I ended up working half of the time of my "vacation" this past week, so I'm actually more tired than if I had not taken a vacation at all. But here I am... putting in the work blogging... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Sweet Niblets! I've been a fan of Defunctland for years. The other day I ran across an episode that I have never seen. Which is odd, because it's undoubtedly one of the most famous... solving a mystery that nobody knew needed solving. And it's a roller coaster, and it just gets more fascinating as it goes on. And the finale when the dominoes start falling? And that moment at the end where Kevin drops the bomb on you as to how he decided to honor the composer? chef's kiss It's an hour and a half. But it's brilliant. Just watch it. And if you can get to the end without feeling anything, then you're a stronger person than I am...

Now that's some investigative reporting! A very good episode, regardless of your feelings about Disney or Disney Channel. Because that tidbit about the pre-marketing for Finding Nemo? Holy shit. That's undoubtedly how the whole world works now. Corporations buy politicians to make laws and promote ideas that are setting the stage for their future plans. Corporations pay movie stars and influencers to get people indoctrinated into a way of thinking which suits their goals. It's genius and very sinister indeed.

   
• Useful Vandalism! I don't know why this video was recommended to me, but I am really happy it was...

Given the shitty bureaucracy that plagues life in These United States, I applaud this. It wasn't malicious. It wasn't a distraction. It wasn't superfluous. It was a much-needed addition which had been overlooked for far, far too long. I had to drive in L.A. many times during the "Era of Maps," and I know that I certainly would have appreciated this!

   
• May The Chocolate Be With You! Ooh! Look what I found at the grocery store...

They taste like OREOs, so they're delicious, of course. But the cookie stamps are darn good too...

Just the treat for a Star Wars fan!

   
• Poster! And speaking of a treat for Star Wars fans, this is also a treat for hardcore restoration fans like myself...

A stunning poster beautifully restored. I don't know about you, but doesn't it seem shocking how you can just toss soap and bleach on a printed poster... then pressure wash it... and not have it completely turn to pulp?

   
• Cat Distribution System! Would I give up my entire vacation to some exotic location to rescue an animal?

Yes. Yes I would.

   
• Disposability! I have written on this blog many times about how frustrating it is that clothes I own from 15-20 years ago are still in great shape whereas something I bought last year is falling apart. It is maddening and financially grotesque. We are living in an age where everything is disposable and not meant to last. And now I've found a video that jumps into the why of it all...

And there you go. I gotta say... it is beyond gross how US politicians can't get off their fucking asses and actually DO SOMETHING about this idiotic loophole that floods us with shitty clothes that are created out of exploitation. What the fuck is our government good for if they can't hop on a no-brainer action like this?

   
Now for a much-deserved couple hours doing nothing.

I may be in the middle of fighting the losing battle of keeping my home clean while having cats, but now there's a lull in the fight... because an all new All-YouTube Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Whither Adobe! As if there wasn't already enough reason to hate Adobe, their new draconian Terms of Service drives it all home...

Adobe has come forward to "clarify" that what they say is not what they mean... but why wasn't this clarication in the original Terms of Service? What a bunch of fucking piece of shit assholes. This was bad enough that I downloaded the latest versions of the Affinity graphic suite to take another look at switching to their apps whenever possible. I have to say... they just keep getting better. I could do most of my work in their ecosystem if I had the time to learn their tools. But I think I'm going to start looking into it more seriously. If you want to hop onboard, the already-affordable Affinity apps (which do not require a subscription!) are currently HALF OFF! It's a huge opportunity if you want a photo editor, drawing program, or layout app, head over and check them out!

   
• Nice Beaver! Holley Muraco has a magical YouTube Channel where she shows off the antics of her beaver rescues Tulip, Stormy, and Petunia. I swear, even the simplest things they do are wonderful. I am obsessed...

Beavers love bananas. Who knew?

   
• Dončić! I am not a big basketball fan (especially since the Seattle Sonics were lost to us) but I have fallen down a Luka Dončić (plays for the Mavs) rabbit hole and I can't escape. It all started when I saw a video of him on the bench when he sees himself on the Jumbotron and is happy and clapping. That's his whole attitude in a nutshell. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. He is an incredible trick-shot with a basketball! I've seen his shots pop up in sports news from time to time, but I had no idea...

So cool that somebody so talented loves the game this much.

