Today the copyright expires for the original Mickey Mouse and he enters the public domain.

For decades Disney has greased the political wheels to convince the government to keep extending the length of copyright (originally Mickey was supposed to expire in 1984, then again in 2003), but then they kinda just... stopped. Apparently the old-school original Mickey from Steamboat Willie just isn't worth it anymore. So welcome to the latest DaveToon here at Blogography, I guess...

But don't go crying for Disney... they still have copyright protection for a bunch of other versions that came after Steamboat Willie Mickey. PLUS, I'm pretty sure that people will still be going to Disney for all their Mickey Mouse content.

Well, except for Mickey Mouse porn of course.

My favorite Mickey is a tie between Public Domain Mickey and the white-faced, red pants, yellow shoes Mickey which followed Public Domain Mickey. Everything that came after that... Peach-Faced Mickey, Caucasian Mickey, 3-D Mickey (essentially every Mickey which has white around his pupils)... I don't like much at all. Though I do kinda like the brand new Throwback Mickey that Disney is currently using because they've gone white-faced again. Mickey belongs to everybody and shouldn't be Caucasian.

In the coming years more and more of Disney's original characters will start collapsing into the Public Domain like dominoes. Donald, Pluto, Goofy... all of them. Well, except "Hans" from Frozen. Nobody is going to want anything to do with that asshole.

UPDATE: Well send me to Disneyland and call me Minnie... apparently Red Shorts Mickey IS in the public domain. There was a poster advertising him in 1928!

I prefer him with yellow shoes and white gloves as he would later be depicted, but I still like this better than any caucasian version of Mickey, so this is great news! I wonder if it's allowable for me to change the colors and consider it "artistic license?" Maybe!

Back on December 12th I fell and hurt my knee and ankle. It healed up fairly quickly. I was pain-free after about a week. Then it was a little stiff, but I thought it would be fine in another week or two.

WRONG!

It has been getting progressively worse. Last week I noticed that on top of being stiff, it was aching a lot. Now there's outright pain when I move it sometimes. I mentioned it to a friend and he said "Yeah. You probably have arthritis in your knee and ankle now." And I was like "What? Arthritis?!? Isn't that for old people?" He looked puzzled for a second, smiled, then said "Welcome to your fifties. Might want to look into glucosamine."

Oh shit! I totally am an old person now!

It happened so quickly.

Seems like only yesterday I was young and carefree and traveling the world. Now I'm old, prefer to stay at home, and living with cats. Guess I should stop ignoring the weekly mail I've been getting from The Neptune Society (if you don't know what The Neptune Society is, you're in for a fucking treat, because it's wild... when my time comes, bury me at sea with Julia Child on the memorial reef, please!).

And speaking of being old and having arthritis now(!)...

I found out an interesting fact today.

I was drying off after my shower. It was painful to bend my knee, so instead I just bent over. Suddenly the lights went off. It took my old man brain a second to realize that the electricity didn't just cut out... I had backed my bare ass up against the touch-sensitive light switch next to the shower. So now I know. My ass is light-switch-height.

Even though my butt cheeks were freshly cleaned in the shower, I was still mortified thinking that my light switch was now an ass switch. So the first thing I did after drying off and putting on my underwear was to run for the Clorox cleaner so I could scrub down the wall, plate, and switch.

I wanted to do it before I forgot, because apparently my memory is going to be leaving me very soon now.

If it hasn't already.

Yesterday was a really tough day.

My knee that I was complaining about froze up somehow, so I was downing Ibuprofen in the hopes that I could ignore the pain and concentrate on work. And of course we were coming back from a three day weekend which followed a week where most businesses were closed, so I was insanely busy. By the time I made it home, I was hurting, I was exhausted, and all I really wanted to do was go to bed.

But my cats would be wanting dinner in two hours, so going to bed wasn't an option.

And so I decided to see if there was a comedy playing on Amazon Freevee. It had to be a comedy because I just couldn't handle anything else.

For some reason, this movie caught my eye...

Two guys running with a goat. How serious could that be? Probably stupid, but I'll put it on while I catch up on the internet and such.

I was not even remotely prepared for this.

It's a comedy alright... but that's just a part of it.

The film also has some of the most gut-wrenching emotional beats I've ever seen. And they're brought to life by incredible performances. No kidding. I'd put Juan Pablo Espinosa's emotional arc up against anybody. And the half-brothers casting of Luis Gerardo Méndez, whose facial reactions carry the movie... and Connor del Rio, whose craziness would sink the film if he wasn't able to balance it with a deep hurting that's in contrast to how his character acts... it's just inspired stuff. Movies with budgets that are hundreds of times bigger would be lucky to have this kind of talent in front of the camera.

But that's not even the half of it. There's thoughtful commentary on immigration that hits hard, and it all comes from what you see... nobody is lecturing you about anything. There's stereotypes examined on both sides of the border that get dismantled in very good ways. There's themes of acceptance and kindness that feel like they should be grossly out of place, and yet they work.

After watching the ending... which is flawless... the first thing I did after I managed to put myself back together was to see what score it had over at Rotten Tomatoes...

Critics had no love for the film. But that audience score is very respectable. Which means the people who watched it just to be entertained were moved by it.

I had never heard of this film when it was released in 2020. Of course this was prime pandemic season, so I guess that tracks. But I never heard of it when it was released to video either. I then tracked down the trailer on YouTube, which is great... if you've seen the film. But given the complex nature of how it's constructed, no trailer was ever going to do it justice. How could it? It was promoted as a kind of slapstick buddy comedy...

But anyway...

Yeah, this wasn't the movie I wanted, but it ended up being the movie I needed.

I got the comedy I was looking for, it just so happens that it's sandwiched in-between emotional punches to the gut. One minute you're dying because the bed-jumping scene through the window of the motel is so hilarious... then the movie pivots on a dime, and suddenly there's a note of tragedy that makes you forget you were laughing at the same character just seconds before.

So, yeah. Highest possible recommendation. And it's free to watch on Amazon Freevee.

I loved the movie so much that I ended up paying the $15 to buy it on Apple's iTunes store because there were deleted and extended scenes... and a director's commentary. At which point I watched the movie all over again so I could hear Luke Greenfield talk about how it all came together. Turns out a lot of thought went into every shot... including how colors were used to help tell the story. But the biggest takeaway was how difficult the movie was to make because they had no money. Everything was shot on a shoestring. The road scenes were all shot on the same stretch of roads because they couldn't afford to go anywhere else. Some scenes were directed over video calls because they couldn't afford the expense of having the director on-set. Different locations were the same locations shot from different directions. But despite it all, you'd never know it while watching the film.

It has me wondering how many other wonderful movies are out there that I don't know about.

Thousands, probably.

When I was a kid, there were these giant posters of line drawings that came with a pack of colored felt-tip pens which you use to color it. I ended up with a couple of them, but wasn't really a fan because it was more fun to draw my own pictures to color. The way I made it fun was to go crazy with it. I had a "space" poster where I remapped the colors. Everywhere I would normally color blue I would color green. Green was pink. Pink was yellow. And so on. This lead to a rather interesting conversation when I wrapped it around one of my school books. A teacher thought I might be colorblind because CLEARLY I had a problem. I assured them that it was just for fun, but it got sent to the administration anyway. This just lead to an even stranger conversation when I was told that if I'm not colorblind that I shouldn't be pretending that I'm colorblind.

