Apple had their "Mac Week" this week. Except it was more like "Mac Part-Week" because they stopped announcing new stuff after three days. I was fully expecting updates across the entire Mac line... iMac, Mac mini, MacBook, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro (or possibly some new Mac-based HomeKit device or wildcard tech).
Instead we got iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook.
Which ain't nuthin', but still.
iMAC
I bought the first Apple Silicon iMac with the M1 chip back in 2021. The only thing I didn't like about it was the color. The original yellow model I got was too light and the yellow aluminum looked like urine. It was so bad that I exchanged it for blue because the photo looked nothing like what Apple showed on their website. The new models have deeper, more vibrant colors, so my one complaint was addressed...
My iMac is mostly used for video conferencing. It's exceptional for that. I do work on it too, and the M1 chip is plenty good for the basic stuff I do on it. I won't be upgrading.
MAC MINI
The new mini is more mini than ever before. I want one, but not because I need it for anything. I just want one because it's so darn adorable...
The price is pretty good for the power you get. If I didn't have a NAS already, I'd buy one to hook up to a RAID and use it to serve files at home. NAS drives are usually so embarrassingly underpowered with last-gen chips and barely enough memory. With Mac mini I could build a better, faster, more-powerful NAS for the money. But, I don't have a bunch of cash laying around, so I'll just be sticking with what I got. It's fine.
MACBOOK
And here we are. The one temptation which might be too good for me to pass up. I skipped last year's M3 Max upgrade because it wasn't a hefty enough upgrade to my M2 Max (which was an upgrade from the year before). But the leap from M2 Max to M4 Max? Well. That's another matter entirely. I use my MacBook for serious work. The most demanding of which is 3D rendering. It takes a lot of power to do that quickly...
The M4 Max is 3.5× faster than M1 Max. So it stands to reason that it's around 2.5× faster than the M2 Max. Or thereabouts. Even if it's just twice as fast, that's a game-changer for me. To finish a render in half the time? I dunno, man. That's a lot of time saved. That might be worth it. And so... I'll be waiting to see the benchmarks. If there's a significant leap, like two times or two-and-half times, then I may not be able to stop myself from upgrading. Dangit anyway. That'll be a good chunk of money I can't afford, even with trade-in. Though the matte display option is kinda the icing on the cake.
I think that Jake may be in the early stages of arthritis.
Or maybe he's just getting old. But in any event, I've noticed small things about how he moves and how he's jumping and such. Like he's a little bit stiff or maybe even experiencing some pain? I dunno. But I'm going to start in on making life a little easier for him now rather than one day being blindsided and having to do everything at once.
I know there are probably people who would laugh at me for going to all this expense and trouble, but I laugh at people who think that's funny. When my grandmother was having difficulty, we installed a walk-in tub, bought a rocking chair that could raise up, and installed all kinds of things to make her life easier, more convenient, and safer. Why wouldn't I do the same for my cats? There were days that Jake and Jenny made my life easier just by existing. The least I can do is repay the favor.
Then again, Jake just lunged at his sister as she came inside then chased her at full speed around the house. So maybe he's not getting quite so bad as I'm thinking?
I may have finally turned the heat on to make my cats happy, but never fear, I still have money left to blog... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Bread! Yesterday I baked a loaf of bread for a neighbor, but since my oven is broke I had to make it one of those flat loaves and bake it in my toaster over. It turns out pretty great, all things considered. But then all I could think of was freshly-baked bread, so I checked to see if my starter was good to go, and...
Bread for me today. Except I actually made rolls, because I figured it would be easier to make sliders or little sandwiches that way. =sigh= I sure hope that there's some really good deals on ovens for Black Friday... or, more likely, for President's Day. I want to be able to bake stuff again.
• Winner Winner! My favorite game show is Pyramid (which started as The $10,000 Pyramid). I remember watching it with my mom when I was a kid, though I think by then it was The $25,000 Pyramid
What's surprising to me is that even though you know all of these runs are winning runs, it's still stressful! There's some great players on here. Noticeably missing is Rachel Dratch, who is spooky-good at the game...
I kinda wish there was a way to play that game for everyday people. I mean, sure, they've made home versions over the years, but it's not the same experience as pairing up with a celebrity on a show stage with an audience and playing. Guess I'll just have to apply one day or something.
• And Speaking of Game Shows... There's loads of game shows out of the UK that I obsess over. The two most notable being Taskmaster and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Absolutely nobody does game shows like the Brits when they are celebrity competitions. Nobody. Since there's no real contestants and just famous people having a laugh, it gets absolutely bonkers, and is so much fun to watch. Take for example...
I don't know why we don't do more of this kind of thing on our side of the pond.
• Early Days! Somebody shared this video of gymnast Ian Gunther asking other gymnasts he's performing with to sign a photo for him... but it's not a current photo, it's a photo of them when they were young...
The reactions are priceless. I love stuff like this.
• Stranger Things! Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness grossed nearly a billion dollars worldwide and had a brilliant teaser for a sequel when Clea showed up in the post-credits scene. But the most exciting part? Somehow they got frickin' Charlize Theron to play Clea!
So where is Doctor Strange 3 on the development slate? We keep hearing about new Avengers movies, new Spider-Man movies and the like... but no sequel to a near-billion dollar film that people are dying to see? Is Kevin Feige still in charge at Marvel Studios? What's going on there?
• And speaking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Doctor Strage... You can't put this much thought into super-hero movies...
Wanda was done pretty dirty. I mean, yeah, I get it... kinda compelling to have an innocent hero get corrupted in a way that makes them become a villain. And Wanda did turning to The Darkhold would only speed up that process. But come on! The Scarlet Witch has been abused to death in the MCU, and it's beyond bizarre that they don't seem to be interested in redemption for the character. I keep hoping that this will be rectified... maybe it will happen in the Vision Quest mini-series... but the longer they wait the more it seems like nobody cares.
• NEWS: A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms! So much blood on these asshole's hands, and yet NONE OF THEIR SUPPORTERS GIVE A SHIT! This country hates women. HATES them. Their only purpose is breeding stock to make more labor and more cult members. Other than that? Oh it's always "Oh well" and moving on to more death.
