I honestly don't have a problem with what other people believe. Unless what they believe persecutes or intrudes on others, in which case I have a very big problem with it.

But anyway... Halloween.

With each passing year I see more and more people going apeshit over Halloween. They think it's evil. They think it's "Satan's Holiday" (or the day Satan impregnates his bride, which is like a holiday, I guess). Which is fine. Like I said, people can believe whatever they want to believe. But when you try to shut down Halloween activities that other people want to enjoy? Fuck you. Fuck you sideways. You don't get to use your faith to dictate how other people live their lives. People who, by-and-large, aren't "celebrating Satan" but simply dressing up in costumes and having fun.

But if all you're doing is telling other people what you're into then have at it. You do you. I 1000% support this guy...

On the plus side, he managed to spell all the words correctly ON HIS HALLOWEEN COSTUME! Refreshing!

But tell me honestly... do Christians cease to exist if they stop performing for people who absolutely do not care? (kudos to his adorable kid for taking Satan's Holiday seriously and dressing up as a bear disguised as a human though).

   
Then there's the other end of the spectrum. I happened across a woman named "Sam" who is a Catholic convert and had this to say about Halloween: "Repeat after me: HALLOWEEN IS A CATHOLIC HOLIDAY. Stop letting secular America steal what’s ours and turn it into everything it’s not."

Stop letting America steal what's ours?!? Wow. CLEARLY this woman is blissfully ignorant of Catholic Church history! Because, yikes. That's quite a take.

BUT THEN... you keep reading and, yep, she's selling something...

Now, so far as designs go, this one is actually darn good.

"I created these pieces as a way for you to promote the faith, decorate your homes, and maybe spark a conversation or two!"

Well, I was born into the Catholic faith. So I could just as easily say "Stop stealing what is ours to make a buck off of our fatih." But whatever. I am astutely aware of Catholic Church history, so this is actually very on-brand. And besides, I haven't been Catholic since I got evicted from Intermediate Sunday School for daring to ask "Where can I find purgatory in the Bible?" (probably just as well... the Primary Sunday School teacher liked to pretend he had a tail and invite us to chase after him and grab it... and by "it" I mean "his ass," so who knows what would have happened at the Intermediate level).

Meanwhile, back to Catholic Halloween...

"All Saints Day," as it is celebrated by Catholics, is about as far from "The Devil's Holiday" as you can get. I found this being shared on Facebook...

What's funny is that a comment on where this was posted had somebody ask if the guy in the bottom-right corner was Pokemon Trainer "Ash" from the video games.

And, while that's not the case, it's actually not as far off as you might think! That is not Ash... that's Carlo Acutis, who was beautified by The Church three years ago in 2020 (which means he's well on his way to being canonized as a saint)...

Carlo was actually a fairly interesting guy... a computer geek who loved video games and creating websites for The Church (his most famous being a site devoted to cataloging "Eucharistic miracles" that went live mere days before his death at age 15 in 2006). Odds are he will end up being a new Patron Saint of the Internet, which is a slightly more suitable choice than St. Isidore of Seville, who was assigned that glory by my favorite Pope... John Paul II.

As you would expect of somebody of his status, Carlo was entombed, then opened for public display, in Assisi (where he wanted to be buried since Saint Francis of Assisi was one of his most favorite saints)...

I have always been fascinated by Catholic Saints, even though The Church is a long ways behind me. It probably has to do with the many, many Catholic churches I've visited in my travels. They are always adorned with visages and artifacts from the Saints. Plus I love the movie Millions which buys strongly into Saint mythology.

I remember when Carlo's tomb was opened for veneration, there was a huge buzz across the internet that he was found to be "incorrupt." Which is to say that his body hadn't decayed like a normal person would. But, in fact, that wasn't the case. They had reconstructed his face out of silicone so that people visiting his tomb could see him as he was in life.

Which is not to say that he's all there for the viewing.

Only his undertaker knows for sure how much of him is actually there.

As with what happens to those in line for sainthood (or canonized into sainthood), they removed all kinds of parts and pieces to distribute them to churches as "first class holy relics." "First Class" being a piece of them. "Second Class" being something they owned. And "Third Class" being something they touched (dead or alive, I think). Holy Relics are a Very Big Deal in the Catholic Church. It was reported that Carlo's heart ended up in New York, which shocked me to my very core. I figured a finger bone or a piece of flesh... maybe... but his heart? That's like the top tier kind of relic! Alas, it wasn't his whole heart, it was a small fragment of his pericardium from his heart. Kinda. I mean the pericardial sack is just the membrane they cut through to get to the actual heart... but still pretty impressive.

He's going to be a saint one day, after all...

I know that Carlo's mom presented some of the relics to where they would be enshrined. And I sincerely hope it's because she wanted to instead of her being convinced to do so against her will. I'd think that going on a world tour with the blessing of The Church to hand out pieces of your son would be highly traumatic to a mother... but a Catholic mother? They be wired different (apparently she was raised in Rome but didn't consider herself to be Catholic until her son converted her, but still).

So, yeah, I hope everybody had a fun Halloween. Or, if you think it's absolute evil, I hope you had fun condeming Halloween.

You do you.

As I mentioned in my post about the Apple "Scary Fast" event that dropped Monday, the entire thing was shot on an iPhone.

This week there has been a bizarre controversy over that statement. Almost immediately afterwards people were saying "No way was that shot on an iPhone." Or even "Sure it was shot on an iPhone... with special external lenses." Or whatever.

But soon after the event Apple released a video with a behind the scenes look at how it was shot. Which was, in fact, an iPhone with no special external lenses...

And then everybody was like "Okay it was shot on an iPhone, but no normal person could shoot a video like this because Apple used special camera rigs and lights and stuff." But Apple didn't claim otherwise, so I don't get the controversy. Yeah, that motion rig is so expensive that I couldn't afford one (and those panel lights they used on Tim Cook aren't cheap either), but the phone is capable enough to do it if you do have that stuff. And if you don't? You can still get creative and shoot footage that's high enough quality you can do incredible things.

I haven't had time to shoot video on my iPhone 15 Pro Max yet. But I will when my special external lens gets here.

Because, unlike Apple, I fully intend on cheating.

I never thought much about Taylor Swift. But, as I said about the "Gold Digging Marxist" in a previous entry, I became a fan after her album 1989, and have enjoyed her music.

Now, there's no way I can afford to see her in concert (tickets are going for thousands if you're not one of the lucky ones who can manage to get a ticket when they go on sale), but I have watched the video releases of her tours for 1989 and Reputation that were enjoyable. So when my sister asked if I wanted to drive over and watch her Eras tour at a movie theater, I was all-in...

A couple things...

First of all, I thought that it was "Eras" as in the name of a Greek god or something. Maybe I was thinking of "Eos" who is "goddess of the dawn." But it's "Eras" as in plural of "era"... because the tour celebrates the many eras of Taylor Swift's music.

Second of all, it's absolutely bizarre to me how this tour movie was released while the tour is still going on. She's still got dates for Brazil, Asia, Europe left. Even a few US and Canada dates at the end of 2024. I think she did it because many (most?) of her fans were not able to get tickets, releasing the movie will in no way affect attendance, and she gets more money if she strikes while the iron is hot. So why not?

But anyway...

Taylor plays songs from all of her commercial albums, albeit out of order: Lover, Fearless, Evermore, Reputation, Speak Now, Red, Folklore, 1989, and Midnights. She also has a couple acoustic "surprise songs" that changes at each venue. The movie is a combination of the six shows filmed at the L.A. stop, which means you get Our Song and You're on Your Own, Kid. This was a huge, huge bummer to me... because the L.A. stop had both Dress and New Romantics as "surprise songs," and I really wish they had used those. Mostly because New Romantics is my favorite Taylor Swift song. Oh well. If she was smart, she'd release a video film of just the "surprise songs" from the tour. She'd made a million off something like that too.

As I expected after watching her previous concert movies, The Eras Tour is excellent. She is a brilliant performer, the stage show looks incredible, and the footage was very well shot. It's incredible to watch her playing to 70,000 people and holding the entirety of that vast audience in the palm of her hand the entire time. I seriously don't understand how she does it. I would walk out on stage... shit my pants immediately... then run away crying. But she puts 1000% into the entire performance, which much be exhaustive...

