Yikes. Look like it's the Northeast's turn to be inundated with snow! But you can still find warmth in your heart... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• BAT! I have watched this SO many times...

Those are some big bites! I love bats.

   
• Eats! Well that was sure nice of him...

Somehow, this never occurred to me. But I guess it happens. Or your UberEats driver gets in an accident... or has a car breakdown... or whatever. I guess the good news is that if you're an UberEats driver who gets in an accident you have something to eat while you wait for the tow truck.

   
• Minnie! Disney put Minnie Mouse in a pantsuit, and people are losing their fucking minds. And it's like... it's a cartoon character. Don't stress. My problem isn't that Minnie Mouse is in a pantsuit... it's that she's in a butt-ugly pantsuit. THIS is the best they could come up with?!?

At the very least they could have kept her signature red, white, and yellow colors!

   
• Star Dreck! I'm desperate for new Star Trek ahead of the new season of Picard, so I thought I'd give Star Trek: Discovery yet another try. God what a shitty TV show. It's inconceivable that something so incredible in Season 01, just keeps getting worse and worse. Season 02 was bearable, but Season 03 was terrible, and holy shit... I didn't think that Season 04 could possibly be worse... and yet here we are. It's all talking and endless, endless whining about absolutely everything. WHO GIVES A FUCK?!? It is a complete waste of Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Ronnie Rowe, and the rest. Star Trek is all about balancing the emotional core with excitement and adventure. Sitting around the bridge talking about your feelings to solve problems is boring as fuck and watching it is tantamount to torture. Oh well. I've decided to watch Picard Season 01 again instead. It didn't stick the landing, but boy did it have some good Star Trek along the way.

   
• Ink! One of my most favorite TikTok creators is "Sad Papi," a chef who has been creating cooking videos for a while now. Even when he cooks meat dishes, he's given me ideas for cooking that have been great. He posted this video recently that wasn't quite cooking-related, and it may one of my favorites (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

Can you imagine being this good-looking, but still having to field shitty comments like this? Insanity. Fortunately he had the perfect response.

   
• MACGRUBER! I have been dying to see a MacGruber sequel ever since the first movie in 2010. It was bizarre, hilarious, and entertaining in a way I didn't really expect. Fast forward twelve years and Peacock gave us a MacGruber limited series. That lead to Will Forte going full-circle and returning to the character he originated on Saturday Night Live...

It's amazing to me that Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe are back as well. Both have had non-stop work this entire time... but maybe working with Will Forte on another MacGruber project was just too much fin to resist? I hope they feel the same way about returning for a second season of the show!

   
Enjoy what's left of your Sunday, party people.

If you're a Disney Parks fan, the video posted below is fascinating (AND HAS A TWIST!).

I've been to Disneyland and Walt Disney World a disproportionate amount of times because my work took me there quite a lot (for six years I was at both parks at least once a year... usually two or three). Ultimately, I think the whole "FastPass/FastPass+/MaxPass" thing makes the parks worse for most people. But, as somebody who was put up at the park hotels (and got all the perks that this entails) and who learned very quickly how to game the system, it worked out great for me.

Ultimately it all comes down to money. If you spend a lot of money, you can pay to game the system. But if you can't afford to pay extra to stay at pricey Disney hotels and pay for access, you're basically screwed. And Disney is fine with that... so long as attendance keeps rising.

A vacation to any Disney Park for a family of four is bank-breaking. The fact that a family could save for years to be able to afford to go... only to have a miserable time because they can't afford to pay extra so they aren't spending most of their time in a line... is heartbreaking.

But boy is the science behind what Disney does interesting. This video is an hour and forty minutes. I did not notice the time fly by because I'm a math and Disney whore like that...

In some ways, I'm not opposed to the idea of charging more for a better experience. Maybe you save your money for three years instead of two years to get a better vacation. But in more ways, this is abhorrent. A vacation to Disney parks is already hugely expensive. Making it even *more* expensive rewards wealthy people by having them give more of what they already have in abundance... but punishes people who have to struggle to take the family to begin with.

Life is already starkly divided by wealth, and taking away an affordable vacation to Disneyland just makes things so much worse. But what else is there when more and more people want to vacation there?

The solutions they've tried haven't been working.

The answer would seem to be limiting tickets for entry. But they don't want to deal with the outrage of people showing up and tickets being sold out. They also don't want to miss out on that money. But they should really go with "Advance Purchase Only" and just tell people that IF there are any tickets left over, you can buy them at the gate. Otherwise they are just turning off people from a return visit because they don't want to spend a ton of money and not get to do anything due to overcrowding. I sure have no desire to go back any time soon.

They need to build another Disney Park in Texas or something.

Okay. I know I am repeating myself from yesterday, but...

Today all five episodes of Dug Days, the mini-series of mini episodes that are a direct sequel to the brilliant Disney/Pixar movie Up! have been released on Disney+.

Needless to say, every last second of the episodes is just phenomenal.

Which makes it all the sadder that Ed Asner has passed, because his appearance as Carl Fredrickson in Dug Days is everything you could hope for...

If I didn't have Disney+ and there was nothing else I wanted to see on the streaming channel, I would still subscribe just to be able to watch this.

Absolute must-see TV.

Ed Asner passed away.