As I'm typing this, somebody on Facebook just commented "...if women die because of a problem with the baby, that's God's will." And I am like, if absolutely everything that happens is God's will and He's an all-powerful being Who can make anything a reality, then why didn't God just design it so that terminating a pregnancy for any reason results in immediate death? If He's God, then He could absolutely have designed it to work that way, right? — Then the conversation spiraled into "the devil" and "temptation" and "God's wrath" and every other bullshit thing you can think of from a person with no critical thinking skills who hasn't studied the Bible even a little bit. I am so fucking tired of this shit.
And now back to my toasty 72° homestead.
Lies and betrayal are very hard to get past.
Because it can be hard to break away from what you get latched onto.
Just like the octopus in this adorable video, some people are content to stick with trash they've somehow picked up along the way... passing up on something much better because they're waiting for something absolutely perfect to come along. Sometimes you're lucky, like this octopus, and perfect gets served up to you and you're able to leave your trash behind for greener pastures...
But what if perfect never arrives? Then you've just saddled yourself to garbage for the rest of your life.
I've worked very hard to let go of the things (and people) who have screwed me over, made my life worse, and had essentially became unhealthy trash I was stuck to. But throwing your trash in a garbage bin doesn't mean that you're entirely rid of it. You have to then take the trash out, which can be a messy task. So you might end up delaying and delaying and delaying, because you don't want to get messy. In which case it's still around, making you aware of it occasionally when the bad smell wafts your way.
Then hopefully one day when you've finally gotten tired of the smell, you take the trash out.
At which time you hope it stays wherever it gets hauls away to, all while secretly fearing it will come crawling back into your life one day.
Then the news comes that it got buried in a landfill a while back.
At which time you might be conflicted about your feelings. So you choose to drop the negative and focus on the positive. You try to be thankful for the happy times you once had. The times when you were blissfully unaware that you had become attached to trash that would eventually unleash an avalanche of garbage on your life.
What else can you do, really?
Clinging to bitterness and hatred turns you into the garbage you managed to escape from.
And do you really want to be the trash in somebody else's life?
In the anxiety-riddled night before today's election, I decided to bask in the glow of a little retail therapy. Which is tough to do when you don't have extra money to spare but, hey, it's the little things in life, amirite? Just because you're web-shopping doesn't mean that you actually have to buy something.
Except when you do.
As I mentioned on Sunday, I've not had a working oven for months. Since the end of June, I think. I've always had it in my head that I'll make do with my air fryer and toaster oven until a compelling enough deal on an oven comes along. In other words, I want a good-quality mid-priced oven at a low-priced cost. And that usually means snagging a Black Friday deal, though I think I've historically gotten my best appliance deals on President's Day for some reason.
So while I had no plan to purchase anything, I started looking at various sites to see what model I might want to get if it ended up on sale.
And lo-and-behold, Home Depot had a "Special Buy" price of $750 on a $1,100 model that I would never purchase if not for the fact that the sale price was only $50 over than the high end of my $650-$700 budget (which ain't all that much given the cheapest models hover around $500).
And so... money be damned, I bought it. They're bringing it on Thursday.
Never mind that I had to spend an additional $40 for a new power cable to get my "free" installation, plus another $50 to have my junked oven hauled away... I'll be able to bake again, and that's what matters.
To be honest, I don't think oven I bought is worth $1,099 because it's pretty basic. I think they priced it that high just so they could create a "Special Buy" to get people to think it's this massive bargain they can't pass up. It does have "Air Fry" and "Air Baking" modes (like most ovens do now-a-days), which is nice I guess. But the big feature they tout is "No Preheat" technology, which is kind of silly because I've never preheated an oven in my entire life, and my air fryer already did this (an air fryer I'll probably still use because it's small, gives perfect results, and uses less energy than an oven). But other than that? Eh. I can cook stuff with it.
My old oven (which is comparable to this one and cost $600) lasted 8-1/2 years.
Which, to be honest, is 3-1/2 years longer than I expected, given how everything is built to be replaceable instead of being built to last any more.
I had toyed with the idea of getting it repaired because it's probably just an element gone bad, but the oven suffered some major damage almost immediately when my mom with dementia got confused and cooked plastic in it. I managed to eventually get it all scraped and scrubbed off, but doing so destroyed the finish of the oven box which made it impossible to keep clean. Spills never wiped off... they fused to the metal interior no matter how quickly you tried to remove them. Which hasn't been a fun way to cook for all these years. I lived in fear of grease spatter and drips. Hopefully my new oven will manage to stay cleaner longer.
And so... now I'm poor.
But at least I'll be able to bake bread again, because trying to do that in a toaster oven hasn't been great.
For two decades my work took me to Orlando. The first six years were for a side-hustle doing contract work. The remaining fourteen were doing volunteer work with an organization that I fell into while working my side-hustle.
During that time I spent a lot of time at the Walt Disney World Resort. So much time that I grew tired of goofing around in the parks, and usually only went to Epcot to eat because I loved the restaurants and they were an easy bus-ride from whatever Disney hotel I was staying at. The biggest exception being when my mom wanted to go with me for something to do, usually around Christmastime. There were other times that co-workers would convince me to brave the crowds and ride the attractions, but it was increasingly rare up to when I stopped going in 2019.
I've always loved the Disney parks, ever since my parents took a side-trip to Disneyland when I was a kid. But what I loved more then experiencing the parks was the imagineering design behind the parks. Over the years I've bought loads of books and watched all the documentaries and commentaries I could find about building Disneyland and the other resorts around the world.
For the longest time, Disney imagineers put a huge amount of thought into what they were creating. Above everything else in their work, it was the story the governed every decision they made. There was a reason for everything they did, and even the smallest details are sweated over.
Now-a-days, Disney management doesn't seem to give a shit. Story? Who cares! Just slap intellectual property on everything and call it good! Doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense that Mickey Mouse is being injected into the attraction, just fucking do it!
And here we are, losing one of the most well-storied areas of Walt Disney World: Dinoland U.S.A. in Animal Kingdom. The story of which has been well documented by the guy over at Poseidon Entertainment...