The amazing thing about Taylor is that she's always putting a shit-load of money into her stage show. for the 1989 tour, her massive stage runway would elevate and rotate out above the audience. For the Reputation stadium tour she had three separate stages that she rotates through. For the Eras tour she has this cool extended state which has a section that seamlessly elevates to different heights in different configuations. I think the the most fantastic live performer is Pink, but Taylor Swift is darn close. You cannot go to her show and not be entertained.

So, yeah, if you're a Taylor Swift fan, I don't need to tell you to go see the movie. You've probably already been.

Tomorrow is my cats most hated day of the year... Daylight Saving Time starts. The clocks fall back but, from their perspective, they're just getting fed an hour later for some random reason. When it ends in Spring, they're thrilled because breakfast is coming an hour early. But until then? Yikes.

The difference this year is that I'm over on the coast, so I'm not home to deal with it. But to make things easier, I did add a small 6am feeding in addition to their regular 7am feeding in the hopes that they won't be going too insane. But otherwise? It's going to be a tough couple of weeks before they adjust.

I think the bigger problem with me being gone is that there's nobody to turn on the electric blanket for them...

Before I left for Seattle, I was downstairs watching television with Jenny. Then I heard Jake crying upstairs. He does this sometimes. I don't panic like I used to, because it usually means he's found a toy he likes or something. But this time it didn't stop, and pretty soon he was wailing. This worried me quite a lot, so I went running upstairs to see if he was dying or something. Turns out he was mad because the blanket wasn't on. So I turned it on and went back downstairs.

About ten minutes later, he ran downstairs and hopped on his warming pad...

I guess he wanted company and warmth, and was mad that I didn't stay upstairs with him? Impossible to know.

Well here we are after another fucking episode of dicking with the clocks, but I'm going to set aside my massive hatred of Daylight Saving Time right now... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Doors! The door into my laundry room is a pocket door. That sticks. Since the day I moved in. I always leave a small gap rather than closing it completely because it's hard to open with the little finger-hold, and I need my entire hand to move it. I asked about getting it fixed, but no matter what's wrong the only way to solve the problem is to open up the wall. And so I've ignored it. Until this morning when I went to pull it open and it glided smoothly open? No idea how that happened. I hope it's permanently fixed! As if by magic.

   
• Moxie! There have been a lot of moments I love on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, but this might be my favorite...

It's amazing how a show can continue to surprise you after it's been running for so long (ten seasons).

   
• Sauron Lives! This. Is. Hilarious. You owe it to yourself to watch it (especially if you're a Lord of the Rings fan)...

Just when you think he's peaked, he keeps going... and going.

   
• A SUCCULENT CHINESE MEAL? I swear my favorite memes come out of stuff that happened in the UK and Australia. They're comedy gold. But I can't really share them because it's likely nobody in the US will understand them. This one made me laugh for five minutes, so I'm sharing it anyway...

Cartoon from Safely Endangered, which is insanely awesome

If you're not from Australia, it probably means nothing to you (and if you haven't seen the movie Minority Report it probably means even less). Oh well. If you want a laugh, there's this original news video on Youtube. And here's a starter on Wikipedia that explains it pretty well.

   
• Time and Distance! LOL. I was just at my sister’s house that’s just a little over two hours away. Yes, here in the USA this is considered “close,” and people don’t think anything about having to drive that...

Here in Washington State, it would take 9 hours to drive across the state (Cape Flattery to Asotin). I would consider that to be a long drive, as it's over four-five hours...

Map taken from Google Maps

But anything less than that? Not really. Two hours is just how long it takes to get to my sister's house.

   
• Access! I saw an image being shared repeatedly with a capton saying "this cannot be shared enough," and I completely agree. If you're one of these assholes that parks in the area designated for unloading and loading of those who need special equipment to travel, just stop. Because...

It's not just that they should be towed and fined. It's that they should lose their fucking license and the priviledge to drive for a year. Maybe with serious consequences, people wouldn't be such assholes.

   
• A Statement on Interest. Given the ever-escalating mortgage rate, I'm reeeeeeally glad I opted for a fixed rate mortgage.

   
And now we return to this Daylight Saving Time, already in progress.

I think I've written a few times about my love for the Yes Theory YouTube channel.

I can't remember where I first heard of it. In all likelihood somebody via the internet... probably even a total stranger... who contacted me through this blog. They see that I loved traveling the world and meeting new people and discovering new things and said something like "You should really check out Yes Theory on YouTube". And so I did. This was many years ago, and I've watched everything they've ever released.

And the members of Yes Theory have meant the world to me. Because they don't just want you to watch, they invite you into their lives and you get to experience everything with them. It hasn't always been an easy road, and there have been many changes over the years.

Which is why this reunion video is so incredibly special to me...

The way Yes Theory looks at the world is how I want the world to be.

I cannot wait to see what happens next.

And if you're looking for a massive dose of positivity in your life, I highly recommend checking out their channel. But be forewarned... if you are remotely human, those videos are addictive. You cannot watch just one.

I really don't want to be on the internet today.

I got a pretty good night's sleep. Woke up to answer my emails then feed my cats. Then climbed on social media until I had a video chat scheduled. Almost immediately I saw racist comments on a video that was not in English complaining about how the content creator should be "speaking English if she wants an audience"... and I was done.

The woman in the video actually speaks English very well. But she is more comfortable in her native language, so 3/4 of her videos are in Spanish. And it's not like YouTube doesn't have the ability to automatically display translated subtitles into whatever language you want, so what does it even matter? I guess reading subtitles is just too much for people.

Especially those who think that everybody everywhere should be speaking English all the time.

Which reminded me of when I was on one of the first cruises with my mom. One of the waiters at our table had a nametage saying he was from the Phillipines. I had a very, very rudimentary grasp of some phrases in Tagalog and, as he was clearing my dinner plate, I said "Maraming salamat," or "Thank you very much."

The waiter froze.

My first thought was that I mangled it so badly that I had accidentally said something deeply offensive. So I immediately apologized and said I didn't know much Tagalog.

That's when he told me "You said it very well. I am just not used to hearing Filipino* above deck." At which point he told me that employees are only allowed to speak English in front of passengers because otherwise they get complaints that the workers are "talking about them" and "being rude."

And, it's like... I get it. Despite the fact that the USA doesn't have a "national language" there are numerous examples of foreign language speakers being told "Speak American... you're in American now!" **

But no, actually I don't really get it at all. ***

Americans travel abroad expecting everybody to speak English and not bothering to learn even a few niceties in the language of the country they're visiting, but of course that's perfectly okay. — But anyway... if the workers aren't talking to you, why the fuck shouldn't they be able to talk to each other in whatever language is comfortable to them?

Because Americans might conjure up some imagined slight?

Yeah, that's 1000% on-brand for us.

Something which was reaffirmed on a video I watched this morning.

*Tagalog being the root language of standardized Filipino.

**Yes, I just quoted a line from the Bette Midler & Lily Tomlin comedy Big Business.

***One of my dream scnearios has always been somebody telling me to "Speak American" when I'm speaking some other language so I can say "Fuck off, asshole! Is that American enough for you?

I have written before about the decade I spent getting out of credit card debt. It was a slow, very painful process, and I have tried my level best to not go back to that life*. It's not always possible because emergencies do happen, but I've been fairly lucky overall.

The process I used to get out of debt was the "snowball" method where you consolidate as much as you can into lower-interest debt, then pay off the remainder by making minimum payments on everything except your smallest balance. On that account, you throw the maximum amount of money you can to get it paid off. Then you move to your next smallest balance. And so on. Until finally you're on the low-interest mega-balance, which you put every last cent into paying down.

I think the process took just over seven years, where I only spent money on the absolute bare essentials... eating and living as cheaply as possible so I had the most money to pay off debt.

Back then I used a spreadsheet to budget and plan.

Now I use financial apps which link to your various accounts and estimate your bills so you can get an overview of how much money you have and how much you owe. They're really handy.

For the longest time I used Truebill, but they started sending my financial data unencrypted through the email and said "Oopsies, there's no way to stop this from happening," so I moved on to Mint which had been bought out by Intuit. Mint is a fucking abhorrent app. I hate it with every fiber of my being. You can't turn off notification, which are constant and annoying. You also can't turn off ads, which are also constant and annoying. But it's free... so whatever. I deal with it.

Except now Intuit is shutting down Mint, so I'll be saying goodbye. Because it's so shitty, I won't miss it. What I will miss is having a way of tracking my finances that's free. Rocket Mortgage bought out Truebill, so what I may do is go back to that to see if the privacy bullshit has been cleared up. So long as you don't update more than daily, it's free.

