Happiest of New Years to you!

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, I'm pretty boring because I have the exact same New Year's resolutions every year. The same five goals going on for heaven only knows how long. This year is no different, so here we go...

• Try a Pop-Tart flavor I've never had before. DONE! Frosted Sugar-Cookie and Brown Sugar Cinnamon (I don't think it's new... but I had never tried it before).
• Travel somewhere I've never been before. DONE! I was too buried in work to do much personal travel this year, but still made it to Whittier and Prince William Sound in Alaska, a place I've long wanted to visit for glacier-watching.
• Visit a Hard Rock Cafe I haven't seen before. DONE! Added the new cafe in Memphis, the new casino in Vancouver, the new hotel in Lake Tahoe, and the new cafe in Anchorage to my checklist.
• Drink a beer I've never drank before. DONE! My favorite new beer I tried last year was Alaskan Brewing Company's Polar White.
• Get another Apple product. DONE! In addition to a fourth-generation AppleTV, I also got a beautiful iMac 5K Retina Display for work.

I'm not sure what 2016 holds for me. Some pretty big changes are happening in my life, so I may need to focus on things other than Pop Tarts, Travel, Hard Rocks, Beer, and Apple stuff. Or maybe I need to focus more on them? I dunno. New challenges await!

Just in time to start your New Year right, there's a brand-spanking-new (and FREE!) issue of Thrice Fiction out today!

As usual, I'll be discussing the artwork that went into our latest issue. This may or may not include spoilers for the stories, so I urge you to please read it before proceeding. Okay? Okay!

This issue was a bit strange for the way it came together so very quickly... and then proceeded to fall apart with equal rapidity.

And throughout the entire ordeal of trying to get our latest issue out the door before the end of December, I kept thinking what an incredible honor it is for writers to trust us with their works... and how mind-bogglingly easy it would be to drop the ball and have have that trust be misplaced. Which is why every time we run into a new problem, I keep saying to myself "Better late than crappy!" and that somehow gets me through.

The biggest challenge I faced was my grandmother's sudden illness and eventual passing. Time spent with her became more precious to me than anything else on earth, including everyone's favorite fiction magazine. A big part of who I am was formed by her example, and dedicating Issue No. 15 to her memory seems only fitting as I... and by extension the magazine... wouldn't be here without her.

Alrighty then.

One of the last problems to face me was also the biggest... what to do about the cover. I had lined up an artist which I had been trying to work with for over a year now, but things fell apart at zero hour. Looking back at the last several covers of our past issues, they all had a "cold" look to them, so I was trying to come up with a "warm" color idea to break things up. That's when I remembered a beautiful "fiery" piece that frequent contributor Chad Roseburg had shown to me. I didn't know if he'd be willing to let me butcher it with a new crop for the cover, but it didn't hurt to ask. Lucky for all of us, he was happy to let me use it, and this was the amazing result...

Chad says "That painting was one of those combinations of pure luck and a tight deadline. I never paint as confidently and fluidly as this painting might suggest. Usually I over-think and over-paint." Which sounds like a stressful process, but you can't argue with the results! The left half of the piece was cut off, which was a truly interesting bit, so I placed it opposite RW's notes for the issue...

And now, for a look at the first half of the art included in this issue, read onward in an extended entry...

A new year, 52 new opportunities for bullets, because Bullet Sunday on Monday starts... now...

   
• STRANGE! As a huge, huge, massively huge devotee of the Marvel Studios films, I'm ecstatic that The Powers The Be are finally getting around to exploring the mystical, magical side of the Marvel Universe. I've long been a fan of Doctor Strange, and everything we've been teased with shows that they're doing it right. Starting with the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch...

Will be very interested to see how they integrate magic into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's going to be a delicate line to walk.

   
• ARETHA! Watching Carole King's reaction is almost as entertaining as watching Aretha Franklin flawlessly belt out her song at age 73. Almost.

Talent like that don't come along every day.

   
• WEESA GONNA DIIIIE! I loathe the Star Wars prequels with the burning hatred of a thousand suns. And then there's this...

Not that it would make me hate Jar Jar Binks any less, but it would certainly make me feel better about his presence in those shitty films.

   
• Grapes! "I sold Star Wars to white slavers?" Really? Sour grapes are sour. Geroge Lucas is just pissed that people loathe his shitty prequel movies with a passion reserved for explosive diarrhea while JJ Abrams unleashed the Star Wars film everybody wanted. The Force Awakens is on target to becoming the most successful movie in the history of the universe, and that's gotta hurt. Though I'm sure the billions of dollars Lucas got for selling off Lucasfilm to the "White Slavers" at Disney is some small consolation. Time to go count your money and shut the fuck up, George.

   
• ZONE! I'm the mayor of The Friend Zone...

It's funny because it's true.

   
Thanks, internet, I needed that.

Welcome to the first installment of Things I Bought Week, showcasing stuff that I recently purchased and what I think of what I got for my hard earned money!

First up? The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens...

   
I liked The Force Awakens okay, and will review the film in another couple weeks (once I'm sure most of the people who want to see it have seen it). If you are one of the billions of people who has already seen the film and also enjoyed it, the Art Of... book is worth a look.

Like all of these type books, it's a compilation of a shit-ton of pre-production art that was used when developing the look of the movie. What makes this one a little different is that it's not organized into sections (locations, characters, props, vehicles, etc.) but is instead presented chronologically. This is very cool in the case of Force Awakens, where the story, concepts, and characters changed quite a lot as the movie what coming together. Seeing how things evolved in relations to each other is fascinating, and it's interesting to learn how changes in one part of the film influenced changes in another.

A lot of times, these books are only as good as the talented people creating the art and, since this is Lucasfilm, you're getting a great many people who are the absolute best in the industry being showcased. This would all be all for nothing if the images of their work were cut down to tiny sizes, but a lot of the time it's occupying full pages... and double-page spreads. And since the book is a nice size, you really get a good look at the painstaking detail that went into every piece.

Overall, this is a beautiful book with a lot of interesting information about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If you're a fan of the film... or just a fan of the Star Wars universe in general, this is pretty much essential reading.

RATING: A • DAVE APPROVED • Currently selling for $24 at Amazon.

Welcome to the second installment of Things I Bought Week, showcasing stuff that I recently purchased and what I think of what I got for my hard earned money!

What did I buy this time? The Ring WiFi Doorbell

Call me anti-social, but there's two things I really don't like... 1) Talking to people on the phone, and 2) Having uninvited visitors drop by my home. And when the person calling or dropping by is a salesman or political organization or somebody wanting me to convert religions? That's even more annoying.

When it comes to the phone, I just don't answer it when the caller ID is somebody I don't want to talk to or the identity is blocked. But what can you do when it's somebody ringing your doorbell? My door has a glass panel on it... it's not like I can sneak up and see who's disturbing my peace.

Enter Ring.

Ring is a "smart" doorbell with a camera, a microphone/speaker, and a motion sensor... all wrapped up in a package that's connected to the internet.

This means that you can get an alert on your phone when somebody approaches your door... see who it is... then talk to them to find out what in the hell they want. And you can do that whether you're in your living room... or around the world. Couple Ring with a connected door lock, and you can also let them in your home if you want...

The main reason I got Ring was because of UPS deliveries. They say your package is out for delivery and will be delivered by 5:30 so you wait until 6:00 just to be safe... then leave because you've got better things to do than wait for a package that never showed up... only to have it ultimately be delivered at 6:45 when you're not there. And then you've got a package sitting on your doorstep that could get stolen before you even realize it's been dropped off. With Ring I can be alerted when UPS approaches the door, see that they've rand my doorbell and run off, and know that I've got to run home and get it before somebody steals it. Neat, huh?

And, for that purpose, Ring works exactly as advertised.

Where you run into problems is when you want to interact with somebody. I called a neighbor and asked them to go ring my doorbell so I could see what happens when somebody presses it. Since I had motion detection enabled, I knew they were approaching before they even pressed the doorbell, then received another alert once they did. Problem was that the alerts were not instantaneous like it is with my INSTEON and Nest devices. The first time I was playing around with Ring, the delay was so long that I wondered if I had set it up wrong. My worry is that somebody will ring your doorbell then leave before you are alerted they were there. Subsequent tests were a mixed bag. Many times it was pretty quick... other times it was a bit slower. I don't know if it's the doorbell, my internet, or Ring's messaging service that's the problem, but it could be problematic if you have an impatient caller. Not a deal-breaker for me, but something to be aware of.

And now for a run-down...

Camera: When it comes to optics, Ring isn't bad at all. The 180° wide-angle lens gives you a clear view of everything happening around it in 720p resolution (1280 x 720). Even better, it has night vision so you can see in the dark. For $30 a year, any video your Ring captures is stored in the cloud. This way if somebody steals your UPS delivery off your doorstep, you can retrieve a video for the police. Ironically, this also allows you to have footage of somebody stealing your Ring, in which case they mail you a replacement for free. One pitfall that surprised me is that you can't access the camera whenever you want just to take a look outside your door. In order to see what's going on, Ring has to detect motion or sense a press of the doorbell button before the camera activates. I guess this is to save battery, but it seems a no-brainer of a feature to have, and should be up to the purchaser what's a good use of battery power.

Microphone/Speaker: Works pretty much as you'd expect for a Voice Over Internet application. I was able to hear them. They were able to hear me. They advertise "active noise cancellation," but I didn't have any noise going on to test that.

Motion Detector: Surprisingly sensitive. My doorbell is off to the side (not facing the street), yet it was still alerting me to cars driving by. Fortunately, you can reign in the sensitivity and choose which areas to monitor, so this isn't a problem at all. As mentioned above, the only issue I've run across is that there can be a bit of a delay between when motion is detected and I get an alert.

Cloud: As mentinoed, Ring records video every time it detects motion or somebody presses the doorbell button. This video is then uploaded to the cloud as it's shot so you can retrieve it from your phone whenever you want. I believe I read somewhere that they store 6 months of footage. You get a 30 day free trial with purchase, then have to pay $3 a month or $30 a year to keep using it. A small price to pay given how handy it can be to have access to your video events.

Power: Ring has batteries inside of it that can be charged over USB. This means you can stick your Ring wherever you want. Unfortunately, you have to remove the unit from your house and let it charge overnight every time it runs out. According to Ring (the company) the battery can last up to a year. Reviewers were saying it was a lot less, depending on how much activity your doorbell experiences. This wasn't an issue for me, however, as I used the power from the wiring of my old doorbell to power my Ring.

Installation: Attaching it to my home wasn't a big deal (drill bit, screws*, and screwdriver included!), and setting up the device with my iPhone was fairly painless. If you get stuck, there are step-by-step videos available for everything.

Doorbell: As expected, Ring passes a signal to your doorbell chime when somebody presses it. If you don't have a chime, you can purchase a WiFi chime that plugs into an outlet and connects with Ring to give you one.

   
And that's pretty much it. Except to say that it comes with a 1-year warranty.

Ring has solved a problem I knew I had... solved other problems I didn't know I had ... and increased the security of my home. If I could rely on the notification delivery speed and had the ability to view a live feed from the camera whenever I wanted, this would be a solid "A" product.

RATING: B+ • DAVE APPROVED • Currently selling for $199 at Amazon.

   
* Helpful hint... the screws they give you are shit. Very soft metal that broke on three of the four screws when I attempted to drive them into the siding of my home... AFTER I HAD DRILLED PILOT HOLES! Do yourself a favor and pick up some good-quality wood screws when you pick up your Ring so you don't have to make another trip to Home Depot like I did.

Welcome to the third installment of Things I Bought Week, showcasing stuff that I recently purchased and what I think of what I got for my hard earned money!

What did I buy this time? Energy 5.1 Take Classic Home Theater System Speakers.

When watching movies at home, there's really no substitute for a good set of surround sound speakers. Without them, everything is forced into two channels (left and right) which means all the dialogue, audio effects, ambient noise, and other sounds are fighting each other as they travel to your ears. This results in you having to turn the volume up and down and up and down as you try to hear what people are saying in quiet moments, but don't want to have the volume blow you out of your chair the minute something loud happens.

As that weren't bad enough, when you have only two speakers... whether they be in your television or outside of it... the sound is blasting towards you in one direction rather than being the immersive experience it was designed to be.

Enter surround sound.

A typical 5.1 Surround Sound speaker setup works like this...

CENTER CHANNEL: This is where all the main spoken dialogue comes from. Sound engineers separate out people talking because (in most cases) it's the most critical audio in the film, and they want to be sure it's not trampled over by other sounds in the scene. It's critical that the center speaker be put as close to your television as possible so that voices seem to be coming from the mouths of the people speaking it.

LEFT & RIGHT FRONT CHANNEL: Most everything happening in the camera that's not dialogue (plus all sounds recorded to the sides of the camera's view) comes from these speakers. If you watch a car zoom past the screen from left to right, the sound should start in the left speaker, then travel to the right speaker.

SUBWOOFER: That deep, rumbling bass that accompanies sounds from explosions, thunder, and other massive-volume audio is supposed to be something you feel when you hear it. A subwoofer is built to do just that. And since low frequencies like this are non-directional, you can put the subwoofer anywhere you like... though placement next to objects can affect the sound, so it's always good to experiment when choosing a spot.

There's also 7.1 Surround Sound, which adds two additional channels to the rear of the room to further distinguish audio cues that are placed behind you. It's nice if you've got the space for it, but not essential if you don't. Other sound setups which add additional channels for high sounds and side sounds are also out there, but you need a pretty high-end room with space to spare in order to best make use of them.

As if all that weren't enough, companies have developed even more sophisticated sound technologies (such as Dolby Atmos) which do away with the channel model altogether and have the ability to create spatial sounds within a matrix of specially-designed speakers in a 5.1.4 or 7.1.4 configuration (definitely a topic for another time).

Anyway...

This surround sound stuff is all well and good... but if you have a smaller room (like I do), where are you going to fit all those speakers? Using typical stereo speakers would not only be overkill in my 11-1/2' square living room... but they would take up a considerable chunk of space. Smaller speakers that are worth a crap tend to be very, very expensive... so what to do?

Enter Energy 5.1 Take Classic Home Theater System Speakers. Small speakers engineered to have big sound for smaller spaces at a great price.

And boy howdy are they nice.

After I took the time to get everything balanced and optimized the levels on my amp, I'm getting pretty remarkable sound out of these babies. All five speakers are the same size (despite the center channel having a different enclosure) and provide clear, crisp sound that's perfect for a terrific surround experience. The subwoofer has really good low-frequency response and pushes bass you can feel with minimal distortion.

Surprisingly powerful for their size, the Energy speakers have no problem filling my small room, and can even fill my entire home at higher volumes. I bought this set to replace my faithful Pioneer speakers that I've had for decades after I decided they were just too big for the space available. Even though they are a tiny fraction of the size, I honestly don't feel I've sacrificed anything. If anything, I've gained quality by going from stereo to 5.1 surround.

The speakers come with a screw-hook mount to hang them against a wall, but it's really recommended that you buy speaker stands so they can breath a bit (I like the Atlantic Satellite stands). The plugs are nice enough... don't know that they're gold at this price, but they do have pop-outs if you use banana plugs like I do. I wish they weren't angled weird and were a little more spaced apart so my stand brackets weren't so tight between them, but these aren't deal-breakers.

If I have a complaint it wouldn't be anything related to the sound... but the look. The speakers are enclosed in high-gloss black cases that attract dust like a magnet and show every smudge and fingerprint. It's really tough to keep them looking their best, and I really wish there was a textured matte option for people who don't want to dust their speakers every day.

Overall, a good set of speakers for a home theater system that will also do a decent job with music if space is at a premium. Fairly priced too.

RATING: B+ • DAVE APPROVED • Currently selling for $316 at Amazon.

Welcome to the fourth installment of Things I Bought Week, showcasing stuff that I recently purchased and what I think of what I got for my hard earned money!

What did I buy this time? The Hunter 1.2 gal. Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier

I needed a new humidifier. I wanted one that didn't use heat and had a large water reservoir. I saw this one at Home Depot for a reasonable $30 and bought two of them.

It's a hard-working, easy to maintain product and does a good job of adding moisture to the air. I'd rate it an "A" if not for one thing... IT'S A HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS TO FILL BECAUSE THE THREADS ON THE SCREW FOR THE CAP ON THE RESERVOIR ARE JACKED UP FOR NO GOOD REASON...

WHY DO THIS?!? Every other humidifier I've used knows how to thread a screw...

Sometime the cap for the Hunter unit goes on easy. Other times it takes try after try after try to get it to screw the cap on. AND IT DRIVES ME FRICKIN' INSANE!!! There's been more than one occasion when I've very nearly grabbed a hammer and beat the shit out of this stupid, stupid design.

If you don't mind having to fight a fucking screw cap every time you fill the damn thing, this could be the humidifier for you. It's cheap and works well.

But I would never purchase another one of these.

RATING: D+ • Currently selling for $30 at Home Depot.

Welcome to the fifth installment of Things I Bought Week, showcasing stuff that I recently purchased and what I think of what I got for my hard earned money!

What did I buy this time? The Denon AVR-S910W Dolby 7.2 Channel 4K Receiver.

I loathe having to buy new stereo equipment.

But receivers are handling a heck of a lot more than just audio now-a-days... receivers are the hub for both audio and video. So whenever video standards change, your equipment has to change with it. When we went from RCA jack video to composite video and optical sound? New receiver. When we got S-Video? New receiver. When we went to HDMI? New receiver. And now that HDMI has been improved with a new version 2 at 4K and shitty fucking copy protection has been unimproved with HDCP 2.2? New receiver.

I mean, sure, you can always use old inputs on an old receiver... I've been doing that for years and living with the lower quality picture... but it's time to upgrade.

I've been a huge fan of Pioneer equipment over the years, but they don't seem to be pushing the envelope now-a-days. My next favorite brand is Sony, but it was a more expensive option for what I wanted. So I spent days researching which receivers were getting good marks now-a-days and settled on Denon. The have a number of different models, but the AVR-S910W was on sale for a great price and did more than I needed, so here we are.

Aesthetically, the unit could easily be confused with dozens of other receivers since they're all looking the same now-a-days... though this line seems to be a bit more minimalistic, which I like. It has a fraction of the buttons of the old Pioneer it's replacing. Since most HDMI electronics can talk to each other via CEC (Consumer Electronic Control), you rarely need to press anything anyway. Turn on your AppleTV and CEC switches the receiver for you. It's mostly automatic and entirely awesome. What's crazy, however, is that the buttons you most need for non-HDMI devices (because they can't be automatically controlled) ARE MISSING. Want to switch the audio source to Bluetooth so you can play music off your iPhone? Hope you have the remote handy, because there's no button for that on the receiver itself.

And speaking of the remote... it's yet another button nightmare where you have to go hunting for what you want. Which sucks to be sure (why is it only Apple can minimize crap on remotes?) but it is fairly well organized, so there's that.

In addition to the afore-mentioned HDMI 2.0a and HDCP 2.2 compliance on all 8 of its HDMI ports (nice!), the 910 can also handle the forthcoming HDR picture spec and upscale signal from your old video equipment to full 4K. It's this last feature that sold me on the 910 over the cheaper 710, as I have old 8mm decks that will benefit from the upscaling technology. Since the 910 has an $80 instant rebate in effect, the price difference was $0, which is money well-spent.

For gamers out there worried about video processing lag, I couldn't detect any. But, then again, I'm playing everything on a Wii U now-a-days, which isn't quite so demanding compared to next-gen consoles by Sony and Microsoft. I'm assuming it won't be a problem, as the 910 has plenty of processing power to get the job done.

But enough about the video... what's going on with the audio?

Since I prefer to listen to music in headphones, the primary function of my new Denon receiver will be for home theater surround sound. Support for 7.1 surround is a given, but the unit can also handle new 3D spatial sound technology like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X... which seems a cool idea, but there's nothing really available in the consumer space encoded with those technologies yet and it requires adding more speakers than I want in my small living room. Still... nice for future-proofing the unit, I suppose. Surprisingly, you can run two subwoofers off this receiver, which I didn't even know was a thing. Since low frequencies are non-directional, I thought this was a one-and-done, but apparently two subwoofers provide a richer bass experience.

The sound itself seems very good. I'm no audiophile, but everything I've listened to is well-defined and separated out perfectly on my speaker system. Since my setup is small and fairly undemanding, the 910 is massive overkill in the power department, but it's nice to know I've got the ability to run some serious speakers at 185w per channel if I ever need to.

Denon has its own proprietary system for wireless speakers called "HEOS" which is meant to be direct competition with SONOS. If I could afford a wireless speaker system, I'd bypass HEOS because it has to share your WiFi network instead of creating a separate mesh network like SONOS does. This is a serious deal breaker, because most WiFi networks are close to saturated given all the crap we keep connected to the internet in these modern times. So while HEOS support is nice, I supposed, I have a feeling most people won't bother with it.

If you sacrifice 2 channels from a 7.1 system and can live with a 5.1 surround setup, you can repurpose those two channels as a different speaker "zone" which can be placed in another room and play from a completely different audio source. I honestly think this is kind of silly, but I guess there are some scenarios where it might be useful.

Like most receivers today, the Denon has built-in Bluetooth and WiFi for live streaming. It has support for Pandora, Spotify and Sirius XM on-deck, and can also interface with Apple Airplay-enabled devices like iPhones, iPads, and Macs. There's also support for internet radio, but the "stations" are kind of clubky to access, so I probably wouldn't. Thanks to Denon's apps for mobile devices, you can control the receiver with your iOS and Android devices. It seem capable, but also overly complex and cluttered. Still, it does easily allow you to control functions and tie into media servers as sources fairly easily, so worth the free-fitty-free pricetag.

When it comes to set-up, the AVR-S910W is dead-simple. You can use your iPhone to grab all the WiFi settings via Airplay which is super-sweet (no WiFi? Ethernet is also available). Then it's just a matter of following the on-screen instructions displayed on your TV to match your speaker setup. Thanks to the Audyssey Bronze calibration system being built-in, you can optimize your levels with ease. Just place the included microphone on a tripod in the middle of the room and the 910 will play tones to measure your speakers. The system them creates a custom profile based on room acoustics to give you optimal sound at every volume level. I know this reeks of silly gadgetry that usually ends up being useless... but can honestly say I noticed an immediate quality improvement after running through the Audyssey program. Pretty cool.

The on-screen user interface is serviceable enough, but kind of pathetic by today's standards. Mostly a bunch of text staring at you, it looks badly dated. Why Denon would invest money in all the latest bells and whistles only to choose to saddle it with a 1990's wrapper is more than a little inexplicable.

Something I've never seen before is Denon's "Eco Mode" which attempts to save electricity by restricting power to each channel based on the volume you've set. I notice no difference on my tiny speakers with Eco Mode on, so I've just left it there.

If there's a flaw to be found with the AVR-S910W, it's this... THERE IS NO SWITCHED POWER OUTLET ON THE BACK! Which means your subwoofer gets to be powered on all the time unless you want to get up, walk across the room, and manually cycle the power off when you aren't using it. Which begs the question... WHO FUCKING DOES THIS?!? Seriously, what idiotic excuse could they have for leaving off a switched outlet for your subwoofer from the feature list? Every fucking receiver I've ever owned has had a switched power outlet until now. It's senseless bullshit like this that takes great products and sabotages them utterly. This is such a moronic oversight that I am compelled to drop a grade from my score even though the unit is otherwise perfect. I just naturally assumed I'd have my outlet and was dumbfounded when I went to plug in my subwoofer and saw there wasn't one. Somebody at Denon needs to pull their head out of their ass on this one, because it makes the company look like complete idiots. Had I known about this inexcusable flaw, I don't know if I would have purchased it. But probably. There's just so many great things about it compared to the competition in this price range.

RATING: B • RELUCTANTLY DAVE APPROVED • Currently selling for $479 at Amazon.

Your cold, boring January day is about to get better, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• AUTOMANIMAL! If you're a child of the 80's like I am, you're a massive fan of Glen A. Larson's two epic masterpieces of cheesy television perfection... Automan and Manimal... NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD!

Really cool that these shows are available again. Something tells me that they won't hold up... but that just makes them all the more perfect.

   
• CLOSED! Macy's has announced that they're closing 40 stores. Our local Macy's isn't on the "close" list... thankfully... but there's two Macy's on the list I'll be sad to have go. Downtown Spokane, which has been open since 1947 (94 people losing their jobs) and Downtown Pittsburgh, which has been open since 1946 (170 people losing their jobs). Shopped at both of them. The Spokane location had an amazing men's department... the Pittsburgh location had a great sports shop... and I will miss them both.

   
• COLBERT! While I am not a fan of the music that Jon Batiste and Stay Human blast through commercial breaks over at The Late Show, their opening credits song is probably my favorite late-night theme ever. Melodic, playful... beautiful, really... it fit the tone of the show perfectly. As if that wasn't awesome enough, the opening credit visuals by Fernando Livschitz are amazing. Lucky for us, they released a "director's cut" with tons more footage for our viewing pleasure...

Wonderful.

   
• JUSTICE? Well isn't that cute. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is overruling the Supreme Court. Um... yeah... me no think that works like you think it works. How small of a penis do you have to have in order to be waving your gavel around with this kind of delusion of grandeur? I mean, clearly he's compensating for SOMETHING. I dunno. Maybe he's scared to death that marriage equality will be too tempting and he's going to end up marrying the pool boy? The mind boggles.

   
• POOL! I have to say... this is looking very faithful to the comics...

In many ways, I'm glad that Deadpool is not a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is stuck over at 20th Century Fox. That way he gets to be his insane self in a contained environment.

   
Annnnd... time to go play in the snow.

A very sad goodbye to one of my favorite musical artists...

David Bowie's album Let's Dance was an amazing pop reinvention that I've played to death...

But my favorite Bowie is from his work on the film Labyrinth in which he managed to turn in incredible performances for both acting and music... including the song As The World Falls Down, which is about as good as it gets...

So many amazing works. You will be very much missed.

Virginia Delegate Mark Cole has filed legislation which requires schools to be certain that kids are using the bathroom which corresponds to their "correct anatomical sex."

Sounds legit...

...IF YOU'RE A CHILD-MOLESTING PERVERT!

I can only guess that Mark Cole will also be volunteering at schools to take a look at a child's genitals before allowing them to enter a restroom? What a disgusting piece of work.

Note to dumbass politicians... we all know that there is some fucked up shit going on in your bathrooms... which is why you're always getting caught there with prostitutes or doing cocaine or soliciting for a blow job or whatever... but you can't apply your personal shit to the general populace. Most normal people go to the bathroom TO GO TO THE FUCKING BATHROOM. It doesn't mater what their sex or how they identify, they don't equate going to the bathroom with anything sexual... they just want to piss or take a shit, (hopefully) wash their hands, then trip the fuck out the door. Which means the only perverted person in this scenario is PEOPLE LIKE DELEGATE MARK COLE.

You know what law I want to see on the books? A law banning these fucking idiots from using public restrooms. Their obsession over what's between my legs is bordering on psychotic, and I don't feel comfortable being trapped in closed quarters with transphobic, homophobic, bigoted assholes who are more interested in my junk than TAKING CARE OF ACTUAL FUCKING PROBLEMS!

Just when you think we're making progress, there's always some troglodyte crawling out of the ooze to be a dick.

I'm not a big fan of Adele's music... but I am a seriously huge fan of Adele herself.

Every time she appears on a talk show or gets interviewed, she's so genuinely charming, funny, smart, beautiful, and down-to-earth that you can't help but love her.

And now she's joined James Cordon for an episode of Carpool Karaoke, and it's everything you could ever want...

I really liked her James Bond theme, Skyfall... and there's some tracks on her new album that I do enjoy... so maybe I'm finally coming around to becoming an Adele fan?

Maybe.

And so one of my favorite actors has died. And so soon after one of my favorite musicians.

Alan Rickman is probably best known for his role of Professor Snape in the Harry Potter movies... or for his awesome performance as Hans Gruber in the original Die Hard... but there are three roles which I will forever associate with him that, in my mind, defined his genius...