Funny. Here I thought that I was just amusing myself.

As it turns out "amusing myself" always ended up with my getting into trouble.

The constraints of social conformity have always been a buzzkill to creative thinking, which is why I've never been any good at adhering to it. Dress this way. Act this way. Believe this way. Think this way. Because if you don't then there will be consequences.

To which I never hesitated to say "fuck you," because the world needs me more than I need to feel a part of it. Seriously could not care less if people want to exclude me from their clique-based emotional economy or call me names or talk about me behind my back. Sure there have been times that it stung a bit because the people doing it were people I thought cared about me, but ultimately it had zero bearing on my life. Probably because I was a part of internet culture very early on and could always find my tribe regardless of location, distance, or situation. There were always groups that liked the same kind of stuff, had a similar way of looking at the world, and had similar beliefs, so I was never really "alone," even while alone. And I've been lucky to find "my people" in Real Life too, so there's that.

But that was me as a young adult up until now.

I don't know that I was ever seriously bullied by my school peers as a child. Sure I was poked fun at sometimes... that was a given... but other than isolated incidents I can count on one hand, there was no relentless torture. If anything, more bullying came my way via some of my teachers than fellow students.

But it's a different world now.

Bullying, as a matter of course, is relentless and devastating in a way it never was when I was a kid. And it's not just high schoolers who face all new levels of torment thanks to the very internet which saved me from being alone... it's increasingly younger and younger kids. Kids who have no defense because there's increasing indifference towards their plight. Fellow kids run from them so they aren't targeted next. Teachers don't want to get involved because it could get them targeted by parents of bullies. And parents of bullies rarely seem to care (or, even worse, encourage it). Some kids exist in a never-ending nightmare from which they cannot escape. But we allow it because it's always "somebody else's kid."

Until it isn't.

Back on December 19th, my mother's birthday, I found the story of a 12-year-old kid who committed suicide because of relentless bullying. His name is Eli Ballance...

12 years old.

He wasn't even given a chance to find his people.

Undoubtedly he would have eventually found friends who valued him and to whom he could relate to... but he couldn't find a way to live long enough for it to happen.

His mother tried to keep him safe at school... a place, mind you, that kids are required to attend... but they refused to promise her anything. Not that I am putting the blame entirely on educators. Teachers have to put up with increasingly hostile workplaces where they struggle to keep their heads above water as they are vilified and persecuted for trying to do their jobs. But there has to be something that can be done. If parents won't take responsibility for their kid's bullying and teachers are in a place where it's nearly impossible for them to do it without risking their lives or jobs, then there has to be a third party looking out for kids that are at risk. Because this problem is not going away. It's not going to disappear.

I have no idea why Eli was bullied. Not that it matters. His mother said he was "smart, funny, and compassionate." And that's all that really should matter.

Eli's mom is now advocating for change and wears shirts with the words "Pick Kindness" on them as a way to keep other parents from having to go through what she is.

I wish her luck.

Not just for her own peace of mind, but for all the kids like the me of my childhood who would have a tough time surviving in the world today. We deserve a shot at growing up and find our way in the world. We deserve to be able to say fuck you and find happiness despite a world that needs us, but doesn't want to accept us as we are.

On Wednesday I started developing a cough.

On Thursday I stayed at home to work because I didn't want to be a disruption at the office.

This morning I woke up (after coughing all night) and felt absolutely awful. My lungs itched... ON THE INSIDE! And since I can't exactly scratch the interior of my lungs and live to tell about it, all I wanted to do was sleep so I wouldn't be awake to feel it. But that wasn't an option. I was behind enough as it was, and needed to go into the office for a few important tasks. Despite having an itch I couldn't scratch, I loaded up on cough syrup, Mucinex, pain killers, and grabbed a bag of cough drops so I could get through one or two hours and return home to bed.

NINE HOURS LATER I headed home to die.

But I knew that if I went to sleep I would just wake up at midnight and ne a zombie for eight hours, so instead I tuned into The Brothers Sun on Netflix because A) It looks really good, and B) Michelle Yeoh is in it, and she never disappoints.

Here's a trailer for you...

You're welcome.

It's going to take a lot of willpower to not watch all eight episodes tonight.

It's that good.

Amazing how Michelle Yeoh can just disappear into a role. And it's fantastic how she seems to actively seek out characters who are different from what she's done previously. And then... she's got Star Trek: Section 31 plus the three Avatar sequels coming up.

Everything's coming up Yeoh. Luck us.

And now I need to take my fuzzy lungs to bed.

Jenny has to become the most impatient cat I know. It USED to be that she would jump up on the bed or the couch and wait for me to finish a sentence I am typing or whatever... then allow me to pet her. But NOW? She is meowing for attention as she is jumping up. Sometimes she meows before I even see her.

Jake can't really meow, so he just climbs up on me when he wants attention. But he at least has the decency to give me a minute if I'm in the middle of something.

And speaking of decency...

Lately I am lucky if I get 1/4 to 1/3 of the bed. Just look at this shit!

And that there is where they are feeling generous! Friday night I woke up because JENNY WAS KICKING ME OVER!! I was dazed and sleepy and very nearly fell off the bed! I think I had a grand total of 12 inches of bed to sleep in. And then she hopped off the bed and went downstairs. So... essentially she kicked me awake just to let me know she was leaving?

Monsters.

My cats are monsters.

The sun is shining, there's no snow on the ground, and apparently Winter is over, but I'm trying not to think about a possible drought come Summer... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Portraiture! Auguste Toulmouche was a wonderful artist who is most well known for his portraits of fancy Parisian women. What made his paintings so notable was the expressions he painted on their faces. The most famous likely being La Fiancée hésitante (The Hesitant Bride)...

But my favorite of his is Vanity...

This past week I was going through my art books and noticed something I hadn't before. There is a portrait of Auguste by another artist of the day, Jean-Louis Hamon...

After Googling for other images of the guy and not finding any, I realized something... this is likely the only record of what Auguste looked like. All articles about the guy show this same image. It's a rough painting, and yet captures a feeling in a way that a photograph never could. One of the many reasons I love art so much. Here's a self-portrait of Hamon...

Amazing artist. I would kill to be able to paint hair like that.

   
• Méndez! I wrote a whole post over my love of the movie Half Brothers (which you can read here). I'm such a fan that I've been tracking down other works by the people in it. #1 on my list is Luis Gerardo Méndez. The guy's ability to emote what his character is feeling is jaw-dropping. He makes you feel every emotional beat of his character, and is a big reason why I love the film...

BUT ANYWAY... I was thrilled to learn that his latest project is on Paramount+ and is called Los Enviados. Except when I went to Paramount+ I couldn't find it. After a couple weeks, i.e. TODAY, I found out that it's there... you just can't search for its Spanish title. You have to search for The Envoys instead?? Weird, considering it's a Spanish language show. But anyway...