   
• This Is a Hit? The new Netflix Glen Powell vehicle, Hit Man was sure to have an ending so obvious that I almost didn't watch. And indeed you do get that ending... at an hour in. Then the movie snowballs to the real ending which, I gotta say, was not what I expected. With a tighter script this could have been a great movie instead of a good movie. As it is, there are parts that drag so badly that you have to wonder how it got greenlit in this state. They really, really needed to take another pass on the story to make it more exciting in those dead zones which try to sabotage it.

But that's the problem with movies now. It's all about pumping them out and moving on to the next one instead of investing time into making a good one.

   
• Pliny! Adam Does Not Exist (whom I became a huge fan of after his pizza videos) has a fun video of trying to get Pliny the Younger, a very rare IPA where people from around the world fly to San Francisco (so they can go to whatever the region north of Marin is called) to visit the brewery to get it. — I've had it (and the more common Pliny the Elder). A friend had a dinner where everybody got a shot-glass-full. I absolutely hated it. It's just... bitter. There's nothing else to it (like most IPAs)...

While I'm not a fan of Pliny the Elder either, at least it had some other flavors to it (I think it was a pineapple-citrus flavor). But even so, this is a good video if you want to watch something fun (as are most of Adam's videos).

   
• Rox-ETTE! Unreal. Per Gessle is reforming Roxette after the tragic death of Marie Fredriksson? Good Lord, WHY? She simply cannot be replaced...

It won't be Roxette. Not even close.

   
• Generative Theft! I laugh at the idea that Generative AI is a victimless crime (much like I laugh at the idea that AI "art" is actually art). But that's not the most common line of thinking. That would be that AI "art" is not a crime at all. Despite the fact that it has been trained on material where the original creators were never compensated. Or likely never even told. Here's the entire nightmare in vivid relief...

Horrifying.

   
And now back to my regularly-scheduled Sunday cleaning.

I'm deep into home improvement projects, but don't despair... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Read a Book! Two excellent documentaries A Beatles doc on The Beach Boys (Disney+) which was very good, but had a horrible sound mix. The music is blasting... sometimes over the dialogue. And then there's the Reading Rainbow doc (Netflix) which is perfect...

Well worth your time. Especially if you're familiar with the program. I remember it would play in the lounge at college even though it was meant for kids. But it was not dumbed-down entertainment, so it was watchable for everybody.

   
• Sixty-Nine, Dude!! So there I was, ready to turn in for the night this past Tuesday when I saw a bright light flickering out my window. At first I thought it was just a plane because the light looked red. But it never moved, so I pulled out the StarWalk 2 app on my phone and found out it was a comet named 13P/Olbers which comes around every 69 years. It won't be here again until 2094, so I hope you saw it while you had a chance...

Sweet! Really makes me wish I had a telescope!

   
• Beautiful Cabin Crew Scarlett Johansson! When powerful people want something and you won't give it to them, then they just take it. Doesn't matter if that power comes from money... or people who are controlling a powerful force in our lives like A.I... what's yours is theirs. In the case of Scarlett Johansson, OpenAI. took her voice after she told them she didn't want to work with them. Hope with all your might that powerful people don't want something you have.

   
• I'm Good, Thanks! Sonos released the news that their new "Ace" headphones will release on June 5. And it's like they honestly think I would buy their shit? I couldn't use Dolby Atmos on my Sonos soundbar because it took years for them to fix the "pop of death" that plagued it. YEARS! Their interim solution was to "turn Atmos off" WHEN THAT'S THE ENTIRE REASON I BOUGHT IT! Between that and their shitty fucking app that makes using their gear a horrendous ordeal (I am filled with rage every time I have to scroll through a playlist because it keeps pausing to load), there's zero fucking chance I'd spend $450 on a pair of their fucking headphones. It's weird to think that Sonos was once the pinnacle of audio equipment with incredible features you just had to have (considering you could afford it), but now I honestly don't care if they flame out and shut down.

   
• Smell That Freedom! France has released a stamp that smells like baguettes! Nifty. BUT ALL 'MURICAN STAMPS SMELL LIKE FREEDOM! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! U-S-A-!

Except I still want some of those baguette stamps. Who wouldn't?

   
• Enter The Sandman: Part Two! I have been anxiously awaiting to see who gets cast as the remaining Endless for the second season of The Sandman, and here they are...

Perfect. But I am still waiting for an adaptation of Death: The High Cost of Living. I don't understand why it's not been announced. It would be relatively cheap to produce. Just write a check for a fraction of the money you gave to Zack Snyder to crap the Rebel Moon movies out of his ass and call it good.