I knew about the very cool story of Dinoland U.S.A. because I bought the Animal Kingdom "Making Of" book on one of my earliest Orlando work trips. That was probably four to five months after the park opened, and the story of the land was still important...
Now, of course, the idea of "story" at the parks is fairly antiquated. Which is a shame. It sure adds a lot of depth to the park.
I guess it was good while it lasted.
Now everybody is going to have to go to Universal Studios, I guess.
Artificial Intelligence created "art" is an abomination for a number of reasons. The biggest of which being that AI gets trained on the works of countless artists who have their works stolen so a computer can mimic what they've created. Without artists, generative AI models couldn't exist.
It's a serious problem because the companies behind generative AI and the people and companies utilizing generative AI are poised to make billions off the technology while the artists who made it possible receive no compensation at all. For this reason, there's been a bit of a backlash when companies use AI "art" for their packaging, advertising, or other materials... but it's not enough of a backlash to stop the trend from trending.
Nope. Generative AI is here to stay.
And now Apple has gotten in on the game with an app called "Image Playground." It's the same type of prompt-driven AI that's been around for a while now, it's just that Apple is attempting to make it easier to use.
And easy it is. You feed Image Playground some parameters that you type or select from suggestions, like so...
And you're presented with a bunch of options that have been generated based on your parameters, such as this one...
Immediately there is a problem in that this looks absolutely nothing like me, despite the fact that I fed it a literal photo of myself. Out of the dozens of friends and family that I put through Apple's generative AI, it usually comes down to the hair. For reasons unknown, Apple is adding tremendous volume and wacky styles that in no way match what was sent to them.
You're always given multiple options, but rarely do the photos of myself look much like me. And, again, it usually comes down to the hair. If they could get the hair drawn better, I think that would be half the battle...
From time to time I get something that kinda-sorta looks like it could be me...
But here's the thing. In all the photos of myself that have been generated, you can't look too close. Because the minute you do, you start to notice some horrific details. Usually with the eyes and teeth...
And once you see it, you go back to look at all the photos that have been generated and everybody looks like serial killers. It's genuinely bizarre, and I'm not really understanding why something so standard as eyes and teeth are so difficult to render.
I did have better luck with photos of my younger self...
Which gets me this...
I can sorta see me in that? It helps to add props...
Even though props are highly problematic. I don't think any of them work as intended. For example, this is me in sunglasses, but AI makes my eyes visible through them, which is freaky as hell...
I put myself in a disco, and suddenly I'm in... suspenders?!?
And when I select "Witches Hat" as an accessory, it's like the AI didn't know what to do, so it put me in a... sombrero?!?
I thought it would be cool to see me as an astronaut, since that's what I wanted to be when I was a kid, but Apple removes the faceplate and has my chin sticking out every time? I don't think that's how spacesuit helmets work...
And it's not just one option... it's 5 out of 6. And sometimes they even give me a cleft in my chin, which is wild...
A lot of times, the variants that you get make it very clear that Apple has run out of ideas as to how to portray a scenario. For example, if I were told to draw somebody as a scientist, I'd be sure to have test tubes and science gear in the shot. But Apple thinks that a lab coat and glasses is all that's needed. Or, as in the first photo, TWO pairs of glasses...
Apple has a more specialized version of their Image Playground within their Messages app called "Genmoji" which will generate more simplified versions of stuff. But it's via typing to generate...
I've mainly been concentrating on pictures of me to illustrate the app (at least I can be sure that I own the photo being used as reference!), but you don't have to use photos of people. You can type just about anything.
But with wildly varying results.
When I asked for "A penguin on a polar bear" not a single image generated had the penguin on the polar bear. So I tried again with "A penguin ON TOP OF a polar bear" which gave me multiple options. Only one correct...
Like the last time, the majority of the generated images were just a penguin with a polar bear. And usually the penguin was massively huge like this...
Things get a bit disturbing when the generative AI decided to merge the penguin with the polar bear into a single creature...
But the most disturbing image that I got was a truly gigantic penguin fucking a baby polar bear? I mean, it's definitely on that polar bear, so to speak. Though they are kinda merging at the feet...
So... um... yeah... not quite ready for prime time. There's a lot more work that needs to be done. And though I will likely not use it for anything except being occasionally amused by the results, I can see where this is going to be a very big deal for people who don't want to put the time and effort into creating something themselves having the computer do the work for them.
That's going to do severe harm to a number of different art careers, but artists are getting used to that. They've already had their art stolen a zillion times over to train the AI behemoths that make AI generated images possible in the first place.
I used to take solace in the fact that I'd likely be safely dead by the time AI had fully integrated itself into our lives, but here we are. Mainstream use has not only arrived, but it's progressing so fast that I can't imagine what the future is going to look like.
I just hope it's better than that last penguin on a polar bear image, because yikes.
Heating bills be damned, my cats demand warmth!
Even though electricity isn't hugely expensive where I live, every kilowatt adds up, so I do my absolute best to conserve energy. By far my biggest electrical expenditure is for heating, so I delay turning on the heat every year for as long as possible. Though the ultimate decision isn't mine... it's Jake and Jenny's. I am happy to throw on a hoodie and self-insulate against the cold. They already have fur coats and don't give a shit how much it costs to stay warm.
I put out their warming pads, which they cling to, individually. But how I know when they become unsatisfied with the temperature is when they buddy up together to share warmth.
When I see this, I know it's time...
And once the heat is on?
Back to laying on separate warming pads.
Which can be a problem when Jake wants the pad which Jenny is sitting on, so he wakes her up to get it...
Literally pushing her off...
This doesn't make Jenny happy at all, and she will definitely lash out if Jake pisses her off like this...
But don't worry, she can fall asleep in sixty seconds, so she can move on after she's taken a chunk of Jake's fur out...
And now? I will sit here in my cozy-warm house and start up Ted Lasso for the hundredth time. When it comes to comfort, that's my happy place.
Now that the heat is on at my house, I am warm enough to blog again... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Poh-Tay-Toh! One of my favorite YouTube series is the Epicurious Pro Chefs Taste Tests. I obsess over them because the chefs they get are always great. But my favorite is Jack Logue because he's kinda a void for most of the video... but when he likes something, you know it because he breaks on it. When he finds fries he likes, it's pretty great...
