Today I had to leave the office early so I could get home and finish up some stuff that I had left on my home computer. But first I decided to make some bread because I ran out.

It's pretty much a science at this point. Take out the SourJo starter and let it warm up for 30 minutes. Mix together the first half of the ingredients and let rise for 45 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and let it rise for 45 minutes. Deflate it, shape into loaves, then let it rise for 45 minutes. Then bake for a half hour.

At this point you're supposed to let it cool, but I never have that kind of patience...

Yes. It tastes every bit as good as it looks.

And smells even better than that.

I'd bake it daily if it didn't take three hours to make. And I could eat unlimited carbs without consequences.

Every morning it happens.

Call after call after call of people I don't know popping up in my notifications. Except my phone doesn't ring through for unidentified callers, so it has zero effect on me. I turned THAT feature on the minute my mom died and I no longer had to wait for doctor calls or emergencies that might have come up.

I don't want to talk to people I know on the phone... but people I don't know? That's a hard pass. If it's critical, they can leave a voicemail...

Interesting to note that they are making several calls at once, because most phones allow you to have multiple calls from the same number break through your unknown caller blocking.

But not me, baby.

Anybody I care about getting through to me is in my contacts.

A common plot device to many science fiction stories (and more than a few comic book story arcs) is one of an alternate timeline. Something happens... usually involving time travel... which causes established events to veer from their intended path, thus creating a new timeline.

One of my favorite uses of this is in Back to The Future: Part II where Biff Tannen uses the Sports Almanac to give his past-self knowledge of the future, thus changing his path to that of an evil millionaire. Marty then has to go back in time to prevent Biff from doing what he already done-did.

Classic.

Lately I've been feeling like I'm trapped in an evil alternate timeline where somebody has changed the path that we're all supposed to be on. And do you blame me? The amount of horrendous shit happening in the world just keeps escalating, and there really doesn't seem to be any end in sight.

Alas, something tells me that Marty McFly ain't going to show up and magically fix everything this time.

I haven't been back to the cemetery since I buried my mother.

I thought I would go back this year on Memorial Day to see the flag remembrance that they do every year, but I ended up taking a pass. Instead I looked at the photos I've taken from past years.

It's not the same, but it's the best I can manage right now...

A beautiful way to remember those who died in service of their country on behalf of a grateful nation.

Yesterday when I got home I noted that my dogwood tree was fully in bloom. It's an annual event which makes the whole thing worthwhile, and it only lasts for about a week. Then the color fades and the petals drop and I'm left with a nice-looking, albeit 100% green, tree (at least until winter comes).

I made a note to take a photo this morning because morning has the best light for photographing the blossoms because the pink looks the deepest. In the afternoon the sunlight bleaches out the flowers.

When my cats woke me up because there was a small spider on the ceiling, I was aghast to hear rain dumping down on my roof. "Surely the blossoms have all been stripped from the tree!" I said to my cats... who looked at me like I was crazy.

But when I was trudging off to work I was pleasantly surprised to see that not a single petal had fallen...

They were, however, a little bit wet.

Yesterday morning I was walking out to my car and pulled a hamstring. Right in the middle of the street as I was crossing it. And it wasn't like I was sprinting across... or dancing across... or doing anything weird. I was just walking. And that was enough, apparently.

Getting old sure sucks.

The pain has been pretty excrutiating. I kept it elevated, iced, and took Ibuprofen like you're supposed to, but it didn't make much difference.

This morning it felt fine. Until I walked on it. Or hobbled on it, as the case may be.

Remember when I was young and invulnerable just last week?

You can't keep a good blogger down, even in the middle of your blog not allowing you to upload images for some reason... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• WAAAAAHH! The bastards at CBS canceled Magnum P.I.. The show's first season was incredible. The second nearly as good. They faltered a bit in the third season, but rebound beautifully in the fourth (and now final) season. What's interesting is that the final episode tied up a few things and answered a question which everybody had since the beginning... will Magnum and Higgins ever get together?