Or maybe I'll move on to a paid solution and see if it's worth it to me. I mean, anything is worth not going into debt again... I just mean that it's worth not going back to a spreadshet.

*Well, except for my mortgage, because it's actually cheaper to go into debt buying a house than it is to rent now-a-days.

As a huge Beatles fan, I've been looking forward to their latest (and last) release. But unlike last time where only John's contribution was recorded (Free As A Bird and Real Love were constructed from John's demo recordings with the other members singing/playing over them), this time George is gone as well. But he had already recorded some work on it, so here we are..

There's a very interesting "making of" video that explains how this was even possible...

It's a nice track... but isn't really The Beatles. At least not to me. Half of the equation was missing, meaning the collaboration wasn't interactive. Still... better than nothing.

Between my iPhone and my Apple Watch, I'm good.

That's not to say that I'm against adopting new and exciting "wearable" technology as it arrives... it's just that it would have to be something incredibly useful or amazing for me to hop on the early-adopter bandwagon.

Today Humane, a company creating AI tech, is announcing more details of their "Humane AI Pin" that they demoed in a TedTalk six months ago. Including the price, which clocks in at a whopping $699 (plus a required $24 per month for a cellular contract via T-Mobile).

I fully admit that it's an interesting trinket. With some caveats...

UPDATE - VIDEO REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE BY HUMANE: Let's say that you work hard to create a ten minute joyless video announcing your product launch. What's the best possible thing that could happen? I'll tell you what... people copy and repost your video so it goes viral. There's no better advetising because it's exponential but costs no additional money. Except Humane has started issuing take-down notices with copyright strikes against people reposting it. Apparently the launch video had some pretty serious factual errors involving how much protein is in a handful of almonds and where is the best place to see the upcoming eclipse. So Humane is working hard to remove the evidence, I guess.

The one thing they demoed that was its "killer feature" was live translation using your own voice and inflection. Alas, they had to remove the whole video, so that's gone too...

And about those caveats...

• I question the legibility of a "laser screen" that's projected on your hand. First of all... how does it focus? Second of all... the wrinkles and folds of the human hand hardly seem like the best device for projection. The central part is large enough to be readable, but I have no idea what's written around that. If anything. Maybe it's decorative?
• I rarely use the voice interface on my iPhone or Apple Watch... and even then it's when I'm not in public. I'm not going to start talking to them while I'm out in public, disrupting the peace. It would be hypocritical given the disdain I have for people who take calls on speakerphone in public.
• They put a lot of effort in talking about privacy. But if your interaction is all 98% talking out loud and listening out loud, how private can it be? Absolutely everybody will be in your business who's within earshot.
• Despite the fact that the "Battery Booster" is on the back side of whatever cloth the pin is hanging off of, it's only making the thing all the more heavy. I'd have to try it for myself, of course, but it seems like a rather large and clunky device to hang off my T-shirt.
• I'm on T-Mobile, which is the Humane service provider. And despite what their ads tell you, their quality os pretty much shit. In rural areas, like my home, I bounce between two and three bars (it is 5G-UC, not that it makes my calls stranger or my data faster). In big cities, I have other problems. Possibly from the network being overloaded? No idea. All I do know is that my cell service was better under AT&T... and much better under Verizon. To have something which is entirely reliant on "The Cloud" as connected by T-Mobile seems dicey. Feels like there's going to be some serious lag waiting for actions to be performed.
• I didn't buy an Apple Watch with cellular service because my iPhone is always with me and the non-cellular version can sponge off my iPhone's cellular connection seamlessly. It seems really weird that the AI Pin can't do that as well. You must buy a $24 a month cellular plan, even if you've always got a phone on you.
• SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS?!? I know that the R&D for this thing must have been pricey, but there's no screen, limited interactivity, and very limited uses. When I compare it to something even more outrageously-priced, like the $3,500 AppleVision Pro, at least I can see where Apple spent the money. This little box though? Look, I fully understand that Humane has nowhere to go but up, and the device will only improve as time goes on, but $700 seems a hugely expensive price to pay for it given its awkward nature and limited application.

I will watch the progression of Humane's little gadget with interest. But I won't be dropping $700 to buy the first one. Maybe they'll be able to prove its necessity in the future. Or maybe the price will drop low enough that it will be a fun thing to play with for the price.

Don't mind me.

I'm just hanging out in bed.

Listening to the rain with my buddy here...

Jenny would rather hide in the closet.

In celebration of Captain Marvel's second feature film, Marvel Studios took out an ad on The Sphere Las Vegas. And it stars her alien flerkin, Goose!

Out of all the characters in the Marvel Universe, I have to say that the way they've handled Goose is my favorite. This is epic.

And, lastly, here's a kitten that loves corn more than you do...

Or maybe it's the butter? Hard to tell with cats.

Officially entering the holiday season, not that it'll keep me away... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• This is EARTH! sigh. I love love love the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt. They tackle fascination topics in a highly educational and entertaining way. And now there's this absolutely brilliant new video. They have condensed the 4.5 billion year history of planet earth in exactly one hour. And guess when humans appear in that hour? Helpful hint... don't blink...

It's had it running last night on the television while I was working. I found myself looking up to watch more often than I expected.

   
• POIROT! Here's the thing. I thought the Albert Finney original Murder on the Orient Express was better than the Kenneth Branagh remake. I thought the Peter Ustinov original Death on the Nile was VASTLY superior to the Kenneth Branagh remake (indeed, it's one of my favorite films). But I still enjoyed Branagh's take on Poirot, so I just watched A Haunting in Venice. This one I liked a lot...

My mom read all the Agatha Christie books, so I ended up reading all of them as well. I don't remember the book Hallowe'en Party much... but I do remember not thinking much of the BBC adaptation, feeling they were scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. The Branagh version wisely makes a very loose adaptation with A Haunting in Venice and the movie is far better because of it. I really hope we get a fourth film where they try something unique... and adapt it to be as interesting as this one.

   
• Reacher Deux! The second season of Reacher cannot get here fast enough. The first season was one of the best things to happen to my television last year...

I haven't read all the Jack Reacher novels, but I've read enough that it's shocking how much more faithful the Amazon Prime series is to the Tom Cruise movies (though, I liked those also, if I'm being honest).

   
• Falling! I watched the occasional episode of The Fall Guy but was never so much into the show that I gave a thought to a movie adaptation. Until I saw it was starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt!

This movie looks entertaining as hell.

   
• DAFUQ? I had absolutely no idea (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

I wonder if James Brolin gets any bank off that song?

   
• DAK! All throughout high school I was addicted to the DAK catalog which had really good deals on electronics, computers, and media. It was kinda a weird concept... the owner (Drew Alan Kaplan) hunted down products which were made wrong or had some cosmetic detail that was off or whatever, bought the entire lot, then offered them at a consumer-direct discount price. I couldn't afford to buy lots of stuff... I was in high school... but I obsessed over every new catalog that arrived. And now those catalogs have been scanned and archived by Cabel Sasser on his site...

This one is my favorite... turn your tiny blurry television into a bigger blurry television with this fresnel lens!

   
• Pander! I finally remembered to watch the new South Park special on Paramount+... Into the Panderverse... and it's pretty epic. I am 1000% onbord for inclusivity and diversity in entertainment. It keeps things fresh and interesting, because how many times do we want to see the same old shit with straight white people? But the problem is that remaking the same old shit and substituting non-straight-white-people for straight white people is a stupid, lazy way of creating inclusivity and diversity. It completely ignores the lived experience of non-straight-white-people by copy-pasting them into a straight-white experience, and the movie/television studios need to do better than that. Because it's getting boring as hell.

Plus it's got Kathleen Kennedy and her massive ego in it! Though it's fake Kathleen Kennedy, so any hopes of her taking time out from completely fucking up LucasFilm/Disney were shortlived. Unfortunately, there it a downside to this episode. Gino Carano is using it to extend her 15 minutes.

   
Enjoy whatever remains of your Sunday, everybody.

24/7 Wall Street has published a list of cities with the worst traffic in the USA.