I waffle between Lamb Weston and McCain Foods USA depending on what's on sale, so it's good to know I'm buying the best. Though, to be honest, I am badly addicted to McCain Hashbrown Patties and tend to eat them over fries now-a-days. If you like cooking videos, these are worth a look.
• The Oven Bakes Again! My replacement oven arrived and it's very much like my old oven with the same basic features. But it does have one very big difference I love. The stovetop is a solid sheet! No gap filled with rubber to collect crumbs and gunk! It'll be so easy to keep clean!
Other than that, it's an oven. It'll be nice to be able to bake bread again.
• The Bold Failure of Kohler! I really hate having messy hands in the kitchen while cooking and needing to turn on the faucet, then getting the faucet all gunked up. So when I remodeled my kitchen, I bought a fancy touchless faucet and paid a plumber to install it. Four-and-a-half years later, and the "touchless" part of my "Bold Look of Kohler" failed. I was going to swtich brands, but stuck with Kohler so I wouldn't have to pay to have it installed. Instead I could use most of what was already under the cabinet, and just replace the main faucet part. The model I had isn't made any more, so I bought one that was similar. And of course Kohler changed everything, meaning I had to start over from scratch any way. And it was more difficult this time because they made some stupid fucking design decisions. Oh well. Saved myself $500 in installation charges I don't have after buying a new oven and a new touchless faucet.
• Thunderbolts*! I haven't been this excited for a Marvel Studios movies film since Avengers: Endgame. This looks great!
• Cap! And this?!? Also looks very cool!
• Star Wars Trilogy Redux! Simon Kinberg has been put in charge of writing a new trilogy of Star Wars movies. And I'm like Simon Kinberg? Hmmm. I mean, he did write gems like Mr. & Mrs. Smith and co-created Star Wars: Rebels... but he's got LOADS of absolute shit on his résumé as well. X-Men: The Last Stand? SHIT! Jumper? TOTAL SHIT! This Means War? SHIT! Fant4stic Four? HEINOUS PILES OF SHIT ON SHIT! X-Men: Apocalypse? ASPIRES TO BE SHIT! X-Men: Dark Phoenix? CAN ONLY DREAM OF BEING AS GOOD AS COPIOUS PILES OF SHIT! — Ugh. This does not sound promising at all. If I am confident of one thing, Kathleen Kennedy is going to continue her streak of shitty fucking Star Wars films. I still marvel that Rogue One and Solo managed to turn out as well as they did given how the sequel trilogy and the last Indiana Jones movie were mostly SHIT! And while I've enjoyed the Star Wars television shows, only Andor is quality enough that I can honestly say I love it. The rest have great moments, but don't satisfy as a whole. The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and The Acolyte could have been SO much better. And last season of The Mandalorian is tired. I sincerely hope that movie doesn't suck.
• ! Speaking of some of the best Star Wars ever, the second season of Andor has been given a start date: April 22, 2025. So long to go. But I'm confident it will be worth the wait. The first season is some of the best television I've ever seen.
And now I should probably climb in bed and try to get some sleep since I totally failed at it last night.
I miss my mom most days... but her birthday, Mother's Day, and Veterans Day are probably the hardest. Veterans Day because that's when I'd take her to Applebee's Grill every year for her free dinner. It's a really nice thing they do, and I miss it.
Ten years ago I got ran over by a van at the Marseilles airport and ended up with a cracked rib. It was really, really painful. So painful that I thought for sure I had fully-broken ribs but, no. Apparently even a small fracture is enough to put you in agony if you breathe too deep or cough or bend wrong. I don't think it ever truly healed, because there's been a handful of times that I've banged my side or run into something where the pain comes right back.
As I was crawling under the sink yesterday to install my replacement faucet, I fell on the side with my once-fractured rib and... pop. Here we go again. Agonizing pain. I had to take a handful of Advil so I could sleep.
When I woke up this morning, I was groggy and not thinking clearly and rolled over on my side. At which point I terrorized the cats because I let out a yelp. Yep. Still in pain. But that was nothing compared to the pain of what I discovered when I was cooking dinner tonight.
My new faucet either A) Had the cold line label on the wrong line... or B) the temperature handle on this new faucet is the opposite of how every faucet I've ever used operates (including my previous Kohler faucet that this Kohler faucet is replacing). When I pull forward, it's hot instead of cold.
And, yes, I know which lines are which. Not only does the hot line have the dishwasher water supply coming off it it, I made sure that I had the right line by running hot water through it and feeling the pipe. I am nothing if not cautious and thorough when it comes to stuff like this.
I am understandably outraged.
Once I'm able to climb back under the sink without my ribs making me want to cry, I'll have to switch the lines. If I hadn't gotten used to having it backwards by then.
=sigh=
It's always something.
As I mentioned yesterday, I was mad that the new faucet I bought was opposite in operation from the faucet that it replaced... despite being the same brand, Kohler! It was also opposite of every other single-handle faucet I've ever used where the HOT water is away from you and the COLD water is nearest to you. Which only makes psychological sense, because you'd want the more dangerous option to be the furthest away.
I thought I might be crazy in my expectations, so I posted the following photos to Facebook and asked which they would expect to dispense hot water. The overwhelming majority said that the left photo was the correct photo.
Except when it comes to the dipshits at fucking Kohler, where it's not.
A part of me wonders how shit like this happens. Is there like one designer guy who makes all the decisions and just doesn't give a shit? There's no quality assurance person there to say "Whoa! All our other faucets have the hot water dispensed when the handle is away from you! Let's fix that!"
I still don't know if I will swap the lines to the opposite way that they've been marked on the hoses. I'll wait until my ribs are mostly healed again to decide. Though I suppose I should ask fucking Kohler if there's some ramification from correcting their stupid fucking mistake by switching things up. Could be that there's a special gasket for the hot water and running it through the cold water part will void your warranty or some such stupid bullshit.
And now I'm fucking furious all over again.
This is bullshit.
I didn't grow up eating "exotic" foods. Which is not a criticism... so many memories of meals I loved growing up. One of my favorites was my mom's Spanish rice. I can remember watching her make it, but I have no idea what was in it. It wasn't at all spicy (which was perfect for me at the time) but it had a deliciously tomato sauce taste that was great. I have tried dozens of recipes for "Spanish rice" over the years, but have never duplicated the taste that's burned into my brain. Maybe one day.