Metatron from Dogma.
It only makes sense that Kevin Smith would cast Rickman and his golden voice to play The Voice of God in Dogma. As the angel Metatron, Rickman was at his snarky, sarcastic best, and most all of the reasons I like the film are because he's in it...

   
Marvin (voice) from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Like anybody else could have given life to the terminally depressed robot, Marvin. The movie adaptation of one of my favorite books of all time wasn't all I was hoping for, but one thing is for sure... Rickman did not disappoint...

   
Alexander Dane as Dr. Lazarus from Galaxy Quest
By a wide, wide margin, my favorite Alan Rickman role is his brilliantly hilarious turn as classically-trained actor Alexander Dane who has to endure life inhabiting his most famous part... Dr. Lazarus from the cheesy television series Galaxy Quest. The level of disdain and self-loathing that Rickman has to generate for this character is beyond what any other actor could dream of achieving. And yet, he has to dig even deeper than that for one of the most touching scenes ever found in a science fiction or comedy film...

You can't watch Galaxy Quest and not become a huge Alan Rickman fan...

Truly, he will be missed.

And now I'm off to watch Galaxy Quest for the hundredth time.

Huh.

I like to think that I'm pretty well informed as to what's coming down the animation pipeline, but this trailer for Anomalisa came out of nowhere.

And it looks amazing...

Something new to look forward to!

Huh.

I really had no plans to vote Bernie Sanders into The White House, but this is such a compelling argument as to why I should that I may just have to reconsider...

   
Bill O'Reilly gone? Will he take his dipshit show to Ireland with him?

Yeah, that's totally worth becoming a socialist.

Don't shovel that driveway just yet, because Bullet Sunday on Monday starts... now...

   
• ALIAS! Much to my relief, Marvel's Jessica Jones is getting a second season on Netflix. The show is more than a little groundbreaking in the superhero genre, and it will be very interesting to see where the showrunners go with such a fascinating and multi-faceted character. And dare we hope to see Patsy Walker, Hellcat next time around?

   
• ISTANBUL! Kindness to animals is such a noble virtue. I love stories like this...

Cats are a revered animal in Islam, and strays are everywhere in Istanbul, so it's nice to see some of them get shelter from the cold...

Awwwww.

   
• AXE! Finally. A commercial for the rest of us...

Though drenching myself in Axe is not something I see in my immediate future.

   
• X! Ha! Jimmy Kimmel had a flawless parody of the upcoming The X-Files revival...

Reeeally looking forward to The X-Files when it returns at long last on next Sunday!

   
• Betty! But before I go... a very happy birthday to Better White!

Still amazing at 94 years old!

   
Annnnnd... I'm empty.

Turns out MadTV had a handle on the current state of the Republican Party all along.

Not bad for a show airing twenty years ago...

   
Preach it, sister!

And, seriously, this wasn't written as parody yesterday... it's from nearly twenty years ago...

Darlene McBride really needs to come out of retirement.

Of course, we've already got Mike Huckabee, so she's almost redundant... but still...

Nobody wants DC to succeed with their movie efforts more than I do. I love superheroes. I really love superhero films. And it would be great if DC could churn out movies for their characters that are on-par with the amazing stuff that Marvel's been doing.

But their record has been utter shit. With the exception of the Nolan Bat-films, there's been too much terrible lately. Green Lantern was gut-wrenchingly awful. Man of Steel was one of the worst comic book films I've ever seen... and I'm including turds like Jonah Hex and Catwoman (also DC character films, by the way). For whatever reason, DC just can't seem to get their shit together. Even though they've got some fantastic characters to play with.

And then there's Suicide Squad. Which finally got a full trailer. And it looks like total shit...

Ugh.

And don't even get me started on what they've done to The Joker.

I'm not a huge fan of Adele's music, but changed my mind when I ended up really liking her James Bond theme for Skyfall. Then she released her latest album with the amazing single Hello and I began thinking I was on my way towards becoming an Adele fan.

And now comes this reggae version of the track by Rosie Delmah and Conkarah...

Pretty great.

Okay then. Done!

More of Reza Farazmand's amazing toons can be found over at Poorly Drawn Lines.

Ooh!

New Pet Shop Boys in April!

It's pretty amazing how quick the albumas have been coming...

• Yes - 2009
• Elysium - 2012
• Electric - 2013
• Super - 2016

That's four albums in eight years. Super!

You haven't struck gold... but you're getting the next best thing, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Boss! One of the funniest things to come out of Saturday Night Live in a while was Undercover Boss: Kylo Ren with Adam Driver reprising his role from Star Wars: The Force Awakens...

And now they've released some behind the scenes clips...

   
• Vax? So this is what it takes.

   
• J-Law! I'm obsessed with Jennifer Lawrence... and her appearance on Graham Norton takes it up a notch...

   
• GHOST! BUSTERS! LEGO Dimensions is the gift that keeps on giving... thanks to new Level Pack releases that take the game in entirely new directions. The latest? Ghostbusters!...

Looks epic. Can't wait until I have time to play it.

   
• Blake! Nothing quite like "discovering" a new song you like... eight years after it was released...

Apparently Blake Lewis was an American Idol winner. Since I don't watch that show, I never knew he existed until my Amazon Echo played one of his songs a couple days ago.

   
And... that's a wrap.

Blogography may be on strike, but your day isn't ruined, because Banana Sunday starts... now...

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
Hope that was as good for you as it was for me.

Blogography may still be on strike, but all is not lost, because Banana Sunday starts... now...

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
• Banana!

   
Wasn't that a-peel-ing?

Blogography has been a frequent target of hackers, which has left me little choice but to lock it down as tightly as I possibly can. Part of the security I have set up is that the back-end can only be accessed from a specific IP address. Problem is that my new place does not yet have its static IP set up properly, so I stack up a week's worth of posts, unlock the system, post everything very quickly, then lock everything back down again.

Hopefully by the end of the month my old IP will be set up at my new installation and everything will be good again.

Until then...

Mattress shopping has to be the worst shopping there is.

The last time I bought a mattress was in the late 80's. I visited a showroom, flopped down on every mattress in the place, and still couldn't decide what I wanted. All I knew is that I didn't care how much money the perfect mattress cost me, because getting a good night's sleep is worth just about any price. If $1200 got me a better night's rest than the $400 I had budgeted, then so be it ($400 is $835 in today's dollars, so you can tell I was serious about getting a good mattress).

Ultimately, I decided to get a Spring Air mattress that clocked in at what I think was $650 (around $1350 in today's dollars)... the deciding factor being that a cut-out of Vanna White was endorsing it. Because, hey, if you can't trust Vanna White, who can you trust?

It was a horrible purchase.

Thanks a lot, Vanna."

The mattress was sagging noticeably within a year. After two years, I had to fold an old comforter and prop up the middle of the mattress so I'd have a level sleeping surface. Needless to say, I was beyond perturbed to have blown past my budget for a premium product only to get something that was pretty shitty.

And I suffered with it for 25 years even though I knew mattresses should be replaced after 10 years because the thought of investing another chunk of money in something that's going to fail me was more than I could stand.

But then something changed.

New mattress manufacturers popped up that cut out the middle-man... selling direct to consumers without the heinous markup that is involved when you go to a furniture store or a showroom.

The first one I became aware of was Tuft and Needle. A queen-size mattress out of premium memory foam was just $600, and thee product was getting rave reviews. I was going to order one, but decided to wait until I could see one in person. Since their showroom is in Phoenix, I ended up visiting a friend in Seattle who had one back in 2014. And it was a darn fine mattress. The only issue I had, as a side-sleeper, is that it felt a bit too firm. So I hemmed and hawed, then forgot about it.

Then after Christmas last year, I was so done with my sagging, crappy mattress that I decided to pull the trigger... only to find that a bunch of competition had arrived. In addition to Tuft and Needle, there was Casper, Loom & Leaf, YogaBed, and others... all selling direct at good prices. Another such company was Leesa, which I ended up ordering sight-unseen because review after review said it was softer than a Tuft and Needle, which was my biggest concern...

It's a great mattress, though I don't think it's considerably softer than Tuft and Needle.

That being said, it is very comfortable, and the quality is high. The cover alone is a work of art... it looks like a single piece of fabric, which means there's not a lot of seams to rip open. The mattress is composed of a 2" layer of Avena foam on top to keep you cool (as memory foam tends to retain heat and sleep hot). Under that there's 2" of memory foam followed by 6" of dense foam for support. I don't know if the foam is dense enough to sit on top of a wire-mesh platform bed like mine... so I put a layer of cardboard under it... but it definitely doesn't feel like it's lacking support, so there's that. And I have yet to overheat on the thing, which is everything (I can't sleep when overheated).

After a month of sleeping on Leesa, I don't know that I'm quite used to it yet. When I lay on my back or front, it's absolutely perfect. But when I lay on my side, which is how I usually sleep, I feel like I get "stuck" in positions that are a little uncomfortable... especially on my hips. I don't know if that's because I'm not heavy enough to sink into the mattress as I should or what, but it can be annoying. The good thing is that this is an issue that feels like it's disappearing the more nights I use it. I certainly seem to be able to get more comfortable faster now than at the beginning. Which is probably why Leesa makes you sleep on it for 100 nights before deciding if you want a refund (at which point they have it picked up and donated to a worthy charity). Something tells me that I will be fully transitioned well within the 100 day trial period, so that's a wise move.

Other than this "break-in" bump in the road, I really love the mattress. It's quality from top to bottom, there's no weird smell, it's not so firm that I can't sleep on it, and shipping is included in the (very!) reasonable price.

Which is $890 for a queen.

Except Leesa is having specials going on all the time, often offering $100 off or a gift card or something.

If you can't find a special... or want a better discount than what's offered... you can use the promo code they gave me to get $75 off: http://refer.leesa.com/d8WTt That torpedos the price handily and, if you don't like it after 100 days, you can get your money back. If you're looking for a great mattress at a fair price, Leesa might be worth a try.

It is no secret that I love LEGO Star Wars.

The video games, the TV shows, the building sets, the books... all of it. Given how the absolutely heinous prequel trilogy nearly destroyed all things Star Wars for me, it was the coming of LEGO Star Wars stuff that brought me back from the brink. What LEGO was doing was smart, fun, beautiful, imaginative, and highly entertaining... basically everything that the three shitty prequels were not.

And yesterday I learned that a new cartoon series is coming set in the LEGO Star Wars universe...

The Freemaker Adventures sounds fantastic...

Told in the whimsically-charged style that audiences have come to expect from LEGO Star Wars entertainment, the series stars the Freemakers, a family of scavengers who build and sell starships from the scoured debris of space battles strewn throughout the galaxy. When their youngest discovers a natural connection with the Force through an ancient artifact – the Kyber Saber – his world is turned upside down, and he and his family are thrown into an epic struggle against the Empire to restore peace and freedom to the galaxy. Throughout their adventures, the Freemakers explore new worlds, meet new and familiar characters, and learn the true value of what it means to be a family.

Needless to say, I hope and pray that we'll be getting a video game out of the franchise.

Of course, I'm still waiting for a game adaptation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (which is supposed to be coming in June?), so patient we must be...

In the meanwhile... I finally had a chance to sit down and play LEGO Marvel's Avengers for a while. It's pretty great in all the right ways, despite being another mediocre port to the Wii U (why in the hell Traveler's Tales have been unable to work with the technical limitations of the Wii U when they did such an amazing job with LEGO City Undercover, I have no idea. LEGO Marvel's Avengers certainly has more laugh-out-loud moments than usual, which is great.

And... speaking of LEGO Marvel's Avengers... I should have time to get through another level before bedtime!

Romance is not dead, because a special Valentine's Day Edition of Sunday starts... now...

   
• Valentine's Day 2016...

   
• Valentine's Day 2015...

   
• Valentine's Day 2014...

   
• Valentine's Day 2013...

   
• Valentine's Day 2012...

   
• Valentine's Day 2011...

   
• Valentine's Day 2010...

   
• Valentine's Day 2009...

   
• Valentine's Day 2008...

   
• Valentine's Day 2007...

   
• Valentine's Day 2006...

Valentine's Day 2005...

   
• Valentine's Day 2004...

   
Until next year then...

Yes. Yes indeed...

I probably should have waited until the renovations on my new place were complete before adopting, but there are some things that can't wait.

Say hello to Jenny (orange) and Jake (grey)...

   
They just got out of surgery to be fixed, so they're a little groggy and ruffled (especially poor Jenny... getting spayed is no picnic)... but still totally adorable.

"South Dakota Is The First State To Pass A Transphobic Student Bathroom Bill."

I'm just mortified by this. ALL PEOPLE WANT TO DO IS USE THE DAMN BATHROOM! THE ONLY PEOPLE SEXUALIZING THIS ARE THE PEOPLE PASSING LAWS LIKE THIS!

So yeah... send the trans woman to the men's bathroom where South Dakota rednecks will beat the shit out of her just for wanting to pee. Lovely.

"Jenny, don't smack your brother in the head while he's trying to poop." — About the tenth thing I've said today that I never thought I'd be saying.

Because kittens.

Well, I just made a huge parenting mistake.

Jenny still had her surgery tag collar on and it was so tight that I worried she would get caught on something and hang herself...

Calm Before the Storm.

All attempts at sneaking up on her and cutting it off failed, so this morning I finally grabbed her so I could remove it. Now I'm covered in lacerations (she even bit my nose!) and now they are hiding under the couch terrified. Won't even come out to eat. Probably set back any progress I've made by a week.

But at least I can sleep at night knowing she won't get caught and choke to death.

Ever since Howard introduced me to the magic that is Postiljonen and their stunning debut album, I've been waiting for a followup.

And yesterday was the day.

If you enjoyed Skyer (and why in the hell wouldn't you?) then Reverie will be a welcome addition to your music collection as it's pretty much more of the same...

Filled with lush, gorgeous soundscapes that carry you away to a better place, Reverie is going to be serious competition for my favorite album of 2016...

If you're looking for and escape, here's your album.

Since my new kittehs were feral, they're not quite as social as you'd hope. They are a little accustomed to people and pet living, as they were in foster care until they were old enough to be spayed and neutered. But most of their day is spent hiding under the couch. Any attempt to get too close to them when they venture out results in a (literal) hissy fit. But they're getting better bit by bit, and I can play with them from time to time... so... eventually. I hope.

The one thing for which I'm very grateful is that they arrived potty-trained. They have no trouble at all using their litter boxes. I know this because I have to clean their toxic deposits two to three times a day. I have no idea how such little kittens produce so much poop, but there you have it.

And now for photos.

It's Jenny! Being all adorable and stuff. She is bouncing back from yesterday's "trauma" much faster than her brother... and she was the one it happened to. The vet sure took off a lot of fur when she was spayed. I wonder if it's itchy? Poor thing.

Jake isn't the climber that his sister is... she can get anywhere and climb anything to get there... but he gives it his best shot.

From talking to the foster parents, it seemed as though Jenny would be the meek, reserved kitten and Jake the more rambunctious, adventurous one. It's turning out to be the opposite. Jenny is the one who goes balls-out while Jake kind of lays and waits for her to make the first move. And when it comes to play-fighting, she just loves to pounce on her brother any chance she gets. He is rarely the one to go after her.

Always nice when they are on the couch instead of hiding under it, as usual.

   
And... enough kitties for today. But keep tuning in. Something tells me there might be more photos in the future!

I wish I could get excited for the upcoming Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice movie.

Batman is my favorite super-hero. I've always been a Superman fan. This should be the movie event of 2016.

But it's not.

After the heinous pile of shit that Man of Steel turned out to be, Zack Snyder has made me lose all confidence in his ability to bring super-heroes to the screen.

Even if the trailer is a bit intriguing...

But not necessarily in the right ways?

I dunno.

I'll probably go see it just because I feel I have to.

Hopefully I'll even enjoy it.

Although it doesn't much look like it, I am still posting to my blog daily... I just can't get it there until I've got the whole Wordpress security thing settled with my new IP address.

The fact that it's taking so damn long to get it resolved is probably a sign to just give up, but I'll choose to ignore that.

For now.

Um. Yeah.

I can honestly say there's no movie I'm looking forward to more than this one now that this trailer has dropped in my lap...

Looks epic.

And is totally appealing to my current mindset because: KITTEN!

Once I can access my blog security again, I may have to create a second blog dedicated to my cats' litter box. Jenny took a dump so mind-alteringly horrific that the smell should be declared biological warfare by the U.N. It's a cross between burning tires, raw sewage, and a rotting corpse at low tide. She spent five minutes trying to cover it up, which is the very definition of futility. That smell ain't going anywhere.

Until I shovel it out, then run to the garbage bin as fast as I can.

It's almost enough to make me regret having invited the little monster into my home.

Almost.

In all the articles I read about socializing feral cats, food is always given as the first way to win them over. Once you're associated with food in their tiny brains, they eventually warm up to you.

Unless you're Jenny and Jake, in which case food isn't associated with much of anything except eating.

So I resort to winning them over with the runner up... play.

They seem to forget all about hating humans when you play with them. They'll roll all over my lap and feet np problem... at least until they realize where they are and decide to run under the couch again...

So cute!

   
Bit by bit...

   
Bit by bit...

Wow.

This kind of artistry makes my heart ache...

   
Everything about these cookies is mesmerizing. I can only guess that they taste amazing as well...

If you're looking to be completely blown away... here's her Facebook page.

Not a big fan of the Oscars.

The movies and people behind the movies that I feel most deserve to win so rarely do... if they even get nominated at all.

This year that was made vividly clear to me as the Worst. Fucking. Bond. Theme. Ever. won best song. This kind of whiny shit masquerading as "music" drives me insane. But use it as a James Bond theme? Sacrilege. It doesn't help that Sam Smith is sounds like crap live. If they wanted a song called "Writing's on the Wall," they should have called OK Go!

Yeah. I know. I already said this.

But, damn.

FURNITURE, ASSEMBLE! Because a Very Special IKEA Review Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• IKEA! IKEA furniture has a lot of fans. IKEA furniture has a lot of detractors. I'm kinda in the middle. What I love most about IKEA is the prices. And the Swedish Fish. And those Illeana Douglas shorts, of course. But mostly the prices. When I moved into my new place, I needed to buy pretty much everything, as my old furniture was trashed. I couldn't afford real furniture, thus... IKEA. I figure I'll buy IKEA for now and get new furniture as I can afford it. And, mission accomplished... I bought stuff for practically every room in the house for a grand total that was about the cost of just a frickin' dining room table I liked at another furniture store. By Grabthar's hammer... what a savings! Even if I did have to buy it all sight-unseen.

All images stolen from IKEA's website...

   
• LACK SHELVES! The thing about wall shelves is that they are supported by ugly-ass shelving supports. But LACK shelves are different. They're FLOATING shelves. Which means there's no supports. Which also means they look awesome, but you can't put heavy stuff on them...

Installing the shelves is no easy task. Mostly because they don't come with anything to attach the shelf to the wall. I ended up having to go to Home Depot for a combination of "lag bolts" (where I had wall studs) and "drywall anchors" (where I had none). Since I bought 43" shelves, it was easy to find a couple wall studs to bolt them to, but they didn't always end up in places I felt would secure the shelf very well, so sometimes the drywall anchors were added on the ends as well. Installation involves fixing a metal frame to the wall, then sliding the shelf on it, then screwing it in place. Easy. Mostly. Unless you are trying to line up a bunch of shelves like me, because they inexplicably don't always line up... even when you've been very careful to align the frames to each other. Still, they do look very nice and, so long as you're not putting anything heavy on them, work well.
PRICE: $6.99-$19.00 (depending on size) • DAVEKEA SCORE: B

   
• HEMNES BOOKSHELVES AND GLASS DOOR CABINET! Most cheap furniture is made from sawdust that has been mixed with glue then pressed into boards. I hate that crap, so I was happy to learn that IKEA has a line of furniture called HEMNES that's made (mostly) of real wood. Sure it costs a little more, but at least it has a chance of holding together for a while. I needed a couple of bookshelves for my bedroom and a cabinet for my dining room (preferably with drawers for placemats and stuff). Luckily, there are many variations of the HEMNES bookcases when it comes to doors and drawers, so I was able to find exactly what I needed...

The bookshelves were fairly simple to assemble, even if the top board didn't line up properly on one of them and had to be hammered into place. Surprisingly, they were very easy to level and match up side-by-side thanks to the screw-adjust feet. I did have a quality control problem where one of the backing board pieces had a dinged corner that made an obvious divot in the back of my shelves, but I colored it with some stain and put books in front of it, so you'd never know. They seem fairly sturdy and are currently holding a lot of books without issue, but I admit to hammering nails through the sides to make sure the shelves wouldn't fall off the support knobs once I determined where they should go (recommended, as I hear the shelves can pop out easily). The cabinet version adds glass-panel doors and three drawers to the bookshelf for an additional $230, which doesn't seem like a lot... but really is when you consider the bookshelves alone are just $330. Like all IKEA drawers, these are cheap as hell, and won't support much weight. I will probably end up reinforcing them with another board, eventually, as it seems the sawdust board they use will eventually warp and fall out. I glued everything in place, so hopefully that will buy me some time? The glass-panel doors are cheap and clunky and have weird-ass hinges that were a pain in the ass to install, but boy do they look nice. Actually, both the bookshelves and the cabinet look very nice. They certainly don't look cheap... until you open a drawer or door. HINT:You absolutely want to follow IKEA's advice and affix these to a wall so they don't fall over.
PRICE: $160 (bookshelf) or $330 (cabinet) • DAVEKEA SCORE: B+
UPDATE 5/14/16: DAVEKEA SCORE: F Just as other people have experienced, my shelves collapsed because they're not deep enough and somehow work their way loose from the pegs (which are too short, I guess). Looks like I'll be screwing all the shelves directly to the unit so they're not falling out and scaring the shit out of me in the middle of the night. EPIC FAIL!

   
• HEMNES COFFEE TABLE! There are two different coffee tables in the HEMNES line, and I went for the rectangular one over the square one. It assembled very easily, seems sturdy, and is nice enough to look at...

The only problem is that the table-top finish is uneven. It's dull in some spots, glossy in others (usually over the knots in the wood) and doesn't look that great. Given how cheap it was, it's tough to complain too hard... but it does look like I've spilt something on it or damaged it somehow, which is a bit of a bummer.
PRICE: $140 • DAVEKEA SCORE: C

   
• HEMNES BENCH! My living room is rather modest in size, which means my furniture arrangement has to be fairly rigid to make any use of the space I've got. This meant that the HEMNES end-table was out of the question, and I ended up buying "benches" to use as end-tables. They work perfectly... coming in at the right shape and height...

For all I know, they make great benches as well. Probably the easiest assembly of all the stuff I bought, which was icing on the cake.
PRICE: $80 • DAVEKEA SCORE: A

   
• HEMNES TV UNIT! If there was one thing I regret purchasing, this would be it. The HEMNES TV Unit is complete shit anyway you look at it. It's meant to act as a media center, and yet basic stereo components don't fit in it (my mid-size receiver has to sit on top). It was a complete bitch to assemble (NOTHING lined up properly, the shitty little screw-discs kept breaking, and the first shelf-bay has a shelf that doesn't match the support holes... no matter which of the three shelves I put there)...

This is a complete disaster, and I pretty much hate it. Will probably be the first thing I replace when I can afford it. Helpful hint to IKEA... I dunno if stereo components are smaller in Europe, and I really don't give a crap. If you're selling a media center here in the USA, you'd better make something that our shit can fit into. Having all the shelves fit properly into the holes you drilled would also be a big help.
PRICE: $200 • DAVEKEA SCORE: D

   
• HEMNES DRAWERS! As I mentioned above, IKEA drawers are pretty cheap and, apparently, people have problems with the drawer bottoms warping and falling out all the time. Even so, I needed cheap drawers for my bedrooms, so this is where I landed. I did glue all the drawer parts together in the hopes that will keep them from falling apart. And I'm trying my best not to overload them, so hopefully that will help. But, eventually, if I don't end up replacing these soon, I know I'll have to reinforce the drawer bottoms with some kind of actual wood, which kind of sucks...

For my bedroom, I bought the three-drawer version and a 2-drawer unit to use as a nightstand. For the guest room, I bought the six-drawer version and a couple 2-drawers for nightstands... but the guest room stuff is in "white stain" instead of the brown-black I bought for everything else. Since the wood is a cheap pine, the whitewash effect is less attractive than it would be with a prettier wood, but I guess it's okay. I probably would have stuck with the brown-black if I had seen it first. Ultimately, these drawer units look okay... but they "feel" cheap, were not so easy to assemble, and don't seem built to last.
PRICE: $100 (2-Drawer), $150 (3-Drawer), $200 (6-Drawer) • DAVEKEA SCORE: C

   
• STORNÄS TABLE! Easily my favorite IKEA purchase from the bunch. It's a beautiful, sturdy table that doesn't look or feel cheap at all. Yes, it arrived with a small damage mark in the table-top, but it's still a wonderful purchase at a shockingly low price. I bought the version with one extra leaf, but there's also a version with two extra leaves if you have room for a long table in your dining room...

Assembly was easy as pie and I couldn't be happier with its elegant simplicity. I wish that IKEA made other items in the STORNÄS series, as it's clearly top-of-the line at a bargain cost...

Recommended!
PRICE: $330 • DAVEKEA SCORE: A

   
• KAUSTBY CHAIRS! There were a few options for chairs to go with my STORNÄS table, and I waffled between the KAUSTBY and INGOLF models, as they both looked like they'd accompany it perfectly. Ultimately I thought the KAUSTBY slot-back chairs looked a bit more contemporary, and decided to go that route... even if they were $10 more a piece...

Overall, they are quite nice chairs for the price. Plenty wide. Maybe a little too wide, as the standard cushions I bought don't seem big enough to cover them. Assembly is not overly difficult, but could have been better. For one thing, they don't pre-drill the holes that attach the seat to the frame (with small, cheap, plastic fixtures), so it's up to you to make sure you've got it centered. But the worst part is that the chairs are not perfectly level, and I didn't know how to adjust them so they'd sit flat. Adding FIXA felt floor protectors helped a little bit... and it's by no means a massive problem, as the legs are off by only a small amount... but it is a bit frustrating. Then again, you get what you pay for, and I'm willing to bet this could be a problem with chairs costing a lot more.
PRICE: $50 • DAVEKEA SCORE: B-

   
And there you have it. All in all, I'm happy with my IKEA purchases. Less than $3000 to fill my living room, dining room, bedroom, and guest room is pretty nifty. And shipping was a cheap $165 for the 26 pieces of furniture I bought, which is awesome. What's not awesome is that there's no way to track your order progress, so any updates have to be requested via email to customer service. But, then again, IKEA ended up delivering everything on exactly the day they said they would when I checked out, so I really have no cause to complain. If you're on a budget and looking for furniture... IKEA is worth a look. And I do mean look, as buying sight-unseen like I did is a little crazy.

Double your Bullet Sunday, double your fun! Because a Very Special SHOPPING Make-Up Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• SUNDAY? I wasn't able to get a Bullet Sunday together for the 21st, so that had to be made up yesterday. Then this last Sunday got bumped to today. At which point I think I'm caught up with Bullet Sundays again. At least so far as I can be given how far behind I am getting my entries posted. My internet situation at home is dire, with the cable-based service dropping constantly while I wait to see if I can get fiber installed. I may just bag it and stick with shitty cable... assuming they can ever get it to work consistently.

   
• FREE? I no think that word means what you think it means...

It's not that their free shipping and handling cost me $45... it's that it's so "free" that they actually said "free" twice! Maybe they're hoping to say "free" so much that you won't bother looking at the actual cost? I dunno. But this is probably the best attempt at bad marketing I've seen in quite a while.

   
• BARGAIN? And then there's Amazon, who should really know better given how massive they are, but still makes goofy marketing blunders all the time. Like this twofer price structure which is pretty much genius... if you're looking at the fact that you get "free" Prime shipping for $13.75?

Sign me up! If I buy three does the price go up again?