As you may have guessed from reading this blog, this is a subject on which I have very strong feelings. So, naturally, I can't just let this list blow by without commenting. In order to get the ball rolling, I'll just publish my list and discuss entries on their list after. Because I have some serious disagreements. Their only metric is "lost time due to traffic delays" which is a worthy way of looking at it, but I'd argue that an overall statistic is too general to be useful in specific circumstances. If I'm sitting in traffic I'm not thinking "Thank heavens I'm not in Chicago where traffic is worse" because my driving experience in Chicago is specific, not general. Based on my experience, here's my Top 15 (they did 32 cities for some reason)

1. Atlanta (24/7 Rank: 10)
   Here is a classic example of their list's "general timing" being bizarre to me. Because to find traffic worse than Atlanta on my list, I would have to go International. Atlanta is hands-down, without-a-doubt the worst traffic I have encountered in the USA. I remember very well approaching Atlanta from the East Coast only to run into traffic so bad that it took over an hour to get through what should have taken ten minutes. And within the city itself, driving anywhere means you are just fucked. It takes forever to get anywhere. Even if you circumnavigate the city center. From the airport? Fucked. Heading to Marietta? Fucked. There is no way to navigate anywhere near Atlanta without getting fucked.
2. Los Angeles (24/7 Rank: 7)
   The fact that L.A. doesn't appear until the #7 slot makes me dubious about the list to begin with. I'm not questioning that the data is accurate, but I am questioning how it applies to actual people and their driving experience. As anybody who has ever driven in L.A. (or tried to get out of L.A.) will tell you, traffic is a nightmare without end. I have driven from LAX up to The Valley and honest-to-God felt as though I was caught in some kind of time warp where time slows to a crawl. I used to have to drive from Santa Monica down to Anaheim/Santa Ana and would end up screaming... not at anybody in particular, just out of general frustration. I may have taken my driving lessons in Central Washington, but I didn't really learn to drive until I was working in L.A. regularly in the 90's. Traffic has only gotten worse.
3. New York (24/7 Rank: 3)
   Despite the fact that NYC is in the #3 spot, New York is actually not that terrible to get around in. So long as you are using public transport! But if you attempt to drive in any of the five boroughs, you're 100% fucked. I used to drive from whatever airport I arrived in to Manhattan because I often needed to go out of the city on my work trips. I gave up on my fourth trip. I take public transportation out of the city, then rent a car from there. It saves my sanity.
4. Seattle (24/7 Rank: 10)
   Seattle is surrounded on three sides by water. So there is no "ring road" to get around it... and any attempt to get around it by driving around the East Side is an exercise in futility because it's equally bad over there. Couple that with the fact that the streets are always torn up somewhere or other, and the horrific traffic is multiplied to an insane degree. Of all the cities on this list, I drive in Seattle the most often. My breath is taken away every time, because it's just so horrifically bad. Everywhere.
5. Chicago (24/7 Rank: 1)
   Maybe it's because most times I just take the el (elevated train) to get around and only really drive to get to the city from the airport when a car is required, but I don't get the #1 ranking. Even when I do drive within Chicago, it's always seems like normal big-city traffic and not some insurmountable beast. That being said... from the experience I have had driving, I get it. Nothing quite like hitting the same light three and four times to make your blood boil.
6. Boston (24/7 Rank: 2)
   Boston is a very old city which is a massive mess to navigate. For years I would arrive at the airport and drive up to Maine because flying direct into Portland was too expensive, and each time I would be stuck in ungodly traffic even though I was nowhere near central Boston. And God help you if you actually do need to drive in Boston proper because the traffic is a never-ending source of angst. Whenever I would have to navigate the old street layouts and ridiculous routes needed (all while trying to avoid potholes) my anxiety would escalate. I was exhausted at the end of the trip even though it technically "wasn't that terrible." Even so, I don't get the #2 ranking here. If you're a smart driver that can handle it, Boston is far better than Seattle of L.A. to navigate.
7. Miami (24/7 Rank: 5)
   This is one of those cities where your experience very much depends on where you're driving. If you're driving from South Beach to Little Havana, let's say... yeah. The number of cars on the road is absurd. And while that's true for the rest of the city as well, it's to varying degrees. When I was driving from Miami to Palmetto Bay every year in the 90's I didn't think it was all that bad. Maybe it's far worse now? But you could say that about everywhere.
8. San Francisco (24/7 Rank: 6)
   I have driven in San Francisco the second most on this list after Seattle. Yes, the traffic is bad. Yes, navigating the city can be baffling. Yes, there is construction often. Yes, people can be jerks. But traffic-wise? It's busy, but not to the extent of most big cities. Maybe it just seems that way because it's fairly compact? Like Seattle, the city is surrounded by water on three sides, which makes it impossible to improve things much, but driving the Bay Area never caused me more anxiety than the cities above.
9. Washington D.C. (24/7 Rank: 8)
   Yeah... it's pretty bad. But not as bad as it could be if you know the streets to avoid. Some of it is, of course, unavoidable, but I've been all over D.C. and just don't find it to be bad enough for the #8 ranking. Seattle, San Francisco, and Atlanta are exponentially worse in my experience. It's been six years since I've driven there, so maybe it's gotten a lot worse... but what cities haven't gotten much worse?
10. Philadelphia (24/7 Rank: 4)
    Philly traffic got so frustrating to me that I ended up refusing to drive there, and stopped renting cars because my blood pressure would become so elevated that I considered it a health risk. So I totally understand it landing in the #4 spot. That being said... worse than Atlanta?!?? Are you kidding me? Philadelphia has serious problems when it comes to traffic, but it's an absolute cakewalk compared to Atlanta! For one thing, navigation doesn't seem to be as bad, which maybe makes the traffic not seem so bad to me. I don't know. But the fact I refuse to drive in the city and use taxis/public transport is still very telling.
11. Houston (24/7 Rank: 11)
    Houston is problematic to me in so many ways... but the traffic doesn't even rank in the top five reasons I am not thrilled to have to go there. But it is still a very large problem. Most times when I am in Houston for work, I have to drive out to some location in the burbs, and getting in and out of the city makes that a problem because the roads are jammed at all the wrong times. Many times I will just circumnavigate the horrors of downtown to get from the airport to my destination, but then if you want to experience the many terrific restaurants in the city, you have a choice to make. Do I really want to have a Hillstone veggie burger that bad? Unfortunately, the answer is most often "yes," and the fact that the restaurant is not even in the worst traffic in Houston won't save you because it's still bad. And don't get me started on the parking. San Francisco is the absolute worst... don't ask my why Houston is nearly as bad. I honestly don't understand it. Maybe I hang out at all the wrong places?
12. New Orleans (24/7 Rank: 9)
    Driving in New Orleans can absolutely test your patience. Especially if you're foolish enough to attempt to drive through the tourist-heavy regions like The French Quarter. My most hated drive, however, is the one to and from the airport. Not sure why they can't do something to improve this... probably a question of money... but I would have a much more favorable impression of the city if this route weren't so dang slow.
13. Portland (24/7 Rank: 13)
    This is highly dependent on where you are driving. The outskirts of the city are usually not that bad, but anywhere else... especially from the airport... can be a serious challenge. Oddly enough, the city proper is hit-or-miss, and many times I've driven it weren't terrible at all. This is also time-dependent, I think. But, yeah, rush hour is a mess and there is some weirdness to navigate certain areas, so it's understandable how traffic can seriously put a damper on your transit times.
14. San Diego (24/7 Rank: 18)
    It's not just San Diego proper... it's the entire region. To the South is a mess because there's border traffic. To the north is a mess because there's limited corridors and popular cities like La Jolla and Del Mar are there (not to mention Los Angeles!). Going East isn't quite as bad (I had work in Spring Valley that I'd drive to)... but the rest? Disastrous. And I don't truly understand why that is. Sure there's a lot of people and it's between to high-traffic destinations, but even in the city proper it can take a long time to really get anywhere. I've drive in San Diego more times than I can count and found traffic to be a problem most every time. Maybe it's just California?
15. Austin (24/7 Rank: 17)
    Not only can Austin be a complete bear to navigate, but the public transportation is fucked. I have had busses blow past me many times despite the stop being on their route. Not just once... many times. It seems as though drivers only stop if there's enough people waiting to be worth their time? I have no idea. When it comes to driving Austin proper, it probably doesn't actually deserve my final spot... it's busy but not prohibitively so... but I'm putting here anyway because the busses piss me off that much.

One of these days I should make a list that includes foreign cities. But I don't know that my heart could handle even the memory of some of these places!

