Why is good American cheese such an expensive commodity?

I can get Colby-Jack, Swiss, Provolone, Havarti, Muenster, Pepper Jack, and a variety of Cheddars (along with many others) at ridiculously low prices for slices. I got an 8oz. Package on sale for $1.79 not too long ago, and don't think I've ever paid over $2.50. But if I want American Cheese of an equal quality (none of the individually-wrapped crap that's not real cheese and tastes like plastic), it's $4.50 to get 8oz. of Kraft American Deluxe... or even $6.00 to get 8oz. of more premium brands...

And I don't get it.

American cheese that's real cheese is just a blend of cheeses mixed with sodium citrate to make it creamier. So why is it double the price? It seems absurd. But American cheese is the best-melting stuff you can buy for a burger, so I end up paying the price because nothing else quite compares.

And the Big Cheese Cartel knows that, so they are able to charge big money knowing people will pay it.

I should probably switch to Cheddar or Colby-Jack to save my hard-earned cash.

My eye is still feeling a bit bruised after surgery, but that's not the problem.

The problem is that it's like I've been punched in the eye. Not from pain, but from swelling on my lower lid... even though there's no swelling. Instead it's more like a haze along the bottom (because the tear was at the top and things get reversed in your eye... our brains switch things right-side up).

Eventually my brain will be able to eliminate the haze at the bottom from the top and the chunk floating at the top from the bottom. At least I hope so.

It's tiring having to concentrate all day long to see... though, oddly enough, it's difficult to actually fall asleep. And so I've been falling asleep to my Disney movie collection each night. Last night was The Rescuers and tonight I'm watching The Emperor's New Groove...

This is a criminally underrated movie.

Especially since it features Eartha Kitt's delightful villain, Yzma, who steals the film at every turn...

The rumor is that the big coaster in "Villains Land" has been re-imagined to be an Yzma coaster. I sure hope that's true, because I can't imagine a better source material for an attraction.

Happy Birthday tomorrow, America!

Just a reminder that here in the Land of the Free™©® you can be straight-up executed by the government for holding a mobile phone and trying to assist your fellow Americans when they require aid from being shoved to the ground by those who are supposed to be protecting us. Then the president will accuse you of being a domestic terrorist because you had a firearm on your person that you were legally allowed to carry (as guaranteed by the Second Amendment), even though it remained holstered. Then the government will tell lies about you having drawn your weapon and announce that you deserved to die even though video footage exists, and the only thing you were holding was your phone. Then the government agents responsible for murdering you in broad daylight will get put on "administrative leave." But, woo-hoo, fireworks or what the fuck ever.

Instead of attending some tacky, unattended, bloated, partisan, for-profit event that's a drain on American taxpayers for America's 250th, I'll be celebrating American heroes who embody the best ideals of what our country could be. Like a 37-year-old intensive care nurse working to help our veterans who put himself between a woman who had been attacked... and the federal agents who shoved her to the ground. At which time he was pepper-sprayed then executed by the government as he tried to help her. Then he was vilified and branded a terrorist by the head of the government, despite the fact that he had done nothing illegal or wrong.

He was just an American trying to enjoy the freedoms which were at the heart of the entire reason this country was built in the first place. And he was a helper...

This country was better with you in it, Alex Pretti.

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans!

This is an awful day for pet owners, because the fireworks will be traumatizing cats, dogs, and the rest all night. I think that they've been banned here this year because they don't want another fire raging in the heat we've got going on, but that never stops everybody. There's always people who will ignore it all and fire them off anyway...

When I bought my home, the previous tenant left a Speed Queen industrial washer and dryer. I was going to replace them with something cool and modern, but a friend told me I would be a fool to throw out tough, reliable, industrial models for new tech garbage where the electronics are always failing and they break at the drop of a hat. And boy am I glad that I heeded my friend's advice. Those old models just keep going no matter what I throw at them. Their capacity is huge. Clothes get really clean (the mounds of cat hair are no problem). And they are truly built like a tank.

Because I can wash such huge loads of clothing at a time, I often go weeks without washing to save money. And that was the case when I finally washed this past week. I had baskets of clothes sitting out to take up to my room.

Enter my cats.

They were very interested in the piles of clean clothes.

Jake decided he wanted to lay on top of one of the baskets, but it was piled too high. So I sat and watched him grab a single sock... walk across the room... drop it... then go back to get another sock. This time he took a few steps, decided it would be too much work to empty the basket, dropped the sock, then fell asleep on the couch.