What's so shitty about all this is that Magnum P.I. was a fairly sold performer. Not stellar, but more successful than some of the stuff which gets renewed. Guess CBS is dedicating themselves to another shitty reality show that they can buy for cheap and cancel after a year. Well, duly noted. The entire cast was gold, I can't wait to see where they end up next.

   
• Lost! Okay... maybe it's the Hallmark fan in me, but I really liked this one! Lost City is funny, adventurous, and surprisingly sweet...

Everybody went all-in on their roles. Sandra Bullock, Daniel Radcliffe, Brad Pitt, all great... but it was Channing Tatum who completely owned his character. He was unafraid to play dumb as a box of rocks, and I loved it. If you see the movie (on Paramount+, the worst of the worst of streaming services), be sure to watch the credits for a scene that's pretty great.

   
• Remo! Fred Ward, Star of The Right Stuff, Tremors, Dies at 79. Except Fred Ward will forever be Remo Williams to me...

Though having Joel Grey play Korean will always be cringe.

And he was a big part of why Big Business ended up working as well as it did...

There were other roles, of course. The guy did great work for a long time. Rest In Peace, sir.

   
• Heartstopper! This actually is hope...

Kids are going to believe whatever they're taught to believe. But access to information is easier than ever, and sometimes the truth wins out.

   
• Fruit! When I was a kid, my mom used to pack little tins of Dole fruit in my lunch. Now, of course, they've switched to plastic like everything else. But here's the problem... there is no way... NO WAY AT ALL... to open these little containers without juice pouring out everywhere...

I have tried everything. Usually I go to the sink to open them, but when I'm trapped on a call and can't leave, I have to open it here. This is me trying to be my most careful when opening my pears... FUCKERS!!! Now I look like I had an accident in the bathroom or something.

   
• Moose! YESSSSSS! WHY IS THIS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE US?

Mayo Mousse. Genius.

   
I'm guessing eventually I'll figure out how to post this. Probably.

As I've said every year of the six years I've lived in my home... irises are the stupidest flowers.

They grow up all gorgeous and lovely and tease you into thinking that they're worth having in your garden... then they end up heavier than the stem will support, flop over, get mowed into mulch by the yard care people, then die after a week...

These are already flopping over...

These I tried to kill off two years in a row. They simply will not die and keep coming back...

If you want plants that are immortal (but still so very stupid), irises might be the flower for you!

Pantone is now charging people to use their color books in Adobe Illustrator.

I wonder if there's an alternative system, because this is fucking absurd. Designers don't buy inks... we specify inks so that printers and fabricators can purchase the inks from Pantone.

Except now we can't specify jack shit because Pantone wants us to pay $60 a year for the privilege.

Fuckers.

If anything, Pantone should be paying ME to specify their inks to my printers! Something I've been doing for FREE for them for decades.

I swear, there are days I just want to take a torch to corporate America for the way that they treat people. I sure hope that somebody who isn't a greedy piece of shit develops a new color system replacement for people who are tired of Pantone's bullshit. I am betting that every designer on earth would hop on board.

Having to pay to promote a company's products when we don't even get a cut of the sale? Are you kidding me? Apparently Pantone didn't learn their lesson with Hexachrome and needs to be taught another.

Fuckers.

At work we're changing to a new email system. I thought that I could do some kind of export out of the old system and import into the new system, but there's nothing that works like that on a Mac. In some ways it's easier... just drag the emails from the old mailboxes to the new mailboxes... but in other ways it's far more difficult. Because Apple Mail tends to crash when you move a massive number of emails. Which means that I have to select a clump then drag them over in smaller quantities. Which wouldn't be a big deal, except I have thousands upon thousands of emails dating back to 2006 that have to be migrated.

My work emails are just that... work emails. I have no personal corespondence of any kind in there.

Except I kinda do.

Because there's people from years past that were more than co-workers, suppliers, customers, and the like... they are friends. Some of them moved on and were friends. Some of them have passed on and were friends. Gone but not forgotten.

And I'm seeing their names pop up as I grab stacks of emails and drag them from one place to another.

It's like a drive down memory lane. Sometimes happy. Sometimes sad. Sometimes painful.

Which is as you'd want it to be, isn't it?