UPDATE: Well that was fast... YouTube cracks down on synthetic media with AI disclosure requirement. I mean, this literally means nothing unless it gets enforced, and the idea that YouTube will "crack down" hard enough to make the problem go away would cut into their ad revenue, so I'll believe it works when I see it.

As more and more streaming services keep raising prices while reducing content, I cut more and more streaming services. The one streaming source that is in no danger of being cut anytime soon though? Youtube Premium. Simply because the amount of ads they inundate people with is so horrific that I cannot sit through them without having an embolism. But, unlike Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and the rest, YouTube is always stacking up more content. There's so much content that I couldn't hope to sit through even a fraction of it (not that I'd want to).

But all is not perfect in YouTube Land.

One of the genre's I cannot get enough of is science videos. I watch an insanely huge amount of science-based content.

But lately I've been noticing a shitload of shitty fucking science content being pushed my way. Most of it AI-generated. I'll be enjoying a great science video. It will end. And all of a sudden I get a video with a robotic AI-generated voice, showing the same AI-generated visuals over and over, while reading from a bad AI-generated script, then pushed out with an AI-generated thumbnail.

It's so bad that I ended up searching Google to find out what the fuck was happening.

Ironically (or not) one of the first links returned was a YouTube video that sums it up very well...

Now, I'm just going to put this out there: If YouTube doesn't do something about this crap... quickly... they could end up fucking themselves out of a lot of cash. From people like me who have absolutely zero desire to be exposed to souless content that isn't properly researched or fact-checked by actual people who know how to do that.

A good first step would be for YouTube to require that all AI-generated videos be flagged as such. And easily identified as such. And any video not properly declared as AI-generated can be reported with the account demonetized.

A good second step would be for YouTube to allow its users to set a preference to have AI-generated videos not be displayed. I would check that box in a second, because I have no desire what-so-ever to watch this shit.

A great third step would be to ban the content entirely, but it's not like YouTube would ever ban something that brings them money so I'm not holding my breath.

I'm single because I want to be.

I don't know that this statement needs defending, but if I were forced to do so I'd say that "It's just the way I'm wired." I love being alone. Just me, two cats, and an empty house. It's bliss. I'm totally set. Tried the whole relationship thing multiple times and it wasn't a good fit, so I decided I'd rather live for my friends and occasional hook-ups than be miserable.

Or, if I'm being honest, making somebody else miserable. Because haven't women suffered enough?

Men get to be alone. Sure people tend to think we're gay for wanting it, but we're largely left to our own devices. Women, on the other hand, are labeled "UNFULFILLED" and "SAD" and "A DETRIMENT TO SOCIETY" when they want to be alone. As if not wanting a husband and children somehow makes them "less than." Which would be laughable if it weren't so harmful. Personally, I can't understand why people give a shit. Some people want to be on their own, so just let us be.

In the last decade there's been a lot to be said about the incels. Meaning "involuntarily celibate men." These are guys who are alone because they can't find a woman willing to put up with their superiority bullshit... and blame women for it! And since it's "totally not their fault because they're just being an alpha male" they feel justified badmouthing women at every opportunity and committing heinous acts where they lash out against society (in general) and women (specifically). It's a serious, serious problem, and the violence born out of it is no laughing matter.

Where it all takes a turn are the men who own the "incel" label... but claim it's because a terrible women did them wrong. To them it's justified. They hate on all women now and it's a woman's fault. To an extent, I do get that. A bad relationship can easily cause enough pain for people to lash out in illogical ways. I've been there. I'm not going to go into the crazy details, but suffice to say that when I was in my worst relationship I was lied to, betrayed, cheated on, and exploited. It was awful. It resulted in me drinking too much and contemplating self-harm. And for years after I dug myself out of that hole, I felt I'd rather be alone the rest of my life than to risk going through that again. I didn't blame "all women" for what she put me through, but I can see how a guy could make that leap. For a while. But to turn it into your entire identity for life? That's on you. And women not wanting to be with that is also on you.

But that's not the only road that gets traveled.

Over the weekend I was scrolling through the cesspool that is social media and ran across what I thought was an incel rabbit hole. But as I continued to scroll... I saw that the men participating in this new trend of sharing their feelings about being alone are not blaming women for their situation at all. They're just expressing how sad they are that they can't find a partner to share their lives with. They're not violent about it. They don't feel women "owe" them anything. They're not raging against all womankind.

They're just... lonely.

After a while of watching I was overwhelmed with compassion.

But, since this is the internet, "compassion" is not the normal response. There's loads of people branding them as "beta males" and "weak" and, of course, "incels" (from the other side of the spectrum). Telling them to "buck up" and "be a man" and "stop embarrassing yourself." Despite the fact that these guys have done absolutely nothing to deserve any of it. Men don't get to be sad and vulnerable out of loneliness, you see. That... that... deserves to be mocked, belittled, demeaned, and dismissed.

And so now I'm feeling bad for being a part of the problem.

Here's me, absolutely loving being single and alone watching guys pour their heart out about how the crushing loneliness is breaking them. And the first thing to enter my head was to lump them in with men who don't want to change their shitty behavior so that a woman might actually want to be with them. As I was watching, I kept waiting for them to unload the "I'M ENTITLED TO SEX BECAUSE I'M A MAN AND WOMEN SHOULD DROP TO THEIR KNEES AND BE GRATEFUL THAT I'D WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH THEM!" rhetoric. But I didn't see it.

Well, I did, because TikTok can't distinguish between lonely single guys and hate-filled incels, but the majority of the videos were not that.

And of course it's not just guys. Plenty of women being crushed by loneliness too. Not surprisingly, society is no more kind to them than they are the men.

Being alone is exactly what I want and I don't ever feel lonely because of it. So it's difficult for me to comprehend the mindset of somebody dying of loneliness. Of dying from a broken heart that they have never been able to give to another person. But I don't have to understand it to feel for people who are in this boat. Everybody deserves to find love, and somebody who has never had it deserves every bit the compassion as a guy whose wife of 60 years just died. A broken heart is a broken heart.

My first reaction was a bad one. I hope I can do better in the future.

And I really hope that I can be less dismissive of my fellow men who are hurting and just want to be heard. To be treated with kindness when they're in pain. That's really not a lot to ask.

Despite our toxic society telling us otherwise.

Be kind out there, my friends.

And it so happened that the sequel to Captain Marvel, titled The Marvels, is not doing well at the box office. It likely cost $250 million to make. Another $200 million to market. And is slowly approaching $120 million at the box office after five days in theaters. That's a lot of money, but when compared to previous Marvel Studios movies... it's a massive disappointment. It might very well break even after streaming/video revenue arrives... but there's likely not a third Captain Marvel movie happening because movies have to earn a billion at the box office to make studios happy. Which is a shame, because actual people who have seen the movie say it's a fun ride and terrific entertainment...

The fanboys are cackling over it all, of course, saying that "This is what happens when you're a woke company making woke films with an all-female cast!" Which is 100% bullshit, of course. But facts don't matter any more, so this is what we have to keep listening to.

What's happening here is not a big mystery. This is a trend that has nothing to do with Disney being "woke" or that the film features a "female cast" (remember that the original Captain Marvel made over a billion dollars). There's a lot of factors at play...