Jenny, on the other hand, sniffed around all the baskets for a while, then went upstairs to sleep on my bed.

She could have taken some laundry with her, but did not.

   
• Terrific! You knew it was coming... but it was finally announced that a series starring Mr. Terrific is indeed happening. Which is fantastic given how memorable he was in Superman...

Cannot wait to see it!

   
• Congrats! And so Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married in a massive ceremony at Madison Square Garden. It took quite a lot of people by surprise because they had over 1000 guests. It didn't take me by surprise, because I remember what she said to Graham Norton...

People are saying that they should have had their nuptials at Trump's Freedom 250 America's State Fair because they'd have loads of privacy given that this event has practically nobody showing up. Given how this joyous event has inexplicably pissed off a lot of people, I hope that Tay and Trav are very happy and stay together for the rest of their lives.

   
• Yes, Ma'am! "Babe, take off my underwear..."

Bwah ha ha haaaaaaa!

   
• Shadoe! Are you a Gen-Xer like me? Do you remember Shadoe Stevens? Then here's a TikTok for you, which is a darn cool distraction from the horrors of the day...
UPDATE: Why is TikTok such garbage water? Here's a direct link if the video below is wrong.

I love stuff like this.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Vatican excommunicates conservative SSPX followers — In all honesty, I'm surprised that it took this long. Vatican II ended the year before I was born. The simple truth is that the Catholic Church had to do something to modernize or else they would lose future generations of Catholics who felt that the Holy Church was too far removed from reality for them to stay parishioners. What is even more surprising is that there are still people in this day and age who feel compelled to cling to old doctrine... despite the fact that it was adopted by the Papacy, which cannot in any way be ignored WITHOUT excommunication. Anybody who thinks otherwise really, really doesn't understand the Catholic Church and the powers of the Supreme Pontiff.

   
• Time Damage, Eye Damage! ZOMG! They shut CERN's Large Hadron Collider down on June 29th. DO YOU KNOW WHAT DAY MY RETINA GOT TORN? Okay... it was June 24th... but I had the surgery on June 29th. COINCIDENCE?? I THINK NOT! Clearly the time-altering shenanigans of these "scientists" are responsible for my misfortune. Who can I sue?

   
• Baggage! Domestic carry-on size is 22 x 14 x 9 inches. If your carry-on is 18.9 x 13.0 x 8.3, YOU FAIL because you're not providing maximum space allowed. If your carry-on is 20.5 × 15.5 × 10, YOU FAIL because you're exceeding the maximum dimension in two directions while undersized in another (WTF, Nobl?). It's absolute insanity that luggage companies will call an oversized bag "carry-on" when it's not, and you are taking a huge risk every time you book a flight. Just make your damn domestic carry-on luggage 22 x 14 x 9 and be done with it.

   
Now I'm going back to whining about my eye.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was my View-Master.

In an age before videotapes, DVDs, on-demand programming, and personal computers, it was a way to watch my favorite shows and movies... and travel the world... when such activities were impossible for me.

Last night while I was working I turned on YouTube and ran across this cool video on View-Master which is worth sharing. Especially if you're familiar with the device...

Pretty amazing, right? It opened a new world for an entire generation.

Today was the follow-up to the surgery of my surgery. It went fine. Some fluid build-up under my surgical scar, but it would likely resolve itself. I drove home thinking that I was good for a few more years at least.

Turns out I was off by a few years.

After I got home from work I received a phone call from my surgeon saying that he consulted with another surgeon who spotted another tear on my retina. It was smaller, but should be taken care of. He then told me that the second surgeon also wanted to reinforce the surgery I just had given this new information.

I asked when I could be scheduled.

He said "Can you be here at 11 tomorrow?

Last week I had me some laser eye surgery in order to try and halt a tear in my retina before it ripped through completely. It went fine, my surgeon was great, and I walked away thinking that I'd be okay for a while... until the next time.

Which, as it turns out, was today.

And this time was SO much more painful.

Especially once the anesthesia wore off and I can feel where he jabbed me with the syringe multiple times... and where he had to push on my eye in order to force liquid out from under my previous surgery so he could super-laser it again... and where the laser burned my retina.

I have a high pain tolerance because I'm an alpha male like that, but still had to tap out at least five times because I needed a minute. Not just from having my eyeball pushed into my skull and the burning of my retina, but from the light so my surgeon could see inside... not to mention the laser itself.

