Can you believe that I was actually considering ditching Bullet Sunday and Caturday in 2026? Madness! But fear ye not... because you got a Caturday yesterday and all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Muji! One of my favorite brands is not a brand at all. At least, not a brand like we normally think of brands. When I was going to Japan frequently, I happened across 無印良品... Mujirushi Ryōhin. Which literally translates to "No Brand Quality Products." And that's the long and short of it. There's no branding on any of the products and no logo... their goods have no paid endorsements and no advertising. They just exist simply and beautifully. And they are priced fairly. Back in those days, it was mostly a kind of stationery store. Now they sell just about everything, but the same philosophy permeates every item. Which is why I was so happy to see that one of my favorite YouTube Channels has taken a good look at the company.

Muji is very, very Japanese. To understand the brand is to understand a lot about the Japanese people. And the lovely host of The Science of Products does an amazing job of breaking it all down. Somewhere in the boxes out in my garage are the Muji notebook and pen I bought on my very first trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. I wanted to write down all the weird, wild, and wonderful stuff I was experiencing and came unprepared. My Japanese was terrible, but I could make myself understood. I popped into a hotel in the area I was at, said "Kami to pen wa doko des kamasu ka?," and was given a map with the location nearby. A few days later I found (and fell in love with) "Tokyu Hands," a massive, massive stationery store in Shinjuku. But there's a soft spot in my heart for Muji, a not-brand I still love. One of these days, I need to get to Portland, Oregon and visit the store there. Or, you know, go back to Japan and visit a few of them there.

   
• Akasaka Nooooo! And speaking of... I wanted to locate where I bought my notebook, found it, was curious how far away from my hotel it was, then saw on Google Maps that it was "permanently closed." So I ran to Google and got this: "Yes, the Akasaka Excel Hotel Tokyu permanently closed on August 31, 2023, due to the termination of its lease agreement, after serving Tokyo as a business and tourist hotel since 1969. The closure was announced by Tokyu Hotels (TOKYU HOTELS Co., Ltd.) as part of their company press releases." This is really sad to me, because I would have totally stayed there again if I ever make it back to Tokyo.

   
• Tubs! I needed this...

Aren't animals wonderful? Case in point...

I really need to get me a trash panda.

   
• Bugged! Finally rented Bugonia. I am not a Yorgos Lanthimos fan, but admit he kinda knocked it out of the park with this one. You get a true ending, thankfully, but I have so many questions about what transpired...

Watching the game develop between Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons relied entirely on them selling it as actors... and they did not falter.

   
• Hey Nancy! Good news, everyone! We're mere hours away from me starting to write my all-new all-SEXY version of Nancy Drew! She's solving mysteries by day and breaking hearts by night... and doing both SEXILY this time!

It's only a matter of time before I think of an idea for a new Mickey Mouse and Nancy Drew crossover novel.

   
• Zipf! If you have an interest in languages, then this 20 minute video is for you...

Surprising... but shouldn't really be surprising. If you know what I mean.

   
• Triangle of... Sadness? I wonder if I beseeched Beecher's Handmade Cheese to stop making their cheese in thick triangles and switch to triangle logs if it would do any good? Cutting up thick triangles results in inconsistent piece sizes.

Note on their website that they have cut pieces which you can't cut out of even half their thick triangle... unless you shave down each one of them manually. It's like they know there's a problem already...

I'd probably buy double the amount of my beloved Marco Polo if I knew I could cut it into consistent piece sizes that would fit on crackers.

   
• Smart Dumb Home! For anybody wondering what I ended up doing after I couldn't get Apple's HomeKit HomeShit to recover, I actually did end up deleting about seven devices so I could re-add them and then re-write my Automations. Apple bastards. Those devices wouldn't resolve no matter how many times I rebooted my hubs. Beyond shitty... but at least I didn't have to start over from scratch.

   
And there you go... the first Bullet Sunday of 2026 is in the can.

I may be in desperate need of sleep, but don't you fear about your weekly smattering of bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Seek Shelter! This squirrel got lucky during a storm...

Adorable. But animals usually are.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Young Wisconsin man dies from asthma attack after price of inhaler skyrocketed nearly $500. BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD, PEOPLE!

   
• Fuzzy & Buttered! Am I the only one who freaks out over how sage is fuzzy before you cook it? Delicious delicious sage...

Can't beat it on butternut squash with browned butter poured over the top! Except now my home is going to smell like buttered popcorn for the next two days.

   
• Eight! Eight Dollar Foot Long! Subway is advertising their new "Sub Club" where you buy three foot-longs and get the fourth for free. So I go to the app to find out how much they’ve increased the prices to cover this promotion. A Veggie Delight is $10.69 now. With a free fourth sub, the price ends up being $8.00. This is for a veggie sandwich with extra cheese (because their cheese is whisper thin now, and they stopped putting double cheese on veggie subs years ago). A bun, cheese, and veggies is $8.00... but not now... eventually. — Remember $5.00 foot-longs, which you could get with pricey meat options if you wanted? I wonder how much those subs cost now? This kind of "deal" is such bullshit. I’d rather eat at a place that just gives me a fair price at the start rather than holding my money hostage until I buy enough to get a fourth sub. Yeah, I know a lot of places do this to encourage repeat visits, but $10.69? My burger meal card has initial lower prices which earns you a free meal after ten. That seems a smarter deal because you don’t face sticker shock every time you eat there. $10.69... for a cheese sandwich? Really?