So, yeah. Most definitely checking this series out. The second season just dropped, so I'm assuming the first season must have been pretty great.

   
• Cameron Classics, Now On Digital! I love James Cameron movies. And two of my favorites are True Lies and The Abyss...

I bought them on both LaserDisc and DVD. My digital version were ripped from DVDs and hi-res broadcast because they've never been available to purchase on Digital (or Blu-Ray). Until now! And iTunes has both of them on sale for $9.99 each! So now I'm digital legal. As I endeavor to always be. The only time I'm not IS WHEN THEY DON'T MAKE THEM AVAILABLE FOR SALE!!!

   
• Rojas! Every time I rewatch Ted Lasso I find something new that I didn't know. Apparently, Danny Rojas is based on Mexican football star Javier Hernández. While reading up on Hernández, I ran across Diego Maradona, an Argentinian footballer who is rumored to also contribute to Danny's character. And THEN I found this old video of Maradona where he was warming up before a match. The song playing on the field in the background is Live is Life WHICH THEY PLAY AT THE END OF THE SECOND SEASON'S FIRST EPISODE! MIND. BLOWN. The epiode where Danny recovers from accidentally killing the team mascot. The people working on this show really know their football...

And SPEAKING of Ted Lasso... in the second episode Roy is walking out on the field with a young girl, which is most certainly his niece Phoebe. Except the actor isn't credited on IMDB and she doesn't actually appear in the story until the next episode, where Roy tells Ted about her when they visit the school with Trent Crimm (of The Independent). But if she was walking out with the team, wouldn't Ted have already met her and known who she was?

I must have watched the series a dozen times by now. And the earlier episodes even more. It got me through the horrors of the past three years, and it's pretty daunting knowing that there's no more coming to help me through 2024.

   
• Tidy! A friend posted a story about a mouse that tidys up a man's workbench every night. If there wasn't video evidence, you wouldn't believe it...

I wish my cats were this motivated. The whole incredible story is right here.

   
• Expenses! This truly is incredible...

And he really does do that...

Don't forget to be awesome. The guy in the videos is John Green. He wrote The Fault In Our Stars, a book I never read... but did enjoy the movie adaptation. He's a really great guy who has some very interesting thoughts. I love his YouTube channel so much, and recommend checking it out if you want to fall down a rabbit hole of awesome.

   
• Sigma Octantis! Just when I think I've seen all the flat earth idiocy that exists... along comes another one. Note at the top where the North Star (Polaris) is riiiiight up top...

I'd credit the artist... but I have no clue who that is

Polaris. POLARIS?!? Funny... according to this flat earth model dumbfuckery, you should be able to see Polaris from anywhere on earth. But any time I've traveled south of the equator, it was no longer visible. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Antarctica, Argentina, Fiji, Australia, Bali... no Polaris in sight. I checked! But do you want to know what's funny? Sigma Octantis (AKA The South Star) which is not visible in the northern hemisphere, is the star around which the night sky rotates when you are in the southern hemisphere. Almost as if the earth was a globe! Remarkable that! These flerfers really need to like... travel... and stuff. THE CONSTELLATIONS AREN'T EVEN THE FUCKING SAME! JESUS!!!

   
Really hoping we get some late snows so we have water this Summer.

Last Thursday my persistent post-nasal drip that's brought on by a never-ending array of allergies went into overdrive. It felt like I was drowning. I had trouble breathing. My inhaler was helping to make it so my breathing wasn't so difficult, but I decided to stay home and work so I wouldn't be a disruption at the office.

Friday was far, far worse. When I woke up I was coughing constantly and eventually it got to the point where everything in my chest was aching. My lungs would alternate between feeling like they were on fire... to feeling like they were itching on the inside. But my inhaler was still helping so I tested twice for COVID, took all the cough medicine I could find, grabbed some cough drops, and went to work. It wasn't bad... at first. But by the end of the day I felt dead.

Then the weekend came, my inhaler stopped working which meant I wasn't breathing well and my lungs felt tired. I thought maybe RSV was in play, but after going through tele-health I found that was very unlikely. I still tested negative for COVID, so I chalked it up to a chest cold and tried to power through.

Then, miracle of miracles, my inhaler started working again.

I worked at home again because I didn't feel like overdosing on cough medicine and I had great humidity in my house, but today was mostly okay. I could breathe fairly easily most of the day, and this evening I was happy to find that I wasn't hoping I would stop breathing so it would all end.

Pretty sure I'm going into the office tomorrow.

Dang it.

I went to the office as planned. That part was okay.

Then I went to get my teeth cleaned, found out that the hygienist I've been going to for 20+ years had left, I had a serious tooth-related issue that needs to be dealt with, Albertsons didn't have any squirty cheese, Our Flag Means Death was cancelled, and then everything turned to shit.

After the week I had dealing with my chest cold, HAVEN'T I SUFFERED ENOUGH?!?

The good news is that the streets were nicely plowed after the snow that got dumped on us fell, but of course there are people still driving as if they are on bare pavement when the roads haven't been sanded. Not far from my home somebody in the car in front of me did not give themselves enough time to stop and went blowing right past the stop sign onto a busy street. As I watched it all happen I was like "Go with God, there buddy!" because I thought for absolute sure that I would be witnessing an accident. But... miraculously... God must have been watching out for them (or they were very lucky), because no collision occurred.

Then I got to read this headline...

POPE CALLS FOR UNIVERSAL BAN ON SURROGATE PARENTING, CALLS IT "DEPLORABLE"

"Deplorable." Surrogacy is "deplorable."

I am saying this as a former Catholic... assholes dictating reproductive rights can seriously go fuck themselves. This guy has absolutely ZERO authority to be calling for a "universal ban" on surrogacy. For those who want children but cannot have them for whatever reason, surrogacy is an option. For women who carry other people's children for whatever reason, surrogacy is a right. It is categorically absurd for this asswipe WHO DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A UTERUS AND CAN'T* HAVE SEX TO BE DICTATING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS TO ANYBODY (except for those Catholics who turn to his words for guidance, I guess).

But UNIVERSAL BAN? Yeah, fuck ALL the way off with that bullshit. You know what *I* deem deplorable? The Catholic Church not turning priests who sexually assault children over to the police. Clean up your own fucking house before you dictate how other people live in theirs.

Jesus.

Old white men constantly dictating what women can and cannot do with their bodies is the height of asshole arrogance. Especially this crusty old fuck...

Photo of Pope Whatever taken by AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

Maybe one day religious leaders won't be drenched in hipocrisy, but I'm not counting on it.

Game of Thrones began as a darn good adaptation of the "A Song of Fire and Ice" novels by George R.R. Martin. But then things started to go terribly, terribly wrong. By the time we got to the sloppy sixth season, shitty seventh season, and abhorrent disaster that was the final season, they had ran out of novels to adapt (Martin keeps getting distracted and won't finish them). So they winged it in ways that made absolutely no sense, and that eighth season betrayed just about every character in ways that makes you want to scream into the void just thinking about it.

All of which I explained in this spoiler-filled entry.

But anyway...