Once I became a vegetarian in 1986 my meal options were radically reduced. The majority of foods I ate were meat-based, and finding alternatives was a never-ending pursuit (such as using rice instead of beef in tacos). Ultimately I had a very small set of foods that I kept coming back to over and over.
But then I started traveling quite a bit.
Suddenly I was exposed to all kinds of vegetarian foods I had never eaten before. Heck, many of them I had never heard of before. One of the most important to come along? Falafel. I fell in love with it instantly, and have been eating it constantly ever since. It was an introduction to spices I'd never had, and over the years I've made my food spicier and spicier. Using more and different spices I come across. Now I've got quite a collection...
And while I bought falafel mixes to start, now I make my own spicy falafel that I love...
But because you have to soak the chickpeas overnight (canned doesn't hold together, you have to start from dried). So a lot of times I found myself craving falafel I wasn't able to make it. Which is why I now freeze the stuff in bags so I can fry it up any time...
I don't have money to spend for Black Friday this year, but I'm going to try and find a vacuum sealer so that freezer burn doesn't reduce the life of my frozen falafel because of freezer burn.
Though I do make it spicy, so a little freezer burn probably won't be noticed.
As it should be.
In the absence of action there is indifference. Even if people pretend otherwise.
And pretend they do.
I've been going back through my old "Best Of" entries for my favorite television and movies of the year since I started making them. It's a great way to get ideas of what I might want to watch while waiting for new shows to release or new episodes of shows I've been watching.
It's been fun. Because every time I tune in I know it'll be something I'll enjoy.
The show that keeps surprising me every time I re-watch it is Watchmen. The brilliant sequel-series to the brilliant comic book is far, far better than it had a right to be. I think I love it more every time I see it...
This list of shows that make me want to rewatch them all over again the minute I finish the last episode are so few.
And if you would have told me that this would have been one of them, I wouldn't have believed you. I mean, what shot did it have?
Last Thursday night Princess Jenny woke me up crying her head off at 1:30am. Jake was already sleeping at the end of the bed and I didn't know she left. So I called down to her because apparently she forgot where my bedroom is (something they BOTH do, often) and she comes running in for pets.
She's had what I'm guessing are "bad dreams" since she was a kitten, and sometimes she wakes up in a panic where she cries like this. According to my Apple Watch, I petted her for 15 minutes before falling asleep again, and the security cameras show she wandered back down shortly after. BUT HERE'S THE THING... Jake followed her down...
And though I don't have a camera on the warming pads, I'm pretty sure he laid down with her for the rest of the night, because they both left at the same time, which they usually only do if one of them is next to (or on top of) the other. That's kinda sweet, isn't it?
I've had the kitty igloos out for a while now just in case Fake Jake is trapped outside and needs a warm spot to hang out. I've been recording some strange temperature fluctuations I can't explain, so I finally put a camera in there to see what's going on. Apparently nothing. Although... I don't think this is Fake Jake...
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was worried Jake has a touch of arthritis, so I've been making some changes to (hopefully) make his life a little easier as he gets older. One of the things I did was order some ramps for the Litter-Robots. But here's the thing... every time I saw the cats using the toilet, they were leaping over the stairs! They weren't using them at all! So I set up the security cameras to keep an eye out and, sure enough, Jenny started using the stairs in short order...
Eventually Jake too has realized that using the stairs won't hurt him, and it does look easier for him, so I'm thinking it was money well-spent.
Winter is finally here because there was a dusting of snow on the ground when I woke up this morning, but I can't be out rolling around in it... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Betty Gets Stamped! Betty White is getting her own postage stamp in 2025!
I'm happy that they used a photo of her when she was older since that's how most people would recognize her. But they could have done a set of four with Betty through the ages since her career has been so long and varied... just sayin'.
• Happy! I want so badly to see Piece By Piece but the price to buy it is still the in-theater price of $25... so I guess I'm waiting a minute. But, come on, doesn't this Pharrell Williams doc look incredible? Genius, really...
If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that we need more LEGO documentaries like this.
• On The Bayou! Walt Disney World's Splash Mountain has been re-themed into Tiana's Bayou Adventure for a while now, and at last Disneyland's has been transformed as well...
As I said when I took a look at Orlando's ride, I think this was a bit of a missed opportunity in that they should have told the story of the film Princess and the Frog, but they didn't. So that means beloved characters like Ray (not to mention one of Disney's best villains, Dr. Facilier) are missing. That's a darn shame.
• Bug Reports! I've lost count of the number of times that I've reported a bug to Apple that they never address. Whenever you receive an email with a meeting link and click "ACCEPT" to let the sender know that you'll be there, the message is immediately deleted. And, no, it's not because Apple Mail adds it to your calendar with the meeting link. It's because Apple Mail IS A BRAIN-DEAD PILE OF SHIT AND NOBODY AT APPLE GIVES A FUCK!
It is absolutely abhorrent how Apple never seems to care about people trying to do actual work with their stupid shit. I have been reporting this same bug for fucking years now.
• Cheap Danger! You should probably watch this video. It's a sign of what's going to be coming in other industries. Corporations raking in BILLIONS of dollars yet refusing to pay anything to keep workers and customers safe, because there's no repercussions. And now there will be even less, because the next administration has made it very clear that they're going to continue to put corporations over people...
This is going to cost lives. Not even a question.
• Justice! NEWSFLASH: American livestreamer indicted in South Korea over offensive antics. Oh noes. I sure hope that nothing happens to him while he's doing time for being one of the worst people on the face of the fucking planet. He's been terrorizing and disrespecting people, places, and important things for what seems like forever. The number of heinous things he's done is so long that I'm shocked he hasn't been banned from all of Asia. Maybe it's forthcoming.
And now we return to Winter, already in progress.