   
• LOBBYIST! The problem with living in the wilds of Redneckistan is that your shopping options are limited. Most of the time this problem is solved via Amazon and their Prime 2-Day shipping, but what if I don't have two days? What if even ONE day is too late? That means making a lot of phone calls to a lot of stores and running around from one end of the valley to the other trying to track down what you MUST HAVE IMMEDIATELY. In my case, that was plain silver foil wrapping paper. Nobody had it. Nobody. Not any drug stores. Not any card & gift stores. Not the party store. Not Shopko. Not Target. Not the art store. Not the craft store. Nobody. Except, of course, Hobby Lobby.

The fucking assholes whom I swore I would never give a single dime of my money.

But what else can I do? Drive three hours to Seattle then three hours back for my emergency project that's due right now?

Nope. I bit the bullet and shopped at the only option I had after exhausting every other possibility. Knowing full well that my money would be used to further their heinous agenda of forcing their religious beliefs on their employees, choosing allowed methods of birth control for their insurance coverage, supporting bigotry, and being overall assholes towards anybody who doesn't hold the same beliefs as they do.

Luckily a Facebook Friend came to my rescue when I was lamenting about having to shop at Hobby Lobby... they suggested I make a donation in Hobby Lobby's name to Planned Parenthood in the amount of what I had to purchased. Genius!

   
I don't feel any better about giving money to Hobby Lobby, but I sure feel a lot better about (hopefully) offsetting some of the damage that comes from shopping there.

   
• PETCO! Since adopting two kittens, I spend a lot of time shopping for kitty food, kitty toys, kitty litter, and everything else kitty-related. My favorite store to shop at? Peptic! I love the selection. The prices are decent. And the staff is generally cool. But they're nearly a half-hour away, and I don't have time to make the trip as often as I need to. So the solution is easy, right? Just shop at Petco online! Except... no. Their website is complete shit. I tried to shop on Valentine's Day because they had a coupon code that could save me some money... except when it came time to check out, EVERY ONE OF THE EIGHT ITEMS I HAD IN MY CART were conveniently "out of stock" and they wouldn't let me place an order. Haven't they ever heard of a backorder? And, of course, everything was back in stock the next day when the coupon expired. But that's not even the worst of it. Every time I try to shop at Petco.com, I always have all the items in my cart disappear at least once. Sometimes when I've tried, I've had my cart turn up empty so often I just give up. How in the hell do they expect people to shop with Petco when their online shopping experience is bordering on useless? It's hard to fathom how a company this big could afford to piss people off like this in a day and age where most stuff they buy is online, but here you have it. Guess I'd better work an hour into my schedule to drive to the local shop in person. Again.

   
And that's more than enough shopping for this week. See you next Sunday.

It's probably too early to declare The 1975's i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it as my favorite album of 2016, but I can't fathom anything coming along to move this breathtaking work out of my top spot. The album is a bit eclectic, with some musical numbers injected between the songs, but it's a full volume of awesome, even when they're skipped over...

Probably my favorite track on the album is Change of Heart. Remarkably, it's lyrically a direct sequel to the song The City on their previous album. In a very cool, yet heartbreaking way. The band played this at the concert I went to with Aaron back in December, and I'm glad I finally get a studio version to listen to...

   
And then there's Somebody Else, which is a hauntingly beautiful track that hasn't left my head since I first heard it. I could probably listen to this on repeat for days before getting tired of it...

   
For a pure 80's flashback episode, look no further than the bouncy This Must Be My Dream...

   
The song Paris is one of those melodic masterpieces that drifts into your consciousness when you least expect it...

   
A song that's bound to cause a bit of controversy for dissing a big chunk of The 1975's fans comes in the form of She's American. It's a bit over the top, but is speaking to a point, I suppose...

   
I could just go on gushing over all the tracks on the album, but I'll probably stop here and wrap up with the last video the band released for The Sound, which addresses the band's critics in a way that's more thought-provoking than antagonistic...

   
And so... as if it weren't obvious... I give the album my highest recommendation. It doesn't stray too far from what made them an instant favorite with their first album, but isn't a clone that would just be boring.

The thing about my feral kitten rescues is that they have spent most of their time in hiding. Everything is scary. Everything is dangerous. And getting accustomed to the fact that not everything is out to kill them seems to be a difficult concept for them to wrap their furry little heads around.

But, more and more, that's been changing. Just last Friday I posted about them crawling all over me to play, which was a huge step.

Yet there was still one lingering problem I had yet to resolve... any time I took out my "real" camera (as opposed to the iPhone shots I've been posting), the sound of the shutter would send them scurrying. I switched to a silent shutter, but that didn't help much. Just pointing the camera in their direction was enough to make them run for the hills.

But yesterday all that changed...

Apparently I've whipped out the camera often enough that they're no longer scared when they see it.

Sorry for the deluge of kitten photos that are sure to follow...

Double your Bullet Sunday, double your fun! Because a Very Special SHOPPING Make-Up Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Sam. Anybody saying that women don't have what it takes to bring it in a hard-hitting comedic "journalism" show aren't watching Samantha Bee in Full Frontal. I'd put her up against Trevor Noah, Larry Wilmore, or John Oliver any day. Hell, I'd put her up against Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Samantha Bee is made of awesome...

Mondays at 10:30pm on TBS.

   
• Free! Well, this is new...

A free house is quite a deal. Which is why I imagine it's the "U-HAUL" part that makes this some tricky business. After Googling the costs associated with relocating an actual house, the money involved seems absurdly high. Approaching the cost to buy a house! And I can't imagine that the house will ever be as structurally sound as it was originally, which means that the costs are just beginning. Still, it looks a decent house. I might have taken them up on it if somebody hadn't spray-painted "for sale" graffiti on the front of it.

   
• Vampyre! Turns out one of my new kittens is a vampire...

Here's hoping he stays satisfied with kitten blood and doesn't move on to humans.

   
• Five! And, speaking of cats... high-five, Chris Hardwick... HIGH FIVE!

My cats like to watch television and participate as needed.

   
• Con. And... my local comic convention, the Emerald City Comicon apparently didn't get the memo about trying to expand the audience for comic books in a positive way. I find this infuriating. A lot of the time I think people overreact to stuff like this. But in this case? I don't think people are reacting ENOUGH. Take your daughter to Comicon on "Kid's Day" and she gets to wear a badge featuring an illustration of a woman being molested by a monster? Really? And their fix for this bullshit? YOU have the option of trading in your badge to get a different one. Yes, the burden is on YOU. Insanity.

   
• Patriotism. Sometimes... not often, but sometimes... justice wins out.

Learning that freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences is a tough lesson. Though, I have to say... a part of me does feel badly for this kid. Is what he did wrong? Absolutely. Is this the kind of person we want representing the United States of America in our armed forces? No. Did he get what he deserves? Sure. But history has shown time and time again how mob mentality can sway even a good person to do reprehensible things. I know nothing about this guy or where his heart is when he's not being swept up in a wave of hatred. Apparently the forces of evil were so strong that he proudly posted a photo of him verbally assaulting someone on his Facebook page. Maybe that's who he really is, I don't know. But the heinous amount of hate that keeps building and building and building which makes sad events like this possible has been weighing on my mind a lot lately. We, as a society, are far weaker finding our strength from fear and hatred than courage and mutual respect. But that's the way it is. I'm truly happy that justice was served here. I can only hope that it will result in some deep soul-searching that leads to reevaluation and a newfound kindness. But it could just as easily lead to an escalation of the hate that's already taken hold. And we just can't afford any more of that.

   
And there's yer bullets, pardner!

Ever since I received a Canon A-1 SLR camera as a graduation present, photography has been the hobby that will not die. Other activities come and go, but this is the one that's always there regardless of circumstances. The artistry that comes into play when composing a shot is every bit a creative endeavor for me as painting a picture or shaping something from clay or pushing pixels on a computer. And the more I move away from "automatic" camera settings and start making my own choices as to how an image will be recorded, the more I'm left craving a better tool set.

Not to say that I don't already have a pretty stunning array of tools in my photo bag. When I prepped for my Africa trip, I sunk a huge chunk of cash into some impressive hardware and went home with some pretty amazing shots to show for it.

But, as with most hobbies, even "amazing" is never enough.

Ever since Sony unleashed the NEX-6, which took every advantage of mirrorless camera technology to deliver stunning DSLR quality in a portable package that was perfect for travel, my allegiance to Sony gear was set. So much so that I took an even deeper plunge when I bought the Sony a7S because of its full-frame sensor and a miraculous ability to shoot in low-light situations. And then I dropped a chunk of my savings on the Sony FE 70-200 zoom lens, which gave me an entirely new appreciation for an aspect of photography I rarely explored.

And yet... as much as I love my NEX-6 and a7S, I'm starting to hit boundaries of where I can go with them.

Time to take a look at Sony's second generation of a7's. Starting with the a7 Mark II, which I was all set to buy when it was released a year ago. It's a big step up from my NEX-6, and has a lot of room to grow. Except... I didn't have any big photo opportunities coming up, so I decided to wait for the inevitable release of the more feature-packed variant, the a7R Mark II. Which finally happened back in August. I wanted one immediately, of course, but the price tag was double what I had saved up for the a7ii, so I'd have to wait until I had the means to do it. In other words, I had to wait for my tax refund to happen.

It did, and now I have my dream camera...

The a7R Mark II has a dizzying array of "professional" features for me to salivate over, mostly justifying the stupefying $3,200.00 price tag. Primary of which is the new sensor, a full-frame marvel that has amazing 42MP resolution. Though, to be honest it's not the whopper pixel-count that made me buy into the hardware (more pixels don't necessarily translate into great photos, and you have to have a subject and lenses that will make it worthwhile). No, what I was obsessed with in the sensor specs was the BSI (backside-illuminated) CMOS construction, which allows for more light to reach the sensor and provide much better ISO performance. Which means less noise and more detail in less light. Not to the level of my Sony a7S (which only has 12MP), but jaw-dropping performance just the same. In other words, The Camera Holy Grail.

But that's just marketing hype. Does Sony deliver?

Well, obviously they did, or I wouldn't have bought the camera.

I read many, many reviews before my tax refund came in, and it really does seem like the camera that's too good to be true... for me and what I do anyway.

And how did that pan out?

I'll get into that with Part 2 tomorrow.

I'm not really sure how to best review a camera that has already been reviewed countless times since its release last year. I think its easiest to just go through the things I like, then go through the things I don't like. I don't know if that will provide any new insights that haven't already been talked about... but perhaps coming from the perspective of a hobbyist who likes travel photography and has to shoot for art photography from time to time will be of use to somebody.

Here's what I'm liking about the Sony a7R Mark II...

Build. Sony claims the a7R Mark II has a magnesium alloy shell. Which I take to mean that it's metal, which is a big step up from the plastic on my other Sony E-mount cameras. I'm sure this adds weight... but the camera is already heavy from being so densely packed that it probably doesn't matter much. All I can say is that it feels substantial and well-made, which I like.

Handling. The thing about Sony's alpha line of mirrorless cameras is that they're small. Tiny even, when compared to a traditional DSLR. I've never had a problem with that (despite having pretty big hands) but will admit that my a7S could be a little cramped to use. The a7R Mark II has a bigger grip with a good depth to it, which improves handling quite a bit... without adding much size. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this camera is as comfortable as a Nikon or Canon DSLR, but it's plenty comfortable for a full day of handheld shooting.

EVF. Out of necessity, mirrorless cameras rely on Electronic Viewfinders to provide a look at what you're shooting (often in tandem with a screen on the back of the camera). On one hand, this gives you the ultimate "What You See is What You Get" feedback you need to construct a scene. On the other, EVFs usually suck. Even the "good" ones have a hard time accurately showing you what's happening. Until now. I can honestly say that the EVF in my a7R Mark II is just as good as the optical viewfinder in my Canon and Nikon cameras. And nowhere is this more apparent than using the "focus assist" (otherwise known as "image magnification") when manually focusing your lens. The guess-work that comes from too-big-pixels providing a poor picture that isn't accurately showing you sharpness is gone. It's just gone. This alone gives me nothing to regret when it comes to the jaw-dropping price I just paid for this camera. Seriously amazing. Even if you have no interest in the Sony line of mirrorless cameras, you owe it to yourself to drop by your local camera shop and take a look at this. One caveat that will get mentioned tomorrow, however... the sensor to activate the EVF and cut out the rear display is way, way too sensitive.

Apps. I'm not going to lie... getting apps is an unbelievable nightmare. Sony's "app store" and method of downloading/buying stuff has always sucked, and nothing is improved with the a7R Mark II. But once you have the apps? Boy-howdy is it worth the stupidity you have to endure to get them. My favorite is "Bracket Pro" which allows bracketing not just with shutter speed... but with aperture, focus, or flash as well. So handy (not-so-great example of aperture bracketing is below, but you get the idea). There's also stuff like "Time-Lapse," "Motion Shot," and "Star Trail" which are fun... plus a lot more. Some are fluff, yes, but there's a lot of jewels in there that are worth having. If only Sony would invest in a way of buying/managing/downloading apps that didn't make you want to set your camera on fire.

Sensor. If there's anything that's been proven over and over again, it's that more pixels don't necessarily translate to better photos. So I had no illusion that the massive 42MP was going to substantially change my images for the better. Heck, I regularly get amazing shots with my a7S's mere 12MP. If anything, I figured it would make things worse compared to say... 32MP... because bigger pixels absorb more light. Sony got past this by back-lighting the sensor, which apparently increases light sensitivity. All I know is that, while it's nowhere near the amazing shooter my a7S is in low light, it does a really amazing job. And then you get to the benefit of having 42 megapixels in your photos... your ability to crop into them and still have impressively detailed photos. At 7952 x 5304 pixels, you can print 26.5" X 17.7" at a full 300dpi. Which means you can discard 2/3 of the image and still get an 8" X 10" print out of it. That's pretty crazy. But so very cool in that your lenses automatically have extra reach to them if you ever need it (what I wouldn't give to go back in time and have this camera for my Africa trip). Color fidelity and sharpness are exceptional, as I've come to expect from Sony, but you'll need quality glass to make use of it.

Focus. Sony pulled out all the stops with 399 phase detection focus points on-sensor that's backed up by through-the-lens contrast focus. The combination of the two can provide blazingly fast, deadly accurate focus... assuming you've got a lens responsive enough to take advantage of it. At least most of the time (every once in a while it fails for no discernible reason, which I'll talk about tomorrow). Of course, all this focus ability means nothing if the camera doesn't provide an easy way to access it. I don't know if it's as easy as it could be... but the a7R Mark II definitely gives you a wide variety of focus modes to play with. Rather than list them all, I'll just say that pretty much whatever the situation, there's a focus mode you can use to handle it, and they all work very well (Continuous Auto Focus with Face Detect being my favorite).

Optical Steady Shot. Until now, the a7 line has relied on in-lens stabilization. This was fine... until you buy a lens like the 35mm f/2.8 that doesn't have it. This hasn't been a problem for me... but, as the light falls, it could be. Then along comes the a7R Mark II which has 5-Axis Optical Steady Shot stabilization built into the camera. And since it works with your lens to come up with the best combination of stabilization between the two (assuming your lens has anything to work with), it's pretty impressive. To test what the new "5 Axis Steady Shot" capabilities bring to the table, I took a number of test shots with OSS on/off on the lens. As expected, having OSS set to "on" gives a much clearer image when going handheld. From what I understand, when shooting with an OSS lens like the 70-200m f/4 zoom, the lens OSS handles pitch and yaw (up/down and side/side)... while the camera adds roll (round and round). I couldn't figure out how to turn lens OSS "on" and a7R Mark II OSS "off" so I had to shoot those tests with my a7S. I never realized that I was adding roll to shots, but the results show that the 5-axis stabilization definitely makes a different when comparing them. If you shoot with slow glass, low light, or with the aperture closed-down, the 5-Axis OSS is providing you a couple of stops to work with... which can make all the difference.

Dynamic Range. For quite a while now I've been shooting "important" shots using HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. It's tedious, but the results can be great. They can also be terrible. In a nut shell, I bracket a shot with three (or more) exposures... dark/medium/light and then use an HDR program on my Mac to "average" them together in a way that pulls detail out of the highlights and shadows...

As you can see, it can make quite a difference. Most times in a good way... unless you go overboard, in which case it looks too fake and pretty bad. But anyway... what if a camera sensor had such fantastic dynamic range that you didn't need to take three shots to get the details you wanted? Well, camera sensors are getting better and better at just this kind of thing, and the a7R Mark II has the ability to capture a range so impressive that I'll probably not be doing as much HDR shooting since I can just shoot in RAW and recover what I want from the highlights and shadows during import. This is a pretty amazing concept for me to wrap my head around, and will fundamentally change the way I take travel photos. It will also fundamentally change the amount of memory cards I need to carry, as I'll be shooing anywhere from 1/3 to 1/5 the number of shots! Time will tell whether the impressive dynamic range will be enough to make me happy in all conditions, but test shots have me feeling pretty optimistic.

Silence. My a7S had the ability to shoot with no shutter noise at all. That ability has worked its way to the a7R Mark II, and I couldn't be happier. Whether it's because you don't want to startle your subjects or are shooting in a place where silence is required, this is a feature that, once I've had it made available, I can't do without. Yes, there are apparently some drawbacks, but none that matter to me when you need to shoot without any noise.

   
That's a pretty good list... and it's not even that comprehensive. The a7R Mark II offers so many amazing features and knock-out capabilities that I'm sure I'll keep finding more to love about it the longer I use it. In the meanwhile, I'm very happy that my creative options have opened up to a new level. I spend less time with settings and more time getting shots I can work with... and that's no small thing.

After two days of praise for the A7R Mark II, I'll now be turning to the things that are not so great.

Auto-Focus Errors. The massive number of focus points and several focus modes gives you a wildly easy system for locking on to exactly what you're wanting to focus on (once you get it all memorized, that is). Problem is... there have been several times when I can't get a lock. And there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason behind it. I thought it depended on the lighting. It's not the lighting. I thought it depended on the lens. It's not the lens. I thought it depended on the shooting mode. It's not the shooting mode. So what is it that causes these auto-focus fails? You got me. And apparently Sony is stumped too. I'm getting really accustomed to manual focus lately.

Buttons. Everything from the shutter to the function buttons and directional-pad are tiny and mushy. In the case of the shutter, you never feel anything physical and the actual tactile feedback is weak. The buttons have minimal "click" and lack the crisp punch that makes it so much easier to register when you've pressed. This is amateur hour bullshit. How many cameras has Sony made over the years? Hundreds? And they can't get the frickin' buttons right? Inexplicably disgraceful. And don't get me started on the "movie button" which is the most uncomfortable, difficult to activate buttons in the history of DSLRs.

Lock. Sony is infamous for not putting wheel locks or switch locks where they're desperately needed (the manual/auto focus switch on my 70-200 lens comes immediately to mind). But, with the a7R II, they actually took a first step... and put a wheel lock on the shooting mode dial... WHEN I HAVE NEVER, EVER, EVER ACCIDENTALLY SWITCHED MODES! This is about the craziest damn thing I've ever seen on a camera. Was this ever even a problem? Why? Being able to instantly switch shooting modes is pretty critical, which is why they let you custom-program them. Except it's just been made exponentially more difficult on the a7S II because of the addition of a wheel lock nobody wanted or needed.

Menus. Sony's menu system is a byzantine nightmare that is not even remotely intuitive or easy to navigate. They attempt to "organize" things into tabs, but the organization makes no sense what-so-ever. Red-Eye Removal Assist is a "Camera" menu function. Silent Shutter Release is a "Settings" menu function. ON THE FIFTH PAGE. OF EIGHT PAGES!!! With every new camera I hate Sony a little more because they simply refuse to improve the menu system. It's categorically bad and universally panned in every review I've ever read. So WTF?!? Is nobody at Sony able to design a proper user interface? If not, HIRE SOMEBODY!

Battery Life. On one hand, I appreciate the fact that the A7R Mark II uses the exact same battery as my three other Sony cameras... but when you can completely drain the battery in a couple hours of shooting? Time to come up with a more robust battery... even if it has to be a bit bigger. The camera comes with two batteries, which you will definitely be using. I'd have three or four on hand just in case, because I can practically burn through one in two hours with heavy use..

Database. I've lost count of the number of times I've gone to do something... only to have a message pop up telling me that the camera can't access the database for some reason. Luckily, you're given the option (ONLY option, really) to repair the database when this happens, but can't the camera just do a better job with this so you don't have to?

Electronic Viewfinder. The EVF in the A7R Mark II is stunning. The best I've ever seen. But, as mentioned previously, it's overly-sensitive and activates many, many, many times when you don't want it to. Hell, I've had the display cut out because a finger got too close to the viewfinder WHILE IN THE MENU SYSTEM. It's just so asinine. Obviously the EVF only needs to activate when your eye is ON the sucker... so why not have its sensitivity adjusted apropriately? Hugely frustrating. Hugely.

Touchless. For reasons that completely escape me, Sony doesn't put touch-screen displays on hardly any of their cameras. Including this one. And it's insane. Their heinous menu system is made ten times worse because of it. Navigating your photos in playback is twenty times worse than it should be. I don't know if it's because Sony designers don't like fingerprints on the display or what, but that should be up to their customers. Maybe one day we'll know why Sony doesn't have touch-screens on their cameras when other manufacturers find them essential... in the meanwhile, all we can do is bitch about it.

Bus. The images that come off a camera with a 42MP sensor are going to be huge. And, if you are crazy enough to shoot uncompressed RAW, bigger than huge. Which is why the slow internal data bus is kinda hard to understand. I attempted to bracket some uncompressed RAW shots just for fun... and didn't get very far before the buffer was maxed out and I had to sit there waiting for it to clear. Even worse? The camera goes non-responsive while clearing it. With a camera generating such massive files, Sony really needs to do something to speed up transfers. Or at least let the camera playback controls remain active.

WiFi. You would think that having built-in WiFi would make it absurdly easy to transfer photos from your camera to your laptop. NOPE! I mean, yeah... you can do it... but only if you want to transfer the whole damn card. Which is stupid because transferring an entire card over WiFi is something nobody would want to do. If you want to transfer a single 42MP image to your mobile phone, however? THERE'S A DEDICATED BUTTON FOR THAT! Which, I guess is useful, but why can't I reprogram it to send a single image to my computer, which would be far, far more useful to me?

Apps. Every time I review a new Sony camera, I end up bitching about Sony's shitty app handling. Which wouldn't be a big deal if the apps were crap, but they're not. There's actually some real winners with fantastic functionality you'd be crazy to ignore. But just try getting any of them. Rather than provide a dedicated portal for apps, Sony uses a horrendously shitty built-in web browser to access their online store. It's shitty because most of the damn time it doesn't work. You'll try to load it again and again and again and again... getting failed connection after failed connection despite having a solid connection and perfect signal. And once you get connected? It means nothing because logging into the site fails most of the time. I've lost count of the number of times I've crashed out of the store when attempting to access the apps I've paid for. Oh... and don't even bother checking "remember my login" so you don't have to type it over and over... it doesn't work. All this wouldn't be so bad if there was another option that worked well, but using my computer and a USB cable to install apps HAS NEVER WORKED ON ANY OF MY SONY CAMERAS! Including this one. Sony's app store desperately needs a complete revision that dumps the shitty browser and is much, much more robust and reliable.

   
Are any of the above deal-breakers? Not for me. Not really. Are any of the above annoying? Absolutely. Some of them inexplicably so, as Sony keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. It's like they're learning-impaired.

Anyway... my review continues tomorrow.

The issue with Sony's E-Mount cameras is that the lens selection has been less than stellar for a long time. Since it's all relatively new, you just aren't going to get close to the vast, vast library of lenses amassed for Canon and Nikon shooters.

Yes, there are adapters which give you access to an entire world of lens options, and a great many Sony photographers go that route... but I'm not one of them. For the past couple years I've just limped along with whatever offerings Sony deemed fit to send our way. But, in recent months, their offerings have improved immensely. Yeah, there are some glaring holes in their lineup that may never be filled... but, for most people, there are lenses to fit whatever comes your way.

I own two Sony FE (full sensor) lenses. An absurdly expensive (for what you get) $800 Carl Zeiss Sonnar 35mm f/2.8... and a $1,500 70-200mm f/4 G zoom. I also own a 10-18mm f/4 wide angle zoom that is not full-frame, but the 15-16mm span on this lens works perfectly fine on full-frame cameras, so I still use it.

In addition to those lenses, I've rented the Carl Zeiss Sonnar 55mm f/1.8 lens (stunning clarity and sharpness... but a little crazy at $1000) and the Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/1.4 lens (absolutely amazing, but a bit heavy and bulky for 35mm at $1600).

My newest lens (which was purchased with the camera) is the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 G. Just like long-range zooms, macro photography has been an area that I haven't explored much, and I figured now was the time. The lens itself is pretty spectacular and a lot of fun to shoot with.

My next lens will be the Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM zoom. It's insanely expensive at $2,200, but it bridges the gap between my 10-18mm to 70-200mm lenses perfectly. It's also gotten rave reviews from early testers which claim it's worth every penny. And that will probably be my last lens for a while. The only thing that might change my mind is one of the upcoming Voigtlander Ultra-Wides (in 10mm, 12mm, and 15mm flavors), which are smaller and lighter than my ultra-wide zoom and are full-frame lenses. With the light sensitivity and 42MP sensor of my a7R Mark II, the 12mm f/5.6 would probably be about perfect... assuming I could live with a manual focus lens. I'm not entirely sure about that.

Anyway...

What have I actually been able to shoot with these things?

I'm saving that for tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time with the Sony a7R Mark II yet. I did rent one for a project back in January, which is where most of my experience comes from, but all the shots I've taken with my own camera have been from just three days of experimentation.

The first lens I took a look at was my brand new Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 G. Technically, it's my first macro lens. And when it comes to macro shooting, 90mm at an 11-inch range is a pretty good combination for getting the 1:1 reproduction ratio you need. Though I admit a part of me would like to be a bit closer/tighter. While getting used to shooting with it, I kept wondering if I'd be happier with something in the 60mm at 6-inch range. Regardless, this is a pretty great macro lens that would also work very well for portrait photography, I think.

Shooting at f/2.8 with this lens is pretty magical...

The sweet spot for me seems to rest at f/3.5...

As expected, the bokeh is amazing...

Even with the aperture set at f/4, noise is minimal in good light...

Once you get to f/7.1, it starts to get a bit noisy, but nothing terrible...

The crisp optics of the FE 90mm pair well with the awesome sensor of the a7S Mark II to give you sharp details easily...

Needless to say, if you're a flower or insect photographer, this lens has your name all over it...

I spent a lot of time trying to nail down the focus falloff. Not having much experience with macro photography, it's difficult to wrap my head around just how quickly f/2.8 blurs out...

So. Yeah. If you are a macro shooter (or am interested in becoming one) you could do a lot worse than the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 G.

Given the heavier weight of the Sony a7R Mark II from earlier models I've had, popping on my tiny Zeiss Sonnar 35mm f/2.8 was a bit of a relief. Very comfortable as a walk-around lens. Very good results with little effort. The in-camera 5-axis Optical Steady Shot stabilization is handy to have in low light since this lens doesn't have stabilization of any kind. The bigger/heavier f/1.4 model would undoubtedly shoot nicer, but not enough to justify the price you pay, methinks...

Cropping into the photo reveals terrific, crisp details...

As good as the clarity is on the above shot, to really test how well the a7S Mark II is at recording sharp features, I need to get my hands on the Zeiss Sonnar 55mm f/1.8, easily the sharpest lens I've ever used. Something tells me that's a dream combination for travel photography.

My 70-200mm f/4 G was great for testing out the in-camera 5-axis "Optical Steady Shot" stabilization. As mentioned previously, I believe the camera lets the lens take pitch/yaw stabilization and contributes internal roll stabilization to the game. Regardless of which part is doing what, the results are great, even at 200mm. Not as crisp and deep as you're going to get from a shorter lens with Zeiss glass, obviously, but still very respectable for a jittery handheld shooter like me...

My Sony 10-18mm f/4 is hobbled by not being a full-frame lens, but still does very nice set at 15mm in full frame. Very very nice, actually...