• People just aren't going to the theaters as much. It takes a truly breakout film to draw people to theaters and achieve massive box office success. That could be something entirely new (such as Barbie), or a no-brainer beloved IP (such as Super Mario Brothers), or a masterpiece with a compelling story (such as Oppenheimer). I would love to see The Marvels right now. But not enough to go to the theater to do it. I absolutely fucking hate going to movies where people are talking, lighting up their phone screens, and (ugh) chewing loudly. I have a far, far better experience at home. And that's where I will be watching The Marvels. If Disney wanted to make money off of non-theater goers like me, they might consider offering a $50 dollar, 24 hour at-home rental a week after the movie hits theaters. Which includes a free copy of the movie once it is released to home video months later. Not a great thing to do to theaters who are supporting your project, but this film ain't going to be in theaters for long if nobody is going to see it.
• Super-hero fatigue is a real thing. There's just so much damn super-hero content inundating people, and rarely is it something new and fresh. Comic book films have degenerated to Hallmark movies... the same stories over and over with different actors. Now, don't get me wrong, I watch every Hallmark movie that gets released... and am thrilled to consume as much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they want to feed me... but I am abnormal that way. Most people aren't like that. They're bored. They've moved on. And buzz isn't building over these genre films as it used to be. Especially when you have DC muddying the waters with shit like Wonder Woman 1984 and The Batman and Black Adam and Shazam!: Fury of the Gods and The Flash and Blue Beetle... and really everything after he brilliant Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy (excepting the first Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad). The average movie-goer cannot distinguish between DC and Marvel, so everything is lumped together in their head... and there's a lot of not-great films happening there. Next up is... Madame Web?... crapped out by Sony? WTF? Didn't they learn their lesson with Mobius?
• Quality is declining, badly. The lead up to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame was filled with incredible movies that were all carefully planned to be both stand-alone stories and build to something incredible. But Marvel Studios has made several missteps to sow disinterest in even the most diehard MCU fans. The "Multiverse Saga" has been a complete bust... forcing movies into a plot thread that's not fun or entertaining. With the exception of Hawkeye and Werewolf By Night, which I loved (and had nothing to do with the "multiverse"), all the Disney+ shows have been painfully average or outright bad. The movies have shown flashes of what I love (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Spider-Man: No Way Home) and movie I enjoyed quite a lot (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and even a movie that was good but could have been so much better (Eternals). But everything else in Phases Four and Five that I've seen... five out of nine movies... haven't lived up to expectations (the idea of seeing Clea in a Doctor Strange movie is thrilling... but that happened only in a two-minute post-credits scene... that should have been the entire movie, but they were forced into this "multiverse" crap, so that's what we got).
• The MCU momentum is slowing to a crawl. Everything keeps getting delayed. People are forgetting what's getting us to where we're going. Marvel Studios has one movie in 2024. When you aren't keeping the Marvel Cinematic Universe in people's heads, it's silly to expect these random movies are getting any benefit from what's come before. Three awesome movies a year with blockbuster characters that people want to see is what needs to happen, and they're not doing that. Yes, I understand that the actors are wanting to retire from these characters, but they're the characters that people know and love, so recasting them should be the priority over dragging out D-list characters that people don't know or care about. This has been a serious, serious misstep by Disney management. I don't get it at all. They're supposedly building a team of "Young Avengers" which could be awesome because the comics are awesome... but is anybody outside of comic book nerds like me going to give a shit? How are these films going to make any money? Introducing new characters is good, but saying "We've got Ms. Maravel, Patriot, Stature, Wiccan, Speed, and America Chavez... plus kid versions of Hawkeye and Falcon!" is a far cry from saying "We've got Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Black Widow, The Hulk, Hawkeye, Falcon, Vision, and Scarlet Witch!" or whatever. I'm sure the hope is that the Young Avengers will be the next Guardians of the Galaxy... but the fact that you don't have box office names like Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, and Karen Gillan... means that the odds of achieving the same success are practically zero.
• The future is anything but bright. The lead-up to a confrontation with Kang should have been phenomenal. The lead-up to an adaptation of Secret Wars should have been incredible. But there are no anchor films to get us there. Deadpool 3 will be great because Deadpool is great, but it's very much it's own thing. Which means the films we get before the next two Avengers movies are Captain America: Brave New World, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, and Blade?!?? WHAT THE FUCK? I mean, it's not that these films can't be great entertainment and a lot of fun... I love these characters... but this is the lead-up to two of the biggest events in comic book history? I dunno. Maybe Matt Shakman has an idea of how to make his Fantastic Four film catapult us int something that makes sense... but this is so weak. Compare the films leading up to Infinity War to this and it just seems absurd.
• I hate to say "reboot"... but, yeah, reboot this shit. The one thing I have loved about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that everything is interconnected like the comics. I love it when characters pop up in each other's movies. But when it's a bunch of D-listers, the current trend is not sustainable because you're going to have a rough time making a profit. A fresh reboot may be the only way out. And by "fresh" I mean not recycling the same stories we've already seen.

And there you have it. I don't think that anything I've said is going to be news to anybody paying attention. But since Marvel doesn't seem to be paying attention, I guess it needed to be said.

Here's hoping that the streaming release for The Marvels won't keep me waiting too long.

Yesterday Sonos announced a patch which will (supposedly) fix the heinous POP OF DEATH problem that Sonos ARC soundbar customers have been enduring for years. As you may remember, I talked about this a while back... where playing Dolby Atmos content via either an AppleTV 4K or an Xbox will cause a loud POP! and kill your soundbar until you reset it. The only option you have to prevent it is to turn off Atmos. I have both of those devices, and bought the ARC soundbar specifically to play Dolby Atmos content. Then I went ahead and bought two Era 300 speakers for the rear channels in the hopes that Atmos would route through them and allow me to turn it back on. NOPE! It's all or nothing.

Needless to say, I sure hope that this patch actually works. Otherwise I've spent a hell of a lot of money for nothing.

I have been a massive Sonos fan for a very long time. Sure I've has occasional connectivity problems which Sonos Support always blamed on my network (despite my ditching two sets of routers and replacing them with a very expensive Amplifi Alien mesh network), but it hasn't dimmed my enthusiasm for their products. The sound is exceptional and the capabilities are fantastic. I still have occasional connectivity problems to this day, though I reject completely the idea that it's my network's fault. My network is rock solid... and far exceeds what's required to stream sound. Usually going in and manually changing the channel that Sonos is using is enough to fix things up. Until the next time.

But then the POP OF DEATH happened, and I've been "FUCK SONOS!" ever since.

Every time they announced layoffs I was all "GOOD! YOU DESERVE TO FAIL!"... while feeling sorry for the employees who were collateral damage because their fucking management wouldn't allocate the resources required to solve a huge fucking problem that caused their products to fail for the very purpose they were designed. Remember... this problem has been going on for years!

I had it in my head that I would never buy another Sonos product ever again because this was so absurdly fucking shitty.

So when Sonos announced today that they are cutting even more jobs and focusing on developing headphones, I am not swayed. Why would I buy some expensive headphones that could ship with a massive defect that takes the company YEARS to fix? No thanks. I'll continue to buy Apple or Bose headphones, because I'm done with Sonos.

Or am I?

Honestly I don't know.

I'd sure like to think so. But maybe they will come out with something so awesome and revolutionary that I'd be willing to give them a chance if the price is right.

Regardless, Sonos is a cautionary tale of how a beloved brand can trash their own reputation and flush customer good will down the toilet. If a problem comes to your attention, you'd better fucking drop what you're doing and fix it... quickly... because you're never the only game in town, and brand loyalty only goes so far.

UPDATE: Color me fucking shocked...

Fourth time was a charm... well, that and two reboots (unplugging and plugging back in again). I watched a movie on my AppleTV 4K and no POP OF DEATH, so far. So that's refreshing.

My Litter-Robots keep track of Jake and Jenny's weights. Every time they use one of them, their weight is recorded. Originally, when I bought the Version 4 robots, I was promised that you could personalize the app with your cats' names so that it could keep track of how often they go to the bathroom and monitor their weights. That feature still isn't here... you have to manually look at the history and keep track yourself... but it's pretty easy to spot which cat is which because Jake has five pounds on Jenny, his more petite sister.

Jake is a big boi.

Not just overweight... he's big. Like he's got some Maine Coon in his genetic makeup. Jenny is smaller by a third, but she's also not as tiny as average cats I see. And both of them have large primordial pouches (abdominal flaps) and excess loose skin on their bellies which make them hang a little lower to the ground than other cats.

When it comes to their weight, I've never been overly-concerned because it's well-distributed. When viewed from the top they are not protruding on their sides. They are slim like regular cats. And you can feel their ribs. Neither is obese. But Jake is heavy, and his vet said he could stand to lose some weight, as it might help with the urinary problems he had back in the day.

When I changed to the new vacuum-sealed feaders, they measure in 1/12th cups instead of 1/10th cups of the old feeders. Since I spread their feedings out to avoid Jake doing a scarf-and-barf, I simply eliminated one of their feedings to see what would happen. Instead of getting .45 cups a day, they now get .42 cups. Not a huge amount, but it's making a difference. Mostly because the cats complain... but partly in their weight.

In the month since the change, Jake has lost 1.9 pounds. Jenny has lost .3 pounds. Probably because Jenny is so close to her target weight and Jake is... not.