Denis Villeneuve's Dune (Parts One and Two) is a masterpiece of storytelling, beautifully adapting one of my favorite novels that was largely declared "unfilmable." Even after it was filmed by David Lynch, whom I thought actually did a great job given that he only got one movie and was limited by the special effects of the day. Villeneuve's success had HBO Max salivating at the idea of adapting more material in the hopes of giving them another massive Game of Thrones sized hit. And in that respect, Dune is perfect because it's got the same Great Houses shenanigans that was the hallmark of Thrones.
Dune was Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones existed.
The six-part series we're getting is Dune: Prophecy, and it seems to be based on the book Sisterhood of Dune as written by Frank Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, along with Kevin J. Anderson. It's been a long time since I read the novel, but it still seems like there's a lot of changes going on. Which I'm indifferent to since I wasn't a huge fan of any of the prequel books that I read.
The first episode debuted last night and was pretty good. Though it's mostly just putting all the players on the chessboard in a time period 10,000 years before Paul Atreides existed, and the universe is in turmoil after the war with the thinking machines. We did get a teaser of what's to come, and it looks like it might be darn entertaining...
At least HBO is putting some serious money into the show. Much of it is beautifully realized and comes off looking like a million bucks. Or, more likely, tens of millions of bucks. The scenes are highly detailed and the cast (lead by the always excellent Emily Watson with equally good appearances by Mark Strong and Olivia Williams) is capable.
If I have a criticism, it's that they sometimes don't seem to know what the heck to do to move the story forward. A glaring example is when the Princess Ynez heads off to a nightclub with her brother to do drugs, and it's like... a nightclub? Seriously? It drives me crazy when writers just kinda give up on thinking of anything exotic, new, or interesting, and instead just slap a nightclub from earth into their bullshit. And least the cantina scene in the original Star Wars tried to be exotic, new, and interesting. Dune Prophecy just gives up completely right out of the gate.
So... all-in-all... a pretty solid start to what will hopefully be a solid show.
For the life of me I don't understand why "smart home" technology is so fucking brain-dead.
Companies have been working on this shit for years. I started with Apple Homekit. But it was so horrendously fucking shitty that I abandoned it within a week. I then moved on to a piecemeal system where I bought the best parts from each manufacturer, then used a half-dozen apps to control everything. Sure the parts couldn't work very well together, but at least they worked! Eventually I took a leap with INSTEON, and it was pretty great. everything worked together and things happened practically instantaneously (hence the name). It was perfect. Until it was discontinued.
At which point I went back to Apple HomeKit. Even though nothing had changed. Once HomeShit, always HomeShit. Everything was slow. Scenes and actions were glacially slow. After living with INSTEON, this was torture.
But I bought into it because it was promised that eventually HomeKit would transition to the new "Matter" smart home standard, which was a massive initiative by dozens of smart home companies that would guarantee everything would work together. To be sure I could jump onboard, I made doubly-sure that everything I bought was able to be upgraded to Matter when the time came. This meany mostly buying everything from Eve Smart Home.
After waiting and waiting and waiting, Eve made their motion sensors the first device that could be upgraded to Matter. So I grabbed one of the two sensors I owned, did the upgrade, and... fail. It was bricked. Wouldn't work any more. Nothing I tried would bring it back, so I put it in a drawer, said several curse words, and resigned myself to sticking with HomeKit, no matter how fucking shitty it is.
Until last week.
I grabbed that motion sensor out of the drawer and attempted to bring it back to life. And failed again and again. Then I found a comprehensive list of things people did to get their device working again after upgrading to Matter and tried them. Nothing worked. So then I decided to try all the suggestions at the same time.
I shut down all my HomeKit hubs. I made sure my router was able to process IP6 addresses then rebooted it. I rebooted my phone. Then I started my preferred HomeKit hub (my AppleTV). Then I pulled up my Eve Matter ID number for the motion sensor... and... there we go. I was able to add it back to my HomeKit configuration.
I shudder to think how much time I wasted on this stupid bullshit.
And so now I've given up on Matter. It's far, far more trouble than it's worth, so I just don't give a crap any more. HomeKit may be flakey as hell, but it mostly works, and since that's the best I can hope for, I guess I'm done.
Which brings me back to the question of the decade: Why is it so damn difficult to get a smart home system to work and stay working?
Maybe one day a company will finally figure it out. But right now I'd be happy with something that was better than what we've got now.
This morning a so-called "Bomb Cyclone" (AKA "Winter Hurricane") slammed into Washington State. I'm across the mountains from the coast so it wasn't anything I needed to worry much about, but it did give us the first serious snowfall of the season. Things Seattle-side were a bit more dire as high winds, heavy rains, and power outages (600,000 people without electricity) were the order of the day. Then tomorrow night the forecast says we get to do it all over again, this time with blizzard conditions in the mountains.
As I'm typing this the snow has turned to rain, which is strange this late into November. I remember when our first serious snow used to happen late October and run through March. Now it's more late November through February or early March. Climate change is a heck of a drug.
In non-Judgement-Day-related weather news...
And now back to hoping that my gutter drainpipes are clear and the drainage pads are directing water away from my foundation properly. I gave them a quick look-over, but if the rain really does end up being problematic tomorrow night, that's probably not good enough.
Story of my life.
I've spent every day this week wishing the week was over. That's no way to live, but it's the best I can do. Fortunately I only have one more day of the week before all my wishes come true.
Ive been watching Niall MacMillan do his awkward POV reacts for a while. And while they're always amusing, this was the first time I've LOL'd at one...
The guy is definitely a pro at reacting by now... but it's his kid's reaction here that slayed me.
More information out of Disney today over their Walt Disney World expansion plans to counter Universal Studios unleashing Epic Universe.
As had long-been surmised, they are indeed plowing under Muppet's Courtyard in Disney's Hollywood Studios to make room for the new Monstropolis "land" based on Monsters, Inc. There was always hope that Disney would find another place for their plans and preserve the last project Jim Henson personally worked on (MuppetVision 3d) but, alas, it was not to be. Apparently Disney is looking into options to preserve the film, but the film doesn't work without the theater so I have no idea how they're going to do that.
As a consolation prize, Aerosmith's Rockin' Roller Coaster is going to transition into Muppet's Rockin' Roller Coaster which leads to an entirely new group of questions...