   
• Techflation! This bullshit is getting out of hand...

And here it is in action...

I'd like to know how asshole corporations are justifying this. Assuming they feel the need to. It's all monopolies and collusion from here on out. We've got a government that doesn't give a fuck. On the contrary, the government is being paid to look the other way.

   
• Apple Macintosh Hot Take: It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons. And indeed it is very hard, because it's fucking sloppy. But that's Apple now... fucking sloppy.

   
• Cinematically Real! This is the video that nails it. This is why the Avatar movies work when others abusing technology in film fail...

These movies are pure cinematic spectacle. I cannot wait to see Fire & Ash.

   
And now back to your regularly-scheduled Sunday...

There have been few people in the world of Star Wars which have been more divisive than Kathleen Kennedy, and today it was announced that she is stepping down as the head of LucasFilm. An event which has been a long time coming, because most of the stuff she oversaw didn't really give us anything truly worthy of the franchise.

Most but not all, which we'll get to in a minute.

I'm really hoping that new boss Dave Filoni finds ways of making Star Wars exciting and fresh again.

But anyway... Kennedy took over from George Lucas after his terrible prequel trilogy, and and I thought I'd take a look at all the projects that she was overseeing. Except The Madalorian and Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter, because they haven't come out yet.

THE PHENOMENAL

• Andor Season 01 - If there's anything that Kathleen Kennedy did to make her work at Lucasfilm notable, it was greenlighting one of the best television shows of all time. I don't know how much involvement she actually had (other than giving Tony Gilroy the space he needed to churn out this masterpiece in two parts), but I'm going to give her credit for standing behind the show (and renewing it). This is the best Star Wars to come out of Star Wars since The Empire Strikes Back.
• Andor Season 02 - Ditto.

THE GOOD

• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - This is the film which caught me by surprise. The fact that it works so well given the mess that was going on behind the scenes is some kind of miracle. Plus it gave us Andor.
• The Mandalorian Season 01 - I don't know if it was just that it came along at the right time or what, but everything about Mando is entertaining. Whether it's introducing one of the most meme-worthy, cutest, and all-around cool Grogu (aka "Baby Yoda"), or introducing lore to Star Wars which is actually worthy of remembering, this series gave me hope that the franchise was back.
• The Mandalorian Season 02 - The second season rarely lives up to the first. But this one does. And then we get Bo-Katan and a full-on Jedi Luke Skywalker as the cherry on top of the season.
• Ahsoka Season 01 - It may be because I grew to love the character so much that I was able to overlook some of the problems, but I was quite happy with how the series panned out. If you were a fan of the animated stuff (as I am), this was a no-brainer to watch, and the cast was perfect.
• Skeleton Crew Season 01 - Color me shocked. A Star Wars series built around CHILDREN that's actually GOOD?!? Yes. Yes indeed. I wish that it could have been a bit more imaginative in the settings (seemed very earth-like to me), but it had a cool shades-of-gray mentality about it that made me love it even more.

THE MEH

• Solo: A Star Wars Story - I don't think this movie was quite the disaster that many people made it out to be. Though it should have been. Phil Lord and Chris Miller departed, Ron Howard stepped in, and it still ended up being mostly coherent! Yes, things would have likely been stronger if either team had been given the entire project, but I enjoyed it enough to overlook the flaws. Especially since we got Daniel Glover as Lando, which is brilliant, brilliant casting.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi Season 01 - I love Ewan McGregor's take on Obi-Wan. Unfortunately, he's been given nothing but terrible material and has had to make the best of it. When his mini-series arrived, I was so frickin' optimistic. And it turned out that the guy was having to elevate shallow material again! Even with the problems and nonsense, I still liked this show enough to keep watching. And I guess that's something.
• The Acolyte Season 01 - Despite having some killer fight scenes (seriously, some of the best in Star Wars lore), this show really fell short in the story department. And yet... I still enjoyed some of it. I liked that it was a darker take on the Jedi Order. I liked that the heroes and villains were shades of gray instead of black-and-white. The cast was great and everything was entertaining... until you get to the whole "Force Witches" angle, which was so badly done that it sabotaged everything. A lot of people review-bombed the show because it was female-forward. But this was a non-issue to me, and I thought there were far more critical things to be critical about. I am very sad that the show didn't do well enough to give Manny Jacinto's Qimir another series.
• The Mandalorian Season 03 - It's not that the third season was bad, it's just that it was a big drop from what I was expecting after the awesome first two seasons.