But anyway...

THE GOOD: I'm alive, my vision will mostly return, and my surgeon was happy with how things went.

THE BAD: It will take weeks to months for my vision to mostly return... that second tear they found had to be dealt with which prolonged everything... and ... this likely isn't over. It's only a matter of time before I have to go again.

CONTRAST ENHANCE...

In other good news, my third doctor was just as awesome as my previous two. And he appreciated that humor is my coping mechanism. On top of the laser was protective eyewear, and I asked him to give me a pair because I didn't want the laser to accidentally blind me...

This might have been too much for him. But, hey, I was getting crap injected in my eye and having lasers burning my retina. I could have started screaming!

After I was set free I had to take a nap in my car in the parking lot after, but ended up throwing on two pair of sunglasses so I could drive home.

Along the way I had a disastrous visit to McDonald's which I'll talk about tomorrow.

And once I got home, I passed out on the couch.

And here I am. Feeling like I got punched in the eye and there's blurry spots everywhere.

Overall this was not a good time. Do not recommend. Unless you're going to lose an eye... then you probably want to put on your big boy pants and get it done.

It was a rough night. According to my Apple Watch I only got 4-1/2 hours of sleep. I think I kept touching my eye or rolling on it which woke me up.

And when my alarm went off this morning, I was in quite a lot of pain. It feels like I've been punched in the eye. Except I wasn't. My doctor had to press on my eye hard enough to squeeze the liquid out from under my first surgery so he could try and better contain the tear on my retina so it doesn't spread and detach. A half hour of somebody poking your eye out don't feel great once the anesthesia they shoot into it wears off.

My cats must have sensed something was wrong, because I found them next to me whenever I woke up...

   
BUT THAT WASN'T ALL THE PAIN I GOT THIS MORNING!

This was waiting for me in my email in-box...

This is “health insurance” in America.

One health problem has me hitting 75% of my full-price, high deductible... and this doesn’t even include my much more intensive second surgery yet.

The cost for all this will be thousands upon thousands of dollars. It will easily wipe out my health savings account and likely wipe out my regular savings as well. And this is for one eye. Can you imagine if it were something far worse?

I’m just thankful that I have savings to draw from. And, believe it or not, I consider myself lucky to have insurance... because I might not have even been able to afford to go to the doctor in the first place if I didn’t.

Americans are paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for insurance which results in thousands upon thousands of dollars in medical bills.

This is fucking insanity.

Yet politicians who were bought by the insurance lobby tell us we have the best health care in the world.

Why aren’t Americans sick of this fucking scam yet?

After nearly two weeks of eye trauma spoiling my plans, I decided to head over the mountains to hang out with friends and forget about the day-to-day grind for a while.

The drive over was mostly a good one.

I still can't wrap my head around three things...

1. Drivers who have no plans to drive the speed limit, and are happy to be fucking over dozens of other cars by inviting other drivers to dangerously try and pass them (seriously... if you or your car can't go the speed limit, maybe it's time to stop driving).
2. Aggressive drivers who don't care about anybody's safety by driving like complete assholes... even when everybody else on the road is driving the speed limit or higher. One of the people who could end up dead is you, dumbass.
3. Why does the State always have multiple projects fucking things up on the same roadway at the same time? When your two-hour-and-fifteen-minute trip is 40 minutes longer than usual, it's a problem. In other countries (probably in other states) they focus effort on knocking out one project at a time so that they don't have to have many, many stops along a single route. But my state? No.

All that being said... it could have been worse. I could have been going East instead of West. The traffic heading East was insane. Just a massive line for miles and miles. If I were in the middle of that, I'd have to ask myself if the weekender trip was even worth it.

Maybe it's because I am a homebody at heart now-a-days... but for me the answer would be "no."

My cats are at home while I am across the mountains.

They have robots to feed them, robots to keep their litter box clean, and fountains to keep their drinking water clean and cool. There's cameras and alarms and sensors to keep them safe and let me know if there's any trouble.

But all that doesn't matter.

They are 2-1/2 hours away being mad because I'm not there to cater to them.

But don't worry. They'll let me know when I get home.

I'm back home again and ready to collapse after a wild weekend, but hanging on long enough to write this... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts...now...

   
• LEGO Giveth, LEGO Taketh Away... I feel bad for the independent store owners getting caught up in this Bricks & Minifigs drama that has nothing to do with them. But the CEO and every police officer and court official are fucking pieces of shit. Absolute trash. I watched this more than a little shocked...