Interestingly enough, the a7S Mark II will automatically put your camera in "APS-C/Super 35 Mode" (which I prefer to call "Cropped Lens Mode") to compensate for the lesser coverage of non-FE lenses. This lets the camera shoot with the 10-18mm f/4 as if it were my NEX-6. Here's what I get at 10mm, 15mm, and 18mm in "Cropped Lens Mode"...

Take a look at the middle photo above. That's 15mm in "Cropped Lens Mode" at 5168 by 3448 pixels. Now take a look at what happens when I turn "Cropped Lens Mode" to OFF and shoot at 15mm...

Surprise! That's as much coverage as 10mm in "Cropped Lens Mode!" Maybe even a little more! And that's at 7952 x 5304 pixels! Which means by making sure "Cropped Lens Mode" is OFF when shooting with my 10-18mm lens I have enough pixels to crop in to 18mm if I wanted. Which means I pretty much have the full 10mm to 18mm range that I have with my NEX-6. Sure, there's vignetting on the corners, but that's a two-second fix in Photoshop...

Pretty incredible. Especially when you consider this lens is just $850 new.

What's frustrating is that the "Cropped Lens Mode" isn't smart enough to automatically know that cropping isn't necessary at 15mm. If the camera were to know when to crop and (more importantly) when not to crop based on focal length... now that would be impressive. Even if I had to set it manually, this would still be a great feature. Until the day that happens, I'll just continue to happily shoot at 15mm and make sure I have "Cropped Lens Mode" set to OFF.

And, that's a wrap. I'll review my new Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM lens whenever it gets released.

My brain.

My brain is melting.

Marvel continues to blow past my expectations with each new film.

Cannot wait for this.

Don't jigger that googly-widget! Because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Directly. To add a channel to your DirecTV, just click here!

To remove a channel, call a phone number, make your way through automation hell, wait for a representative, answer a bunch of questions, give a secret code, ask for a deletion, review your bill, confirm the deletion. Thirteen minutes of your life down the drain.

Fifteen minutes if you count the compulsion to write a blog post about it.

Apparently, AT&T/DirecTV wants to make it as difficult as possible to delete channels under the absurd assumption that people will somehow change their mind and give up if you make it difficult enough? Asinine and backwards. This isn't the 1980's. Just let me manage my channels online. I might be more inclined to ADD channels if I knew it wasn't such a hassle to remove them later.

   
• Dyslexic. Ever wonder what it's like to read when you're dyslexic? Here you go...

Image by Victor Widell.

Well, for me it's not like everything is jumping around everywhere as shown in this image... it's more like the letters are switching around as you read them. But. Yeah. Kinda this.

   
• Hart. If I were Jonathan Hart (from Hart to Hart), I'd handle these idiots who fuck with me or kidnap my wife by shooting them in the dick. Maybe people would stop fucking with him or kidnapping his wife if he got a reputation for shooting people in the dick. Would you risk getting shot in the dick by Jonathan Hart? I sure wouldn't...

What I wouldn't give for an Amy Poehler, Adam Scott, and Horatio Sanz reboot!

   
• Whheat. In an attempt to eat a bit healthier, I bought "Hint of Salt" Wheat Thins instead of the usual "Box of Salt" Wheat Thins. Who knew that the thing that made Wheat Thins taste so good was the box of salt? These Wheat Thins are absolutely disgusting. It's going to take a shit-load of chip dip to salvage this mess...

It doesn't pay to eat healthy, I'm telling you.

   
• Growth. Orchard Grown Apples? Where else would they grow?

McDONALDS! PLEASE EXPLAIN!

   
And... that's enough googly-widget for this week.

Wait a second.

Our military spending already outpaces Mexico FIFTY TO ONE.

Our military is larger than any other country on earth by a vastly huge margin.

Our stockpile of weapons could destroy this planet a hundred times over. And yet here comes Drumpf saying he needs to "rejuvenate" our military so he can go to war with Mexico... OUR ALLY... if they won't build a wall?

Who the fuck would vote for this dumbass after listening to this absolute lunacy? I'm just beside myself here. I loathe Hillary Clinton with every fiber of my being... but if it comes down to her and this piece of shit? How is this even a contest? Why not just threaten to NUKE Mexico? The result would be the exact same in the international arena. The US would lose every ally we have. A country would have to be fucking insane to ally with us after we strong-arm a current ally possessing a military 2% the size of our own over a fucking wall THAT WON'T EVEN WORK!

A Drumpf presidency would mean the end of us.

The literal end.

There is nowhere to go after that.

Everything we are would be gone. Everything we stand for would be gone. Even worse, we would deserve it. That this asshole can even be considered a candidate is unthinkable. That he's most likely going to be the GOP nominee is unthinkable. But I guess that's how we got here. People refuse to think any more.

Why every nation on earth isn't considering a first-strike scenario against the United States if President Drumpf becomes a reality is beyond me. It wouldn't even be considered an act of war. It would be self-preservation.

re: YESTERDAY.

See what I mean. It's Godwin's Law in action...

   
So much for America.

I love a good television ad.

Putting Cookie Monster in an iPhone ad is about as good as it gets.

Putting Muppets in anything is about as good as it gets.

You know how when you're little and magic is real and the world is ripe with possibilities?

Even impossible possibilities?

But then you grow older and more cynical and the magic dies and you'd give anything to go back to a time when you could believe again?

The look on the monkey's face is priceless. That's what happens when you can believe that anything is possible.

Even the impossible.

Worked all morning.

Came back to work on my home all day but am already at my limit.

Replaced a GFCI outlet in the kitchen and now both GFCI kitchen outlets work... but neither of the bathrooms are getting power. So... there's still that to sort out.

Then went to hang bedroom blinds. The clips that you hang the blinds on are so badly engineered and idiotic that I want to hunt down the moron who invented them and bitch-slap them so hard their face falls off...

But it gets worse... two of the clips are missing. And neither Home Depot or Lowes carry them. Now I want to shoot myself in the face. Guess I get to search the internet for brackets I hate. Yay.

If anybody knows where I can buy these abominations, please let me know.

Take time to make time, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Panther. Could not possibly be more excited for the Brian Stelfreeze illustrated version of Ta-Nehisi Coates' BLACK PANTHER comic! It looks like the book will pay homage to the origins of the character, but also give us something new and different to enjoy... hats off to Marvel for giving one of my all-time favorite super heroes a creative team that's knocking it out of the park...

An interview!

If you're interested in a behind-the-scenes look at how the book is shaping up, there's a Briam Stelfreeze Fan Page on Facebook. The book launches on April 6.

   
• Encryption. And, leave it to John Oliver to explain the current situation with Apple and encryption...

Forget everything else. Safeguarding our privacy is the threat of the future today.

   
• Dumbfuckery. And, speaking of John Oliver. Today being DAYLIGHT DUMBFUCKERY TIME seems like the perfect opportunity to repost this from last year...

And the idiocy continues.

   
• Prince. After Paramount dumped one of my most anticipated releases, The Little Prince, I was pretty bummed. Turned out Netflix has picked up the ball so badly dropped by Paramount...

Really looking forward to seeing this film. Whenever that might be.

   
And... no more bullet-time.

Welcome to the first installment of CAT WEEK here at Blogography.

My first cat was a beautiful black cat that I named Midnight. He was incredibly sweet, but didn't have much personality. Any time not spent sleeping or eating was spent trying to be alone. He didn't really want to play or even hang out. So when he passed away, I wasn't compelled to get a replacement.

Forty-some-odd years later, I hadn't changed my mind. I still wasn't interested in having a feline companion. But then I ran across a starving cat that was hanging out at the old apartment complex where I was living, and fell in love with the little guy. I wasn't allowed to have pets, but I did my best to take care of him and "bent the rules" when I could to make sure he was kept safe and warm. I named him Spanky the Cat, and he was awesome...

Spanky was a very social cat, and eventually moved on to a home where he could hang out with other cats. This was a heartbreaking turn of events after having cared for him for the past three years, but I was happy if he was happy.

When I decided to move out of my pet-restricted apartment to a new home, I knew that a new cat was in my future.

After getting settled once I'd moved a little over a month ago, I ended up with brother & sister kittens that I named Jake and Jenny...

I haven't said much about them since then, so I decided to devote a week here at Blogography to get everybody caught up. Starting tomorrow...

Neville and Ginny were two of three feral kittens brought into the Wenatchee Humane Society that I found on their website. They were in foster care until they were old enough to be spayed/neutered. When I went down to take a look at them they were on their way back surgery, but I was lucky enough to speak with the foster parents who were there waiting for them to see how things went. They were very kind to talk to me about the kittens and how terrific they were and how close they had become... and I knew that I would be adopting all three rather than breaking them up. But one of them was "on hold" so I ended up taking the brother and sister. The boy I knew I wanted to be named Jake. The girl I wanted to name Roger but, when I told my mother of my plan, she refused to let me name her thus, so I changed the "G-i" to a "J-e" so they have matchy brother-sister names. Jake and Jenny. Both had been through a lot and were very timid... not wanting to come out of the carrier. But when I put food out, Jake was an animal. Charging out to gobble down every bite in his bowl... and then he started in on his sister's food. I moved her bowl into the carrier where she thought about eating... but ultimately scampered to the back of the carrier to hide without taking a bite...

I honestly didn't care what the cats I was adopting looked like. I actually like homely/odd looking animals that nobody else would want. Missing eye? Three legs? Ratty fur? Bring it! But these kittehs are adorable and perfect in that heart-melting way that makes me want to photograph them for sappy greeting cards. The fact that Jake looks a little bit like Spanky is just the icing on the cake.

Their first week was spent hiding under the couch, only coming out to eat.

Eventually they started staying out a bit more, but then I had a setback in cutting off Jenny's hospital collar (I was afraid she'd get it caught and choke to death) which sent them back under the couch for days.

I spent the second week attempting to socialize them a bit. They were still sleeping under the couch, but most of their day was spent exploring their new home.

As we entered their third week, I was able to spend extended time playing with Jake and Jenny without them freaking out. This led to more trust, which led to them spending most all of their time running around instead of hiding.

And that was my last update, which was a month ago...

Now things are both very different and much the same.

Different in that they no longer run under the couch at the slightest provocation. It used to be when I so much as sneezed that they'd hide away for hours. Now I can be pounding nails into the walls and they'll come see what's happening. Even better, they've become brave enough to be crawling all over me...

But they're also the same in that they only want to be touched if it's on their terms. If you walk up and try to pet them, they're off like a shot.

Maybe. Possibly. Eventually... they'll come around and be a little more accepting, socially.

Jake is usually a very mellow cat. But if there's ONE THING that will set him off... it's Jenny trying to take his toys. Especially his lion or his monkey, both of which he refuses to share. If he sees her with one, he'll come tearing into the room and take it away. And if she tries to take it while he's playing with it? It's go time.

For quite a while, Jake was hiding his stuffed toys on top of the dining room table because Jenny couldn't figure out how to get up there...

That lasted for two days when Jenny managed to figure it out.

Recently Jenny was playing with Jake's monkey. As expected, he ran up and took it from her as soon as he saw her with it. She chased him around for a while, but eventually gave up and found a blue mouse to play with...

Jake charged up and teased her with the monkey... then ran away. I'm guessing he was wanting her to chase her, because he did it four or five times...

Jenny was having none of it, so Jake gave up and left her to her blue mouse.

There's also an orange mouse and a green mouse. Jenny loves all of them...

Jenny's favorite toy is a "cat dancer"... which is a fabric streamer attached to a plastic wand. She'll chase anything string-like, so this is right up her alley. Jake doesn't get the concept. He grabs ahold of the streamer and tries to take it away with him, not seeming to realize it's attached to a stick...

I tried getting them interested in cat games on an iPad, which was a lot of fun for them... but ultimately a bit frustrating, I think...

Of course, the toy that cats love best is the toy they can't have. Like my camera strap. If I take something like that away from Jenny, she'll just move on to something new. If I take it away from Jake though? He will scowl and glare at me for what seems like an eternity...

Still adorable.

I did a lot of research on what foods are best for cats and was surprised to see how passionate people get. After weighing all the opinions out there, I decided to formulate my own plan. I am focusing primarily on birds... chicken, duck, turkey... as it seems like that's closer to what cats actually eat when left to their own devices. I've never seen a cat take down a cow or lamb, so I'm avoiding those. Fish worries me because of all the mercury that's in seafood, so I'm feeding them fish sparingly. I am, of course, going grain-free... at least while I can afford to. I am also trying to minimize vegetables, since I've never seen a cat dig up a carrot and eat it. But an argument could be made that the animals they eat in "the wild" have vegetables in their stomaches, so I'm not militant about it. Purchasing food with minimum ingredients and carrageenan-free is pricier than I thought... and can be more difficult than I thought... but will hopefully be worth it in the end.

The wet vs. dry debate is insanely intense with vets landing on both sides of the fence. Wet is apparently better in some respects while dry is better for others (like keeping their teeth clean). I wanted to focus mainly on wet food and offer dry as a dessert but, as you'll see, that's not working out as planned.

The next step is trying to introduce some raw food into their diet. I really like the idea of making my own, but it seems to require a lot of trial and error (and an expensive grinder) to work... so I'll probably wait until they're older. Apparently going raw helps keep them out of the doctor's office to fix expensive health problems, which is always a goal.

Anyway...

I have the kittens on a strict feeding schedule (7:00, 12:30, 6:00) and they both know it. As breakfast approaches, they've taken to coming in my room each morning to act all starving...

The first thing they get is a bowl of wet food. Which Jake attacks right away...

I was told to feed kittens as much food as they will eat because they need lots of food for their growing bodies and will regulate their food intake on their own. But Jake doesn't seem to be doing that, even though he's as active as Jenny is. He LOVES to eat. And any invitation to eat guarantees he'll stick his face in the bowl for a chow-down. Guess he's the exception. Jake is growing noticeably bigger than Jenny, and I'm guessing it's because of his voracious appetite.

Jenny hems and haws about the wet food, but eventually relents and eats some because she knows after she eats some of it, I'll break out a plate of the dry food she loves so much.

At least she used to eat it.

Lately I noticed how her bowl would still be full after devouring the wet food.

After watching her for a while, I realized that she's not devouring it after all. She's just licking it to make me think she's eaten it so I'll bring out the dry food for dessert. The trickster!

She loves dry kibble so much that she often purrs while eating it!

Fortunately, Jenny drinks plenty of water throughout the day to compensate for her diet of mostly dry food...

Though sometimes how she drinks it is a bit... odd...?

You have to be careful any time Jake's around, as he'll chow down on any food that he can get his paws on. The scavenger!

In an attempt to offer a healthy snacking alternative, I grew some cat grass!

They both like nibbling on it throughout the day... though I don't know how much they're actually eating. Most of the time it looks like they're just playing with it.

Next step? Going to continue researching raw food. Not only is it supposed to be the healthiest way for cats to eat... it's supposed to cut down on the heinous smell of their poops, which would be a nice bonus.

Jake and Jenny have been inseparable since they came home with me. They eat together, sleep together, groom together, and play together. In the rare occasion that they get separated and one of them realizes it, they'll start walking around looking for their sibling... squeaking in despair. If it goes on too long, they'll get more frantic and vocal, which means I usually have to start looking for them too.

Jake is such a good brother. I think Jenny has bad dreams from time to time, as she'll wake with a start and seems troubled. When this happens, more often than not she'll hop up on Jake's perch and snuggle up next to him, then go back to sleep. No matter how irritating it is, Jake never kicks her out or leaves. He'll shift position if he has to... often several times... then try to go back to sleep... but he doesn't abandon her...

As entertaining as the kittens are to me... I'm even happier that they are so entertaining to each other.

Wrapping up Cat Week with some random kitty pictures on Caturday...

BASK IN THE ADORABLE!!

At first I tried keeping them off the dining room table... but it seems kind of cruel. Because they're so tiny, they can't see interesting stuff going on from floor level. One more thing to add to my morning disinfection routine.

   

For having started out so afraid and shy, they sure are brave and adventurous now! Anything new is cause for investigation... which means I never have to be alone when assembling IKEA again.

   

At first I was terrified that the kittens would somehow knock my beautiful new television off the wall, but after a few tries at interacting with the picture, they gave up. I guess that's what happens when Chris Hardwick doesn't high-five back.

   

You would think that this is an invitation to rub her belly. You would be wrong.

   

Just when you think that they couldn't possibly do something to be more adorable than they are...

   

...they prove you wrong.

   

Sleeping is their most favorite pastime. They nap after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner... then sleep through the night. Thank heavens.

   

Compact kittens are the best kittens.

   

Jenny's favorite spot is the window sill. She can stare outside for a half-hour or more and not get bored.

   

Jake just wants outside. Guess it's time to build that catio...

And that's it for Cat Week. But don't despair, you'll probably be getting another one soon.

Ignore that Easter Bunny, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Gary. Gary Shandling passed away, and I'm more than a little sad about that. There's been some great tributes by his fellow comedians, my favorite being from Jimmy Fallon when he sang It's Gary Shandling's Show theme song on The Tonight Show... I was surprised that I still remembered all the words...

You will be missed, sir.

   
• FREE! I've used the Nik filters for years. They're amazingly useful and powerful tools that were eventually purchased by Google. And now they're FREE! If you are a Photoshop or Lightroom user, run... don't walk... and click right here to get 'em. The only sad thing is that this is probably the end of development for the set.

   
• Jailed. Sorry... but I'm kinda siding with North Korea on this one. If you are so stupid as to not familiarize yourself with the laws and customs of a country before stepping foot on their soil, then you get what you deserve. The guy even tried to conceal his identity by wearing a hoodie... so don't tell me he didn't know what he was doing was wrong. I mean, holy crap, this is NORTH KOREA... the entire country is a human rights violation, and their history is replete with examples of even the tiniest offense resulting in harsh punishment. This was no accident that landed him in jail, it was intentional violation of their laws. Pity he didn't seem to grasp the consequences for his actions but, again, not North Korea's fault that he's an idiot.

This reminds me of the stupidest fucking movie I've ever seen called Born American where some drunken frat boys cross over into The Soviet Union on a goof during The Cold War. As the consequences of their actions escalate and a small town is decimated while the Soviet army is after them... they, of course, end up captured. And the whole movie is them whining about their horrible treatment and how they don't deserve it because THEY'RE AMERICAN, DAMMIT! Never mind the damage, death, and destruction they caused... BECAUSE: AMERICAN!!!

Well fuck you. All the dumbasses like this do when being dumbasses is make it more difficult (and more risky) for other American travelers who DO follow the rules and customs and want to travel abroad. And here we are, once again reinforcing the "Ugly American" stereotype we so richly deserve. And now I'm supposed to feel sympathy for you because you're a moron? Oh do go on. Do I feel sorry for the friends and family who will miss and worry about this tool? Of course I do. I feel sorry they came to care about somebody who ended up being dumber than a box of rocks.

   
• Balls. Well. This is new. Woke up to the cats grabbing their spongey ball, taking it up the stairs, then pushing it off so they can chase it down the stairs... over and over and over and over and over and over again. They are still doing it an hour later...

   
• Easter. I thought I'd be all cute and give the cats an Easter Bunny for Easter Sunday. Set it next to Jenny while she was sleeping. She woke up and was so freaked out that she grabbed it, drug it upstairs, then ran back to her perch and fell back asleep...

   
• Thanks. To all the wonderful people who posted birthday wishes on the 24th, THANK YOU. I am truly blessed to have friends that would take the time to say such wonderful things as I inch ever-closer to death. It would be better to have friends that would take the time to send money, but I am grateful just the same. Love you guys. Love you guys and your cheap, cheap hearts.

   
Enjoy those eggs, everybody!

You know how when you dig into a big bowl of cereal how the first two or three bites are utter perfection? The cereal crisp... the milk cold... and no sogginess to be found?

Then, like the inevitability of death and taxes, the milk starts to permeate your Cocoa Puffs and they grow increasingly less crunchy with each new bite and you'd give anything to get back to those glorious moments of cereal perfection?

"Only every single morning!" you say.

Well, there's an invention called Obol that aims to fix all this...

As you can see in the above photo, your cereal is kept high and dry in the top portion while the milk is safely waiting in the lower section. When you want to take a bite, you just push a spoonful of kibble into the milk and chow down with crunchy perfection.

And while Obol doesn't have a cooling unit to keep your milk cold, it does have kind of a "handle" on the bottom so you don't have to wrap your hands around the bowl and have your body heat warming your milk.

If you are a cereal fanatic like me, Obol is a must-purchase. It's a little pricey, but oh so worth it.

Unfortunately, I think Obol is going out of business or something, because most of the colors/sizes are out of stock and the pricing is weird at Amazon. If you're interested, I'd act sooner rather than later...

Medium Single Serve obol: $14.95, Large Double Serve Obol: $14.99

My new home has an utterly bizarre design choices. It's a nice place but, logically, rooms are positioned strangely, walls don't align as they should, and absolutely nothing is centered. Some of this I was able to address in the remodel, but other things ended up sticking around because there's just not enough remodel money to deal with all my ADD issues.

One of the areas that my new home's quirks made especially challenging was decorating. Since nothing is lined up and nothing is centered, placing pictures on the walls is a maddening struggle.

Take, for instance, my upstairs hall.

I decided I wanted to decorate it with movie posters. One wall has two small windows above a stairwell (off-center, of course), another wall has bizarre angles cut into it, another wall ends in a desk nook that's off-center from two bedroom doors. And, as if that wasn't bizarre enough space to try and align some wall hangings, the far wall comes out of a stairwell and has the HVAC vent return! It's enough to drive you crazy.

For this wall I decided to put a couple Star Wars posters (A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back... the only two that matter) and have them line up with both the stairwell and the upstairs hall. This left a big gap in the middle that needed filling.

I decided a light saber might be cool.

Only to find out that replicas are insanely expensive.

And then I happened across a "science kit" from "Uncle Milton" that featured a "Build Your Own Lightsaber" style room -light... for just $25! SOLD! I liked the design of Darth Vader's lightsaber best, so that's what I went with.

Opening the box had me bust out laughing, because it's not actual-size. It's a mini-saber that's tiny, tiny, tiny...

As if that wasn't funny enough, the "Darth Vader" lightsabers come in a box with a picture of Kylo Ren!

Even though it's billed as a "room light" it sure doesn't glow bright enough to light up a room... even in total darkness. But it does make a lightsaber sound when you turn it on, so I guess that's something. It comes with a remote control, but the remote doesn't turn the thing on, so I have no clue what the hell it's for (you have to push the button on the hilt to get it to "activate"). The description at Amazon said that the blade changes to eight colors with the remote, but the Darth Vader blade only glows red.

Ultimately, a big disappointment, as this is not the lightsaber you're looking for... move along.

Eventually maybe I can find a decent FULL-SIZE replica with a glowing blade that's affordable. Until then, a mini-saber it shall be.

May The Force be with you.

Always.

The thing about cats is... they're cats.

Cats... and especially the two kittens I have... are curious by nature, and want to get into anything and everything they can. They're always looking for adventure, which can be problematic when it comes to keeping them safe.

If there's one room I don't want them adventuring in, it's the kitchen. Too many opportunities for them to get into trouble once they're able to jump high enough to get on the countertops. Also... that's where the front door is, and I don't want them running out into the street.

The first thing I tried was putting "Scat Mats" in front of both entrances. These are plastic sheets with conductive wires running through it. They're hooked up to a battery and deliver a small shock when your pet (or you!) make contact with two wires...

The mats seem to work as advertised. It just took a few attempts before Jake and Jenny stopped trying to go into the kitchen. When I make their breakfast in the morning, they stop short of entering and wait patiently.

At least they did.

Maybe my cats are geniuses or something, but they just started jumping over the mat on day three...

So...

Not the best solution for keeping cats out of a room. Probably works great for keeping cats off of something though. If that's what you're after, then they might be worth picking up. The only thing that really bothered me with the product (other than them not working for my intended purpose) was that they tell you to store your mat rolled up... but it arrives folded. Which puts big-ass creases in it. They say you can use a hairdryer to smooth them out, but not even an industrial hairdryer would remove mine (as you can see in the above video). Kind of stupid they don't come rolled, as suggested in the instruction book!

After the failure of Scat Mat, I turned to another solution... Ssscat!

This is a can of compressed air with a motion sensor on top. When something triggers the motion detector, it releases a blast of air that scares any cats (or humans) who come within range...

It's a great idea.

Except mine doesn't work.

Even with two changes of fresh batteries, it doesn't activate when you get near it as it should. Sometimes it will go off with motion, but there's no rhyme or reason to it and it's worthless 99% of the time. I don't know if I got a bad one or what, but it's an even worse failure than the Scat Mat.

Oh well.

Hopefully a solution will come along that actually works.

Until then, there's always "NO!"

For decades I've been vowing that if I were to ever get my own place, I would never have carpeting again.

This was only confirmed when I pulled out the carpeting in my new home only to find that massive amounts of dirt were sitting beneath... belying the clean appearance of the carpet from above. It's pretty heinous... even if you're got a power vacuum like a Dyson.

Anyway...

The problem with hardwood is that it makes for some slippery stairs... especially if you have kittens that struggle to climb them and need something to grab onto. This means buying some stair treads, which is easier said than done, as there are a number of hurdles to overcome. First of all, decent stair treads are really expensive. I've seen them as high as $50... per stair! Second of all, I am picky in that I want something which blends in with my flooring as much as possible... but still stands out enough so people know they're there. Since I couldn't find them local, I had to best-guess while shopping online, which is always dangerous as the color you see on your display rarely matches reality.

Amazon here I come.

There were a few options that caught my eye, but the one that really stood out was the treads by casapura...

• Most important, the "chocolate brown" color looked to be a good match from what I could tell in the photo.
• There were 15 treads... exactly the number I needed... when most sets only had 13 (I only have to order one set!). As a bonus, you also get a mat!
• The reviews were really good.
• They had a "London" design which was rounded to show off more of the wood, which I liked much, much better than big rectangles that covered everything.
• They were among the cheapest treads available... just $89!... which meant I wouldn't be out too much money if I didn't like them.

So I ordered them with my expectations kept in check.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found that they were absolutely perfect. The quality. The color. The shape. The size. Everything. They look far more expensive than $89, and work perfectly for my kittens to navigate the stairs safely...

If I have one complaint, it's that quite a few treads didn't have the pattern perpendicular to the edge. It's not hugely noticeable, but for somebody ADD like me, it does drive you a little crazy. Other than that, I'm very happy with the casa pura stair treads... and even happier that I only had to pay $89 for them.

When it comes to installation, it's pretty straight-forward. There are adhesive strips on the back which keep the tread securely positioned. Some people in their Amazon reviews complained that it wasn't strong enough, but mine have been holding just great. I was sure to carefully clean and dry each step to get the best adhesion, so maybe that's all it takes. I did remove a tread to see if it comes off cleanly, and it did, but I don't know if that changes over time.

A helpful hint: After measuring my treads and stairs, I found that they centered with 4-1/2" gaps on each side. In order to make sure they all lined up perfectly, I found a small box that was 4-1/2" wide to set them against...

This made installation a snap.

You can find the casa pura treads over at Amazon... though, ironically enough, the "chocolate brown" color I purchased is no longer listed.

As I become more and more invested in woodworking and building stuff, I've accumulated a lot of tools. At first I kept them in a plastic Ziploc freezer bag. Then I moved on to a cardboard box. Then a plastic bin. After having my tools keep dumping out of the bin, I finally decided to invest in a toolbox. There were quite a few to choose from, but I'm kind of addicted to Milwaukee brand stuff, so I decided to take a look at their offerings.

Turns out they have two.

The classic 26" rectangular box was nice... rugged and comfortable to carry... but there wasn't a tray to organize stuff. So I ended up getting the 13" Jobsite Work Box instead. It had a tray and a caddy insert that looked handy...

It's a tough box and works great as a stool. There's a slot on top if you need a surface to cut pipe or something that might roll off a table.

In theory, it's a great design.

In practice? Not so much...