THE BAD

• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - Here it is. The last movie with the original Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones that there will ever be. Gotta make it a great story and an even greater film. Right? RIGHT? Nope. While marginally better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and possessing some good moments, this it still a bad film.
• The Book of Boba Fett Season 01 - Turns out there wasn't enough Boba Fett in his own show. Or maybe there was, it's just that his storyline was so boring, uninspired, and didn't give us anything interesting, so it just seemed that way. This should have just been another season of The Mandalorian. Maybe Season 2.5 or something. That way, they could have just focused on what they were good at and had Boba Fett guest-appear in an interesting way. Certainly more interesting than anything we got here.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens - This probably deserves to be a "meh" rated movie, but I watched it again recently and it's just not that good. Though there are some really good moments. And I liked the actors who were cast as Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo... all of whom manage to build compelling characters. Where things fall apart is the story timing. How are Rey, who's not been trained as a Jedi, and Finn, who's not a Jedi, even remotely able to put up a fight against Kylo Ren? Senseless.
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi - As a massive Rian Johnson fan, I was thrilled when he got a Star Wars movie handed to him. But it turns out even a genius can't pick up the broken pieces of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and get greatness out of it. And he made some seriously bad choices here that kinda sabotaged his film. Primary among them would be "Space Leia," which was laughably stupid (and don't get me started on the entire Canto Bight crap). There were bright spots though. "The Holdo Maneuver" made zero sense logistically, but was a visual treat. More eye-candy like that and I probably wouldn't have minded the sub-par story so much? I dunno.

THE GUT-WRENCHINGLY AWFUL

• Willow Season 01 - I couldn't get past the first episode. No, I wasn't a huge Willow fan to begin with, but this was so badly conceived and implemented that I don't understand what Kennedy was thinking when she greenlit it. Who was it for? The script needed serious work, and allowing it to proceed without another couple of passes is a failing.
• Galaxy's Edge Disney Park Land - Out of all the bad decisions that can be left at Kathleen Kennedy's doorstep, this is the one that blows my mind. Disneyland and Walt Disney World are going to build huge new lands. Imagineers wanted them to be a celebration of the Star Wars that everybody loved. Apparently Kennedy shot that idea down and insisted that they be built around the sequel trilogy instead. No Darth Vader. No Luke Skywalker. No Princess Leia. No R2D2 & C3PO. Instead we get Rey, Kylo Ren, and who-the-fuck-ever. AND THEN... yesterday it was announces that Disney was bringing the original trilogy characters to Galaxy's Edge as they should have done in the first place. And it's about fucking time. I can only guess this was supposed to be announced after Kennedy's stepping-down was announced and somebody goofed. It's crazy that she thought ditching the characters that made Star Wars be Star Wars in favor of the new characters that she oversaw was a winning strategy. Yeah, the time-frames converge, but who cares? It's not like EVERY. OTHER. LAND. at the parks isn't merging different times and even worlds. So dumb. There's no excuse for this nonsense.
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - I honestly don't understand how this nonsense soup was put into production. It's just so dang stupid. It has absolutely nothing to say, doesn't progress Star Wars at all, wastes a golden opportunity for a proper send-off of the original trilogy, and is head-scratchingly awful with story beats that make absolutely no sense. Wayfinders? Really? There's not a lick of internal logic here. Ideas are half-baked. Dialogue is plain bad. As executive producer, was Kennedy asleep at the wheel... or did she just not care?

THE MISSING IN ACTION

• Rogue Squadron - After the hot fucking mess that came out of Patty Jenkins shitting the bed utterly in the awful, awful, Wonder Woman sequel, I can't say I'm upset that this movie was canceled. But it is fucking embarrassing that Kathleen Kennedy championed it to begin with only to have it disappear.
• Untitled Kevin Feige Film - When he was riding high on the incredible success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was kind of a no-brainer to let Feige helm a Star Wars project. Then the movies started tanking, the shows weren't memorable, and his movie had apparently vanished.
• Untitled Rian Johnson Trilogy - Did I love what Rian Johnson did with Star Wars: The Last Jedi? No. But did this deter my enthusiasm for him getting a new trilogy of Star Wars films? It did not. I would have loved to have seen what Johnson would have done if getting to start from scratch instead of inheriting something to work off of. Oh well.
• Untitled David Benioff and D.B. Weiss's Trilogy - Thank God this was canceled. These dumbasses fucked up an un-fuck-upable series with the final two seasons of Game of Thrones in order to rush it to a conclusion so they could do Star Wars. It should have been apparent to everybody... especially Kathleen Kennedy... that Benioff & Weiss were only good at adapting existing material and should have never been given an entire trilogy which would rely on them creating their own ideas. Again, I refer you to the final two seasons of Game of Thrones. Kennedy side-stepped an absolute landmine here, and had this trilogy of movies went forward, I'm almost certain that it would have resulted in her getting fired.
• Star Wars: Duel of the Fates - The original movie ending to the sequel trilogy, this Trevorrow script (which was leaked online) had problems and wasn't perfect... but it was better than the wet fart of an ending we got out of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and my guess is that Kathleen Kennedy is the bad decision that's responsible. Much like her shepherding of the entire sequel trilogy.