only long-time player left and, while I like some of the newer people, you kinda have to wonder how much longer the show will go on if something big doesn't break soon.

Like Eddie Murphy coming back.

Anyway, farewell to Mr. Armisen and Mr. Hader.

And thanks for the laughs.

Don't put down that remote... because a Very Special Television Preview Edition of Bullet Sunday (filled with the top five shows I'm looking forward to in the coming season) starts now...

   
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Wait... Agent Coulson is alive? Yeah, like I could possibly pass this one up. Joss Whedon is executive producing this spin-off from The Avengers (AND directing the pilot episode!) which makes it must-see TV...

   
• The Blacklist. And here we have a Silence of the Lambs homage. Sounds like a complete waste of time, right? Except... James Spader is the one playing the psycho criminal who's partnering up with a young female FBI agent. How can I say no to that?

   
• Almost Human. Okay, I'm a total sucker for Holmes & Yoyo for the 21st century. The fact that it stars Karl Urban is just icing on the cake...

   
• Dracula. It's Carnivale meets Downton Abbey... LITERALLY... as two of the people responsible for those shows team up for this ten-part series based on everybody's favorite blood-sucker. If nothing else, it looks to have really nice production values, so I'll be tuning in...

   
• Intelligence. Former Lost heartthrob Josh Holloway stars as some kind of secret agent with a microchip in his head that lets him access the internet and know anything. I'm guessing this is supposed to be a retread of Chuck with a less whiny character? I dunno, but the whole "Six Million Dollar Man for the Information Age" angle has me intrigued, so I'll give it a shot...

   
That's five. There will be more to follow, I'm sure. But if the rest of the up-fronts being touted are any indication, it's probably not going to be very much more.

I mean, Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar starring as a father/daughter team in a new show by David E. Kelley? Seriously? And here I thought that Michael J. Fox poking fun at his Parkinson's disease in his new series was over the top. And then there's John frickin' Malkovich playing a modern-day pirate, which looks utterly bizarre. But, hey, at least these are original shows. Most everything else is either a remake of a foreign series, or a copy of what's come before...

Heroes is reborn as The Tomorrow People?
Twin Peaks is ripped off for Wayward Pines?
Roswell is transformed into Star-Crossed?
About a Boy reincarnated as a television series?
Blair Underwood takes on Raymond Burr's Ironside?

It just goes on and on. But hopefully the majority of it won't be as gut-wrenchingly horrible as this shit...

Ye gads. Kind of makes me want to swear off television forever.