Just goes to show... might doesn't always come from being right. But I don't need to tell you that.

   
• Filmable! George Eastman, the guy who founded Kodak, is one fascinating guy. As a phenomenally wealthy guy of his day, he was incredibly generous in so many ways. But a bit terrible in others. And I knew none of it until I watched this remarkable video...

And, like so much of history, he's just a small part of a much larger story that came after.

   
• Essential Viewing. Religious freedom is a vanishing breed here in the Land of the Free...

Find. Another. Job. is fucking right.

   
• Hummus! Who knew that it would be Ryan Gosling who would give me a cooking tip that's actually worth knowing...

Will I try it? Yes. Yes I will.

   
• Odysseus! Here's the deal... I have read The Odyssey in both full and abbreviated forms. But I didn't truly understand it until I read Emily Wilson's amazing translation. I was thrilled that her work is what Christopher Nolan based his new film. And this video explains why...

Really can't wait to see it.

   
• He'll Come Again. This week's trending topic... Anne Frank's diary is fake and the Holocaust didn't happen. I honest to God do not understand how we got to this point. I have been to Holocaust museums around the world. The evidence is massively overwhelming. As in unquestionably overwhelming. PHOTOS EXIST OF SOLDIERS LIBERATING THE CAMPS! EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY WAS CAPTURED FOR EVERYBODY TO SEE! — As for Anne Frank's diary being "written in ballpoint pen" years before they were invented, thus the diary is fake... that has been debunked multiple times with various evidence findings being released publicly. The thing that is so fucking terrifying about this is that denying one of the most horrific events in human history just sets us up for it to happen again. I can't believe we're this stupid as a society.

   
• So Long! Do not ask me to mourn the passing of an absolute fucking monster. I won't do it.

   
And now I will take a nap and try to recover.

I have been plugging away on a project at work for nearly six months. It's not so much a difficult assignment as one which is highly complex with a lot of confusing parts. And since I've always got a dozen things going on, sorting through those parts is always getting put on the back burner. Until there was no time left. With a deadline looming, I worked all through the night... reading staggering amounts of documentation and plugging numbers into a spreadsheet in an attempt to understand it all.

And this morning at 2:37am, I finally got a handle on it all.

No idea how I'm going to stay awake tomorrow, but I'm too relieved to worry about it right now.

Dang.

Sam Neil had a lot of great roles over his long career. I think the first time I saw him was as Borodin in The Hunt for Red October, where he had a small but significant role. A role which had the most memorable scene in the entire film for me. After that, he would pop up in oh so many films, his most notable likely being Jurassic Park.

He will very much be missed...

Photo by Ross Coffey via IMDB

I think the last thing I saw him in was Thor: Love and Thunder in a bit part. He was an actor playing an actor playing Odin, but he was immediately recognizable... and a real treat for fans of his work like I am.

Rest in Peace, sir.

There’s a tiny fuzzy spider that lives in my bedroom. He’s never bothered me, so I’ve just let him be.

Once I found him on my bed, but I just shooed him off. I’ve had to rescue him from Jenny twice, which had me worried that she would eat him and throw up everywhere, but he always comes through.

For some reason he is most active in the mornings which is when I usually see him. It’s safer at night, but I have never seen him climbing a wall or anything after the sun goes down.

But then... this morning I got out of bed to feed the cats, and nearly fell trying to avoid stepping on him. It’s a miracle I even saw him he’s so small. It’s only because he was moving that I was able to spot him.

And so... I finally took him outside, where hopefully he’ll be safer and not get stepped on. Here is a photo I snapped before I caught him where he is looking directly at me...

I feel bad that I kicked him out of the house... but less bad than if Jenny ate him out I ended up with his guts on the bottom of my feet.

Good luck, little buddy.

I've had three wasp nest encounters.

The first was at my mom's apartment where I saw a massive nest had been built under her balcony eave. I hated the idea of mass murdering them, but I hated the idea of my mom getting attacked more, so I opened the sliding door a crack, soaked the nest with RAID Wasp Nest Killer, waited a bit, then got a shovel to fling the soaking mass into the field behind the building.

The second was the first Summer after I moved into my home. Wasps had built a small nest outside my bedroom on the second floor. They didn't bother anybody, so I just left it there. I assume that wasps perform some necessary function in nature, so I let them be.