   
• Pigment! Wonderful look at a 300 year-old artisanal pastel shop in France...

I love stuff like this. In an age when computer-generated A.I. "art" is all the rage, it's nice to see the craftsmanship that goes into the tools of creating actual art.

   
• Corruption. the only REAL bipartisan issue! I saw this last week and it hasn't left my head. And yet we keep voting for this fucking bullshit instead of persecuting them all for treason...

Treason, which I'll remind you, is punishable by death in this country.

   
Until next time, buckaroo.

Apple's release of their new iPads got me to wondering about how much the Adobe apps have approved over the past three years. I had bought a 2020 iPad Pro because I heard that useable versions of Illustrator and Photoshop were out for iPad (or coming soon to iPad... I can't remember). But then found out that they weren't really in a state that I could use them to do actual work. They were but a shadow of the full program. It was a bummer, but I had something fun to play with during pandemic lockdowns, so it was all good.

Turns out that the apps have improved dramatically. Not only can I open and edit full-on Illustrator and Photoshop files, the feature set is rich enough that I can do real work on it. So that's nice. But it's not the most impressive thing I've discovered after ignoring my iPad for years.

That would be an app called "Adobe Fresco" which is around 4 years old now.

Meant to compete head-to-head with "Procreate," it's a drawing and painting program that's darn good. It has a different approach in some areas, and is a vast improvement in others (particularly with their animation tools and "live brushes"). It's matured a lot in the past few years...

And so... looks like I'll be taking a closer look at that this holiday weekend.

Though, call me old fashioned, but I will always prefer physical media over digital drawing tools. There's just something about getting your hands dirty that makes art seem more "real" to me.

Wah! My weekend is already half over and I'm not ready for it to be Sunday! But Sunday it must be... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Goonies Never Die! I watched this video reflecting on the career of Josh Brolin solely in the hopes that he would talk about Men In Black 3. That movie is so incredibly underrated. It's an amazing film. And a large part of that is Josh Brolin doing a Tommy Lee Jones impression... perfectly... for most of the runtime. And obviously GQ knew that's the thing everybody wanted to hear, so they saved it for last...

I sure wish that we could have heard more about his experience working on that movie.

   
• Otin! Oh man. The new Disney+ series, Iwájú, is Afrofuturism done very well... but it's so much more than that because there's like a lot going on. And it's very much steeped in Nigerian culture, which is to say that it's something wonderfully different than the same old shit we usually get. Bravo to Disney for giving us something fresh and new for a change. And for using amazing voice actors who breath life into these characters...

The frickin' FOOD in this show is unreal. They put a lot of focus on it as a part of entrenching you into Nigerian culture. And, I tell you what, the emotion they pack into these 20 minute episodes is substantial. Tola is the main character of the show... but it's her best friend Kole who will break your heart. Dang they put a lot of hardship on this poor kid. The villain in this series is a very, very bad man! AND GOOD LORD THIS SHOW IS BEAUTIFUL. They use color to illustrate the class divide in this future Nigeria, and it's very, very hard not to see it because it's the visual language they paint with. And, as if all that wasn't enough, the sound design is equally wonderful. Great surround effects to envelope you in the environment. If you have Disney+, it's very much worth checking out. The episodes are short, so it's a quick watch.

   
• Ramona! Ramona Fradon is a legendary artist whose gorgeous illustration style has been seen on a vast number of comic book characters. I think I first saw her work on Aquaman reprints or the Super Friends comic. But over the years the thing I most remember her for is the "special event" Wonder Woman stories they'd get her to draw. She had a more "cartoony old-style" that wasn't my favorite for the comics I was into, but that didn't mean I couldn't appreciate it from an artistic standpoint. Far from it, her minimalist style is beautiful because she could get some very expressive line-work that stood very well on its own. I remember reading about her retirement (which was January 5th) and she passed four weeks later on February 24th at the age of 97. Her final work was a trio of covers for Women's History Month...

Though one of her more brilliant works was a private commission piece that she did a few years ago...

Rest In Peace. You were a trailblazer and true artist from the start.