Today an article came out in The Hollywood Reporter where they spoke with Thrones showrunners David Benioff Dan Weiss about their new project, 3 Body Problem, and also touched on the ending of Thrones. This is what was said...

"When Benioff and Weiss wrapped Thrones, many fans assumed they deliberately rushed the show to an early conclusion. They had actually said since season two that they planned on making roughly seven seasons (whether this was ultimately the best strategy or not). Another common assumption is that they ditched Thrones to make more money elsewhere."

I call bullshit. They absolutely deliberately rushed the end of the show. They ran out of books to adapt and clearly didn't know what to do without source material, so they just wrapped everything up as quickly as possible so they could move on. And just didn't care that their choices made zero sense. Maybe it wasn't "to make more money elsewhere," but they bailed on the show, and that's not even a debate.

And now, after having their follow-up projects canceled, they moved on to 3 Body Problem, which is going to be a very difficult adaptation. The books are dense, sciency, satisfying reads... but rely on being able to interrupt the story with explanations that you just can't do in a TV show without killing the momentum. Even so, I remain hopeful that Benioff and Weiss can do something interesting with the material. They managed just fine with Thrones until they ran out of books... so maybe 3 Body Problem will be okay since all the books are out?

We won't have too long to wait to know if they done fucked up. The series debuts on March 21.

CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is in full swing, and for the new stuff it's pretty much more of the same. 75% pie-in-the-sky stuff that will either never be released, be released but is prohibitively expensive, or is released and doesn't even remotely live up to the hype they built. The remaining 25% is stuff that's all grey area. And I never quite know what to make of it.

By far the most fascinating thing to me this year is the Rabbit, which is a kind of magical AI box. And, unlike the utterly baffling Humane AI Pin which makes zero sense to me... this one kinda does. Maybe?

Here's their keynote if you want to watch it. If you don't, I'm talking about it below.

It's cute and capable (in a demo) and it's orange-red! AND NO SUBSCRIPTION? Nifty!

Now, I'm just going to point out the huge, huge elephant in the room... Apple, Google, and others have been very clear that they are working to update their digital assistants with AI smarts. And the minute... nay, the second... that Apple unleashes their AI model on Siri, well... what the heck are you going to do if you bought a $200 Rabit device? Still carry two devices around? Or ditch the Rabbit and use the device you already carry around everywhere that can do the same thing?

Let's face it. This is just another phone-like device that doesn't have an actual phone in it.

This entire company is just one feature away from being bought out by Apple or Google or Amazon or whatever.

But anyway...

Setting aside the imminent obsolescence of Rabbit, I have a number of questions about how this AI is going to actually work in context of Real Life. I used to travel a lot. Like a lot a lot. So I admit the trip planning alone is a compelling feature. But what are you actually getting? Does it know your seat preference for the plane ticket? What about food preferences, are they taken into account? When it comes to the hotel, is it comparing features as well as price?

Maybe if the AI is very smart, it would be able to look through all my old email confirmations to understand what I typically like and how much I typically spend and such, but it seems like there's a lot of access it would need to your life, which your phone already has. Rabbit would have to get to all that some how, I'm guessing.

And so... yeah. Rabbit is cute. But I anticipate Apple will add all of these capabilities to Siri on my iPhone within a year, so I'll just be waiting it out.

Our winter has been relatively mild. It's snowed, sure, but it always melts away in short order. But then this morning it was bitter cold. And yet the sun was shining, so I anticipated it would warm up by the afternoon.

It did not.

When I left the office to get into my car and go home, the sun had been replaced with overcast skies and snow. Not tons of snow, but enough that the wind blowing it around produced whiteout conditions. As if that weren't bad enough, the snow had been fused to my car window by the cold, making it really difficult to scrape off.

But that's not all! Not only could I barely see, but my car didn't want to start and it was running weird. Even the turn signals sounded slow and clunky.

When I finally managed to get home, I was incredibly thankful that I had a garage to pull into...

Since I couldn't scrape the car itself, I just brushed off the snow as best I could. I expect the remainder will melt since my garage is slightly above freezing.

Which beats trying to melt it off with a blowdryer in this -6° heatwave we're having.

UPDATE: But that's not all! I never heard my heat pump turn on. I was then informed that it won't turn on when it's so cold that there's no heat to extract from the air. The only option is for my HVAC system to engage the Auxilary Heat. Which is far more expensive to run, but I'm awfully glad I have it...

UPDATE UPDATE: But that's not all! It's Saturday morning and it's -14° out... but it feels like -23°... which is to say I'm hiding in my house all weekend...

Times like this I wish I had millions of dollars to spend winter in a warmer client.

My cats are not enjoying the cold weather... at all.

I saw Jake headed toward the catio and dropped everything so I could time how long he actually stayed out in these below-freezing temperatures. The answer is zero minutes. He got his head out the door flap and recoiled in horror. Jenny, who isn't one for playing these games, won't even go near the windows. She instead finds the warmest place in the house and sets up camp. Which I don't understand at all, because cats have a fur coat that must make them feel like 100°rees; even when it's cold...

Which now happens to be next to me on their electric blanket.

Stay warm out there.

My blog is borked! AGAIN! But I'm still writing this out in the hopes that I can post it one day... because an all new Instagram Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Feathered Friend! BIRD DEMANDS SOUP, STORY AT 11...

   
• No Hare! TURTLE DEMANDS SLIDE, STORY AT 11...

   
• Queen of Dragons! Gag me with a spoon...

   
• I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING! "When tiny orphaned vervet monkey William arrived at our animal sanctuary, he was deeply traumatised by the loss of his mum. So Marble the rescue kitten stepped in to offer him the gentle nurturing he needs. Marble understands from losing her own mum and subsequent trauma what it's like to feel lost and afraid. Turn up the sound for this heart melting rainy day snuggle in our Twala nursery. William will be integrated into a troupe of monkeys for release back to a wild life when he is older.".

   
• Snowy Footprints! This is EMBROIDERY. Amazing. Click through to see closeups.

   
• The Crowening! Crows absolutely fascinate me. They're incredibly smart and happy to befriend humans...

   
And I'm off to bed to dream of warm places.

"We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor."

—Martin Luther King Jr.

Worth a look if you're starved for something new to watch...

Several sections almost demand watching in slow motion because the swapping of powers and places creates some crazy-fast action.

It's Wednesday. I am writing this near midnight. I've had a very rough day. I want nothing more than to slip into a deep coma and forget about the world for sixteen hours. But instead I'll be wide awake rehashing events of the day in my head while watching videos. I am watching YouTube under the delusion that it will distract me from my brain... all while knowing full well that it will not. If I'm lucky, I'll eventually be able to fall asleep for four hours before I have to wake up and start another day that likely won't be much better.

The video that's playing as I am typing this is called Real Reason Ships Don't Pass Under South America (It's Not The Distance). It's fascinating. And I'm really glad that I didn't watch it before my Antarctica expedition because I would have had second thoughts...