• The fact that it's so deep makes it tough to find smaller tools that get dropped to the bottom. It also wastes a bunch of space unless all your tools are tall.
• The small tray that fits in the top of the box is easily knocked out when removing tools, as there's no way to strap it in place.
• The caddy insert is frustrating as hell. It's difficult to place in the slot for storage and the cavities are too shallow to keep taller tools from flopping out.
• There's a spacer to help keep your tools in place so they don't slide into the caddy slot, but mine keeps catching on tools when I pull them out, so it's pretty much useless unless you want to glue it to the bottom of the box.
• It's a bit of a hassle to get into. The handle locks the lid in place if you push it one way... unlocks it if you push the other. Half the time I get it wrong.

Overall, this is a regretted purchase. The design makes it difficult to use, and I don't think it's very efficient or handy for storing tools. I'll probably replace it soon and just use it to carry power tools from one place to another.

Milwaukee really needs to come up with a more tried-and-true box that makes tool storage and access easier instead of more difficult.

When Apple came out with the iPad Pro, I was intrigued. Not because we were getting a giant iPad... but because it was accompanied with "Apple Pencil," which is what Apple calls their touch stylus.

So I went to the store to give one a try and ended up taking a pass. Not because of Pencil, which was amazing (as you'll see), but because the iPad Pro was just too big. I like drawing/painting/sketching while laying on the couch watching TV, and the big iPad felt like it was more of a table-top tool.

Fast-forward to earlier this month, and Apple announced that a smaller model of the iPad Pro would be released on March 31st.

And it's glorious...

There are a lot of iPad reviews out there, so I'm just going to give a quick run-down on what matters to me...

• The Apple Pencil stylus is incredible. I've used a lot of display tablets over the years, including the high-end Cintiq Wacom models, and this is the best I've ever seen.
• Seriously. If you're an artist, go to an Apple Store and try out Pencil.
• The glass is so thin on iPad Pro that it's more like drawing directly on the tablet instead of drawing above it. This is a huge step forward, and makes all the difference.
• No. Lag. None. Even when rapidly scribble-shading, it keeps up.
• The sizing is perfect for couch-drawing. I admit that there are times I'd like to have the larger drawing surface of the original iPad Pro model, but I'm ultimately happy with the smaller model.
• iPads and iPads have genreally had shitty sound. All that changes with this model. You get four speakers to orient stereo sound in either horizontal or vertical orientations. And it's really good sound!
• I'm not one to take photos with an iPad, but that may change. The camera on this thing is awesome. Low light performance is quite good. Not as handy as my iPhone for quick snaps... but it's nice to know I have iPad as an option if I need a shot.
• Apple's "TrueTone" sensor evaluated room lighting and adjusts the display tint to fit in with your surroundings for a more natural visual. I didn't think much about it, but tested how it works under the Edison vintage lights in my dining room which are very warm... sure enough, it's a noticeable (and welcome!) improvement.
• I never bought an iPad Air model, so I wasn't prepared for how thin this thing is. It's very nice, and the weight it comfortable to hang onto.
• The multi-tasking is a nice addition, but it doesn't seem terribly practical for the 9.7" model as opposed to the larger 12" version.
• The Apple Smart Keyboard is a better than trying to type with the on-screen keyboard... but not by a lot. The only real benefit is that you're not obscuring the screen with the keyboard. Otherwise it's just too cramped for easy typing, and almost impossible to use unless it's sitting on a sturdy flat surface.. This is where the 12" model with its full-size Smart Keyboard is a better choice if you're doing a lot of typing.
• The Smart Keyboard does not protect the back of the iPad. You need a separate piece for that.

For the most part, I am very, very happy with the iPad Pro... and ecstatic when using it with Apple Pencil and an app like ProCreate that can take advantage of it. This is easily, hands-down, no-bullshit the best stylus tablet experience I've ever had. The fact that it's not tethered to a computer is just icing on the cake. If you're an artist who is considering going digital... or are already a digital artist looking to upgrade, stopping by an Apple Store and checking out the iPad Pro is a no-brainer.

Put down that leftover Easter Egg Salad Sandwich, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Peanuts! As a long-time Peanuts fan, I was not especially looking forward to seeing Schultz's strip and classic cartoons butchered for modern audiences, as is so often the case (see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Jem, and and just about every other cartoon translation). Turns out I needn't have worried. The Peanuts Movie was pretty amazing...

Very faithful to the source material and lots of hidden gems for Peanuts fans to find. And it was just beautiful. It LOOKED like "Peanuts" and had plenty of nods to the classic Schultz style that was the hallmark of both the strip and the animation. Loved it. Purchased it immediately on iTunes so I can watch it many times.

   
• Yes. Oh yes...

Heckling a good comic is about the stupidest thing you can do.

   
• Entitlement. An iPhone app developer announced a new app they had just released. I wish I hadn't read the comments, because they pretty much went like this...

        $2.99 WTF?!?

        Better be good for $2.99!

        Should be free.

The entitlement generation makes me want to put my head in the microwave. Assholes will spend $5 for a cup of fucking coffee without thinking twice... but doesn't believe an app developer deserves $3 for their efforts? How in the hell do you make a living from free?

   
• Miitomo. And so Nintendo released their long-awaited iPhone app called Miitomo. It's a senseless time-waster, like most of these things... but it does allow you to get creatively absurd with your wardrobe, so there's that...

Those fishnet tights are the gift that keep on giving. Davetomo FTW!

   
• Youth. I was entirely too adorable as a child...

You can tell I'm old because, unlike today's fruit, watermelon had seeds when I was a kid.

   
And... that's it for bullets this week. See you in seven days!

It's actually not that hard being green. Home Depot has green LED bulbs for sale!

I usually pass on the "color your porch light campaigns," but when I heard about Green Light A Vet, that was one I couldn't help but get behind...

   
Thank you for your service, veterans!

I'm on my fifth run-through of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and I love the movie more with each viewing. Not because it's the greatest film I've seen... it definitely has its problems... but because after thirty-five years of waiting for a Star Wars film that didn't suck balls, here it is. Sure it's a complete re-tread of Star Wars, didn't break any new sci-fi ground whatsoever, and lacked the imagination and risk that a truly great Star Wars film should have... but maybe re-telling the Star Wars story over again in a new way is what we needed to reset everything? A re-starting point that reminds everyone why the Star Wars universe is so amazing?

I dunno.

So let's talk about the film shall we? But first... a warning...

Yeah, spoilers follow. So if you're one of the three people on earth who hasn't yet seen The Force Awakens, you might not want to proceed.

Okay?

Okay!

Since everybody has seen the film, it's pointless for me to recap the story, so let's skip that part.

The thing that strikes me most about Episode VII is the spaceship battles... in that so few of them take place in space. Much like The Empire Strikes Back melted my brain with Snow Speeders bringing a space battle down to "earth" (so to speak), The Force Awakens has all kinds of amazing shots which make the battles considerably more grounded. And they do it so beautifully. Shot after shot of stunning interactions between ship and environment provide a thrill much more personal than the cold emptiness of space. I mean, sure it makes no sense that Rey can fly the Millenium Falcon at expert level when she's never flown it before, but look how beautiful that shot is! And... MILLENNIUM FUCKING FALCON, BITCH...

Even when there's no battle, you can't help but be impressed. I could watch the Millennium Falcon fly across the water to Maz Kanata's palace over and over again without getting tired of it. It's just so gorgeous...

As are all the special effects, which are about as flawless as it gets.

Granted, Abrams has the benefit of better technology than Lucas did for the shit-fest that was Episodes I-III, but it was Abrams choice to do practical effects whenever possible that truly made Episode VII a vastly superior movie. The actors were able to inhabit their environments in a way that elevated their performances. And it shows. Instead of being stuck in a big green room trying to use half their brain to figure out what the hell is going on while the other half tries to make their character's lines convincing, Episode VII actors could focus on their performance. Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor are exceptionally gifted actors... but just look at the half-baked performances they turned in for Episodes I-III. The fault isn't really theirs, and I can't help but wonder how much better they would have been with a director who understands how acting works.

And then we get to the cast. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are superb in The Force Awakens. There's not a moment where they falter, and to see them light up the screen is what makes the movie so compelling. Hell, even fully-CGI characters like Maz feel authentic, and it's all thanks to unparalelled special effects coupled with the perfect casting of talented people like Lupita Nyong'o...

I hate to keep trouncing all over Lucas, but he anchored his entire pre-saga around horrendous performances from Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen. No amount of acting talent surrounding such horrors can make up for that. Abrams made sure the people anchoring his movie could deliver the goods. And boy did they. Having original cast members show up was just the icing on the cake. Especially Harrison Ford, who gave us the funniest scene in the film...

Of course, it wouldn't be a Star Wars film without lightsabers... and The Force Awakens gave us some memorable saber action. But in a good way. Not in the comical, farcical, over-the-top way that the prequels stunk up the screen. I still laugh my ass off at "The Battle of Genosis" (Episode II: Attack of the Clones) where we finally get the chance to see an entire batallion of Jedi in battle... only to have Lucas shit the bed by conveniently forgetting that the Jedi are capable of stunning acrobatics. No no... let's not have the battle be cool as fuck... let's just have the Jedi sleepily, randomly swing lightsabers around and occasionally "force push" a robot away so he falls down and goes boom...

And that's about as exciting as the "battle" got. Holy shit was that movie lame.

But Force Awakens takes a different tact. Even if it doesn't make sense that Rey could take on Kylo Ren when she's probably never even touched a lightsaber before. I don't care how hurt Kylo Ren was... or how "in-tune" with The Force that Rey was, it was a bit ridiculous. I mean, Kylo Ren can stop a fucking laser blast in mid-air, but he can't kick the shit out of an untrained saber newbie because he has an owchie on his side? Please. But, ooh... look how beautiful it looks!

A big nod to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill here. His battle at The House of Blue Leaves between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu made for great pre-viz...

Though putting a lightsaber fight in the snow is genius. I love how Kylo Ren and Ren are accidentally chopping trees in half and boiling snow when their sabers touch it...

And, speaking of lightsabers, about that twist everybody saw coming...

Harrison Ford has been asking for Han Solo to be killed off for years. At least Abrams found a way to make his death mean something. The pity being that the heart and humor of Star Wars is gone. Forget Luke Skywalker, it's Han Solo that encapsulated the awesomeness of the franchise. At least all my best Star Wars memories are of Han Solo. Maybe Darth Vader. But he's already gone. I will miss Han Solo in future installments.

Ultimately, this next iteration of the Star Wars saga will live or die on the second act: Star Wars Episode VII: Echoes of the Dark Side or Star Wars Episode VII: Space Bear or Star Wars Episode VII: Return of the Return of The Jedi... or whatever. Will it be a retread of the best Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back? Or will they strike out in a more inventive direction?

Who knows.

But so long as there are spaceships and lightsabers and George Lucas is nowhere near it, I'll be there.

Once I was hanging out at a bar with friends that featured live music. The band, which wasn't bad at all, was being badly heckled by a couple tables. For the first couple of songs, the band ignored the chants of "FREEBIRD!" and "NOW PLAY SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T SUCK!" But eventually the lead singer stopped the show and said something like "Hey, I get it. You don't like our music and that's fine. But, believe it or not, there are people who DO like our music and they've come here tonight so they can listen to us play. And you're ruining that for them. There are plenty of other bands out there and some of them probably play music you will enjoy, and you should probably go see them instead of us. But if you're going to stick around, be quiet and let us play. We'd do the same for you and your band... if you had a band. Which you obviously don't. If you did, you'd know how tough it is to get up in front of a room full of people to perform for them, and show us some fucking respect."

And it worked. One of the tables finished their drinks and left. The other stopped being assholes. And the reason it worked was because the band was able to confront the hecklers face to face. The hecklers couldn't hide from the consequences of their actions.

And then we get to the internet, where most of the people most of the time are hidden from the consequences of their actions. Why should they be quiet and respectful when their online "identity" is "BigLukeThe Exploder?" (or whatever... my apologies to BigLukeTheExploder if you actually exist).

Well, I want in on that.

Removing consequences from my actions sounds like a lot more fun than what I'm doing now.

So the next time you see an anonymous troll being a total fucking asshole on the internet... be kind.

It might be me.

And. Scene.

If you haven't been inundated by the teaser trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, you haven't been paying attention. Or you're dead. Better get that looked at...

On Facebook I saw where there are people complaining that the lead character will be a woman for two Star Wars movies in a row. This is a little unbelievable to me, as there didn't seem to be complaints when the first six films had male-centric leads. I mean, sure there was Princess Leia (Star Wars: damsel in distress. Empire: love interest. Jedi: sex slave.) and Queen Amidala (Menace: damsel in distress. Clones: love interest. Revenge: lovestruck idiot baby-maker.) but does that really count? Not really. I say it's about damn time.

And the cool thing here is that we don't have long to wait. Rogue One is being released this December!

And the exciting this here is that we're going back into The Original Trilogy! Whether or not they actually exploit the awesomeness that could result from that remains to be seen (VADER, BITCHES!).

But I am hopeful.

And cautious.

The pain of betrayal from The Phantom Menace still hurts.

One of the main reasons I wanted to move to a condo is that the groundskeeping stuff is covered by my monthly HOA fees. That's things like lawnmowing, showshoveling, and such that I DON'T have to be bothered with. But the woman who lived in my condo before me loved flowers, so she had lots... lots... of pots and planters scattered around. I started throwing them all out because the groundskeepers ignore them and, apparently, they're my responsibility to maintain... which I Do. Not. Want. But things started looking pretty stark at my place, and I didn't want my neighbors hating on me, so I put half of them back. But then I had to fill them.

So this past weekend I bought a bunch of flowers and dirt and garden tools and crap. It was way, way, WAY more expensive than I thought it would be. And I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I just picked out things that had colors I like. No clue if they're appropriate to plant together or how big they get or what. So I guess we'll see. I didn't research the proper way to plant stuff, so I just ripped out the dead junk, dug holes, then popped in the new stuff. Fingers crossed. Otherwise? Money down the drain...

There were some bulbs planted that I left. I'm a bit concerned that they haven't produced flowers yet when everybody else's bulbs in the neighborhood have...

I ran out of money for purchasing actual plants, so I bought some seeds for the larger planters. They're already sprouting!

If this goes well, I might factor more plants into my plans for next Spring. Otherwise? A rock garden is still a garden, right?

Now that I have awesome cats, I take a lot of awesome photos.

Rather than post them every day, I'll wait until "Caturday" rolls around and see if I have anything worth posting.

This week, I do. Lucky you!

Jake and Jenny spend a lot of time wanting to go outside...

It's not worth the worry and the risk to me, so I've decided not to let them out.

Kinda.

I'm drawing up plans for a "catio" enclosure so they can get a little taste of what it's like to be outdoors...

I just need to find the time to build it.

It's going to be a lot of time and money I don't have, but I think the kitties are worth it...

Yeah. Definitely worth it.

Taco Tuesday let you down? No worries, because it's now Sunday, and Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Peanuts! The Peanuts Movie was pretty amazing. Very faithful to the source material and lots of hidden gems for Peanuts fans to find. And it was just beautiful. It LOOKED like "Peanuts" and had plenty of nods to the classic Schultz style that was the hallmark of both the strip and the animation.

Loved the film. Kind of disheartening to hear that there's no plan for a sequel.

   
• Hunger. We're all in this together, people...

One person can always make a difference.

   
• SATAN! Lucifer renewed for a second season?!? But... but... but... One Million Moms boycotted the show! Because: Satan! How can it possibly survive?

Oh... that's right... people can just change the channel if they don't like a show. And, in this case, people decided a fictitious interpretation of Satan was something they wanted to watch. NOTE TO ONE MILLION DUMBASSES: THIS IS NOT A SHOW GLORIFYING SATAN! IT'S A FICTIONAL CHARACTER... NOT ACTUALLY SATAN!

   
• #RealMenLoveHearts. Amazing people can't like what they like and not be hassled for it in this day and age...

   
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Welcome to Remodeling Week at Blogography!

This time, we'll be taking a look at my guest-room remodel, which didn't require moving walls or tearing anything apart or anything extreme like that, so it was actually the easiest to work through. Kinda. The problem being that I've never had a guest room before, so it required all new furniture and stuff. In the end, the guest room actually ended up being one of the pricier expenditures I had.

The room itself is oddly-shaped, has one off-center window, and is kinda small, which left me limited options. I wanted a queen-sized bed, and it couldn't go under the window because I'd only have room for one nightstand, and I wanted two. So here we are...

The overall color theme for the room is white. In order to make things interesting, I went with as many shades and style of white as I could find. Then added dark blue to keep it from looking stark.

And now... on to the furniture...

The bed is just a metal frame because I didn't have room for anything extravagant... also, I wanted to put the money where it counted by getting a great mattress (Bellagio at Home by Serta). I did try and dress it up a bit with a pricey headboard from Target though...

Nightstands are IKEA. Originally I didn't want drawers, but ultimately thought they'd be less effort to dust than shelves...

Originally, I wanted to have a desk and chair in the room with the dresser in the closet. But the desk wasn't tall enough that both people could see the television while laying in bed, so I swapped them around, which works really great. Except there's no outlet in the closet, so I mounted an extension cord to a hook on the side of the desk. Both desk and chair are IKEA...

I had the chair by the door, but it looked like it would be easily tripped over, so I put it with the desk in the closet and bought an IKEA stool there...

I should mention that I don't usually allow cats in this room in case my guests have allergies or something... but the minute they hear the door open, they run to get in. It's apparently their favorite room in the house. Probably because it's the one place they can't normally go.

Meanwhile, back at the dresser...

The television is at the perfect height on top of the dresser, so adding the DVD player underneath wasn't working. I decided to remove one of the small drawers and see if I could make a space. I started by attaching some wood strips to the center support, then secured them to the side of the dresser...

Then I whitewashed a thin piece of wood to match and secured it to the strips with carpet tape...

After drilling a hole in the back of the dresser for the cords to pass through, the DVD player (and AppleTV) fit perfectly...

And... that's it for furniture. Thank you, IKEA.

Welcome to Remodeling Week at Blogography!

After the guest room furniture had been purchased, the next step was to figure out what I wanted to do for the textiles. Eventually I settled on a Liz Claiborne bed set that had a pattern I didn't hate. The matching window valance was incredibly expensive, so I found a Liz Claiborne solid that matched (I needed two because the window is apparently wider than average)...

The pattern on the bed cover is called "Arabesque" but it's reversible to a paisley kind of design I liked better...

The bed looked a little plain, so I took a cue from my sister's guest room and added pillows. I found them on close-out at Fred Meyer, and they worked perfectly...

When it came to the rugs, this time I went back to the "Arabesque" pattern for inspiration and found some nice-looking options at Shopko that weren't matchy-matchy blue, but a darker grey-blue...

Yes, the cats decided to get in the way everywhere I pointed the camera. The hams.

In addition to the blanket across the base of the bed, I bought a comforter and some cotton blankets in case my guests get cold. IKEA has nice "under-bed" scooters that work perfectly to store them...

And that's that for textiles.

Welcome to Remodeling Week at Blogography!

Rooms are made more homey and comfortable by adding some art and photos to the wall, so I worked hard to find picture frames that were interesting, but not overpowering. Shades of white that would work with the walls and furniture seemed the way to go.

I started with a vertical frame to fill the space between the dresser and the closet. Pier One (my favorite place for frames) had an option in cream that was perfect. I filled it with pictures of my kittens...

The centerpiece of the room is one of my favorite paintings, The Flower Bearer by Diego Rivera. It has a black frame, so it stands out from everything else in the room...

The two photos on the sides I took while visiting Barcelona Cathedral in Spain. The frames I found at Fred Meyer had cream mats to play off the cream vertical frame on the opposite wall...

To tie into the Diego Rivera, I had two postcards also by Rivera framed on both sides of the window. I think they came from Pier One as well...

To tie into the photos of Barcelona Cathedral, I framed photos of the geese in their courtyard on the opposite wall...

The frames I found at Target, and are my favorite in the room...

I needed a full-length mirror for my guests to get dressed in, and I found an interesting one at Fred Meyer. It was pricey, but the detail was pretty cool...

The wall with the TV was boring and needed something, but I didn't want anything too distracting, so I got the matching mirror from Freddy's to stick back there...

And... enough with the expensive wall decorations.

Welcome to Remodeling Week at Blogography!

I wanted some kind of "theme" with the decorative junk I wanted to add to my guest room, but no idea what that might be. Then, while trying to find the right rabbit for an image I was working on for Thrice Fiction magazine, I found myself knee-deep in bunnies and thought I'd give that a try.

Not bad at all.

I started on the nightstand with this cool ceramic bunny I found in Fred Meyer...

That didn't work for my Thrice project, so I found a smaller vintage bunny at an antique store which ended up on the opposite nightstand...

That rabbit didn't work either, so I found another antique store rabbit plus a tall fellow that was on sale at Pier One. They're on the dresser behind the television..

When neither of those rabbits worked, I finally struck gold with bunnies that did work. Those ended up on the other side of the television...

With all my rabbit decor needs met, I ended up buying a plush bunny for the bed to tie everything together...

The cats like to attack the thing every chance they get...

And that's it for bunny rabbits.

Welcome to Remodeling Week at Blogography!

After jamming bunnies everywhere, I considered getting bunny pictures to add to the walls, but that seemed like entirely too much rabbit.

After tossing around ideas for a couple weeks, I was at an antique mall when the solution jumped out at me... vintage license plates!

Not only are they very cool-looking, but they are available in dark blue to tie into the textiles I bought. I found five great ones for above the closet...

One of the plates I bought was so worn there were no letters left on it... and it was pre-embossing... so I could barely make out that it was an Ohio plate from 1914. I wanted a companion plate, so I went hunting on the internet and found that the 1915 Ohio plates were dark blue... perfect!

The main wall has my Diego Rivera print on it, which has rich reds in it, so I found a license plate to match that I could put it above the mirror on the same wall...

Overall, I'm really happy with the license plates. The only down-side to acquiring them is that all the coolest ones are also the most expensive.

Welcome to Remodeling Week at Blogography!

After buying the furniture and textiles, then decorating the place, all I had left was to add all the things the room needed to feel like home for my guests.

I started with an alarm clock. I was going to go with white or blue to match everything else in the room, but the Diego Rivera print above the bed had some yellow in it, so I decided to mix things up a bit...

I live in a relatively quit neighborhood, but there's barking dogs and other distractions on occasion, so I got a Marpac white noise machine in case a guest needs a way to block sounds so they can sleep...

Nightstand lights are simple chrome models with white shades...

To camouflage the screws I used to secure the DVD player shelf in the dresser, I bought a chrome hook bar that guests can hang their keys and stuff on...

The top drawer is for guests to use, but the bottom three I used for a selection of DVDs... divided into Action/Drama, Comedy, and Kids. If a guest can't find something they want to watch, they can go to the main collection in the garage...

For fun-time reading, I bought some antique magazines. I also found some inspirational phrase books in my collection from Richard Bach and Deepak Chopra...

And thus ends Remodeling Week at Blogography!

Can't get no satisfaction? You've been looking in the wrong place, because an all-new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• STRANGE! I love love love love Dr. Strange in the comics. Other than whitewashing The Ancient One from Tibetan to a white English woman (to appease the massive Chinese movie market, I'm guessing), this looks very promising indeed...

November can't get here quickly enough. But first? Captain America: Civil War, baby! This film is getting amazing pre-release reviews and I cannot wait to see it.

   
• Representative? Congratulations North Carolina! The homophobic asshole politicians you elected are fucking up your state real good. But you probably don't need all those billions in jobs and visitor cash... I'm sure North Carolina is sitting on piles of money to make up for what you're losing. Oh? You're not? MIGHT WANT TO REMEMBER THAT WHEN YOU'RE IN THE VOTING BOOTH NEXT TIME!

Only hope now is a full-on repeal of this horrendous law, I guess...

THAT'S NOT A REPEAL, YOU ASSHOLE! Congratulations, North Carolina, you're getting exactly what you deserve for electing this homophobic, transphobic piece of shit. Might want to think about a recall.

   
• Whores! While looking around at the local antique mall, I spotted these Bible-toting dolls that made me laugh...

Tres adorbs.

   
• Nacho Cheese My new favorite snack: over-cooked nachos. Why oh why didn't I discover that over-baking the cheese made nachos ten times more delicious?

All those chips and cheese wasted.

   
• Funny Not Funny. I laughed over this for about ten minutes...

No, I'm not proud of myself.

   
And... that's all the bullets we have or today. Move along. Nothing more to see here. Move along...

I've never given much thought to being "a morning person." Since I am constantly battling insomnia and am already awake well before it's time to get up, there's nothing much to think about. Would I like to stay in bed all day watching TV and surfing the internet? Sure. Is it sometimes difficult to get motivated to face the day? Of course. But getting up at the ass-crack of dawn is no big deal to me. Which, I'm told, makes me a "morning person."

And I suppose that's even more true now that I have cats.

Kittens are supposed to be fed 3 or 4 times a day so that they have all the food and energy they need to grow up healthy and strong. I settled on 3 times a day out of necessity (I only get one lunch hour!) and that seems to be working just fine because Jake and Jenny are growing up alarmingly fast.

The trick to making a feeding schedule work is to stick to it like glue. Which means feeding the little monsters promptly at 7:00am, 12:30pm, and 6:00pm. Which, for me, is Before Work, Lunch Hour, and After Work.

That first feeding is a routine that the cats are very much accustomed to, and deviating from it is tantamount to The Apocalypse. It goes something like this:

• 6:50am — iPhone Alarm Goes Off. This is not to wake me up... I've been up since 4:00-4:30... but to remind me that the kitties need to be fed, and I should put away my work and get moving.
• 6:52am — Bathroom Break. Everybody poops. Even me.
• 6:57am — Open the Bathroom Door. Once Jake and Jenny hear the toilet flush, they haul their fuzzy little asses up the stairs as fast as they can so they are waiting for me as I open the door. Then I usually get them all hyped up by saying "Who's ready for breakfast? Should we get some breakfast? Come on, let's go get breakfast!" And we'll all go tearing back down the stairs so I can dish out their wet food.
• 7:00am — Breakfast! Jake devours his bowl. Jenny licks hers... maybe taking a bite or three if she's really hungry. At this point, I usually go back to my bedroom so I can finish up whatever I was working on when the alarm went off.
• 7:20am — FEED US! Since Jenny doesn't like wet food very much, I always serve her up some dry food a half hour later. Jake, being Jake, will join in eating her dry food and polish off the wet food she didn't eat. Because of that, he's just as excited for 7:30 to come around as she is. Which means they start hanging out on my bed around 7:20 waiting for me to come back down and give them dessert. Many times I've looked up from my computer to see them just laying there staring at me...

• 7:30am — Crunchy Time! As soon as I notice that 7:30-ish has rolled around, I start getting the cats hyped up... "What time is it? Is it crunchy time? It is! It's crunchy time!" Which has them going out of their minds as they hop around the room and tear downstairs at top speed.

Then I get ready for work and am out the door.

On those rare mornings where I am slow to get out of bed... usually because I'm in the middle of composing an email or something... the cats will come get me if it strays too far past 7:00am. Usually they'll make their food demands known in as passive-aggressive way possible... like flopping themselves on the floor and staring at me...

If that doesn't work, they'll climb up on the bed and start chewing on my toes or something.

Which is fine. I deserve that if I'm getting off schedule.

I'm a morning person after all.

Despite complaining about bad drivers like... ALL THE TIME... and getting angry a lot at people who choose to focus on texting or eating or video games or anything except driving when on the road... I'm usually able to let it go.

Not today, baby...

So there I was waiting to turn onto the street where my office is at. An old man was making his way across and I was waiting until he got all the way to the sidewalk so as not to scare him. And also... because it's the law! Any guesses as to what happened in this scenario?

   
The fact that I used the "c-word" when I absolutely abhor the "c-word" should be your first clue...

Got your guess?

THAT'S RIGHT! The asshole decided to not wait until the old man reached the sidewalk... hell, she barely waited for him to clear the lane... instead she gunned it so she could cut in front of me (WHEN I HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY, MIND YOU!), cutting me off and scaring the shit out of the old man.

What a fucking cuntwaffle.

Things like this? Impossible for me to let go.

If I had a gun and didn't believe in non-violence as a precept, I would have run her down and shot her in the face.

IN THE FACE!

