I may be broiling in the Summer heat, but I must be good to blog... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Stranger, Newer! Look, let's just get this out of the way... it is highly unlikely that ANY show is going to eclipse Andor, The Residence, and Poker Face in my #1, #2, and #3 spots for the best television of 2025. They're just too phenomenal. But if any show has a shot at it, that would be Strange New Worlds. It managed to eclipse the original series as my favorite Trek, and the third season looks like more of the awesome I've come to expect...

   
• Cricket! GAH! I've been replacing some of the outlets in my home with Eve smart outlets. This morning I was replacing the outlet for all my television devices because I want to know how much electricity I'm drawing to be sure I'm not overloading the breaker. The outlet ended up having dual black & white wires, which meant the wire nuts that came with the switch were too small. I quickly ran to the electrical kit to get bigger ones while my Uninterruptible Power Supply was beeping angrily because it had no power. As I was running through the garage, I saw a clump of dirt that must have fallen off the gardening tools I was using this morning. I kicked it under the car so I could sweep it up later. BUT THE CLUMP OF DIRT CRAWLED BACK FROM UNDER THE CAR! BECAUSE IT WASN'T A CLUMP OF DIRT, IT WAS THE LARGEST CRICKET I'VE EVER SEEN! After screaming GAAAAAH! I ran into the house for a paper cup to drop over the insect while I wired the outlet so I could get power back to my UPS. Then I slid a piece of board under the cup and took the cricket out to a nice shady spot in the rock wall behind my home. Sorry, cricket, but I don't want you chirping in my home.

   
• Dip! A friend called and asked what I'm up to. After telling her the killer cricket story, I told her I was making my grandmother's chip dip recipe... except I'm using vegan cream cheese instead of regular cream cheese, vegan mayo instead of regular mayo, tamari sauce instead of Worcestershire sauce, and nutritional yeast instead of cheese. Then I add a little ground black pepper and chili powder to help make the taste of the veggie mayo more palatable. She said "If you're changing all the ingredients, you're not really making your grandmother's recipe tho..." And I was like "Well, the lemon juice in it is still lemon juice... I just substitute vegan ingredients for the non-vegan ingredients. Which is most of them, I guess. Which is to say that I'm not actually making my grandma's recipe after all. Except... I totally am, I think.

   
• Big, Bold, and Beautiful! Well this looks wonderful. A movie that's right up my alley...

Doesn't hurt that the cast is so good.

   
• a-ha! I've never understood the one-hit-wonder status for a-ha. Their debut album and lead single Take on Me are great. Love it. Definitely a hit. But they created a lot of amazing music after. Including Holyground, a beautiful song that defies description...

Lead singer Morten Harket has announced he has Parkinson’s disease.

I flew to New York to see the band on their farewell Ending on a High Note Tour (they were only playing NYC and Los Angeles in the USA). After that they slowed down, but I was so happy they actually kept going.

   
• Pick Me! Lock company sues McNally for showing how easy their locks are to pick. They claim that he "altered" their lock. McNally orders a fresh lock and films himself retrieving the lock from an Amazon locker, opening the sealed box of the lock, cutting an aluminum can to make a pick for the lock, then picks the lock... all without the filming being interrupted. The entire video is two minutes and thirteen seconds long...

I laughed and laughed and laughed. Because this lock company just made things far, far worse for their reputation. He should pick one of their locks live during the trial, assuming the lock company is stupid enough to go through with it.

   
• VARIETY NEWS: ‘Andor’ Creator Says Disney Spent ‘$650 Million for 24 Episodes’ and ‘We Fought Hard’ for Money After Being Told in Season 2: ‘Streaming Is Dead. We Don’t Have the Money We Had Before’ — And every fucking cent is on the screen. This is budget filmmaking. Disney should be thrilled that Tony Gilroy handed them 8 feature films at a budget of only $80 million each. Because every three episodes IS the equivalent. And who makes feature films for only $80 million any more that are this fully-realized and have the talent and dazzling special effects that made them this great? Andor is easily one of the best TV series ever made. It’s the best thing to come out of Star Wars period...

Disney should be begging the guy to do more Star Wars. They should be filling a dump truck with money and backing it up into Gilroy’s driveway to get him to do more Star Wars. This series was an absolute gift to Disney, Star Wars fans, and people who relish great storytelling. Fuck the Empire.

   
And now I'm off! Off the internet Because I'm trying to free up space in my garage.