© Disney
Primary of which is this... you're putting The Muppets on a rather intense roller coaster? Aren't kids going to want to ride that? Won't they be shocked to discover that Kermit and Miss Piggy aren't promoting a kid-friendly attraction? Will parents even be warned that this isn't a kiddie coaster? No idea. I also question The Muppets being next to Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, but they had Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy next door for years, so who knows? Apparently theming has gone out the window at the Disney parks. Except to say that the new Disney Villains that replaced the Cars show isn't quite so bad a fit.
But back to Monstropolis which, admittedly, looks very cool...
© Disney
Back when speculation was running hot that Muppet's Courtyard wasn't long for this world, I was perplexed as to why they didn't come up with a new Star Wars Original Trilogy ride to sit between Star Wars: Star Tours and Galaxy's Edge (AKA "Star Wars Land")...
Map and Satellite Image © Google
I understand wanting to keep Galaxy's Edge an immersive experience, but come on... you could have a new Star Wars ride to link them together at least. Then put Monstropolis in the parking lot back there...
Map and Satellite Image © Google
It's getting increasingly disappointing how Disney doesn't seem to give a shit about their parks telling a story and being consistent in their theming. They could have bit the bullet and put Monstropolis above Toy Story Land so that the Pixar stuff was together, but no. They could have put a new Muppets attraction in the Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy building and built a new Muppets area around the re-theme of Rockin' Roller Coaster , but no. They could have saved the Disney Villains stage show for the new Disney Villains Land, but no. They could have made even a tiny effort to bridge the two Star Wars areas, but no. There's absolutely zero shits given about maintaining any illusions of immersion. It's just shoe-horn shit in anywhere you want so long as it's got Disney Intellectual Property slapped on it and who gives a fuck?
There are so many things that I think would disappoint Walt Disney about the way his vision for Disney World have been laid to waste. He wanted the parks to keep growing and changing so they were always relevant and reflecting emerging technologies. But there's a way to do that and preserve the idea that you're escaping into other worlds and not just visiting attractions in a theme park.
Disney Parks has so badly lost their way, and these new projects will be a point of no return for the idealogy that's made them so good for so long. Sure they're going to have some killer rides... but that isn't always everything.
Kitty News! Kitty News! It's time for Kitty News!
Alas, we have to start with Jake being a bad kitty. My cats know... they know... that they are not allowed on the kitchen countertops. It's the only area of the house they can't go, because I'm a kitchen clean-freak. But, well, they're cats, and so it's not like I can trust them. So I have two security cameras with a countertop "zone" that will alert me if there's movement there. My interior cameras turn off when I'm home except these two, because I want those alerts.
This past week Jake has been ignoring the countertop rule, and I don't know why. The first time was this past Wednesday. I'm at work, I get an alert, I tune in and see this...
So I use the microphone to yell at him, he jumped off, and I thought that would be the end of it for a while.
Then it happened again on Friday.
And then this morning I wanted falafel for breakfast. It happens. After frying it up, I let the oil cool so I can strain it and use it a couple more times. But do you know what happened after it had cooled a bit? JAKE JUMPED ON THE COUNTER AND STARTED DRINKING THE OIL! GAAAAHHH! The little shithead! Not only can't I use the oil again, I have to worry if the oil is going to do anything other than make sure Jake shits out his hairballs easier. GAAAAHH!!!
After chasing him off the countertop, he scampered upstairs IN SHAME! That lasted all of ten minutes before he was downstairs laying next to me expecting pets...
Jenny, on the other hand, has been an angel...
She may insist on a foot massage sometimes, but she's still an angel...
Except... when she wakes me up at 12:30am wanting attention and I can't fall back asleep for 2-1/2 hours...
Now, to be fair, Jenny has woken up from what I'm assuming are nightmares since she was a kitten. And this is likely what the situation was. Because the minute I turn the light off at night to go to bed, she immediately hops off the bed and runs downstairs (Jake goes to the end of the bed and sleeps there). So she better not be waking me up for a foot rub!
Meanwhile in the kitty igloo shelter...
The Mystery Cat, whom we're pretty sure is not Fake Jake, is still showing up as it gets colder and colder at night...
But this cat isn't the only visitor. The neighbor's dog is curious about the new intruder's scent...
And that's your Kitty News update.
Snowy weather may have kept me from working in the yard today, but it didn't keep me from blogging... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Garbage! Remember how I was chuffed to bits that I managed to get everything in my garage put away so I have a dry place to park this Winter? This past Wednesday I realized that I forgot to leave room for my garbage can. In the Spring and Summer months I keep it outside because the heat makes it smell and I don't have to worry about trudging through snow to get to it. But now is when it's far smarter to have it inside, so I had to spend an hour rearranging all my junk so it would fit. WHY, LORD? WHY IS LIFE SO HARD?!?
• More Hallmark Than Hallmark! I lost access to Hallmark Channel, so I haven't seen any new movies in a while. Which is a wild adjustment for me to be making considering how I watched every new movie they ever released. But I can still enjoy the parodies, and this couple has some that are better than most...
This one is even more hilarious...
It's funny. But entirely accurate.
• XXX! I hate having my time wasted. And an increasing cause of time being wasted are companies adopting technology, then abandoning it without shutting it down. I bought a new Whirlpool oven. There's a Photoregister service where you can take a photo of a code and text it to register your product. But even though my photo is perfectly legible, I get the error "Sorry, we were unable to read that. Please reply with the code on the bottom of the camera icon."
I blurred out the number at the end because I don't know if having my serial number out there causes problems, but you can see how crisp and perfectly clear the number is in the image by the first three numbers
So I scream then enter the code manually, double-check I have it right, AND GET THE SAME FUCKING ERROR. Jesus. How is this useless fucking technology helping your customers? Just give me a fucking QR code for manually registering to begin with.
• Buggy Bugs! iPhone: You've Got Mail! Except when I click it tells me I don’t. This happens CONSTANTLY. It has been reported as a bug for years...
And yet Apple, with their billions of dollars, refuses to allot resources to fix it.
• Doon Episode Two! The money that HBO must be dumping into Dune: Prophecy is astounding. This series looks better than most movies. Everything from the sets to the costumes to the incredible special effects... it's so very cool that they're making sure the show has the budget it deserves. It's like they can feel that this has the potential to be their next Game of Thrones and they're doing what they can to make it happen. The preview for Episode 03 has me seriously bemoaning that we're only getting six episodes...