Ultimately The Drake Passage is very much a right of passage for visiting Antarctica. Some people get smooth sailing. Most people do not. In my case, it was isanely rough. As in looking out my cabin window and not being able to see sky rough. And though I definitely didn't think so at the time, I'm actually glad for that because it makes for some funny stories. Like having to sit down to pee because the boat is slamming you around so hard, but finding yourself being thrown off the toilet while attempting it. And trying to eat in the galley while dishes are flying past you. Good times. Good times.

But anyway. I'm going to sign off because the next video in my queue is about bananas confusing AI, and I can't wait for that...

Is there anything you can't find on YouTube?

When it comes to colonoscopies, I've been very open about the experience. Mostly because I want to encourage others to have the procedure.

Colon cancer, if caught early, is very much survivable (over 90% survival rate). And if you catch pre-cancerous polyps before they turn into cancer, then you're golden. They can be easily removed before something goes terribly wrong. And speaking of which, there's this news...

Colon cancer incidence rises sharply in under 50s.

And yet I don't know that insurance covers colonoscopy if you're under 50 without a doctor's recommendation? That's not great.

If you are 50 or older, haven't gotten a colonoscopy yet, and can get one... please, for the love of God, get one! I had pre-cancerous polyps that were removed in my first time, was clean as a whistle the second time and, although I complained endlessly about the prep for the procedure (cleaning out your colon is no fun at all), the procedure itself was no big deal. They can give you a sedative and you can be doped up and even sleep through it if you want. Or you can go commando and skip the sedation for big fun during the experience.

Just do it. This can literally save your life.

And so Apple has unleashed their mixed reality headsets on the world.

Do I want an Apple Vision Pro? Of course I do. Am I going to pay $3,500 plus lens inserts plus AppleCare plus accessories plus tax to get one? Of course not. That being said... Apple's new video introducing the device makes it look pretty great...

And their short video about how the devices are made is very cool...

For something like this I might pay $1000 (assuming I could scrounge up $1000)... just for the ability to watch movies on a massive screen in my home, because that's cheaper than a massive TV... but everything else just feels like a gimmick to me. I dunno. Maybe if I were to go to an Apple Store so I could try it in person and see the possibilities for how I could use it I might change my mind. But, for now at least, the $5000 price of entry is too damn high.

UPDATE: And... they immediately sold out. Couldn't get one at launch if I wanted to. Thank heavens. I need to pay my mortgage.

And so Jake has started doing something new, and I don't understand it at all.

He will take a massive bite of wet food. Drop it on the floor next to him. Then eat smaller bites from there. Which is all kinds of concerning. There's no foot traffic in front of the cat feeding station, so I'm not worried about dirt... but I am very worried about germ buildup. And so I've been washing the floor down in-between my weekly steam cleaning.

No idea why cats suddenly develop bizarre and inexplicable behavior. But I guess they wouldn't be cats if they didn't.

And now there's the warming pads I put out in winter so Jake and Jenny can be comfortable without my having to pay a massive heating bill. They are on them a lot. Jenny takes the pad next to me on the couch. Jake takes the pad on the loveseat.

But now they are switching things up for some reason.

Jenny will be on her warming pad, then Jake will hop up and smack her because he wants it.

On Thursday I was working away on the couch when Jake jumped on the armrest so he could smack Jenny out of her place.

"JAAAAAAKE... don't do it. Your sister got there first. Go sit on the other warming pad. JAAAAAAKE... nooo... nooooooo"

At which point he withdraws his paw and sits on the arm of the couch as if that's what he was going to do all along. I assure you it was not...

If I don't notice what Jake is doing, bedlam and much running around the house ensues.

Blogging can't be dead... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• CosMc's! McDonald's is going to take on Starbucks with a concept beverage shop they're calling "CosMc's." Now, I don't drink coffee, so I mostly don't give a shit about Starbucks, but I admit to being more than a little intrigued by CosMc's. Mostly because they don't look to be as coffee-focused (though there's a lot of coffee on there). When you look at the drink menu, there's plenty of cool-sounding beverages that I'd 100% try. Plus there's some food items I might like... and sandwiches I'd give a shot once I modify them to be vegetarian (why the fuck they can't put a single fucking vegetarian sandwich blows my mind). But, alas, I'd have to fly to Chicago and drive a while to get to the only

I WANT ME SOME McPOPS, DAMMIT! And all of those sundaes.

   
• SPEECH! I'm a sucker for a good wedding speech (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

   
• NEWSFLASH: No joke: Feds discourage humorous electronic messages on highways Oh thank heavens. Because we have no bigger problems to work on. Guess what? THE ONLY REASON THAT PEOPLE PAY ATTENTION TO THESE SIGNS IS BECAUSE THERE'S A CHANCE THEY'LL BE FUNNY!

   
• Emmy! I don't give a shit about the Emmys. I really don't. The shows I love and feel deserve recognition rarely win, so what's the point in getting invested? As an example, Andor, one of the most remarkable shows to ever appear on television (and my favorite show of 2022) didn't win anything. Insanity. They gave it all to Succession, which is one of the shittiest fucking shows I've ever endured, and I remain dumbfounded that people love it as much as they do. But anyway... one show that I was happy to hear won again is Last Week Tonight, which is hilariously funny while also being incredibly disturbing. And John Oliver is a genius, as you can see in his post-Emmy appearance on Jimmy Kimmel...

He's a national treasure. By way of Britain. But now an American citizen.

   
• Nine Months to Make a Baby! I don't know if anybody else is following the drama that is the Royal Carribbean Nine-Month World Cruise... but it's been a lot. Remember just a few days ago when I was talking about the rough seas of the Drake Passage? The cruise just sailed that. And even though the people documenting the cruise were taken back by the strength of the waves, they actually look calm compared to what I remember going through. But even so, there's been flooding on the ship which has created even more drama. It's delicious.

   
• Inclusivity is Good! It's so fucking hilarious how assholes outrage farm over the stupidest stuff. Like Santa, who... SPOILER ALERT... is a fictional character, must be a white, able-bodied character. And if he's not then, HOLY SHIT, it's an attack on the REAL Santa! AND I AM GOING TO RAGE ABOUT IT AS IF IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT FUCKING ISSUE IN THE WORLD TODAY! Well, if that's a pressing issue for you, then good. Because THE ENTIRE WORLD IS NOT ENTIRELY ABOUT YOU! (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

And it just gets crazier and crazier the deeper you go. People talking about how Santa is Nordic, so he has to be white and can't be anythng but white. AND IF HE'S IN A WHEELCHAIR, THEN HOW CAN HE DELIVER ALL THOSE PACKAGES?!? Oh... I dunno... THE SAME FUCKING WAY HE'S ABLE TO GO DOWN A CHIMNEY?!? Jesus.

   
• NERD! I gotta tell you... as a architecture nerd, I am finding the most amazing content on YouTube. My latest find is a show called How Did They Build That? and it's SO. FUCKING. COOL. Right now I'm on the second episode, which covers the Twin Copper Tilted Towers of New York, the Cultural Center and Library of Athens, and The Hive building of Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. It's glorious. I could watch this stuff all day long day after day...

If you're into this kind of thing, I can't recomment the Banijay Science YouTube channel highly enough.

   
Have a blogtastic day!