And so, yeah... road rage. I get that. And, in this case, totally justifiable on my part, I think.

On a side-note... anybody have any guesses as to why the old man crossed the road?

Long before I became an actual certified diver, I had longed to dive The Great Barrier Reef. It was just so beautiful... full of color and life in a way that defied reality. Once I became a certified diver in 1986, diving The Great Barrier Reef was at the top of my bucket list.

Twenty-five years later, I finally got to check it off my list.

And it ended up being a bit of a disappointment. Thanks to Cyclone Yasi blowing through eight months earlier, there was significant damage to the reef and, while still beautiful and amazing, it didn't live up to the pre-Yasi splendor I had seen in photos and video.

I chalked it up to bad timing and promised myself that I'd return to Australia one day after the reef had recovered.

Except that isn't happening.

If anything, the reef has only gotten worse since I visited.

In an article I read today, 50% Of The Great Barrier Reef is now dead or dying and 93% is bleached.

I don't know if there's any chance of this horrible situation reversing itself, so I guess I should be thankful that I got to see what I saw when I saw it.

Because you just never know.

So now I'm starting to think I should start being thankful for everything that I got to see when I saw it.

And I try to be.

It's the places I haven't yet seen that's terrifying me now.

Will they even exist when I finally get around to going?

Very sad to learn that Prince has left us. He was a remarkable artist whose influence will not soon pass from this earth.

Just thought I'd post a smattering of things I like about His Purpleness today rather than try and do any kind of retrospective on what his music has meant to me all these years.

Probably my most favorite thing Prince-related is Kevin Smith's story about his attempt to work with the guy. Yes, Prince was strange, but he could be. Because he's Prince...

I am certain that I'm not the only one who is dying to know about the mountain of Prince material stacked up in his vault. We could be getting new stuff for decades, assuming his heirs choose to share it with us.

   
And, of course, Questlove has a story to share...

   
If you haven't seen Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Story on playing basketball with Prince (played by Dave Chappelle), then you owe it to yourself to click over to iTunes and buy the fifth episode of the second season right now. It is one of the most hilarious things you will ever see (and, unfortunately, gets lost because everybody focuses on Charlie Murphy's Rick James story, bitch). If you can't get iTunes episodes, here's a handheld recording...

Prince, of course, reacted as only Prince can...

   
And Queen Latifah on Fallon (who are both huge Prince fans) show how even the stars are starstruck when it comes to Prince...

David Spade shared an awesome Prince story on Fallon too...

   
Prince did an episode of The New Girl that was so Prince it hurts. Liz Meriwether, the creator of the show, has an awesome recap of the experience that's a must read. And, in case you didn't see the episode, here's a mashup of his appearance...

   
I love too many Prince songs to count, but my favorite has to be Raspberry Beret. It's such an amazingly clever song in so many ways... musically, lyrically, creatively... it's everything you expect from Prince in one amazing video...

The story around the video is equally interesting. Up until this point, Prince had been in a self-imposed exile from music videos for a while. I don't know what made him change his mind to appear in Raspberry Beret, but it made the video a pretty major event at the time. Also... I read somewhere that Prince coughing at the beginning was real and he, as director of the video, decided to leave it in. The Purple One is human after all!

"Overcast days never turned me on. But something about the clouds and her mixed..." For the longest time, I had those lyrics wrong. I always thought it was "But there's something about the clouds in her midst." Then one day I was actually listening (as opposed to singing along... badly) when I realized there was no "there's" in that lyric. Then I had to reevaluate what he was singing over and over until I figured it out. Now every time I look out my window and see an overcast day, those are the words that enter my head. Hopefully I haven't got them wrong. Again.

   
And, lastly, Prince being Prince... the ultimate performer...

   
So much more could be said.

Goodbye Prince. You are gone but definitely will not be forgotten.

Can you believe it? They make Dr. Suess cat toys!

As a huge, huge, massively huge Dr. Suess fan, this was big news. They had all kinds of toys, but I gravitated towards Mouse Thing 1 and Mouse Thing 2...

   
They're super-cool, and the cats seem to like 'em...

   
I'll definitely be buying the Cat in the Hat cat charmer and Mouse in the Cat in the Hat next trip to Petco. Great job to whomever came up with this genius bit of cross-marketing!

Hey!

Hey, you!

Like reading stories and looking at art?

You do? I'm not surprised. Did you know that the latest issue of Thrice Fiction is now available? And did you know you can download it absolutely FREE from our website?

If you didn't, now you do! Go check it out, won't you? We're now sixteen issues strong, and every issue is available absolutely FREE for immediate download...

I'll be back next week to discuss the works that appear in the issue. In the meanwhile, enjoy!

Seriousness is overrated, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Anchor! Every dresser, shelf, and storage unit I have that's over two feet tall is anchored to the wall. I'm trying my best to insure that no visiting child... or resident kitty... or even an adult... is going to be hurt by a piece of furniture in my home. This is a very, very important read... especially if you have little ones in your home... furry or not. Make time to read it.

   
• Space-Muppets! Farscape movie confirmed! When it comes to episodic science-fiction television, you can't beat the original Star Trek. But Farscape came close. I loved the show for it's creativity and imagination from the very first episode, and remained a fan right up until the last show (and The Peacekeeper Wars mini-series that followed).

I am such a fan of the show that I have autographed photos of the entire cast of Farscape (except for Rigel because he's a puppet) from when I attended the very first Farscape convention in Burbank. In order to attend the convention, I had to cut short a trip to Japan, which is why my autograph from the beautiful Farscape character Aeryn Sun says: "To David. Thanks for choosing us over Japan - Love, Claudia Black."

Yes, the show lost its way quite a bit in the last season, but it never lost its ability to entertain. I am hopeful that the movie will give us the very best the show has to offer and remind everybody why it has such a rabid fan-base in the first place.

   
• Spend. The Secret Shame of Middle Class Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck is a fascinating read. I had a hard time getting past the fact that 47% of "Middle Class" Americans would have trouble coming up with $400 for an emergency. But then I think back to the medical expenses that were overwhelming me two years ago... and that was me. There were months I'd have trouble coming up with 40¢ for an emergency. Today? Yes, I could do it, but with my savings going towards a remodel and a chunk of my paycheck going towards mortgage and all that... it would not be a piece of cake by any means. Especially if it's a month I've visited Home Depot. As a follow-up, the lovely Bluegrass Food posted another powerful article: Parents are Bankrupting Themselves to Look Adequate.

   
• Save. Seems like a good time to re-post this timeless SNL gem...

Logic can be so logical sometimes.

   
• Redneckity. Nails it...

Trae Crowder is a comedian, but says he's speaking from the heart in these videos. I don't doubt it. His YouTube channel is essential viewing material.

   
And that's all she wrote for this week. Whomever "she" is. She's not me, or so I'm guessing.

And so Harriet Tubman has been chosen to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill.

Even a cursory examination of her story reveals that she is the epitome of American spirit (and, I'd argue, American values), and I think she is a fantastic choice for the honor.

But, of course, she's Black and a woman, which means the controversy over her selection is already unloading all over the internet. Most of it is almost comical in its ignorance. My favorite being "SHE WASN'T EVEN A PRESIDENT!" as if that's a requirement (which begs the question of how Benjamin Franklin and Sacagawea ended up on our modern money, but whatever). And then there's the "YOU'RE CHANGING OUR TRADITIONS AND HISTORY!" brigade (I'll just leave this link right here), which is equally telling in ignorance about how far back some people consider "history" to go.

Rumor has it that Viola Davis has been working on a Tubman biopic for a while now. Something tells me that she's going to have no problem getting it off the ground now. Which is awesome news, of course. There's a lot of ignorant people in need of a history lesson.

As always, it's just a matter of whether they choose to listen to it.

Okay... my new Blu-Ray player can play 3D movies... and my TV can display 3D movies... but I've never bothered to watch a 3D movie because I don't like them much in the theater. They're dark. They're blurry. They're most-often not filmed in actual 3D so the separation sucks. All told, it's just a miserable experience. The sole exception being Avatar, which was something I could really plug my hair into because the 3D was so well done. And because it featured giant blue kitty people...

Anyway... I bought the Blu-Ray 3D version of Avatar when it was on sale a while back, and I finally decided to dig out the 3D glasses this weekend and take a look. The 3D was absolutely spectacular... better even than the movie theater! Sure, it looked like a video game, but it was... different. So now I'm anxious to try more 3D films at home, but I don't want the 2D to 3D conversion crap that looks terrible. So I'm trying to track down films that were actually filmed in 3D with 3D cameras. And there just so happens to be a terrific website for that called Real 3D or Fake 3D!

Now it's just a matter of which movie to watch next. A lot of Pixar movies look promising. And I'm happy to see that Dredd was shot in actual 3D... so I guess that's a start.

And now for a quick look at my Samsung UBD-K8500 Ultra-HD 4K HDR Blu-Ray Player...

I bought this player not for the 3D... there are plenty of cheaper options for that... I bought it for the HDR Ultra-HD picture to match up with my HDR-capable Ultra-HD television. To anybody familiar with this blog, the fact that I would buy into another shitty DRM-infested physical format may come as a surprise, but there's really no other way to get this kind of picture digitally, so I bit the bullet.

The UBD-K8500 player itself buys into the dopey "curve" aesthetic that has been plaguing Samsung as of late (I still don't understand the appeal of their curved TVs), which looks silly in your media center, but oh well. It's what the thing can do that I cared about, and there's actually two parts to that...

4K Picture.
With four times the resolution of 1080p, the new 4K format is a sight to behold... if you have a television that can display it! If you don't, this player is good for future-proofing and not much else. Otherwise? Well, it depends. First of all, you need a big TV. Second of all, you need to sit close enough to the television that you can actually appreciate the picture quality. Have too small a display or sit too far back, and you might as well stick with the much cheaper 1080p options out there. I have a 65-inch screen and sit approximately 9 feet away. This is the outer fringe of what's recommended to get any benefit out of the increased resolution but, when running a comparison between 1080p and 4K there is a definite difference you will notice. I sure did. It's not vastly huge since my television upscales the lower resolution quite nicely, but enough to make me want to purchase Movies That Matter in the Ultra-HD 4K format. To truly get the best bang for my buck, I move some furniture and sit 6 feet away from the screen. That's when the Ultra-HD really shines, and the extra money suddenly becomes worth the cost.

HDR.
If there were a "killer feature" to the UBD-K8500, it's the ability to send a High Dynamic Range picture to a compatible television. I have such a television, and can say with no hyperbole whatsoever that it's stunning. The expanded color gamut looks great when viewed alone... but it looks jaw-dropping stupendous when compared to a standard HD source. As I switched from 1080p to 4K HDR sources for The Martian and Kingsmen: The Secret Service it was like a hazy veil was being pulled from in front of my eyes, even though the image didn't look as bright. The color fidelity was just fantastic. Everything looks deep, rich, defined, and saturated... all without looking fake and bleeding all over the place. In a dark room on a high-quality display, I dare say that the image you get from the Samsung UBD-K8500 is better than any theater.

So... great picture quality. But what about the many, many, many pitfalls that plague Blu-Ray players of the past? Especially when it comes to speed? Blu-Ray players have historically been absurdly slow to respond... especially through the klutzy menu systems. Is the UBD-K8500 any different? Yes. And no. Yes, it's much faster than my previous 1st generation and 3rd generation Blu-Ray players, but it can still be infuriating when attempting to navigate through long menus or while attempting to jump around the disc. A lot of this undoubtedly has to do with the shitty DRM encoding (which punishes paying customers instead of the criminals seeking to steal content), but it's not like you can expect movie studios to give a shit.

The only real down-sides to my purchase were A] The price ($350!), B] The remote (once again Samsung shows that they have no clue what they're doing), and C] The lack of Ultra-HD HDR titles (no Star Wars: The Force Awakens yet, alas). Other than that, I'd recommend the thing if you've got the television/set-up to take advantage of it.

The bulbs that were left by the previous owner of my home are finally starting to spring. And they're irises... which are kind of a freaky flower. Freaky in that they can't support the weight of the flowers and most of them end up on the ground.

But they're pretty even so... especially when they're still upright. The berry-colored flowers are my favorite...

There's some peachy-colored stuff too...

Not a huge fan of the yellow color, but they're interesting...

The white flowers are probably going to pop tomorrow...

If I had any kind of ambition whatsoever when it comes to the flowers around my house, I'd probably rip everything out and start over, but... meh... good enough.

Where has civility and respect gone in our society?

I dunno, but I ran across a video that vividly illustrates how it's quickly becoming a thing of the past.

This disgusting crap just boggles my mind. Don't these assholes have mothers? Sisters? Grandmothers? Daughters? Any women they remotely give a shit about? How do they justify this behavior to themselves?

Horrific.

Their mothers must be so proud.

Twenty minutes from my doorstep is a rather nice, large park in a neighboring city that I enjoy walking through when I have a chance. The last time I was there was to take my new camera lens out for a spin back when we had our last snow of the season.

Yesterday I wasn't feeling well at all and decided a walk in the woods might do me some good. I took my camera, of course...

And discovered a new love of dandelions...

Now that tourist season is rapidly approaching, I probably won't make it back to the park until Fall.

So there I was... reading through some work at 11:10pm... when I heard a commotion going on downstairs. Not knowing what the cats might have gotten into, I go running to see if anybody is hurt or in danger or whatever.

But when I get downstairs, both cats are lounging on the couch doing nothing at all.

It didn't sound like your typical chase around the house, so I was genuinely curious to know what in the heck was going on. Luckily, I have security cameras everywhere, so it was a piece of cake to go back in time and take a look...

Okay... there's Jake... looking out the window. Jenny is on the right but obscured by the coffee table...

WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN...

GAH! It's that big black & white cat that wanders around! I'd shit my pants and run away too if he popped up in my window!

Note that Jenny didn't move. I'm pretty sure she could take him.

Don't despair over your impending march to Monday, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• HASTURD! What happens when a complete piece of shit holds political power?

Apparently they get away with being child-raping garbage. God bless America.

   
• Jack! And so it looks like John Krasinski has been cast as Jack Ryan in a new Amazon series based on John Clancy's books. In all honesty, I think he may end up being the best Jack Ryan yet. Baldwin wasn't physical enough. Ford was too old. Affleck not cerebral enough. Pine was just (surprisingly) plain bad. They all lacked something essential to the character. Krasinski, on the other hand, is the whole package. If they get the story right, I think he'll knock it out of the park. And if he can get his wife to make a guest appearance, so much the better! The only thing that gives me pause is that Carlton Cuse and Graham Richard are developing the series. Given the way they took an amazing concept and flushed it down the toilet with Lost, my confidence in them delivering with Jack Ryan is very low. Fingers crossed though.

   
• English! If you're into linguistics, here's a video for you...

Of course, there are dialects within dialects on both sides of the pond, but this is a pretty great encapsulation of the differences.

   
• Shame. This is the America we're building...

PEOPLE. JUST. WANT. TO. FUCKING. PEE! As they've been doing in bathrooms for centuries! And yet, here we are... people being terrified by asshole politicians taking a non-problem and blowing it up so as to distract from what's really going on...

Again, the people most responsible for doing heinous shit in public bathrooms... ARE ASSHOLE POLITICIANS, ASSHOLE RELIGIOUS NUTS, AND ASSHOLE CRIMINALS... not transgender persons! And if you buy into the lies, guess what, you're the problem!

   
• Pop! Amazing how I'm still discovering excellent 80's pop music that I somehow missed in the actual 80's. This time? A Good Heart by Feargal Sharkey...

And, just to show that I'm not above missing out on current pop music, I recently heard Cake by the Ocean by DNCE, which is awesome...

And, yes, that's a Jonas Brother on the mic there.

   
Alrighty then... the time has come to say goodbye to another edition of Bullet Sunday. Until next week...

As it should come as no surprise to anybody, cats are weird.

My cats Jake and Jenny seem weirder than most, as they do inexplicably crazy crap a dozen times a day. And while it's impossible to know exactly what is going on in that fuzzy little head of theirs, TED has released a video which attempts to explain some of what's going on...

I dunno. That just makes cats even weirder to me.

And because I just can't get enough TED, here's another video that's worth a watch...

And now I'm feeling sick. THANKS, TED!

You know, it's one thing to raise your children in your own image and teach them your personal brand of morality... that's a parent's job. But it's quite another to teach your children to ambush other children over something of which they have no control.

As made abundantly clear from this moronic video courtesy of the Jehovah's Witnesses...

"Well... people have their own ideas about what is right and wrong..." Yes. And some people's "ideas" are bullshit that destroys lives, but whatever.

After watching this primer on homophobia, I'm dying to know what happens next... this little girl confronts Carrie and tells her that her moms are going to hell unless she convinces them to change their "evil ways?" What's that do for Carrie? If her moms don't split up and marry men like she tells them "Jehovah intended" is she supposed to bail on them at age 6? Is this wacky family going to adopt her and every other kid whose lives their "ministering" destroys? Or at least pay for the funeral expenses when Carrie can't take the badgering anymore and kills herself?

This video is everything wrong with American society today. It's not enough that you have the freedom to believe whatever you want to believe for yourself and your family... you have to force your views on other people too? Well fuck you. This being America and all, each family gets to decide for THEMSELVES how they want to live their life. If you don't agree with that, then feel free to "minister" to THEIR PARENTS if you must... but leave the fucking kids alone. It's hard enough for children to survive in a world where they are ridiculed and persecuted for who their parents are... they don't need your self-entitled little shits making their lives worse.

It's Star Wars Day! May The Fourth Be With You!

Interestingly enough, Star Wars has been on my mind a lot lately because I'm finally getting around to looking at all the cool books I bought when The Force Awakens was unleashed. By far my favorite has been Star Wars: The Force Awakens... Incredible Cross-Sections.

I've long been a huge fan of cross-section illustrations. It all started when I bought a cross-section poster of the USS Enterprise when the movie franchise was started. It was glorious, and made the ship (thus the show) seem more real to me...

It was around that time that I discovered the incredible books by Stephen Biesty. He did many amazing illustrations of both fantasy, history, and contemporary places and things. I spent hours looking through as many as I could find...

Biesty led me to a love of all things David Macaulay, who isn't so much a cross-section artist, but an illustrator who excels at explaining things. He even had his own TV show which supplemented documentary-style looks at cool stuff like the pyramids with his illustrations...

But I digress...

Star Wars: The Force Awakens... Incredible Cross-Sections is a book filled with exactly what you'd think it would be filled with... amazing illustrations of all things Star Wars cut away to show inside and how they work...

And yes, this is the infamous book that showed how Han Solo installed a kitchen for Princess Leia that had the internet up in arms a while back. Though, to be honest, I never saw this as sexist... I just saw it as Leia refusing to live like savages...

   
Anyway... even if you're not a massive cross-sections fan like myself, if you're a Star Wars fan, this book is still definitely worth a look...

You can get your own copy of Star Wars: The Force Awakens... Incredible Cross-Sections for pretty cheap... it's just $14 at Amazon.

Sigh.

Every since I got an infection after an accident in the Costa Rican rainforest, I've been plagued with problems with my eyes. My vision goes blurry. My eyelids develop cysts. I experience shooting pain. They get tired easily. It's just a parade of misery that won't go away. And this past week I developed more cysts that my body couldn't eliminate, so say hello to my fifth surgery on my eyelids.

The surgery itself is fairly simple. They shoot hideously painful drugs into your lid to numb things down. They put a metal clip in your eye. They flip your lid. They slice it open. They cut the offending material out. They stitch you up. They unclamp your eye. They put a patch on you. You drive home.

Not entirely horrible, so far as things go, but irritating. I was completely wiped out when I got home and went straight to bed. Jake, who was apparently glad to see me, gave me mad hugs...

He was a little freaked about the appearance of my eye, however...

And the reason I knew this is that I looked up once he changed position and saw him doing this with his eye...

And lest you think Jenny wasn't supportive... she took over when I moved to the couch. Like Jake, the freaky appearance of my eye was something she had to investigate...

It's nice to have cats to help(?) with the recovery process.

When last we left Jake and Jenny, little Jake was being cruised by a horny lady-cat in heat in the middle of the night. She runs into the windows. She rolls around on the patio. She meows and hollers. Jake finds it amusing but, having been neutered, wants nothing to do with it. So as to not encourage whores on my patio, I've been closing the blinds at night.

In addition to the nightly display of eroticism, there's been a rather big breakthrough with Jenny.

Since I first got her months ago, she has refused to be touched. At first she would hiss at you in total fear if you even attempted it. Later she would just dodge you and run away. It's been terribly frustrating, especially since Jake has warmed up to the idea of being petted. He loves belly rubs...

He especially likes my mom, and will throw himself in her path to get a belly rub from her...

But not Jenny.

The only time I've been able to even touch her is while she's distracted eating. Any other time has been exceedingly rare, even when she's snuggled up on me watching television.

Then one day I'm finishing up some emails so I can take my mom to dinner. I look over and nearly fall off the couch when I see she's sitting there petting Jenny... and had been for ten minutes!

And that was that.

Now Jenny is crawling all over me to get petted. And if my laptop is in the way, she'll roll around on the coffee table until you pay attention to her...

If you turn up the sound, you can hear her purring away like an engine. It's as if she's never had a problem being touched at all.

In other cat news, Jake has gotten too fat for the window sill. He still likes to sploot (lay down with his legs flopped out), which is impossible in such a narrow space. So I built him a ledge to lay on...

As you can tell, Jenny likes it too. Which means I should probably build another one for the other side. Especially since they use it to hunt flies that end up in the window...

Other than that, they're inseparable as ever...

See you next Caturday!

The weekend may be ending, but there's still some awesome to be had, because a Very Special SUPER-SIZED Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Red Up! Trae Crowder has released another video and it's starting to look like this is not a fluke... he's funny as hell, dead on target, and the real deal...

"Now I don't know much about Kasich... apparently that somebitch eats the hell out of some sketti." — And in case you've now got a hankerin' for some redneck sketti, I'll share a video with the recipe (a tub of margarine microwaved with a bottle of ketchup and poured over spaghetti) courtesy of Mamma June...

Now that's some fancy cookin' right there.

   
• Mac-N-Cheez! And while we're on the subject of delicious pasta dishes, the college where this drunk kid attends must have the best mac-n-cheez on the planet, because... damn...

It's not often you see a man go to jail over mac-n-cheez! Oh, one last thing, apparently he's sorry now...

I hope he eventually managed to get that mac-n-cheez. It would be a shame to go through all that for nothing.

   
• Apocalypse! Apparently we're experimenting with reanimating the dead now. BECAUSE WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Have these morons seen, like, ANY ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER? No? Well carry on then. Carry on.

   
• Rex! No way. NO. WAY!

Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid is back! Better run to the grocery store and stock up before Kool-Aid changes their minds and discontinues it again.

   
• GWEN! James Cordon's "Carpool Karaoke" just doesn't know when to quit! In case you missed it, another episode has dropped...

I hope James starts doing this with more esoteric artists in the future... it's just too good to be restricted to major pop stars.

   
• Judgement! Sometimes... not often, but sometimes... the humanity that's been lost in our justice system turns up in the most unexpected of places. Bless you, Judge Olivera.

   
• Suckerpunched! On top of making unbelievably shitty movies, here's yet another reason DC Comics needs to take Zack Snyder the fuck off their films. This asshole has no concept of what makes a good flick... let alone a good super-hero flick... and it's driving me insane. First he utterly destroys Superman, then he takes Christopher Nolan's terrific take on Batman and turns him into a psychotic moron. If, like me, you're waiting for video rental to see the horror that is Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, AND you don't give a shit about the movie being utterly spoiled, here's all you need to know about it.

   
And there you have it... more bullets than you can shake a stick at. See you next Sunday.

Okay then... finished my home cooking for the month.

Because nothing tastes as amazing as a freshly-baked biscuits... and it's one of the few things I can make that always turns out great no matter how badly I try and screw it up...

The recipe was given to me in a travel forum, so I have no idea who came up with this bit of genius...

• 4 cups Bisquick
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup 7-Up
• 1/2 cup melted butter

Mix Bisquick, sour cream, and 7-Up. Dough will be very, very soft, but don't worry. Knead and fold dough until well-mixed (I spoon on some extra Bisquick after mixing until it's not quite so sticky). Pat dough out on Bisquick-covered board and cut biscuits using a round biscuit cutter (or cookie cutter). Melt butter in bottom of cookie sheet pan or 9x13 casserole dish. Place biscuits on top of melted butter and bake at 425° for 12-15 minutes or until brown.

Now, if you'll excuse me, biscuits, butter, and jam await me.

The minute I heard that Sony was releasing a professional-grade 24-70mm lens, I was intrigued.

For oh so many reasons, this is the perfect lens for general photography, but the biggest reason is that it fills a gaping hole in my lens line-up.

Which is currently like this...

• Sony 10-18mm f/4 Zoom (with OSS).
• <<< Sony 24-70mm f/2.8. >>>
• Sony 70-200mm f/4 Zoom (with OSS).
• Sony 35mm f/2.8 Prime.
• Sony 90mm f/2.8 Macro Prime (with OSS).

See? It's a perfect fit! And the lens sounds too good to be true...

• Stunning sharpness.
• Quick focusing system.
• Consistent f/2.8 aperture across the entire zoom range.
• Sealed to resist dust and moisture.

Of course, it actually is too good to be true when you consider the following...

• It is huge. Rendering the whole purpose of owning a compact mirrorless camera moot.
• It is heavy. Seriously heavy at 2-lbs.
• There is no Optical SteadyShot (OSS) in-lens.
• It is unfathomably expensive at $2,200.

And yet...

This is the lens I need. Once it's on my camera, I can use it for 90% of my photography. For quick trips, it could very well be the only lens I take with me.

Of course, needing something and being about to afford it are two very different things. So I ended up selling some gear (including my amazing Sony A7s camera) to get it.

Totally worth it.

Yes, the size and weight are a bit of a bummer. But you can't have a feature-set like this without trade-offs. A few quick test-shots have confirmed that it is definitely fast and exceedingly sharp (bordering on what you get from a prime lens)...

I'm sure I'll have more to say when I've had a chance to really put it through its paces. But, for now? Amazing, amazing glass.

When I was contemplating adopting Jake and Jenny (and their brother Nick), I was able to speak with their foster parents, who were at The Humane Society waiting for the kittens to come back from surgery. After hearing what great cats they were, I didn't even wait until I could see them in person... I filled out the papers and paid the fee while I was waiting for them to come back.

Today the kittens' foster parents dropped by to see them 4-1/2 months later.

Unfortunately, Jake and Jenny decided to hide under the couch most of the time... Jenny doesn't seem to like strangers, and Jake follows her lead most of the time... which was a bummer, but it was still a wonderful visit because they were kind enough to share some early photos and videos of the kittens when they were fostering them.

Here they are on Day One...

Seeing how inseparable they were, it makes me even more sad that I didn't know I could "reserve" the kittens so I could have kept them all together...

Hopefully little Nick is happy and healthy in his new home.

Anyway...

Apparently Jenny, who purrs like a diesel engine for any reason at all, but especially when you pet her... has always done that...

   Jake may look quite a bit different now, but he acts exactly the same as he did when he was a kitten...

I swear I have videos of him now that are practically the same as this. He still loves to play with stuffed animals just like that!

Hopefully the kittens' foster parents will be able to come back again when the kids are feeling a bit more sociable. It's great that they are so wonderful and caring as to take in kittens before they can be adopted. That can't be easy work, and yet their hearts are big enough to make it happen.

And so the reprehensible piece of shit George Zimmerman is auctioning off the gun he used to murder Trayvon Martin.

Yes, you read that right.

I remain convinced that the evidence did not support Zimmerman's story. I am steadfast in my belief that Zimmerman is a lying, violent, psychotic asshole, and his history after he escaped justice backs that up. And even if none of that were true, the fact remains that this is entirely his fault. Had Zimmerman called in his racial profiling of Trayvon Martin "walking while Black" into the police... AS HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO AS A NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH VOLUNTEER... instead of grabbing his gun and playing vigilante lawman... Trayvon Martin would still be alive for daring to eat Skittles and drink a Snapple with a hoodie on.