The third time they started building a nest under my front porch. There was absolutely no way I could have them attacking people coming to my home (including me!), so I once again bought a can of wasp killer and tried to kill them while the nest was still under construction and small so the murders would be minimized.

Remember my fuzzy spider roommate I talked about yesterday?

Well now I have three wasps living on my security camera...

It's a NEST camera. And so I guess the wasps decided it was an advertisement to build a new nest there.

I sure hope not.

I went outside to shoo them away, but then I felt it started raining, so I let them be. Maybe they were just hiding from raindrops and not building a NEST nest after all?

I hope so. I really don't want to have to murder any creatures this week.

Having lasers shot into your eye sounds very cool. And, if it's keeping you from losing (more) of your eyesight, it most definitely is.

But not as cool as shooting lasers out of your eyes, surely.

As of today, it looks like I may be done with lasers for a while. The latest imaging shows that the intentional laser damage is scarring over nicely. This will hopefully keep my retina from shredding apart any further. All the green dots in this photo along the top are where lasers burned holes in my eye...

Now it's just a matter of time until I find out how much of my eyesight will come back. The hope is that once the blood which has settled at the bottom is absorbed and all the tissue which exploded has either disintegrated (or my brain learns to ignore it) that I'll be kinda-sorta-mostly visually normal. Whatever that is.

Until then, I see like this...

Which, as you can imagine, is headache-inducing because the spots and blurry bits are always moving around.

It's best if I don't wear my eyepatch so my brain can get a handle on how things are and try to adapt a bit... but it's sometimes easier if I wear it for a while so my head doesn't split open.

In other news, if I ever start a band, it's definitely going to be called Intentional Laser Damage.

I've mentioned a few times how my cats have become increasingly annoyed by my existing in their house, and far more demanding of my time.

This peaked last week when I was upstairs in bed and heard Jenny screaming downstairs. It was so unnerving that I leapt out of bed and went running down to find out if she was hurt. But nope. She was just sitting at the bottom of the stairs demanding that I come down to pet her or feed her (or more likely both).

I pet her for a minute, then told her to follow me upstairs, which she did.

But since I came running once, she did it again on Thursday night... then again last night! Both times I just yelled down to her to come up. Which she did. But she was not happy about it.

In other cat news, I saw this and was immediately struck about the accuracy of it all...
 

Yeah. Though I'd argue that every social media platform is a stunningly safe space for cats.

   
• Licenses for Luddites! Just a reminder that the Washington State government is regressive as fuck when it comes to digital driver's licenses... but is very quick to tout us as a bastion of technology around election time. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell blow through tax dollars like Kleenex for everything else... why not help us keep up with (checks notes) West Virginia and Arkansas on stuff like this. It's fucking embarrassing, and we're tired of having to carry a license around when our phones are already with us. We're nearly half-way through the states who have them. Will Washington get in before #25 hits? Let's take a look at where we're at, shall we?

• Arizona (since March 2022)
• Maryland (since May 2022)
• Colorado (since November 2022)
• Georgia (since May 2023)
• Ohio (since July 2024)
• Hawaii (since August 2024)
• California (since September 2024)
• Iowa (since October 2024)
• New Mexico (since December 2024)
• Montana (since August 2025)
• North Dakota (since September 2025)
• West Virginia (since October 2025)
• Illinois (since November 2025)
• Arkansas (since May 2026)
• Connecticut (coming soon)
• Kentucky (coming soon)
• Mississippi (coming soon)
• Oklahoma (coming soon)
• Utah (coming soon)
• Virginia (coming soon)

Spoiler Alert: Not. Fucking. Likely. If they haven't pulled the trigger by now, they've likely got zero plans. They've got Big Pharma checks to cash, and that takes priority over everything.

   
• Politics in America! Tell me this isn't how politics work here...

You can't. Because this is exactly how politics work here. No bill is passed "clean" any more... there's always some horrific bullshit tacked onto it.

   
• Narrative! Nobody takes the minutes to verify crap like this before sharing it with the world, and nobody who follows them cares if it's true or not... they believe it because they want to believe it.

Yes. Mamdani went to the ruins of the church... AND DEMOLISHED IT WITH HIS OWN TWO HANDS!! That's how much he hates Christians! Jesus Christ. Do these assholes EVER research this bullshit they shovel? There are people who read this crap AND BELIEVE IT!! And they vote. But not in New York... a place THEY HAVE LIKELY NEVER EVEN BEEN.