But my cats are weirder than most in a number of areas, including how they eat, so this kind of progress with Jake could not be guaranteed. Jake will sometimes skip a feeding or two. Then sometimes he will eat all his feedings and skim off his sister as well. Sometimes Jenny will eat both her portion and Jake's if he doesn't show up. Sometimes she will eat only hers. It's a total crap-shoot. All I know is that if I put down a giant bowl of food, Jake would gorge himself several times. I can imagine him easily eating twice his usual amount of food because he doesn't have any self-control. He'll eat his entire dinner... then come watch me eat mine, hoping for a treat.

I think so long as he's not losing weight too quickly... and he stops losing weight once he's closer to his target weight... this will be a good thing. More healthy for him. But most importantly? He doesn't seem to notice now that he's adjusted to the feeding schedule that's minus a meal.

That's healthy for me... because my cats won't murder me in my sleep.

Snow is inching closer, but I'm not pulling the shovel out just yet... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Holiday Trooper! I've been sending care packages to the troops through AnySoldier.com for years. This is another program that's very cool because it doesn't cost you a dime! Just choose the four treats you want to send overseas, write a message of support, and Crown Royal will send it!

I wish more organizations would do something like this.

   
• Catventure! Mr. Kitters has many adventures (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

Surprisinly, I haven't seen Mr. Kitters ripping apart some poor bird. Thank heavens.

   
• Murder! There I was, just starting A Murder at the End of the World on Hulu. The main character is driving in a car with her boyfriend and they are singing along to No More I Love You's by Annie Lennox... and I know this will be a show that's something truly special. Honestly, they could have just released this scene as a commercial for the series and I would be all in. But there's so much more to it, and I can't wait for the remaining five episodes to drop...

The cast is amazing on top of it all. I just hope they stick the landing.

   
• Killer! Every time I see yet another brilliant film by David Fincher, I am mad all over again that he never got to make the sequels to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which remains one of my favorite films of all time. Though, while we're on the subject, a sequel to The Killer on Netflix would be fantastic, because this was a darn enjoyable flick...

ALTHOUGH... a better use of the money would be for Netflix (who has an existing relationship with Fincher AND Daniel Craig) to get the rights to The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. Just sayin'.

   
• What Was I Made For? People saying that Billy Eilish is untalented makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. She's not entirely my thing... but I love this song... and listening to her brother explain how they created it should put the nail in the coffin of the idea that anybody could crap out the music they make. A song so multifaceted and lovely doesn't happen by accident. This is art...

Brilliant.

   
• Unmortricken! Rick and Morty has always been borderline genius with momentary lapses into episodes I'm completely indifferent about. But this latest episode? Unmortricken? I honestly don't know where the show goes from here. It's like every episode up until this point has been building to this point... and now it's over. Or mostly over. Which means that they either A) Have a plan to move in an entirely different direction along the same bizarre themes. B) Have ruined the show and it's going to devolve into a suck spiral before dying out. C) Will eventually realize that this was a big mistake and find a way to reverse it. I really hope it's Option A, because wow this episode was this a fantastic example of how *good* the show is when it's not getting in its own way.

No, I didn't like Unmortricken better than ten other episodes (including The Rickshank Rickdemption which is one of the best episodes of television ever made), but it just goes to show that Rick and Morty is far from over if they can keep defying expectations like this.

   
• Blarf! I was excited that a Jaime Reyes "Blue Beetle" movie was in development. He's a fun character in the comics, and the fact that we'd finally get a Latino-centric super-hero movie meant it might be *different* from the same old thing. — Until I saw the trailers. They made it very clear that this was a "power of family" movie instead of a Blue Beetle movie. And who gives a shit about that? — Turns out the movie (now on HBO Max) is even worse than that. It is boring as fuck. It takes a half-hour... A HALF-HOUR... before you even see the Blue Beetle, for crying out loud...

This is the most boring, uneventful, slog of an origin story that's ultimately just a frickin' Iron Man/Spider-Man hybrid clone, and not in a good way. I hope to God that James Gunn gets the DCU turned around so we avoid more of this idiotic crap. HA HA HA! GRANDMA WITH A GATLING GUN! HILARIOUS! and, even worse, HA HA HA! HOW FUNNY! HE CAN'T CONTROL THE SUIT AND HE'S RUNNING INTO EVERYTHING FOR TEN MINUTES! Jesus. I know Greatest American Hero was a while ago, but this has been done to death. From there on it's just talk talk talk talk talk with action beats that are equally boring. What a frickin' waste.

   
Hope your Turkey Day is a good one.

The first half of the "final season" of The Crown dropped on Netflix last week. The four episodes are entirely devoted to Princess Diana's final days and death, and anything to do with The Crown is largely ancillary. Sure you've got Prince Charles struggling to get his relationship with Camilla legitimized with both Her Majesty The Queen and the public at large, but make no mistake... this is the Diana Show. She's stealing the headlines. She's driving the narrative. It's her world and everybody else is just living in it.

Which is very much as I remember it.

Diana is a fascinating person. And admirable. She tried to use her fame for a number of good causes (the two most famous being compassion and understanding of people with AIDS and the global removal of landmines, but she also advocated for the homeless, shined a spotlight on the struggle of people living in poverty, and supported numerous cancer charities... to name a few). That she also dared to try and build a life for herself and find happiness bothers an awful lot of people, which is profoundly sad.

A sympathy that The Crown definitely shares.

Right up until her death in the third episode.

Although the story that Netflix is telling has been refuted on several fronts. The foremost of which being that Mohamed Al-Fayed was the driving force behind his son Dodi Fayed and Diana's romance and, by further extension, is responsible for their death since he set up the infamous photos that escalated the paparazzi frenzy. Every photographer wanted their million dollar payday, and that ultimately resulted in tragedy.

It's just speculation.

Which, from the beginning, is all The Crown really has.

And yet we watch it anyway.

I've mentioned how I was eating breakfast and watching television before driving to the airport for work on August 31st, 1997. The morning the news broke here about the car accident in Paris. When I got to Seattle, it was being reported that all three passengers had perished. Then, as I was waiting, it was reported Diana was still alive. As I was boarding my flight to Orlando, there was serious confusion as to whether she had died or not.

After landing, all the televisions were reporting the sad news of her passing.

It didn't really register.

Not until the next day. My work was at one of the Disney World hotels. I had finished up my first meeting and went to Epcot for lunch with a friend in "Italy." I was early, so I walked counter-clockwise to pop by the France Pavilion for a pastry first. To get there, you have to pass through the pavilions for Canada and The United Kingdom. Which is to say "A member country of The British Commonwealth and The United Kingdom."

And since Disney endeavors to make each country's pavilion be as authentic as possible, the staff is populated by people from those countries. And they were grieving far from home. Far from the people who could truly comprehend what they were feeling.

Though the people at Disney World that day were far from unsympathetic. Flowers were piled around the UK Pavilion just as they had been back at Kensington Palace. The usual murmur and laughter was greatly muted.

Then you'd cross the bridge to the France Pavilion... and everything was back to normal.

Or as normal as it could be considering a person loved and admired around the world was gone.

In the end, I think The Crown could have ended with Season 05 and we'd all have been better off. The wild speculation about Diana in Season 06 serves no purpose. It's not even very entertaining. And the drama surrounding The Royal Family was already portrayed far better by the 2006 movie The Queen.

Not that Netflix hasn't wasted money on useless programming before, but this time it just seems so unneeded.

It's funny the things you remember.

I rewatched the Wham! documentary on Netflix and it got me thinking about the George Michael video for Faith with his iconic jukbox, cross earring, and BSA jacket, which made me run to YouTube to watch it (and then, of course, the follow-up video for Freedom where he sets all of it on fire)...

All of a sudden I had a flashback to a pair of pajamas my grandma made me when I was little. But I wasn't wearing them in the flashback... I was looking at me wearing them. Probably in a photo. So I went running to look through all my scans of old family photos and, yep, there it was...

What's amazing is that I recognized the pajamas as being BSA pajamas even though I couldn't really read it until I zoomed in and digitally enhanced it, which means I likely remembered it in my subconscious from when I was a kid somehow...

I have no idea why BSA fabric was being sold here in the very rural valley we live considering the brand is British (BSA = Birmingham Small Arms). Nor do I know why my grandma selected it to make pajamas for me. Although it might have been because I've been a motorcycle fan from a very young age...

All due respect to George Michael, but I think I wore it better...

Weird how I can remember a pair of pajamas from 50 years ago, but can't remember why I walked into the kitchen ten minutes ago.

They say it's never too late to start over.