AND NOW THIS? Fuck this heinous blight on all humanity and may he burn in hell for all eternity. There remains NO JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON MARTIN, and anybody who doubts the need for the Black Lives Matter movement need look no further than this. Indeed, Trayvon's life matters so little that respect for his life is non-existent to Zimmerman and anybody who supports this disgusting turn of events in an incomprehensible chain of events.

And now bring on the Rednekistan rhetoric of me "hating my own race" as opposed to demanding justice for all races. I'm getting used to it.

As a huge, huge, massively huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, you would think that I'd have seen Captain America: Civil War on opening day. And heaven only knows I wanted to so as to avoid spoilers that plague the internet... but work got in the way. Today I had to run an errand for work, and decided to see the film on the way back home.

And it. Was. Spectacular...

For everybody else? Continue at your own risk...

And here's yet another random sampling of cat-related incidents to occupy your Saturday...

Both Jake and Jenny are getting more angular and "feline-looking" as they get older. It's especially apparent with Jake and the dark shading he has around his nose...

   
Jenny continues to have bad dreams from time to time, whic always results in snuggling with her brother. This time he actually put his arm around her...

Which she appreciates...

   
They usually sleep on their Kitty Condo Tree, but a couple times a week they sleep on my bed...

   
Jenny's biggest struggle each day is deciding whether or not to ambush her brother...

And... she did.

   
And, oh yeah, the kitty whores in heat are still dropping by...

Jake always seems to enjoy the show.

   
And that wraps up another Caturday!

Don't fret about the future, because an all-new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Finale. The Ambulance Wish Foundation is a Dutch company that helps the terminally ill realize their last wishes...

What would your wish be? Mine? Well... a trip to see the sunrise from the top of Haleakala on Maui would probably not be possible... it would need to be something local... or maybe I could make it to Seattle? So perhaps I'd ask to see the sunset over Seattle from Alki or something like that. Something with the sun rising or setting would be nice.

   
• Hemnes. Last night the thing that everybody said would happen... happened. My IKEA Hemnes bookcase had shelves collapse. I thought people were exaggerating about the problem, but now I find myself having to unload everything, screw the shelves in permanently, then load everything back up. I thought it was isolated incidents by people who assembled the bookcase wrong, but no. What a load of crap. People have been complaining about this forever, and IKEA has done nothing... nor have they made any changes to the design.

   
• Typical. Anti-gay pastor faces 70 counts of distributing, possessing, or viewing child pornography. Why am I not surprised? It seems that the people so hot to tell us who we need to be afraid of are all too often end up being the people we need to be afraid of.

   
• Roses! My bush sure is pretty now that it's in bloom...

Fortunately, the previous owner had a green thumb... and my regular thumb hasn't killed everything yet.

   
• Cap? Oh man. Saw Captain America: Civil War JUST IN TIME... an ad just played on television which gave away the biggest surprise of the movie. And for what? Why? Why would they do that? I guess to entice the millions of people who've already seen it to go again, because it's certainly not doing people who haven't had a chance to see it yet any favors.

   
• Freedom? And speaking of America... In Tennessee, a kindergarten teacher says a Latino child — told by classmates that he will be deported and trapped behind a wall — asks every day, “Is the wall here yet?” This is the America we are building Guess this great experiment is coming to an end.

   
No more heart for Bullets today.

The previous owner of my place loved flowers, so I was very lucky to inherit her hard work. I've got planters in the front, irises on the sides, and a pretty flower garden in the back (along with even more planter boxes). This weekend the flowers finally started to bloom, which means my back yard is looking better than the front right now...

The planter boxes I over-planted, badly, have completely taken over...

...hopefully one of these days there will actually be flowers there.

When you eat as much unhealthy crap as I do, you'd learn to love them too. They make a nice alternative from unhealthy crap when you feel the need to lay off the unhealthy crap.

And if that's you, I've decided to rank all the Quaker Rice Cakes flavors for you...

1. CHOCOLATE. My hands-down favorite. Tastes chocolatey, but not too chocolatey or too sweet. I seriously love these things, and would often rather have them than a candy bar. You just have to remember to eat them up-side-down so the little chocolate chips melt on your tongue as you eat them for best effect. DID YOU KNOW... if you put vanilla frosting on them, they taste like crunchy chocolate cake!
2. BUTTERED POPCORN. Not actually popcorn-flavored... at least not to me, but they do have a pleasing salty crunch that I'd rather eat instead of chips. Not popcorn though... Skinny Pop Popcorn still have these beat. DID YOU KNOW... if you spread actual butter on them, then pop them in the microwave for five seconds (or just BEFORE the butter starts to melt) they're actually pretty amazing.
3. APPLE CINNAMON. Look, it's never going to come close to taking the place of apple pie... or even apple crisp... but thesand if you dip them in caramel sauce, they are unbelievably tasty. Like a crunchy dessert or something.
4. CARAMEL. One of my most favorite rice cake flavors was Cracker Jack. I don't know what happened, but I can't find those any more. They were not terribly Cracker-Jack-like (no peanuts!) but had an actual butter-toffee taste that was vaguely reminiscent of America's fun-time snack. The caramel flavor is kinda-like Cracker Jack except it's got a dash of caramel flavoring to it. Unfortunately, it's a bit artificial-tasting, but it's certainly not terrible. DID YOU KNOW... drizzling these with a sugar-glaze and pecan pieces makes them taste pretty phenomenal.
5. WHITE CHEDDAR. I'm going to put this out there... White Cheddar used to be my favorite rice cake flavor. They were almost mouth-puckering sharp which went a long way towards compensating for any hint of actual cheese flavor. But then something happened. Quaker drastically toned-down the "sharp" for whatever reason, and I found I didn't like them nearly as much. Also... like the Apple Cinnamon flavor... these fall apart easily and often come out of the package as crumbs. Very disappointing. DID YOU KNOW... if you melt actual cheddar cheese over these under a broiler (NEVER a microwave) they're great. If you dip the cheddar-covered rice cakes in warm pizza sauce, they're amazeballs.
6. LIGHTLY SALTED. Not necessarily "boring," per se, but not very exciting either. I only buy them for those rare times I'm not feeling the other flavors. DID YOU KNOW... if you run out of clean dishes and have no cones, you can eat ice cream off of these? Useful!
7. UNSALTED. Don't even bother. Fucking atrocious. DID YOU KNOW... nothing can save these. Nothing. Maybe sprinkling them with salt, spread them with butter, add a slice of cheese, then top with red pepper flakes... maybe that will help. I dunno.

And there you have it. All my favorite rice cakes.

Keep healthy-snacking, people!

The cats want to be fed around 5:00-5:30... well before their 7:00am feeding time... and to show their displeasure with my insistence of starving them to death for an hour or two, they will hang out in my bedroom until I haul my ass out of bed and make them their breakfast.

I'm usually up around 4:00-4:30 working, so this doesn't bother me in the least. But, as Summer comes and more and more birds make their way to my neck of the woods, it's gotten more and more irritating. Because Jake and Jenny see the birds out the window, but the window sill is too narrow for them to jump onto from the bed. So instead they sit there and cry or chatter at the birds they can't see too well...

A couple days ago I decided to remedy this by getting a cat shelf at Petco. I would have made one (like I did for the living room window) but I just don't have the time. It seemed a bit pricey at $29, but it works. Jenny took to it right away, while Jake was a bit wary...

But he finally came around yesterday afternoon...

Good thing it's big enough for two... kinda. Jake's fuzzy butt usually hangs off a bit when they're both up there. Now they spend their mornings bird-watching instead of driving me crazy. Perhaps $29 wasn't too much to pay after all.

Oh dear. Trae done got his red up again.

I don't consider myself a liberal (despite being liberal-minded) nor a redneck (despite living in Redneckistan)... but I want to have Trae Crowder's babies. He is so flawlessly on-point in his videos that nine months of suffering would be worth it...

Give this guy a TV talk show. In character. Seriously.

Today in "smaller government" and "fiscal conservatism"... piles of money was wasted on an unconstitutional bill that puts The State in control of your vagina in Oklahoma.

UPDATE: It's not that I expect sanity from Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, but sometimes miracles happen.

For the past month or so, I've noticed that Jake and Jenny occasionally gets so wrapped up in something out the window that their jaws start shaking. For the longest time I've been terrified that it's a prelude to epilepsy or something equally terrible, but have been ignoring it for my own sanity. Recently Jake did it again and it freaked me out so bad that I took to Google to see what might be wrong with him...

...and found out it's perfectly normal when some cats get excited about possible prey.

   
When I'm not available to give Jake a belly rub, Jenny steps in...

   
Now that I'm switching from thrice a day to twice a day feedings, I thought I'd move breakfast from 6:30 to 7:30. But it's impossible to resist the kitties when they come in at 6:45 and demand food. And by "demand" I mean "be so adorable that I just can't stand to deny them anything."

   
Now that Jenny has decided she likes to be petted, she's been running to greet me whenever I return home...

It's the best part of my day!

   
When I'm laying on the couch working, Jenny has been laying on the floor next to me. I put a kitty bed near me against the wall because I was worried I'd forget she was there and step on her. Worked like a charm three days running!

   
And... somebody is reminding me to take a break from blogging...

   
Until next Caturday...

Sunday is as Sunday does, because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• 1975. When it comes to music, The 1975 is my current favorite band. Somebody Else is my favorite song of their latest album. Probably in my top ten of favorite songs ever. Recently Matt Healy and Adam Hann stopped by a radio station to perform the song live...

Pretty incredible considering half the band is missing and they are recording under less than ideal circumstances!

   
• Banzai. When it comes to cult favorite cinema, Buckaroo Banzai is at the top of my list. I've seen the film dozens of times and even have a quote from the movie tattooed on my arm...

As you can imagine, I have mixed feelings after hearing that Kevin Smith is helming a television series based on the film. On one hand... more Buckaroo Banzai! And by a filmmaker I really enjoy! On the other hand... this could be a complete disaster. The original movie was like lightning in a bottle, and the chances of lightning striking twice with material this bizarre is incredibly slim. Of critical importance is getting the right cast, and I really hope Kevin Smith is up to the task. If he's just going to toss in his roster of regulars, I'd be very surprised if the show has a chance. Fingers crossed.

   
• Dance. This video is pretty great...

The guy has moves! And insane pants!

   
• Logo. As somebody who does graphic arts for a living and has created more than his share of logos, it's tough for me to be critical of what other people do... I know just how tough the work can be. That being said, the logo revision for DC Comics is just so busted and weak that I can't stay quiet...

Seriously, look at how wonky the "C" is with that upper serif curving out of nowhere for no reason at all. And those back-cuts in the counters are such a laughable way of trying to "customize" a traditional typeface... especially given how badly they compromise the integrity of the letterforms. When it comes to logo designs, this is about as bad as it gets. I mean, it doesn't even have symmetry across the center-line...

But, then again, this is the company that has Zack Snyder shitting all over their movie properties like piles of putrid stank, so I'm hardly surprised nobody at DC stepped up and said something. Blergh.

   
• Bustin'. As a massively huge fan of the original Ghostbusters, I was more than a little upset at the prospect of the franchise being rebooted. But then the new trailer dropped...

And now I'm starting to have a little faith.

   
• Rights. I have been waiting for The Daily Show to post this, because it's just so dead on-point...

I am getting so sick of this ridiculous crap.

   
And away I go...

It wasn't that I didn't like Star Trek Into Darkness... it's just that any movie which attempts to remake the best of the best Original Series films (namely: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) is doomed to fail. I spent most of the film remembering back to the original instead of focusing on what was in front of me.

Ultimately I enjoyed, Into Darkness, but left the theater thinking "Why in the hell couldn't they come up with their own story instead of recycling what's already been done?

Lucky for all of us, it looks like they're back on Trek...

I will be very interested in seeing how this shakes out.

So... a really good day to be one of my cats.

Long-time blogging friends Poppy and Dawg sent a Kitty Care Package for Jake and Jenny that came filled with all kinds of stuff they quickly became obsessed with...

Jenny is especially obsessed with the soft rainbow toy...

And, no surprise, Jake has laid claim to the Crunchy Monkey stuffed toy (he loves stuffed animals!)...

   
Thanks so much to Poppy and Dawg for making my cats' week!

It's expensive keeping up with the Joneseses.

My neighbors have been stepping up their gardening game lately and the neighborhood is awash with flowers.

Except for me. My irises have all died off, the spice tub has gone to seed, the pots of roses are done, the dogwood is back to leaves-only, and the planters are pretty much finished. I got nuthin'.

Which necessitated my pulling out the spice garden (which I would never use anyway) and a pot of dead stems so I could plant petunias... on sale at Home Depot 6/$6...

The spices got their revenge, however, as my hands smelled like rosemary(?) for the rest of the day.

That helped a bit, but my yard still looked a bit bare, so I decided to go for a hanging basket. It's nice, I guess, but I didn't notice the plastic pot was cracked when I got it (FOR TWENTY-SIX FRICKIN' DOLLARS!) so I'm sure it will be falling through the bottom any day now...

My back yard, on the other hand, is just now starting to bloom. The previous owner has all kinds of roses and stuff in the back flower bed, which is pretty sweet...

I wish I could have swapped the front and back of my home... it would have been a lot cheaper than having to buy a bunch of new pretty junk.

Okay then... three days in a row... I guess it's become a routine. Every morning Jenny will present me with her morning kill (in the form of a toy), meow a couple times, proceed to crawl all over me for pets until she's sufficiently purry, then start waving her butt in my face when she's tired of my not getting up and unleashing the food bag...

And here I thought waking up with a dead hooker in your bed was the worst way to start your day... I think cat butt has it beat.

Holy crap!

It would seem that DC's not-a-reboot reboot Batman has a super-power now... IN HIS PANTS! Apparently DC is now hiring porn artists for its new books? Batman's dick looks like it could punch through steel. Or possibly... A MAN OF STEEL? Talk about the ultimate Batman vs. Superman scenario. What in the hell is going on with REBIRTH?

   
Yeah. Taking the opportunity to just dump all my DC reads now. Haven't enjoyed them in ages, and this ain't making me change my mind.

Jenny and Jake are still crazy about the big box of toys that Poppy and Dawg sent them.

A surprise hit has been Cat Crazies. They're kinda like the rings on a plastic milk jug... but with waves and ridges that the kitties can grab onto and cart around in their mouths...

   
Pretty much how I wake up every morning...

The two kitty whores in heat are still putting on performances for Jake most nights...

I wonder how long cats stay in heat? This is getting a little crazy.

   
Until next Caturday...

Don't let the depressing lack of Saturday get you down, because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Tarzan. As a massively huge fan of the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, I'm pretty much done with the Tarzan movie adaptations (if that's what you can call them). The number of times I've seen The Lord of the Jungle reduced to a grunting ignoramus is legion, and has nothing to do with the actual character. Tarzan is a literal genius who speaks dozens of languages and, when he's out of the jungle, highly cultured as well. So you can imagine my eye-rolling reaction to the news that there's a new Tarzan movie coming out...

Except... apparently the movie starts out with Lord Greystoke (aka "Tarzan") in London's high society, his jungle adventuring days long behind him. Sooooooo... maybe? Heaven only knows that I'd love to finally see a half-way decent Tarzan on the silver screen. The special effects are sure up to the challenge. Alas... the heinous memories of the John Carter movie (Edgar Rice Burroughs' other famous creation) still linger...

   
• The Force. If you're a fan of Star Wars, then here's the site for you...

Amazing. Keeeeeeep scrolling...

   
• Uhhhhhhhhhh. ZOMFG! YOU CAN'T HAVE GUNS IN JAIL? WTF?! So much for "American freedom!"

I cannot believe these stupid assholes. We have sterilized the entire Bundy clan after this idiocy so they can no longer breed, right?

   
• Taco! IT'S PEOPLE! THE TACOS AT TACO TIME ARE MADE WITH PEOPLE!

Delicious people! Totally rethinking my stance on vegetarianism...

   
• Picard! Captain, let's beam down to Rigel for some whores and blow!

Always good to be a starship captain!

   
And... on that note of ultimate Trekiness... I'm out of Bullets for this week.

To all those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our country, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I should probably leave this Memorial Day entry just there out of respect for those brave souls, but...

With each new Memorial Day I look at the sorry state of the USA and feel as though those who gave their lives for it may have died in vain. And I take no pleasure in saying that.

Everything we are... everything we've built... everything we stand for... all of it... seems as though it's come to nothing except divisiveness and hatred. And it drives me insane. We can be so much better than this. But inclusiveness and mutual respect have become a thing of the past, and we're on a course of destruction that has me thinking we're never going to get them back.

But could we if we really wanted to?

It undoubtedly has to start with electing politicians who give a flying fuck about the people they're supposed to represent instead of electing politicians who only care about sucking special-interest dick to keep the money flowing. Re-election is an expensive business, after all, and thats the only thing our politicians truly give a shit about.

It certainly isn't us.

And so the Powers That Be who actually run the country keep us at each other's throats to distract everybody from their real agenda.

Which definitely isn't us.

So how do we convince "the people" to change the system and start giving us a government that's of the people, by the people, for the people... once again?

I have no idea.

But it should probably start with reminding them of those who sacrificed their lives so we even have the opportunity to have a government that's of the people, by the people, for the people.

Happy Memorial Day.

FUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKK!!!!

The best show on television... most of the time... is no more.

Of COURSE Limitless gets canceled so CBS has room to stink up the airwaves with more idiotic crap that appeals to the lowest possible common denominator. We can't have a show that requires a little thinking and imagination. That just doesn't sell.

So many great shows get shoved by the wayside. I don't know why I even bother.

Just got the bill for my first eye surgery.

Thank heavens my insurance deductible is so huge... I was worried I wouldn't find anything to do with these piles of cash I've got laying around.

And to think I was actually considering building my savings account back up! How silly of me!

For those who were asking... yes... Jenny still brings me a "kill" every morning in exchange for me making her breakfast. Every. Morning.

If I'm asleep, she drops it on my chest. If I'm awake, she drops it on the floor and announces it with some meowing. It's usually something different every day. This morning it was Tan Mouse...

She's so adorable when she's demanding food.

As anybody who has read this blog for any length of time already knows... I love movies.

Love them.

I love all kinds of movies. I love everything from stupid stoner comedies to directorial masterworks. I love sci-fi. I love documentaries. I love animation. I love mysteries. I love historical dramas. I even love romance films from time to time. And while I don't like all the movies I see... I do like the majority of them. Film enriches our lives and expands our imagination, and I cannot fathom what my life would be like without the movies.

I also love people who love movies like I do.

I especially love people who can add depth and appreciation to the films we love so much.

One of these people is Lewis Bond from Channel Criswell.

I became aware of him last Fall when he did an analysis of Hayao Miyazaki films called The Essence of Humanity. Being a massively huge fan of Miyazaki's works, it could have been made just for me...

Lewis's admiration for all the things that go into a Miyazaki film were brilliantly on-point, and I instantly became a fan. The guy knows how to look at films. His entire YouTube channel is a love-letter to the movies, and his videos have become an important voice in my appreciation of them.

Then today I find out that Lewis is being sued...

This is absolutely horrifying. Copyright infringement? Really? I cannot for the life of me understand this. He uses clips from the films that he is analyzing or exploring... in the case of this lawsuit, the films of Stanley Kubrick... to support his thoughts. In no way has he ever been "malicious" with the material... at no point was he exploiting the material or damaging the legacy of Stanley Kubrick. If anything, his efforts are keeping his legacy alive by encouraging people to take a look at Mr. Kubrick's work.

I am sickened and saddened that somebody at Kubrick's estate is choosing to make money off of a Kubrick fan like Lewis in such a way. Especially considering that they went straight to lawsuit instead of contacting him directly to resolve the matter. This just shows exactly what kind of people they are.

People who don't love movies.

For all those who wrote me emails or sent me texts or even called me... wondering what the heck happened that I had disappeared off my blog... thanks!

The explanation is both simple and complex. But let's start with what it is not going on...

I'm not sick.
I'm not dead.
I'm not on the lam.
I have not been abducted by aliens.
I have not given up blogging.

Here is what is going on...

As mentioned previously, the security I have on Blogography has been keeping me from posting. I can't disable the security, because I keep getting hacked (apparently having 15 years of Google-indexed entries makes you a desirable target). It has something to do with switching internet when I moved house, but in order to post now I have to log in to my blog, turn off the security, log out of my blog, log back into my blog, restart blogging services, post my entry, log out of my blog, then log back in so I can turn security back on.

It's quite an ordeal, and I really don't have time for it.

So I took to posting a week's worth of entries all at once in an effort to deal with it all.

That worked for five months.

And then it didn't.

No matter how many hoops I ran through, I couldn't get to the point where I could post. Not that this stopped me from writing entries. On the contrary, I was still writing every day like I always do...

I just couldn't do anything with them because I could never find the time to fix my blog.

Until today.

I finally backed up the database, uninstalled everything, reinstalled everything, then restored everything. And it seems to be working.

Which leaves me in a quandary. Do I just flood post a month's worth of entries as if nothing ever happened? Or do I chalk up the month of June as a loss and start up fresh? Who wants to back-read a whole month of the stupid crap that I post? Is this stuff even relevant after all this time?

I dunno.

My inclination is to summarize my month tomorrow on the 3rd. Then resume posting on the 4th... exactly one month from when I stopped. Then I can swipe some old material I wrote... refresh stuff that's no longer relevant... and get back to all new musings that my legions of Blogography fans demand!

As much as I loathe the idea of there being a month-long chunk of missing entries in over a decade of daily posting, I think this is the best way to move on.

Hope you enjoyed your vacation from me.

Worried about missing out on a whole month of Dave's life? Well don't be, because an all new SPECIAL CATCH-UP EDITION of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• MY HEALTH. The bill for my first eye surgery arrived. Thank heavens my deductible is so huge... I was worried I wouldn't find anything to do with these piles of cash I've got laying around. The good news is that my eye seems to be doing okay now. The only remaining damage is a bump from where the anesthesia was injected into my eyelid. Hopefully it will disappear in time.

   
• MY DIET. I've inexplicably become a milk drinker again. I haven't had a glass in years, but recently had one with a slice of chocolate cake and fell in love with the stuff. I no longer have to worry about my milk expiring... which is cool because even though non-fat lasts forever, I was regularly having to throw it out.

   
• MY DISCOVERY. Laughing Cow cheese has never been a favorite even though I love spreadable cheeses. But recently they came out with an Asiago-flavored version that's just fantastic. I eat the stuff piled on Ritz Crackers constantly...

Laughing Cow Spicy Pepper Jack is worth a taste as well.

   
• MY SHOPPING. For much of my life, I've not been an antique fan. Why by old stuff when you can get brand new stuff that's cooler? My view has softened since renovating my guest room, so now I actually stop by antique shops from time to time. Which lead to my paying $28 for this cookie jar...

...and let me tell you why. 1) The bear looks like Ted! 2) Whomever made this didn't fire it properly, so it's sagging on one side and it looks like he's falling over drunk . 3) The lid is also misshapened, so it doesn't really fit the jar. 4) They misspelled "cookie" as "cookey" which is frickin' adorable. 5) It looks awesome next to my gelato machine! How many more reasons did I need? I was forced to buy it! Antiques FTW!

   
• MY SCHEDULE. My cats have turned me into a morning person. I now do my grocery shopping at 7am?...

Oh well. The nice thing is that the store is a ghost town that time of day.

   
• MY CATS. They're still adorable. Still wonderful. And I still love having them around. Such amazing animals...

Don't know how I managed without them.

   
• MY DISAPPOINTMENT. I skipped seeing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in the theater but finally caught the "Ultimate Edition" on digital. My thoughts are below, but beware of SPOILERS for Captain America: Civil War (yes, you read that right)...

At the end of Captain America: Civil War where Bucky and Cap have beat down Iron Man and are walking away, Tony Stark says "That shield doesn't belong to you! My father made it!" and it's just crushing because of Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. You can feel that Tony is trying to stay proud in the face of defeat, but his heart is breaking on two levels, so there's a tremor in his voice. At that moment... when you are made to feel in the middle of a funny book film... you know that Marvel has completely figured it out. They put the humanity into their cinematic characters in a way that transcends the genre.

Which is why watching Batman v Superman was such a horrendous fucking ordeal. Zack Snyder thinks that taking everything dark and brooding is what adds character to the characters, but he's missing the target so badly as to be... comical. Heaping artificial drama on characters again and again and again just distracts from whatever humanity they might have. It buries it. He has zero sense of what makes a comic book movie reach past the funny books, and that's a huge problem for DC. Their movies are just dark, boring, artificial piles of shit that don't make you *feel* anything. It's the disaster-porn school of filmmaking and people are tired of it. They've seen it all before. Many, many times.

Between DC and Marvel, the one who has the most potential and the easiest road to completely slaying the genre is DC Comics. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the most beloved and recognizable super-heroes in existence. Everything else pales by comparison. And yet by hiring a hack like Zack Snyder to helm their films... somebody who could give a fuck about the source material and changes things just because he can... somebody who doesn't want to bring Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to the screen, but his "vision" of them... it doesn't matter. You go to a film called Superman v Batman expecting to see Superman and Batman... but they're not there. It's just Zack Snyder shit piled on something that vaguely resembles them.

I hated this movie even worse than Man of Steel, if that's even possible. Add another F- to my "Y2K Super-Hero Comic Book Renaissance" scorecard

   
• MY ENTERTAINMENT. Was thrilled beyond all reason that Mark Millar and Frank Quitely's Jupiter's Legacy: Volume 2 has finally, at long last, been started up...

This is my favorite comic book series in a long, long time. Apparently they are already working up a movie... here's hoping they get somebody better than Zack Snyder to helm it.

   
And... that's all the catch-up bullets we have today.

There is no way I could come up with a Fourth of July post better than the one I came up with last year.

And this year it's more appropriately Murican than ever, so I'm just going to dump it all here again.

Celebrate safely, my fellow Americans!

Truth! Justice! Captain America!

You're a Wonder, Wonder Woman!

REAGAN, bitches! Trickle-Down America!

Jessiqa Pace... Land That I Love

Too... Much... America...

I Pledge Allegiance to America...

AMERICAN PAM!

'MURICA! from USA News First!

Fuck the Pepsi Challenge... take The America Challenge!

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, COMMIES! And God Bless Holly Fisher

American Jesus (the ONLY Jesus)... Artist Unknown

America... One Nation Under God by McNaughton

BOSTON RED SOX AMERICA!... by Matt West, Boston Herald

AMERICA PIE TASTES LIKE FREEDOM by Max Faulkner, DFW.com

Stephen T. Colbert... The Spirit of America

"American Pride" (with Waffles the Cat) by Justin Schwab

Jordan Carver... God Bless America

So. Much. America.

I. Am. Tired.

While my blog was broked, I wrote two entries addressing terrorism and violence and I'm tired.

Tired of what keeps happening. Even more tired of the certainty that it's going to happen again.

When it came to Orlando, this is what I wrote to my friends on Facebook...
I am so horribly selfish in times of crisis. Every time I try to grapple with the evils that men can do and the horrific cost that comes with it, I can only think of how crushed I would be if it were one of my friends that were taken from me. You mean everything to me, I love you, and I can't imagine my life without you. And then I remember that there are people right now facing exactly this, and my heart goes out to them. It's tough not to be blinded by hatred for those who make this world such a horrible place, but the love of my friends gets me through. If that's true for you too, I thought you should know what you mean to me. I don't say how much I love you often enough. None of us do.

Then, before I could even catch my breath, I was writing a blog post about Istanbul...
The terrorist attack on Istanbul's airport hit me hard... all the senseless violence hits me hard... but this one in particular was difficult for me to take. Back in 2007 I was flying out of Istanbul and was pulled aside for secondary screening at the airport. This is nothing new... I'm taken aside for secondary screening all the time. But this time I had horror stories of Turkish prisons filling my head, so it was a little different. There I was, being taken to a small dark room by three guys in uniform, all the while wondering if somebody had snuck something into my bag or if I was going to end up in jail for some reason. But it turns out to have been no big deal... all they did was pat me down and check my shoes. The room was more for my benefit than theirs, as I think they just wanted to spare me any embarrassment from public scrutiny (which was actually kind of considerate). The door was open the entire time, they were really nice and apologetic about the entire ordeal, and it took less than 5 minutes. I've had a lot worse from American security screenings.