Everybody is mentioning Barbie when it comes to the Oscar nomination announcement and, yeah, that's pretty fucked up what happened. But to me the most gross oversight is that Celina Song didn't get nominated for Best Director when it came to her Oscar-Nominated Best Picture Past Lives.

It's my opinion that this achingly beautiful film required more deft directorial skills to realize than any of the directors that got nominated. I mean... nothing to take away from any of them, because they've all got films they should be proud of... but the story of Past Lives is like a fragile teacup which required careful thought be put into every scene to avoid breaking it. The core of the story is with the actors, yes, but the choices that Song made feel vastly more critical to making the movie what it is.

A part of me thinks that there was only room for one woman in the nominees, and it wasn't her.

Oh well. I'd really like to see it win Best Picture.

In any event, I am very much looking forward to whatever she does next. Every frame of Past Lives is art, and this is only her first movie!

When it comes to Barbie, Greta Gerwig did get a nod for her (adapted??) screenplay, which seems a more fitting nomination than director, in my humble opinion. But wrapping my head around how Ryan Gosling got nominated but Margot Robbie did not is impossible. I get why people are baffled. I am too. I may not have been utterly entranced by the film as so many have, but I can say 100% that if Ken was deemed Oscar-worthy, then Barbie should be as well. Robbie's performance and commitment was not in any way short.

When I got home from the office for the day I had a quick bit for dinner then pulled up a personal project I've been working on for the past seven years. It's a writing exercise that may not go anywhere, but I enjoy the distraction from the constant barrage of work that never ends.

But the file would not open.

I went to my Apple iCloud Drive to see what was going on, and found out that files of all types were being reduced to zero bytes. I sorted by date and could literally watch it happening in real-time. A file would be 3.8 gigabytes one minute, then 0 bytes the next. And it's not just big files... even small little nothing files were being gutted...

from 265 bytes to 0 bytes in less than a minute.

Everything had been working fine in the months since I copied all my files over to iCloud Drive. The only thing I had done which might cause this was to pull out my iPad yesterday to update iPad OS. All my files were put on iCloud Drive while the iPad was off, so I can only guess that it woke up, sall all the files it didn't know about, and is somehow removing all their data. Except when I turn the iPad off completely, it's still happening so maybe the iPad Os update is just a coincidence.

In any event, my iMac which has Apple Time Machine backup running is useless for iCloud drive, because it doesn't back anything up that it hasn't held on its local drive. Something Apple should really tell you. Otherwise, you're completely boned. Or not. Apple Support is calling me back in the morning so (hopefully) something can be done. I dunno.

All I do know is that my files are being destroyed while I watch, and most times it happens before I can even download them to back them up. It reminds me of that movie Disclosure where Michael Douglas is trying to uncover critical information he needs to save his job, but Evil Demi Moore is deleting them as he's trying to save them. THIS IS ME RIGHT NOW...

If Apple can't help me tomorrow morning, it means a lot of stuff I've had for decades... photos, files, drawings, and whatnot... which haven't been backed up somehow, somewhere, are gone forever. That would be a horrific loss from which I don't know I can ever mentally recover.

Apple. Where everything just works!

TL;DR... if you have any data at all on Apple's servers, particularly iCloud Drive, you need to get it off of there or perform a backup immediately. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Immediately.

Forty years ago today, Apple shipped the first Macintosh computer.

Today-today, Apple technology has resulted in my losing hundreds of files... some I've been able to recover on old computers and in ancient backups... some I found in local backups from a month-and-a-half ago (so they're partially recovered)... and some I've lost permanently, because they were ever only on iCloud.

Both of the Apple Support specialists I've talked to thought it important to tell me that "iCloud Drive is not intended to be a backup." And it's like, yeah, I know this. Which is why I have a desktop iMac with iCloud Drive synced, and Time Machine turned on. Except I found out the hard way that unless the files are actually downloaded to the iMac, they are not backed up. And, of course, despite having a shitload of free space on my iCloud Drive, Apple doesn't keep backups of older versions of files. Dropbox may be a pile of shit, but even they do that. So not only does Apple not do that, they don't tell you they don't do that.

Here's a serious of events that lead to now.

• A month and a half ago, I decided to offload a bunch of files off of local drives because I was running out of space. Because I've grown to hate the pile of shitty bloat that is Dropbox, I upgraded my iCloud Drive space to the 2 terabyte option for $9.99 a month because there wasn't a 500 gigabyte plan. All my files were transferred. Given that they would always be in the cloud, I thought it was safest to work on them from there. And everything was working great.
• Two days ago I had an iPad that's been powered off for six months. I decided to charge it and update it to the new iPad OS that just came out that day.
• Yesterday I went to load a file I've been working on. I couldn't. I looked on iCloud Drive and saw it was 0 bytes. A bunch of files were 0 bytes. Files that had been many bytes... even gigabytes... just days ago.
• I chatted with Apple Support in a panic as files were dropping to 0 bytes in Real Time as I watched. They couldn't help me. A call was arranged for 7:30am this morning. This is also when I found out that my iMac wasn't backing up iCloud Drive files as I thought it would be.
• I turned off my iPad just in case that was the cause. It wasn't. Files continued to drop to zero. I disconnected all computers from the internet so that I wouldn't lose anything else overnight.
• This morning I spoke to an Apple Support agent. Technically, my files weren't deleted, so recovering them on the iCloud website's "deleted files tool" wasn't possible. Not that it matters. Not even the files I didn't need could be recovered. Every time I try, I was told "There was a problem loading restorable files. Please try again later." I tried later seven times.
• The Apple Support tech told me there was nothing they could do, and that I should download and manually back up all my iCloud Drive files.
• I started downloading files, but some files were being zeroed out before I could complete the download.
• So I called back, desperate for any ideas which might save my data. No ideas were to be had. I was told that the best option was to update to the latest OS all my computers and devices, then give Apple permission to try and recover files, even though it may end up doing even more damage and cause even more data loss. So I did the best I could to save what files I could as they continued to be destroyed. The good news is that I found out the more files I downloaded at the same time, the slower Apple was at ruining my data. Apparently iCloud Drive can only do one thing at a time. Lucky me.
• I managed to get as much of my data copied off iCloud as possible. I then updated all of my devices. Tomorrow I'll ask Apple to go all nuclear option on my iCloud Drive in an attempt to recover some of my lost data. Which may mean that they end up destroying everything.
• Tonight I took stock of what, exactly, I've lost. A bunch of photos I thought were gone forever (including my high school graduation, photos of my grandmother, and my trip to Egypt with my mom, among others) were actually backed up Plex, thank God. But a bunch of Hard Rock photos from my early days are gone (though some lo-res images were published on my blog, so there's that). But all the writing I've done for the past month-and-a-half is gone (though I have backups of these files from before that). Stuff I wrote years ago and haven't touched in years is gone though. Research I've been working on for decades is gone. Vector files for my later DaveToons are gone. Future tattoo ideas I drew up are gone. All the digital versions of my mortgage, banking, and the digital documents I saved for my mom's care are all gone. Every last note of the music I wrote for advertising in the 90's is gone. All the maps I drew for my old "DaveWorld" site are gone. It goes on and on.