I choose to look at it as a very long movie instead of a short season. Here's hoping that they reeeeeally stick the landing on this one so we get a second season.
• WELP! Apple's "Apple Intelligence" ad campaign has been about the stupidest thing I've ever seen. It's not a tool to help you be more productive... it's a badly-implemented crutch for people who are lazy morons! This sums it up nicely...
Maybe eventually AI will become something I give a shit about, but from what we've got right now I'm more embarrassed than impressed.
• Start with Garbage, End with Garbage! And, speaking of AI, I can't believe that Adobe has their Stock Images defaulting to AI-Generated images being ON by default. If I wanted an AI-generated image, I'd go to a fucking AI-art generating tool. I wouldn't go to a stock art website. God this company has turned into the absolute fucking WORST. I just accidentally bought an AI-generated image because I didn't see the little "AI" tag they don't add until you hover over it. Well, sorry, I don't support that bullshit personally, and I certainly don't tie it to my place of employment where people would rightfully bash them for stealing photos and art. Lord. If you're going to sell this shit, default to it being OFF... and make the damn disclaimer tag be permanent and not turning off and on based on where your mouse is...
This isn't rocket science. Any guesses as to whether or not my excluding AI will stick and be permanent?
Back to watching the snow fall on this very snowy day.
I was happy to see that there was a new Thomas Flight on Film video released today. This time it's about one of my favorite aspects to the art of filmmaking: cinematography.
My favorite cinematographer is Roger Deakins. There are not enough words to describe my joy and love of his work. He used to be my #2 pick (the guy is an absolute legend, and movies like The Shawshank Redemption, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and numerous others is why), but then the James Bond flick, Skyfall, was released and he jumped to my #1 spot...
AND THEN a miracle happened. Blade Runner 2049 came along, the most beautiful movie I've ever seen, and it made me wish I could move him higher than #1... maybe he's #0 now?
Blade Runner 2049 is simply mindblowing in its beauty. Every shot is like a work of art from start to finish...
And, yes, Deakins made Flight's list. How could he not?
If you're into film, the video is worth a watch...
I'm betting Deakins makes a lot of movie fans' lists.
I have less than zero desire to see Wicked: Part One because I am not a fan of musicals. Sure there are some I've managed to enjoy (Xanadu and Grease to name two?) but they're just not for me.
That being said... the technical breakdown of this scene is incredible...
I will likely see the movie on streaming just for the sets (which are real, not CGI!) and production values.
I infamously passed on seeing Hamilton with the original cast (I know, I know) but caught that on streaming, so... yeah... I can do Wicked.
There's something that grinds my gears so bad... and that's somebody "reacting" or "reviewing" or "outright stealing" content for their posts. If you're going to build off of somebody else's work, then you give credit where credit is due. Anything less than that makes you a shitty fucking person.
I ran across this earlier in the week where YouTube recommended a "reacts" video where somebody played a different creator's video in its entirety, halting to inject a comment from time to time. Which is bad enough because they never really added to the conversation, BUT THEY DIDN'T CREDIT THE ORIGINAL CREATOR! Instead I had to track them down.
Turns out it's a British guy named Lawrence who moved to the USA and has a channel called Lost in the Pond. He makes videos which contrast the USA with the UK and it's pretty interesting. Take this one, for example...
That one is more factual, but most of them are more observational...
Many videos feel like they took some research to pull off, like this one which explores American things that are actually British...
But don't worry, he went the other way in his very next video where he explored British things that are actually American...
Now, for me at least, the content "creator" who took one of Lawrence's videos without crediting him has been blocked, whereas Lawrence has a new subscriber. I would have probably subscribed to both if not for the fact the original guy DIDN'T GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT WAS DUE!
Blessed as I am, it's easy to find things to be thankful for.
But there's a lot of baggage that comes with this American Day of Thanks. Personally for sure, but also as a country. That's something that all too often gets overlooked and it really shouldn't.
This remains my favorite take on it all...
The two Addams Family movies are genius. I don't know why we never got a third with that incredible cast.
In past years I saved up my money all year long so I could take advantage of all the great Black Friday deals. Mostly clothing, but there was always something cool in there too.
But this year? I've got essential expenses that have to put ahead of clothes and cool stuff. I have plenty of clothes and cool stuff. What I need is a new water shut-off valve! And because my home was designed by a sadist, it's not going to be cheap. It looks like they installed the plumbing for that, then built the wall around it! And they used the absolute worst option... a gate valve. Should have been a ball valve. The plumber is going to have to rip open the wall, desolder the joints, then rebuild the plumbing outside of the wall so they can get it to work properly. And I'm spending a couple hundred extra to get a "smart ball valve" that can automatically turn the water off if there's a burst pipe or a leak. Money well-spent considering I've already had to deal with a leak once.
Alas, all that's something that doesn't get put on sale for Black Friday.
Jenny's default mode of existence when it comes to sharing her house with me is apparently "STOP TRYING TO KILL MEEEEEE!!!" She runs away in terror when I dare approach her. Because, oh no, she is the one who will approach me... assuming she feels like it. And God forbid you dare to try and reach out to touch her. Unless she approaches and demands to be petted, it just isn't done.
But somehow this just endears me to her more, because she's 110% a little princess, and any interactions with her are strictly on her terms.
Jake is more aloof, not bothering to move as I approach unless he's in weird panic mode... and willing to be petted without an invitation.
This past week when I was away for Thanksgiving, all their needs are met by feeding robots and litter box robots. I can check in via security cameras whenever I think about it (which is often) but they don't really need me for anything unless the food in the feeders runs out or the waste drawer in the litter box fills up.
And yet...
Jake misses me when I'm gone for work. He really misses me when I'm away from home. When he hears the garage door open, he runs to the bottom of the stairs where he'll wait for the pass-door to open... then make sure that it's actually me and not a rogue cat murderer stopping by... then come running to get petted. A lot.
Jenny, naturally, hides upstairs until she feels that Jake hasn't been cat murdered, then saunters down some time later.
At which point she'll decide if I'm allowed to touch her.
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