And now I can't help but wonder if these three guys who were just showing up to do their job were injured or killed when the bombs went off.

I'm just so tired.

The first time I visited New York City in 1995, you know the first landmark I visited? Not the Statue of Liberty. Not the Empire State Building. Not the Twin Towers. Not The Met. Not any of those things. My top priority in NYC was to visit TekServe. There was no Apple Store back then. If you were into Mac, this was it.

And now they are closing. Very sad news for tech geeks everywhere.

And so there I was with an Alaska Air credit burning a hole in my pocket (because it was expiring soon) and nowhere to go. Rather than lose it, I decided to make a quick trip... somewhere... and get away for a bit.

But where? I dunno.

At least I didn't until Book of Love... an 80's band that was on my bucket list to see live... announced they were playing a gig in New Orleans at The House of Blues...

As if I ever need an excuse to visit one of my favorite cities on earth. My flight was booked the minute tickets went on sale.

The good news is that Alaska Airlines now has direct flights to New Orleans out of Seattle. The bad news is that I have to leave home at 4:00am to make the 5:40 flight to Seattle to take it...

The good news is that once I got to Seattle, Russell Wilson was onboard!

While I was in the air half-way to New Orleans, I got an email from The House of Blues asking if I wanted to upgrade from General Admission to VIP with reserved seating and club perks. The cost? $25. Considering my airline ticket was $520 and my hotel is $160 a night, that seemed like quite a bargain, so I jumped on it.

After a perfectly uneventful journey, I dropped my crap off at the hotel and headed off to my favorite restaurant in the city... Carmo! Their vegetarian Rico open-face sandwich is a taste of heaven on earth. Pair it with their banquette bread, and it's the meal of my dreams...

I was absolutely exhausted after dinner, having gotten no sleep the night before, so rather than head out for some bar-hopping, I decided to go to bed.

At least that was the plan.

First problem was that the toilet kept making noise. A seal must have been broken or something, because water was running out by the gallon. Even with the bathroom door closed I could hear it. The water running was annoying enough that I had to MacGyver a solution to make the noise stop...

That should have been the end of it.

But, of course, it wasn't.

Something... some thing was in my room with me. I don't know if it were paranormal activity or what, but an odd, shifting mass was dancing in my peripheral vision as I laid in bed. I kept looking in different places to make sure it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me, but it appeared consistently in the same spot no matter what I did, so I chalked it up to ghosts. Or whatever. Unfortunately, it didn't appear in-camera even though I could still see it in the corner of my eye behind my iPhone...

Eventually it went away... or dissipated... or vanished... or whatever. But it was not forgotten. I was so pumped at the paranormal activity that I could not get to sleep and decided to go out.

Where I proceeded to drink way too much while staying out way too late.

After staying out until midnight last night, you'd think that I would have slept in until noon.

Except this is one of my favorite cities on earth, and I was having none of it. I can sleep when I'm dead.

So I woke up at 7:00am so I could have Bananas Foster French Toast at Restaurant Stanley...

So much cool stuff is always showing up in French Quarter windows... MAKE IT SO, KYLO REN!

Despite the smell of urine, I like an early morning meander to Latrobe Park. A little peace and quiet in the city before heading back to the hotel so I can shower. Again...

Since I flew 8 hours to get to New Orleans, I reached out to a work colleague in Houston to see if they'd fly the 1-1/2 hours to meet me. This would save me a trip later in the year. Turns out they drove instead of flew, so it was 5 hours for them. I still won.

Because I upgraded to the VIP package for the concert tonight, I had to go buy new shoes to fit the dress code...

Then I decided to have a late lunch and not stop drinking until the show at 8:00. I had been craving falafel for ages, so I ate at Attiki...

And drank at Attiki. A great beer called Hoegaarden...

And then drank up and down Bourbon Street until it was time to drink at The House of Blues exclusive "Foundation Room" before the concert. The place is kind of a cross between a gay porn set and a Buddhist retreat...

And now? It's time to get on with the show...

...which I will wrap up tomorrow when my brain is back in my head.

The Book of Love concert last night was pretty darn great... even though, technically, it was only half the band. Ted and Susan were there, Lauren and Jade were not. This was problematic on some tracks... like Alice Everyday... where Lauren sings a fairly critical part of the song. But it was filled by audience participation, which was actually kind of nice.

Song selection was pretty much what you'd expect. Boy was there...

And their biggest hit, I touch Roses, was there for an encore as well.

All in all, a pretty great show, and one more 80's band I've seen live that I can scratch off my bucket list.

After dinner I went to Coop's Place for an amazing veggie burger and some Jägermeister, which is a pretty good way to end a day in New Orleans, I think.

And when it comes to starting a day in New Orleans, it doesn't get much better than beignets at Cafe du Monde...

Which is how I started my day at 6:30am.

From there I spent my time wandering around The Quarter until I had to check out of my hotel. After checking out of my hotel, I spent my time wandering around The Quarter drinking...

And then... it was over.

I picked up my backpack at the hotel... hopped a ride to the airport... climbed into my First Class seat upgrade... then proceeded to keep drinking until landing in Seattle.

Where I somehow managed to find my flight home.

Where my cats were glad to see me.

Good night!

Lose not your faith in Blogography, fair human! Because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Broked. As if it weren't painfully apparent, my blog wasn't as fixed as I had thought it was. I honestly don't know what to do about it short of a complete re-install, and I ain't got time for that. But anyway...

   
• Book. As a massive fan of the original cartoon, I anticipated hating The Jungle Book live-action remake. Well, I watched in on the plane ride home and loved it. Just incredible stuff. Where did they find the kid who played Mowgli? Amazing young actor. The fact that they got Bill Murray as the voice of Baloo is just icing on the cake...

It's my understanding this was filmed in "real" 3D and is not a converted 2D movie. Looks like I have another 3D Blu-Ray to add to my shopping list.

   
• Umbrella. Before I got on the plane, I wandered through the French Quarter yesterday and had to hide under some trees in Jackson Square when a downpour started. That's when I saw a group of ladies caught in the rain who were squealing. A guy passing by handed them his umbrella. After several rounds of thank you's, this happened...
"Oh we gonna have to keep you now!"
"Sorry ma'am... Im already taken."
"Well I can see why. God bless you young man!"
And off he went into the rain without his umbrella. Then this...
"He was just like Batman!"

If I wasn't in New Orleans, one of my favorite places on earth, that would have made my day.

   
• Wrong. Kim Davis Asks Court to Dismiss Marriage License Appeal. Looks like somebody doesn't want to go down on the wrong side of history as a hateful bigot that refused to do her job. Well, I have news for you... that's ALL you're going to be remembered for as long as people remember who you are you pathetic farce. You'd think that this would serve as warning for other bigots out there, but I think we all know that's not true.

   
• Sodium. A friend of a friend closed his restaurant last December. Recently when he was asked if he would share some of his favorite recipes and he did. Then somebody asked him how in the heck he made his burgers taste so good. His answer? Butter and salt. Saturate the buns in butter before grilling them. Just before flipping, salt and pepper the patty (his restaurant had a touch of garlic powder in the mix) then flip and add more salt. Sodium nightmare? Yes. But restaurants don't have to post Nutrition Facts, so that's how he made his burgers taste great. And so I gave it a try with my Boca Burger patties. *AMAZING* The abundance of butter and salt totally takes them to the next level. High blood pressure, here I come!

   
• Doloris. When you're watching every episode of The West Wing for the hundredth time and you've JUST gotten over the fact that Mrs. Landingham died... only to have her pop up in a flashback in the episode Bartlett for America. Gets me every time. Boy do I miss this show.

   
And I'm outta bullets.

COOKIES!

Who doesn't love cookies? My favorite cookies are freshly-baked oatmeal-raisin cookies. Which is a pity, because I so rarely have the time to bake and they don't make any oatmeal-raisin cookies you can buy in the store that I will eat. So what cookies that you can buy in the store do I like? Glad you asked...

1. Pepperidge Farms Sausalito.
   The best cookies you can buy. Period. I am not a fan of coconut, but... the tiny shavings they add to these milk-chocolate chunk and macadamia miracles is amazing. As if the flavor profile wasn't sublimely delicious, they have a crisp, crumbly texture that somehow doesn't come off as dry. I could eat a bag of these a day for the rest of my life and never get tired of them. A pity they're so expensive.
2. Girl Scout Caramel deLites (Samoas).
   I am not a fan of coconut, but... these have it all. A buttery vanilla cookie base topped with creamy caramel and coconut shreds... THEN they put chocolate on top of that. There's so much delicious going on in each bite that your brain doesn't quite know how to process it. Keebler has the same cookie they brand as "Caramel Dreams," so you can eat them outside of Girl Scout Cookie Season.
3. Keebler Pecan Sandies.
   Shortbread is a highly subjective topic because everybody has an opinion as to what makes the best cookie. Some like a dense shortbread like Lorna Doone... others prefer a more traditional buttery shortbread like Walker's. I prefer a lighter shortbread (if you can call it that?) which is why I buy Sandies. My favorite version is the ones with pecans... though there never seems to be enough pecans in them.
4. Tim Tams Original.
   "Australia's Favorite Cookie" has two chocolate biscuits with a layer of yummeh chocolate cream between them... all drenched in milk chocolate. Doesn't sound like much, but the textures of the three components work together to give you an unforgettable cookie experience.
5. Girl Scout Thin Mints.
   The fact that these are vegan would usually make me run away screaming... but the Girl Scouts somehow make it work. A chocolate-mint wafer is coated in a chocolate compound to create a simple cookie treat which has enough mint flavor to satisfy... but not so much that it overwhelms. It's this flawless balance that makes it one of my favorites.

And that's cookies for you.

HAPPY TEETH!

If you're like me, once you were out on your own, you just grabbed whichever toothpaste was cheapest and damn the consequences. I continued doing that for years. Until I got a free sample of The Good Stuff and had my life turned around. Then I became a bit of a toothpaste connoisseur and started trying every brand I could find. Here's the results...

1. Arm & Hammer Advance White Baking Soda.
   No toothpaste makes my mouth feel this fresh and clean. It's like a trip to the dentist every morning! Don't know that the whitening is as effective as others, but it does the job.
2. Colgate Optic White Sparkling Mint.
   The second-best whitening toothpaste I've found, but the taste takes a little getting used to. Leaves behind a residue that's not so great, but apparently that's the price you pay for white teeth.
3. Tom's of Maine Botanically Bright Peppermint.
   There was a point I was trying to "go natural" in my life, and Tom's had the best option for toothpaste I could find in my local supermarket. Overall it was "okay"... and if I ever become obsessed with "natural" again, I'll have no problem going back... but there are better options available if you want a whitening toothpaste.
4. Aquafresh.
   I became an instant fan of Aquafresh when it first came out in the 70's and it was my brand of choice for decades. I've since grown past it, but end up using it from time to time when it's given away at hotels I stay at. If I went back to Aquafresh, I'd probably go with their "Extreme Clean" version.
5. Crest 3D White Luxe Glamorous White Vibrant Mint Flavor Whitening Toothpaste.
   Does a miraculous great job of removing a yellow cast from your teeth, but once I found out it contains plastic microbeads which fuck up the environment in absolutely horrifying ways, I stopped using it. I'm adding it to the list because, apparently, Crest is taking the microbeads out of all their products this year. I might give it another try once that happens.

Everybody maintain healthy dental hygiene, now!

OH YEAH!

1. Tropical Punch.
   One of the original flavors and still my favorite. It has good fruity taste, and the added bonus of having Kool-Aid's hallmark toxic sweetness nicely balanced out with some acidity. As if that all weren't enough, the red coloring is so intense that you can use it to dye fabrics, your intestines, or even your hair.
2. Purplesaurus Rex.
   After having gone missing for a while, this classic flavor made a recent re-appearance. It's supposed to be a blend of grape an lemon... but it tastes like more than the sum of its parts. I can't really explain that, so you'll just have to try it for yourself... while you can.
3. Orange. Or perhaps Grape.
   These are two basic flavors that divide my loyalty. Sometimes I get on an Orange kick where I can't think of drinking any other flavor... then I'll hop on the Grape bandwagon. They are not the best interpretation of "real fruit taste" but they are tasty.
4. Sharkleberry Fin.
   A weird, but pleasing blend of Strawberry, Orange, and Banana. Has a somewhat artificial taste to it, but (oddly) not in a bad way. Another flavor that's been gone for a while.
5. Peach Mango.
   Probably the most accurately-flavored Kool-Aid flavor I've tried. And it has good "body" to it, which makes it feel more like a juice than Kool-Aid.

Deliciousness ensues!

INSERT QUARTER, PLAYER ONE!

When I was in High School I played a stupid amount of video games. Both at home and the arcade. And while they improved greatly from their humble beginnings, when I think of "arcade games" my mind always goes back to that era. Here are the games that make me feel that way...

1. Donkey Kong.
   When Donkey Kong first came out, it was certainly not the first platformer to hit the arcades. But it sure felt like it. Probably because it was clever enough both conceptually and visually to put other platformers a level below. I can't fathom how many quarters I pumped into my local Donkey Kong tabletop at the local pizza parlor.
2. Gauntlet II.
   RED WIZARD SHOT THE FOOD! The original Gauntlet was an arcade version of a fun dungeon-crawler that was made all the more special in that you could play it with three of your friends. Then came the sequel, and it was epic for its day.
3. Q*Bert.
   Despite loving arcade games back in the day, I was never very good at them. With the exception of Q*Bert. For whatever reason, I could find my groove in the game and was able to get high score with alarming regularity. If I were to ever buy an arcade cabinet, it would be this one.
4. Ms. Pac-Man.
   I always liked Pac-Man, but its repetitive nature was tough to get past. Then along comes Ms. Pac-Man and the repetitiveness somehow became tolerable. The game had a real "zen" about it that made for a great mindless diversion from life's troubles.
5. Tempest.
   Even though the graphics were simplistic to a radical degree, the fact that they were constructed from gorgeous vectors and had a kinetic energy which put you in the game in a very real way made me play it over and over and over again.

Arcade wishes and 8-Bit dreams!

GAME ON!

As I mentioned yesterday, I was a huge video game whore when I was a kid. I'm not going to lie... I still am, but only for Nintendo and LEGO. The difference being that when I was a kid I didn't do anything but play video games... whereas now I have things like "responsibilities" that keep getting in the way. Doesn't keep me from loving video games though. Here's a list of consoles that I love most of all...

1. Atari 2600.
   The first "real" video game system of my generation, the Atari VCS was revolutionary in just about every way possible for the day. Yeah, the graphics were absolute crap, but the imagination and innovation behind the dozens of games released more than made up for it. The downfall of the system came when the games were churned out just to have them out... even if they weren't worth releasing. The original Pac-Man game was complete shit with only a passing nod to the original game. The E.T. disaster is legendary. The list goes on and on. But, still, before we got to that point there were a lot of great games trailblazing the way for everything that was to come.
2. Nintendo Wii.
   It would be easy to drop a "modern" powerhouse system in this spot like Xbox One or PlayStation 4... perhaps even Wii U... but when it comes to the console that changed the way people play video games, it's the original Wii that turned the industry on it's head. Thanks to the way-cool controller, games became more interactive and collaborative than ever before. Get a group of friends together for Wii Bowling and good times can't help but ensue. Wii also brought forth the advent of the Mii, which gave gamers an identity they could carry through various games in a fun new way.
3. Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
   This is probably the favorite gaming system of old, responsible for a slew of games that defined the industry. Taking the massive popularity of the NES one step further, the Super NES gave us gameplay that culminated in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and unleashed some of the best games ever made... including StarFox, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, and Super Mario World.
4. Playstation 2.
   The original PlayStation attempted to bring more power to the game of video games, but it was Playstation 2 that actually delivered on that ideal. Powerful enough to allow game designers to run wild with their imaginations, PS2 unleashed games that broke the mold and added new depth to the industry. A lot of terrific game franchises that had promising starts on earlier consoles blew up to new heights. So many fun games passed through here... it's no wonder it's the best-selling console of all time.
5. Nintendo 64.
   Three Nintendo systems on this list may seem like overkill (especially for Sega fans lamenting that none of their systems ended up here), but this was the console that gave us The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, arguably the greatest of the greatest in video games. We also got the first Paper Mario, which is one of my favorite game franchises. Updates to other franchises... Mario Kart 64, Donkey Kong 64, StarFox 64, Kirby 64, etc., also pushed gaming into new territory and solidified Nintendo's track record as having the game designers to beat.

HONORABLE MENTION: ColecoVision.
This is a gaming system that rarely appears on people's lists of favorite game consoles. Yes it was underpowered. Yes it had one of the shittiest controllers ever. But it brought home a lot of great arcade games that Atari or Intellivision couldn't match... including the best home-port of Donkey Kong, my all-time favorite arcade title. I spent a huge chunk of my childhood playing ColecoVision, and am more than a little disappointed that it's forgotten by modern gamers.

Sorry. Nothing to see here.

For at least a month. Probably more.

X-Men: Apocalypse was utter garbage. Fairly decent special effects couldn't save the beyond-stupid plot that featured one of the lamest villains in movie history (a complete 180 from the awesome comic book original). As usual, Bryan Singer can't direct his way out of a paper bag, and continues to randomly assign super-powers to characters and rearrange history just because he needs to fix his crappy "story." So sick of people who obviously don't give a shit about honoring the source material continuing to make comic book films that suck...

The X-Men has perhaps the best potential for a comic book movie that is continuously squandered... over six films now. Seven if you count the beyond-shitty first Wolverine film. Of the entire X-franchise, only X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine, and Deadpool gave us a glimpse of what's possible.

I didn't think any modern comic book film could suck worse than the last Fantastic Four abomination, but here we are. It's incredibly frustrating, and one can't help but wonder how amazing an X-Men film could be in Marvel Studios' hands. We may never know.

I had been to New York City four or five times previously for work, and had done all the "touristy" stuff I wanted to do. Then one trip I decided to take my mom with me so she could see the big city, which meant I ended up doing all the touristy stuff all over again. Since I was not a Broadway fan, I had never seen a show and had no plans of doing so... but my mom thought a trip to New York would be incomplete without "The Broadway Experience" and so I relented. Problem was... good seats at a show were expensive, and I didn't have the money for good seats. I fretted a bit about my mom's first Broadway show being seen from the back of the theater, and mentioned it to a co-worker. She told me about TKTS, a place where you could get half-off same-day shows that had seats left. I was also told that the Times Square location could get a bit nuts and I should try the location at The World Trade Center. And so the next morning, off we went... where I got us third-row seats, center-stage for "Miss Saigon." Since we were already there, I suggested we visit "The Top of The World"... which I hadn't planned on doing since we had already been up The Empire State Building. It ended up being a pretty great day... got to see NYC from the top of the Twin Towers... went to a couple cool museums... ate lunch at the Stage Deli... visited Central Park and the world-famous FAO Schwartz toy store... all topped off by the lavish stage production of Miss Saigon.

Years later, 9/11 would happen and I'd be forever grateful that fate took us to The World Trade Center for theater tickets so my mom got to see The Top of The World. She wouldn't have another opportunity.

And this is why I can't think of The World Trade Center without hearing "Last Night of the World" from Miss Saigon in my head, and the irony of it all is not lost on me.

Fifteen years later. The song still haunts me.

And so, after months of waiting to upgrade my MacBook, Apple unleashed their latest and greatest pro laptops at a special media event yesterday.

Except they're not. Not really.

They're not the latest or greatest. They're woefully underpowered. Embarrassingly underpowered compared to the cutting edge releases in Windows World laptops. The CPU is a marginal improvement in power and speed over previous models... but who gives a shit about "marginal" in a "pro" machine? The Radeon GPU is borderline ridiculous compared to Nvidia's more powerful mobile chips, so why is Apple using them in a "pro" anything? And memory is still maxing out at 16 gigs, not 32? Seriously? In 2016? I regularly work on files larger than 16 gigs! The idea that these are "pro" laptops is laughable to a humiliating degree for Apple. Remember when a MacBook was the absolute king of laptops? So badass that even Windows developers were buying them? Well, those days are over.

But, ooh... you get a "TouchBar" at the top of the keyboard! And, ooh... it's really thin!

Two things I could give a flying fuck about. I need... NEED... a beast of a portable machine that will allow me to work at peak performance with spec-crushing apps like Photoshop.

And while it would be nice to have an array of ports to handle all my peripherals without another fucking dongle... or, hell... even being able plug in my fucking iPhone without another fucking dongle... that's not a deal-breaker for me. And while it would be nice to have Apple's MagSafe power port that has saved my laptop from taking a header more than once when I tripped over the power cord... that's not a deal-breaker either.

I NEED A FUCKING MACBOOK PRO LAPTOP!

And giving me this "pro" machine that hasn't got cutting-edge performance IS a deal-breaker.

There is no reason whatsoever for me to trade in my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina for the new machine. Certainly not at the premium price tag Apple has slapped on the high-end 15-inch model (my preferred configuration runs $3099). And certainly not with a bezel on the display that is not even all the way around the screen... what an OCD nightmare.

Which leads to a question for Tim Cook, Jonathan Ive, and everybody else in charge at Apple... What in the fuck am I supposed to do now?

Switch to Windows so I can actually buy the tool I need to get my work done?

The MacBook Pro IS Macintosh. It has been for a while. So does Apple even give a shit that they are essentially killing off the Mac with what has to be the stupidest fucking move they could have made for the pro users who actually buy their OS X shit? I just don't understand. Did nobody working at Apple stop for two fucking seconds to think about what they were doing, then turn to Tim Cook and say "This is not what our pro users are needing"... nobody?

Apparently that's the case, and it speaks volumes as to just how badly Apple has lost their way. From all appearances, they haven't the slightest fucking clue what they're doing with OS X anymore. While this was somewhat apparent when they released their bizarre Mac Pro "tubes" that aren't really built for pro needs... it's deathly apparent with the release of their latest "pro" laptops.

When Steve Jobs died, I was never one of those people saying "Apple is doomed! They will never survive without Steve!" But more and more I'm thinking that I was wrong. Everybody at Apple seems to be obsessed with making things thinner and lighter with no regard whatsoever as to what that actually means to the end-user. Pro power requires a bigger, heavier form-factor to accommodate the chips, ports, and battery required. What good is a super-thin, super-light "pro" laptop if it's not powerful enough to do the job? Does Apple even give a fuck? Or is thin and light truly all they care about, even though it's not the top priority for their customers?

I am one of the biggest Apple Whores you will ever meet. I live and die by their products. A good chunk of my life is defined by their products... the Mac, in particular. Nobody wants to see Apple knock one out of the park more than I do. Nobody wants to spend money to buy the latest Apple laptop more than I do. Nobody loves the Mac more than I do.

And that's the problem.

I love the Mac more than Apple does.

Look where that's gotten us.

Halloween is one of those holidays that I've been able to safely ignore for the past two decades. I don't have kids to take trick-or-treating, I haven't attended a Halloween party in years, and the neighborhood I used to live in never had trick-or-treaters stopping by. Sure I'd buy candy just in case... but the only person eating any of it was me.

All that changed when I moved into my new neighborhood. Which actually used to be my old neighborhood.

What's also changed? Kids with restrictive diets. Can't have peanuts. Allergic to gluten. Will die if they consume artificial colors. That kind of thing. So in addition to KitKats and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I also purchased "Yum Earth Fruit Snacks" that were naturally flavored, no synthetic colors, certified organic, gluten-free, fat-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, vegan, no soy, no egg, non-GMO, no dairy, no high fructose corn syrup, and no animal products. I figured that would cover all my bases. Last year I bought toys for kids that couldn't eat candies, but lost them in the move. Thus my Teal Pumpkin Project banner didn't get put out this year. I'll be sure I'm better prepared next Halloween... even though I've never had a single taker. Probably because I never had any trick-or-treaters.

Anyway, my 2016 Halloween in bullets...

• Only ended up getting the 50-60 kids I was anticipating instead of the 120-130 I was told would appear in my new (old) neighborhood. More candy for me!
• Pleasantly surprised that so many of the costumes had some effort put into them. The creativity made for an entertaining night.
• A fairly young kid showed up as Deadpool... a movie (or comic) he probably should not have seen at his age, but must have? Disconcerting.
• The cats may not have appreciated the "spooky ghost" ringtone on my Ring doorbell, but the kids sure did! Quite a few of them remarked that it was "cool."
• Most of the kids... over half... picked the "healthy" treat I got for kids with allergies and stuff. This was unexpected, but not unwelcome. I've got tons of REAL candy left over!
• At least half of the kids never said "Trick or Treat"... most did say "Thank you," however.
• Most all of the kids were accompanied by parents. In this day-and-age, you can bet your ass I wouldn't let my kids out alone on Halloween... no matter how old they were.
• My kitchen is at the front of the house, so to avoid running back and forth between the door and my living room, I decided to stay in the kitchen and clean it. A lot of work, but oh so nice. Still don't know how to clean my glass range-top completely. Even with Soft-Scrub and a Scotch-Brite pad, there are still spots that won't come clean.
• I had my last microwave for at least 15 years. Built like a tank and a dream to clean. The only reason I got rid of it was because I bought a built-in for my new place. While cleaning it, I was shocked at how cheap it's constructed considering the rather hefty price I paid. The interior is lined with thin metal that bends every time I apply even slight pressure.
• When I moved here, I just took everything that was under the kitchen sink at my old place and transferred it. Tonight I actually went through everything. Shocked that I ended up tossing out 3/4 of it all that was either expired/dead or completely unneeded.
• Jenny now gives zero fucks as to what areas of the house I feel she isn't allowed (i.e. the kitchen). While cleaning, she pounced right up on the countertop and came to see what I was doing. Jake will follow her example, I'm sure.
• Because of this, I am immensely relieved that both cats are still terrified of everybody but me. There was no chance of them running out the door, because every time somebody arrived they were high-tailing it upstairs.
• I have a Kitchen-Aid mixer, bread maker, Cuisinart, gelato maker, and blender. None of them have been used since I moved here. This needs to change. I used to love making fresh bread and other baked goods.
• The only thing I didn't clean was the oven interior. It has a really cool "Slow Steam Automated Cleaning" feature, but I can't find the instruction book to know how to use it. Looks like I'll be hunting the manual down this weekend.
• After not having trick-or-treaters for the past 20 years, the evening wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be!

And now I'll be over here eating Halloween candy and trying not to go into a sugar coma.

It's tough coming back from my self-imposed blog sabbatical and know what to talk about. Much of what took me away from blogging is a personal matter and won't be discussed here. Sure, there were other things going on, but it's all become a blur that I'm probably better off not revisiting. There are exceptions, however.

The biggest one being my cats, so let's get caught up on that in PART ONE of a THREE PART SERIES, shall we?

First of all, they're doing great. Jenny has become a pretty, petite young lady...

And Jake... well... Jake is still Jake, just a little more grown up...

He still spends a lot of time laying spread eagle for some reason...

The siblings still adore each other...

And do most everything together...

Even more important than that, they have become more and more comfortable hanging out with me. At one time I was afraid they'd never even let me touch them... now they've turned into cuddle buddies that can't get enough petting...

Rescuing two feral kittens has turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done. I love them more than I could love just about anything.

Now if I can just keep away from the Humane Society so I avoid adopting ten more of them.

Hey! This is PART TWO of THREE PARTS updating everybody about my cats.

Way back in April, I mentioned that I was planning on building a "catio" (cat patio enclosure) so Jake and Jenny could go outside while still being safe. My original intent was to design and build it myself, but work got so busy that I ended up hiring a contractor to build the exterior part plans I made, then I could build the interior pieces myself as time permitted..

After a few days, it was time to unleash the kittehs!

The cat outside is named "Fake Jake." That's because when my brother was cat-sitting, he thought she was Jake and brought her inside. Hilarity ensued. Fake Jake is kind of crazy-aggressive, and likes to terrorize my cats from time to time...