   
• Cake! "No one’s gotten a cake for me before. I bought my own cake in the middle of the night and blew out my own candles alone." (Here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

It hurts my heart that there are people so cruel that they would want a fellow human be alone for the rest of their life because of who they love. This man found his person and his community. He's hurting nobody by existing. Let him pursue his happiness, celebrate his birthday with people who care about him, and live in peace. For God's sake... just be kind.

   
• "You didn't mention the donkey!" Given the abhorrent state of the world today, I often find myself scouring YouTube for something funny to distract me. And few things are as hilariously distracting as Would I Lie To You...

If you want more, there's a channel right here.

   
• Witchcraft! I love videos which explain science in a way you can understand it without having a science background. This one had me captivated from the start...

Wild stuff. And very cool.

   
Since it's been a full two hours since my last nap, I guess it's time.

I am about as mad as I've ever been.

I've written, re-written, and deleted a post about it too many times to count and I'm exhausted.

I suppose I'll see how it goes tomorrow. Maybe I'll have calmed down by then and think of a better approach that won't be a scorch-the-earth approach.

But I doubt it.

   
Yeah, I'm still so enraged that I can barely form rational thought.

The phrase "taking notice thrice" most commonly refers to a foundational mindfulness technique rooted in Buddhist practice, where an individual mentally repeats an emotion or state three times to detach from it.

And right now I am mentally repeating "rage, rage, rage" in an attempt to detach from it so I can try to get past the all-consuming anger which has been overwhelming me for days.

It's not working.

   
Day four of not being able to stop looking back in anger. I need a drink.

I wrote this entry which I have written twice previously then deleted. Then I decided to sit on it over the weekend.

At which point I just said "fuck it" so I can move on.

I apologize in advance. After this, I will have my regular post about cats tomorrow, happy things I found on the internet on Sunday, and a week all about games! But in the meanwhile... sorry.

Monday morning I woke up and couldn't see the surrounding hillsides. It's wildfire season and the smoke was terrible. I walked outside to empty the trash and the haze immediately caused my eyes to water, my nose to run, and my lungs to itch. I have bad smoke allergies, which meant I had miserable times ahead of me.

But my misery wasn't what caused me to have a total fucking meltdown.

Last week Thursday, U.S. Representative John James of the great state of Michigan posted this...

I thought this was the height of ignorance, and was compelled to comment...

"When my state of Washington catches fire and smoke is blowing into Canada, they send help... not cruel and nonsensical threats. What a terrible neighbor you are."

I didn't unload on the asshole, I just chastised him for having such a bad take on the tragic situation happening to our neighbors to the north. He doesn't represent me or my state, so that's all I had to say on the matter.

But then...

THEN...

The next day the president of the United States of America decided to chime in...

"We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable! I will call the Prime Minister during the day to find out what they are going to do about it. The cost is incalculable! Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal, knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result. This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP"

And I lost it.

This fucking piece of shit does represent me. He represents all Americans.

I then spent the weekend fuming over the fact that people are dying. Animals are dying. Homes are being lost. Livelihoods are being destroyed. And our Idiot in Chief decided the best course of action was to publicly post a predictably stupid, needlessly cruel, and sublimely ignorant statement like this. As if Canada is having a great time at our expense or something.

So I hammered out a rant to post in the morning, then set it aside to review it and post that night. Except I couldn't. I then spent the rest of the week biting my tongue thinking that eventually my anger would subside. Except it didn't.

And here we are.

Last Summer the fires in my area were particularly bad. The company I work for decided to donate some foodstuffs to help out the firefighters risking their lives. Myself and a colleague drove to one of the firefighter camps to unload a truck, at which time I noticed that there was a Canadian flag off in the distance. Turns out that our neighbors to the North saw how bad things were and wanted to help. Their politicians and Prime Minister didn't start unloading tweets threatening tariffs or accusing us of mismanaging our forests or whatever stupid shit our politicians and our president dropped out of their festering asses.

But it gets so much worse.

Five days before the orange piece of shit vomited up his bullshit, Canadian helicopter pilot Nicholas Dale died fighting a fire. IN COLORADO. Which is part of the United States, if you were unaware.

A Canadian lost their life helping us fight our fires less than a week before Trump unloads on his country.

Disgusting.

There's not a day that goes by that I'm not wishing for the repugnant ass in The White House to take a fucking seat and shut the fuck up.

But this past week I wished for it more than usual.