   
• Help Me, Todd! Okay... let's do the math. Paramount+ wants $60 a year to subscribe with ads. Without ads is $120 a year. BECAUSE IT COMES WITH SHOWTIME, WHICH I DO NOT WANT! No option to get CBS shows without ads and without Showtime. I would pay $90 to get a year of ad-free, but Paramount is a joke of a company who wants me to subsidize their Showtime programs which I have no interest in watching. And so... do I pay $60 so I can watch So Help Me Todd with ads... or do I just subscribe to the show on iTunes for $30 without ads and I can watch it as much as I want? Well, because I don't believe in paying for stuff I don't want AND I detest ads, I'll just buy the show on iTunes. It is, after all, my favorite network show on television...

It's not like CBS has any other shows I can't live without. I'll just watch episodes of NCIS Hawaii once Paramount runs out of money from trying to force crap on people they don't want and they're forced to sell episodes of the show to Netflix because the person in charge of the company is a fucking moron. Can't wait for the spin from the Paramount PR office when profits drop to record lows and they have to convince shareholders that the people running the company aren't fucking idiots who just lost $60 from me. Of course, this is the network who canceled Magnum P.I., so it's not like I expect rational thought to come out of their leadership. But hey, maybe they'll renew So Help Me Todd and get another $30 out of me next year? Stranger things have happened!

   
• Keep Your Fucking Bullshit Politics Out of People's Lives! The insane... FUCKING INSANE... crusade against IVF is usually seen as something that affects only women. That's not true. It affects women, men, and those identifying as neither... it affects families. And I am disgusted to my core that dumbfuck politicians who don't give a shit about facts... or ANYTHING or ANYONE except MONEY and POWER... put these dipshit laws on the books. Fuck them and all the people who vote them into office. A man wrote an article for GQ Magazine talking about what he and his family went through, and it's worth a read.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Republican senator blocks bill to protect IVF. Cindy Hyde-Smith is a literal ghoul. She's a shell of a woman who has been filled with a hatred for other women that's shockingly brutal and cruel. Nothing quite like watching a woman embrace the patriarchy to dismantle an option for women who want to be mothers. I get why regressive men vote for toxic, misogynistic pieces of shit to represent them in government. But I will never in a million years understand how women vote for... whatever the fuck this horrific excuse of a human being is... who works overtime to endanger their lives and strip away their rights...

If your God didn't want IVF for us, HE WOULD HAVE DESIGNED HUMAN EMBRYOS TO BE DESTROYED WHEN FROZEN! But of course their belief in an all-powerful deity doesn't allow logic to be applied to anything, so here we are. Fucking anti-science dumbshits making a decision for others in the "Land of the Free" over an issue they probably don't even fucking understand. Sadistic fucks.

   
• Spam! Just when I think I've hit all the keywords to stop spam texts from politicians reaching me, along comes one more to add. Eventually I'll get there! I regret more than just about anything I've ever done sending money to one candidate... ONE... via "ActBlue." And the spam texts and emails have never, ever stopped ever since. No matter how many emails or phone numbers I block. The fuckers just keep making up new ones...

I love how ActBlue, which is about as skeezy an operation as you'll find just says "It's not our fault you keep getting donation requests from us... we just just provide tools for candidates to fundraise! You can't blame us!" And yet... all the people "using their services" are constantly saying "It's not the criminals! It's the guns that are the problem!" So... which is it? If ActBlue acted responsibly and forbade people from using their donation processing system if they send spam texts, and accepted complaints from people getting spammed with ActBlue requests who never "opted in," then there wouldn't be a problem. But ActBlue doesn't give a fuck. The more people using their service, the more money they make. And so I will never, ever donate to any candidate using ActBlue. I wish others would do the same. Then candidates would have nobody to blame but themselves for getting into bed with these fucking assholes.

   
• Fishy! The first Aquaman was dopey fun. So long as you didn't think too hard, it wasn't horrifically bad. Kind of a fantastical globe-spanning adventure. But Aquaman 2? Yeah, it's horrifically bad. And though some of the visuals are really great... most of it is so bad that it practically looked animated like a cartoon. And not in a good way. As if all that wasn't enough, the film is obsessed with Aquaman having piss be squirted in his mouth. Baby piss. Octopus piss. I spent the movie pretty sure that his wife is going to be pissing in his mouth any minute now. Or just full-on brick in his mouth. Which is the natural escalation we need. Hilariously, they ended Aquaman 2 the same way that they ended Black Panther... and THEN they ended it AGAIN the same way they ended Iron Man! They copied TWO Marvel Studios movie endings in the same film! Holy shit am I glad that the Zack Snyder reign of terror over the DCU is now officially over.

   
I guess that's enough trash for one Sunday. See you next week.