I suppose it depends on how old you are. And what you mean by "starting over. Many things in my life... from the area where I live to the career I have to the people I hang out with... have been the same for decades. But in other ways I've started over a multitude of times. Intentionally. It keeps things interesting for me when the basics of my life never change.

As the cold and darkness of Winter starts settling in, I started trying to think of something else I could change to shake things up. Break up the monotomy of the season.

And came up empty.

I don't know if it's because I've suddenly gotten too set in my ways or don't want to put the effort in or what, but there's no change I could think of that I actually want to make. Which makes me think I need to do something radical like dye my hair pink or pierce my nose or move to Scotland.

Or maybe all three.

As a vegetarian, today is far from "Turkey Day" to me.

I haven't eaten meat for over 37 years, but I was never much of a turkey guy to begin with. I'd eat it... but at a 50/50 ratio with jellied cranberry. I also didn't care for steaks, ribs, sausage, ham, pork chops, chicken, or any kind of seafood. The only meats I did like were hamburgers, bacon, and pepperoni. That's it. Everything else was eaten reluctantly.

Turns out I was predisposed towards vegetarianism from the start. But discovering Buddhism was what it took to push me over the edge.

I'm rather happy with the vegetarian alternatives to hamburger and bacon. And, believe it or not, I was never a fan of hotdogs until I discovered the vegetarian variety.

There is no adequate vegetarian substitute for pepperoni.

If there was, that would be something to be thankful for.

In the Before Times I used to put as much money as I could manage into my savings so I could spend it on Black Friday sales. Since my buying power could end up being 200% of normal (or more!), it just made financial sense to buy everything I need for the year on this one day. Especially clothes.

But then I remodeled my kitchen, did a bit of landscaping in my front yard, and had a water leak... and all of a sudden my savings are more than gone. They are non-existent.

Which is not that bad for once. I don't need any electronics or appliances or housewares. The clothes I have are in wearable condition. There are no tools, video games, or cool toys I am dying to have. My car is still mostly running. And my shoes are still in one piece. Albeit thanks to Shoe Goo.

My boots and shoes don't get a lot of heavy use, but they still fall apart. Mostly when the sole's toe-cover comes unglued. Fortunately that's an easy fix. Shoe Goo and an overnight stay in a bucket to keep it held in place is all it takes...

So... yeah... not much happening today for me. Certainly not like it's been for other years.

I've still got nearly a half-tube of Shoe Goo left, so I'm good.

My cats have been fending for themselves while I've been over the mountains for the holiday Weekend. Fortunately their food, water, and litter-box are all automated, so all I have to do is check in on them with the security cameras and make sure they aren't eating each other's food.

Although automation isn't always guaranteed.

Earlier this week I came down to feed them breakfast when I noticed that there was a pile of poo outside the litter-box on the litter-shield shelf. I didn't have to watch the security cameras to know what happened. Jake used it, then it didn't self-clean for some reason. Jenny, who refuses to use a dirty litter-box, schooched as far back as she could, so her little butt was hanging out the opening. Poo poo for you.

Then I checked the playback and, sure enough...

Guess I officially know my cats too well.

Hope your pants are fitting again after that massive Thanksgiving dinner you ate... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Steve! I adored Steve Pool, the weatherman from KOMO 4 News Seattle, who recently passed away from early onset Alzheimer's. Even though I loathed the rest of the news team at KOMO (especially Ken Schram, one of the biggest fucking assholes on the planet who had a idiotic take on hockey that still has me fuming), I kept watching because I loved Steve (and Kathi Goertzen) so much. I had no idea he was struggling with Alzheimers and, for obvious reasons from having been there with my mom, I'm incredibly sympathetic to his family. Rest in Peace, sir. You were loved and respected throughout the Pacific Northwest and this world is a worse place without you in it.

   
• Theif! Raccoons are pretty incredible varmints...

Ninja techniques!

   
• One! The Vegas Formula One race was primed to be a disaster. It caused major headaches for residents, it was outrageously expensive to attend, and nobody thought it was going to be successful. Then the pre-race run ended up wrecking a car when a manhole cover got sucked up into the bottom of a very expensive F1 car. And then... the race happened and it actually ended up being pretty cool. I watched the highlights, and it looked thrilling. More like a video game with the crazy Vegas backdrop than an actual video game...

Photo by John Locher, AP

I'm happy for everybody involved. I just wis that wasn't mostly very wealthy people, since average everyday people couldn't afford it.

   
• V'Ger! Absolutely fascinating stuff here...

Incredible that humanity managed to build something like this fifty years ago.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers. AI-generated bullshit should legally be required to declare that it is AI-generated. It's one thing to get idiotic crap from a real person, it's quite another to rely on AI for "journalism."

   
• Chris Claus! Catch Me If You Claus is a painfully adorable film. Hallmark Channel completely outdid themselves. One of their best movies ever. Not only was the casting flawless, but the story was smart, complex, and satisfying. It's like ACTUAL THOUGHT was put into every decision instead of just blowing through their usual tired tropes...

Nina Weinman Swift has written some good movies that have ended up on my "Best Of" list (like Flip That Romance and Undercover Holiday)... but this was next level. I rarely clamor for sequels to these movies, but I would really like to see these characters again. I hope that Hallmark eventually sells this digitally so I can see it without the promo bullshit that keeps popping up and distracting you from the movie.

   
Hope your Turkey Day was a good one.

Well. This day could have gone better.

On the bright side, it could have gone much, much worse.

Anyway, happy Monday...

Cats are the best.

The big thing over the past week has been people sharing their Spotify Wrapped list.

I don't have Spotify, but Apple Music has a similar feature called "Reply" which allows you to revist the music you listened to most over the past year.

My Apple Replay Top Artists for 2023...

1. Fly By Midnight
2. The 1975
3. Pet Shop Boys
4. MUNA
5. Post Malone
6. Taylor Swift
7. Run The Jewels
8. Slayer
9. P!nk
10. Kacey Musgraves
11. The Weeknd
12. Wrabel
13. Miley Cyrus
14. Cannons
15. Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey

Kinda an ecclectic list there. Though it really doesn't tell the full story, because a lot of the music I listen to is in my car and not counted.

While driving, my favorite thing to listen to is old-school rap and hip-hop. I have a half-dozen CD's burned which has all those amazing Yo! MTV Raps classics on them. Biggie, LL, Dre, Big Daddy Kane, Eminem, Public Enemy, Wu-Tang... the list goes on and on. They're just such amazing tracks to have slamming into your brain while trying to navigate the horrors of the road. I burned them decades ago, and kept them in my car because I only have a CD player. There's other CDs, of course, but these are my favorites.

Eternally stuck in the 80's. That's me.

Apple makes things so easy!

To turn off the annoying printer message that pops up EVERY TIME YOU PRINT ON LARGE PAPER, simply research the CUPS print server documentation for a half hour, find the IP address of your printer, open the Unix Terminal app to type in the command line which will enable the web interface, navigate to your printers, click on the printer whose defaults you want to save (if it is available, otherwise restart your computer and start over), work your way through all the pages until you find the defaults for "Request Offset," set it to "no," click SAVE, type in your admin username ("admin" will not work and neither will your ShortName, but you'll find that out the hard way), type in your system password, authorize the changes, exit out of the CUPS web interface, restart your computer... AND THERE YOU GO! NO MORE ANNOYING POP-UPS EVERY TIME YOU FUCKING PRINT! IT'S JUST THAT EASY!!! AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU BOUGHT A FUCKING MAC?!???

Look, I realize that Apple is not wanting people to print stuff to save the planet and all that... but there are people who actually have to print stuff. The fact that they don't want to make such a basic function of their operating system be easy to use and manage is reeeeally telling on the "It just works" company.

It's easy to fall in love with art. At least it is to me.

Art is such a big part of my life that I do what I can to experience it. Whether it's driving over to Seattle to see a new art installation, or flying to Columbus, Ohio to see a Kehinde Wiley exhibit, or visiting every art museum I possibly can while traveling the world... art brings joy to my life.

But it's not just museums where you find art. It's all around us.

I've mentioned a couple times that I've collected bank notes I find whenever I'm in foreign countries. Some are interesting. Some are clever. And some are just incredibly beautiful. Like the notes that the Netherlands had before converting to the Euro. I marveled at them whenever I visited the country.

And finally somebody talked about it...

Fascinating, isn't it?

There's nice art on the various Euro notes as well, but I haven't seen anything that approaches what they used to have in Dutchyland.