So, yeah, not ideal.

But it could have been so much worse.

And for that I'm grateful, though I remain absolutely outraged at Apple. The company has BILLIONS of dollars. Yet they won't devote a fraction of that to safeguarding the data their customers entrusts to them. Instead they want me to know that it's my fault because I should have backed up... even though I thought that's exactly what I was doing by having a large, pricey Time Machine hard drive hooked up to a Mac that's synced to my iCloud Drive. If only Apple could be bothered to warn people that the obvious way you'd think things would work are not, in fact, how things actually do. I guess, in the end, they just don't give a fuck. Which is probably why they have billions of dollars in the first place.

I remain hopeful that a lot of stuff I've lost can ultimately be recovered. Whether because I find it on a drive or computer or a backup somewhere... or Apple is able to do something tomorrow.

Hopefully the REAL backups I'm making now (instead of the unreal backups I thought I was making) will prevent this in the future.

Because I sure don't even want to go through this again.

This is the post I was planning to write yesterday on the occasion of the Macintosh's 40th anniversary. But after hat happened, I'm having to write it today.

The first compputer not programmed with punchcards that I ever used was an Apple ][ at school. But the first computer I owned at home was an Atari 800. My parents went for the big ticket version instead off the cheaper Atari 400, which meant I had glorious full-sized physical keys instead of an impossible-to-type-on membrane keyboard. From there I migrated to the Atari 1040 ST, and later the Atari TT.

It was at this point that I got a scanner, which I wanted so I could scan my drawings into my computer. It was huge and very, very expensive. And it didn't work directly with an Atari, but required kludgy drivers to operate. Badly.

Included with the scanner was a copy of Photoshop.

Which ran on Macintosh only.

Frustrated with the limitations and lack of software for the Atari, I saved up for a Mac, at last. It was the cheapest model I could get, a Mac Performa 600 (a poor man's Mac Quadra, which was the model I coveted). I bought it at Sears on credit. The very next month, it was discontinued, and I could have gotten a more powerful machine for the same money (or saved a chunk on my now-outdated model), but thems the breaks...

My memory of what came after is hazy. I believe my next Mac was actually a Mac clone by Power computing. Then there was a Mac G3 tower of some kind that I bought and ended up selling... a Power Mac G4 Cube (which remains my favorite Mac design ever, even though it wasn't all that powerful)... a number of MacBook laptops (culminating with my MacBook Pro M2 Max I'm using now)... a few iMacs (culminating with my iMac M1 desktop that I have now)... not to mention the legion of Macs that I've had at work (culminating in the Mac Studio M1 Ultra).

And eventually, just to satisfy the completist in me, I ended up buying one of the original models from the early years of the Mac, a Macintosh 512K. Not sure if it still works, as it's been over a decade since I turned it on, but it's still collecting dust in my garage.

We won't mention the various other Apple products that have accompanied my Macs over the years. QuickTake cameras, a Newton Message Pad, all kinds of iPods, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and such. I'm a certified Apple Whore through and through who bleeds in six colors.

So, yeah, that's a brief history of the Mac and Me. A computer that, despite my growing hatred of Apple, is still my favorite kind of computer to use.

At least for now.

I'm still waiting for computer implants to come along.

Maybe in another 4o years.

Yesterday I was all ready to have Apple unleash the "nuclear option" to see if the data of mine that they destroyed could be restored. This morning I called. The guy I talked to had no clue what this "magical restore" could be. He'd never heard of it. He didn't know why I was told it existed. It doesn't. Apple makes no backup of their customer's data on iCloud Drive in the event they have a catastrophic failure. There's nothing. There's no data saved anywhere that they can restore from. So first Apple doesn't tell you that Time Machine won't backup iCloud Drive files. And then they don't take any precautions to save your data if they fuck it up.

Sooo... what's gone is permanently gone.

Not because of anything I did. I used the service as it was designed. I dutifully bought an iMac with a pricey external drive to back up my stuff via Time Machine. But because Apple doesn't give a FUCK... and doesn't give a single shit about their customers... I'm screwed.

I fucking hate Apple with the passion of a thousand suns. THEY misrepresent. THEY lie. THEY screw up. But not a penny of their BILLIONS OF DOLLARS is used to safeguard their customers over THEIR mistakes.

After fuming all day, I arrived home to make banana bread.

I'm one of those people who buys bananas and "forgets" to eat them so they over-ripen, then the only thing I can do about it is make banana bread...

But I make banana bread MY way.

No lumps in my banana mash. I purée that shit. No spices. I want all the banana flavor and don't want it covered up. Extra walnuts. AND ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO RAISINS! I only eat raisins in oatmeal cookies or on their own. Never in cinnamon rolls or breads or pastries or anything else. Oatmeal cookies have that oatmeal texture to take the edge off the raisin texture so I don't get skeeved out.

A sweet end to a shitty fucking day.

Sleeping. It's what cats do for 75% of their lives. Probably more.

And believe me, I am completely jealous. I'd be thrilled if I could manage to sleep even 30% of my life. Heck, some nights (as in every night this week, where I've been battling a runny nose) I'd be thrilled to get even 20%. Last night I got around 3-1/2 hours.

Their favorite place to sleep is on my bed with me. Jake will sometimes sleep all night there. Jenny bails the minute I turn my light off...

Jenny used to not want to be on the bed when Jake was there, but lately has been more proactive. Even going sofar as to plop her ass down next to him and smack him with her tail until he leaves...

But that's okay. When Jake and Jenny were kittens, they loved these cheap kitty beds that I got from Petco, so I bought a bunch of them. Eventually Jake was too big to fit, so I tossed all but a couple because the beds have their scent on them and I figured if I ever got another kitten, it would be a great way to get it used to their smell. Plus Jenny still sleeps in them sometimes. — Recently I noticed that Jake, after losing weight, fits again. Now it's his favorite place to sleep when he's not with me...

I wish he'd sleep at the end of the couch more often. because it's nice to have warm toes..

Jenny has a sour little face that I just love for her. And watching her sleep gives me a clue as to how that works. The fur camouflages her mouth a bit, so you can't see it turn up easily like with most cats. But she also has an underbite sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. Especially when she sleeps. I think when she does have her chin out, it makes her look a little more disgruntled...

Not that I care. She may have a sour look on her face sometimes, but she remains a sweet (albeit demanding) cat.

I hope you're sitting down... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Ingenuity! The absolutely remarkable longevity of the little Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has been an absolute joy to behold. He was supposed to max out at five flights over 30 days. He completed 72 flights over three years! Way to go!

If you haven't yet, please go to Google and search for "Ingenuity Mars Helicopter" then click on the little animated copter to see what happens.

   
• Beefalo! I don't know how people cannot love the Kelce brothers...

I'm so glad that I was a fan of them both before Taylor Swift entered the picture. And even before Travis's incredible guest-host spot on Saturday Night Live

   
• Remote Remote! The question "Who lives in this remote crater in Madagascar" that tags this video is not the question they ask in the actual video. That would be "Why did these people move to such an isolated space?" And the reason they changed it is likely because they realized that the why is obvious. It is painfully clear that it's in a volcano, volcanos have incredibly rich soil, and it looks green so there must be water there... which is backed up by the fact that there's very clearly some agriculture happening at the location. Regardless, this video combines my love of maps, cultures, and travel into a heck of a worthwhile watch...

Satisfying. Right?

   
• This Country Hates Women, Part 3,257: I Miscarried in Texas. My Doctors Put Abortion Law First. Stories recounting this type of repugnant fucking bullshit enrages me to the point that I can't even see straight. I honest to God marvel on a daily basis that women haven't put a torch to this country.

   
• Faith! Oh look. Sometimes a “Man of God” is actually a man of God...

The number of hypocritical "Christians" I see on a daily basis who pick-and-choose which of Jesus's teachings they have to follow just blows my mind.

   
• Resort! I've lived in Washington State for the vast majority of my life. And even though I'm not a skier, you'd think that at some point it would have occurred to me that people simply do not fly here to ski. I can name a dozen "destination" ski resorts around the world, but not one of them are in Washington or Oregon. And here's a look at why...

Makes perfect sense. And yet I never thought about it until I saw this video.

   
• STORY: NFL fans could do a whole lot worse than singing the Black National Anthem at the Super Bowl. I wonder if all these people losing their minds over Lift Every Voice and Sing (AKA "The Black National Anthem") that will be performed at the Super Bowl have even taken ten seconds to look up the lyrics and the meaning of the song. And has everybody forgotten Sheryl Lee Ralph's stunning performance of the song just last year? The outrage machine fires people up for money. Making people mad and divided gets them paid. And we let them do it. This song is perfectly appropriate to be sung at the Super Bowl, and anybody who knows what it's about should have zero problem with it. And, oh yeah, THEY ARE STILL GOING TO SING THE USA NATIONAL ANTHEM! NOTHING IS BEING TAKEN AWAY OR REPLACED!!

   
Okay. You can stand up now. See you for more bullets in a week.

I became a vegetarian on Earth Day, 1986. Back then it was no easy task because the many food options we enjoy today didn't exist. Finding meat substitutes at the local grocery store was difficult if not impossible, so I ended up making weekly trips to the health food store... a very expensive endeavor.

As the years marched on, access to more reasonably-priced and better-tasting vegetarian options for all my favorite foods became easier. Burgers, bacon, hotdogs, sausages... it was all there. And my diet today is much the same as it was in the 1990's. Except now I can get an Impossible Whopper at Burger King. Now-a-days, being a vegetarian is easy. It's going vegan that's hard.

Because there's one dietary staple I simply cannot give up: dairy & egg products.

But not for lack of trying. This past year I've made a real effort to ditch milk. I mostly buy almond or soy milk. And it's fine. I love to drink chocolate-flavored faux-milks (mylks, they're called now?). I have no problem putting vanilla or plain mylks on my cereals. Everything that I used to do with milk works with imitation milk. I'm good. But there's three things that there is no adequate substitute for...

Ice Cream
This is not a deal-breaker. I can live without ice cream. I don't eat a ton of it anyway. Juice bars are good enough. But still... there are times that it's the perfect treat, and the vegan options aren't great.

Eggs
I don't really have to eat eggs. So long as there's a substitute to use in baking cakes and such, I could give up eggs without too much issue. I use maybe a maximum of a half-dozen a month (mostly in baking). I'd eat a lot more for the protein content, but I don't like the smell that comes from cooking them. When cooked at home, I eat them mostly scrambled inside of breakfast burritos. But if I'm at a restaurant? Over medium on toast all the way, baby.

Cheese
I love cheese, I live for cheese, most of my favorite dishes are built around cheese, and giving up cheese would require a radical shift in my diet that I'm not prepared to make. Currently, I've not been able to find a vegan cheese that is in any way acceptable to eat.

If a vegan cheese is developed which has the texture, cooking properties, and approximate taste of real cheese, I could become a vegan overnight. I wouldn't even have to think about it. And I really hope that day is coming. If Burger King's "Impossible Whopper" has taught me anything, it's that the science of plant-based foods is seriously breaking barriers.

It's only a matter of time.

But will it be before I die?

Hosting this blog is expensive. And difficult when you pay for it annually in order to save money.

When I was notified that my annual contract renewal was coming up, I decided to look around and see if it was possible to save some cash. I'm really, really trying to save every cent I can so I can afford to finish my home repairs and finish the work I want to do on my yard.

And so tomorrow I'll be moving things over to a new hosting provider. Hopefully it will all go smoothly and I'll see you on the flip-side.

If not, well... I'm not deleting everything off my current host just yet.

UPDATE: Well, that didn't go well.

Could I have persevered and eventually gotten through the move? Sure. But it ended up being far from easy, even after purchasing the tools that I thought would make it a cake walk. Ultimately the time it would have taken wasn't worth the money saved, so I abandoned ship and stuck with my current hosting company (which has been pretty great, all things considered).

Oh well. I had to try.

I don't mind working. Honestly, I don't. My job is tough, time-consuming, and demanding, but it's also satisfying, and I love that my assorted skills and talents are put to good use. So, yeah, I've been a hard worker my entire life, I put everything I have into the job, and I'm okay with it. I'm not saying this because I'm expecting a medal or I'm waiting for somebody to hand me a cookie... it's just a window into my mindset for this post.

That being said...

I don't want to be working ten to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week when I'm 80.

And yet, it's looking like that could be a very real possibility. The government is likely going to increase the retirement age (again), and it's understandable. People are living longer, so they have to work longer or else there won't be any money available. I get that. But it probably doesn't matter. Despite promises to the contrary, if piece of shit pig fucking Republican lawmakers have their way, you won't get any Social Security anyway (despite being forced to pay into it your entire working life). Which means you'll be fucked if you stop working regardless.

The weight of thinking about that has been crushing me lately.

It's never, ever going to end.

• I never wanted for anything I needed growing up, but in order to buy the "cool jeans" and extra things I wanted, I took Summer jobs and worked after school.
• I worked multiple jobs and untold hours to get out of the debt I ran up in college.
• I worked extra hours whenever I could to be able to afford to go on vacations.
• I volunteered for charity work mostly because I want to do some good in the world... but also because I could expense food and tack on a few days vacation to the places I had to travel. That way I didn't have to buy as many groceries or pay for plane travel (just my hotel and food for the extra time outside of work).
• While caring for my mom, I worked my main job from home and took on any extra work I could get... from freelance design to proofreading... so I could help pay for her care and get a safe home for her.
• When my mom had to move to a care facility, I worked an extra job so she could get into a better place and I could buy what niceties I could afford for her so she'd have the best life she could under the circumstances.
• And of course I had to find extra work so I could afford to fix all the problems with my home.

COVID shut down my volunteer work... and my job at work changed so I don't have time for other jobs now... but I'm still working hard. And that's good. Like I said, I want to work hard to make my way in the world and be able to afford a few fun things in my life. Nobody is going to throw millions of dollars at me, so hard work is the only way it's going to happen.

But holy shit I don't want to be working like this at 80.

I need something to look forward to in my sunset years.