Best known for playing Lou Grant in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the more serious spin-off Lou Grant, Mr. Asner was a versatile actor who popped up in a lot of places. But regardless of where he ended up, he was a perfect fit.

Take, for example, his voice role as the villainous Granny Goodness in Justice League Unlimited. It was always a fun time to guess all the guest actors that popped up in the animated DC shows back in the day, but I never managed to figure out who Granny was. So I looked it up. And there was Ed Asner!

But there is one role that will always be my Ed Asner favorite. Surprisingly, it's not playing Santa in Elf (though he was sublime in that). Nor was it as Wilson White in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (though he was brilliant in that) Nope... it's Carl Fredricksen in the Pixar film Up...

A massive testament to flawless voice casting, Ed Asner's heartwarming performance as his animated character was everything you could hope for...

Tonight I rewatched the film and was once again struck with how utterly magical it is. Every moment... from the most soul-crushing to the most uplifting... was meticulously crafted and brought to life by Ed Asner's incredible talent.

Lucky for us all, Ed Asner returned to Carl Fredrickson once again in a series of Dug Days shorts for Disney+ which debut... tomorrow!

I can't wait. Rest in Peace, Mr. Asner.

No time to blog... Disney+ has finally dropped the first season of Behind the Attraction which goes into the history and behind the scenes of their most famous rides. The initial episodes are for Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Star Tours, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, and Space Mountain. I will be binging them all, because this is the kind of stuff I live for...

UPDATE: Finished! Absolutely fantastic! In-depth but not to the point of being obsessive or boring. Entertaining and smart (Paget Brewster's narration is perfect!). Even if you're just a casual fan of the parks, it's worth a look. I've been waiting for this since it was announced, and it does not disappoint!

In the last episode they ask the question "If you were on your last trip to a Disney park... and were riding your last Disney attraction ever... which would you ride?" That is really tough for me. Ultimately I think I would pick "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyland. I was going to go with "Expedition Everest" because it's just so well done... but the nostalgia of Pirates is tough to overcome...

If I ever go back to China and Shanghai again, riding their version of Pirates is a top priority because everybody I know that has ridden it says it's a pretty nice upgrade.

But... nostalgia...

I'm back from my quick trip over the mountains, so you know what that means... an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Happy Father's Day! Here's your Sunday Morning Happy. Watch until the end...

And happy Father’s Day to the lucky dad of this adorable baby!

   
• Blame it on the Rain! Hope your Sunday weather is better than what these poor Guinnea pigs got...

Yeah... there's yet another TikTok rabbit hole I fell down.

   
• Picard! The first season of Picard wasn't stellar, but good enough that I enjoyed it (despite not being a Next Generation fan). The second season, however? I am very interested in seeing what they do with it, especially since Guinan is returning...

Fascinating to see an 80-year-old Patrick Stewart playing a 98-year-old Picard. Even more fascinating? That an 80-year-old Patrick Stewart would want to. But, thankfully for whatever reason, he does.

   
• Luca! The sad thing about our pandemic world is that movies get sent to streaming services, which somehow makes them seem "less than" the big movie releases of years past. Like a cheap "straight-to-video" film or something. Take Luca, for example, the latest Pixar film. It is incredible... easily on-par with any other Pixar movie ever made. It's the adorable story about young sea monsters who long for something more on the surface world in 1950's Italy. And it is stunning. It's set in a fictional town, but it easily recognized as a mix of the five fishing villages of Cinque Terre (which you can read about here). And the voice cast has some real surprises that I won't spoil here. Love, love, loved this movie...

Even more amazing? Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, this entire film was made from home! Highest possible recommednation. If you have Disney+, it's a no-brain to add to your watch list.

   
• Citizencide! Holy. Shit. This woman is literally the worst. Her sublime ignorance, stupidity, and complete lack of empathy typifies the horrors of so many of our elected government officials. Unbelievable, yet entirely believable. Even expected...

You can label my political disdain all you want, but this is what has be convinced that our government is actively trying to kill us. And we're voting for them to do it.

   
• "Today in Christian Love..." And people wonder why Pride Month is important...

   
• Snap Me! Ending on an LOL-worthy YouTube video seems like the way to go this Bullet Sunday...

THANOS WAS RIGHT!

   
=sigh= I suppose I really should clean up my house a bit since I was gone all weekend and have to go to work in the morning.

This October Walt Disney World will celebrate its 50th anniversary. I know this because I saw an article about it after I woke up this morning. I almost feel obligated to go since I was there for their 25th anniversary. Back in the late Fall of 1997 I was in Orlando for training. My mom asked if she could tag along and so she went too. It was our first time traveling together by ourselves... but wouldn't be our last. Not by a longshot.

I had training for two days. While I was in class, mom would sit by the pool at the Buena Vista Palace and read a book. On the third day we moved to Disney's Wilderness Lodge for the remainder of the week. At the time there were only three parks... Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Disney MGM Studios (eventualy named "Disney Studios"). Animal Kingdom wouldn't open for another year yet. I had been to Disney World once before, but mom never had, so it was a lot of fun.

The iconic symbol of the entire 25th anniversary celebration was turning Cinderella Castle into a massive, heinous, pink birthday cake (NOTE: All these photos are old scans from a cheap APS camera, so they don't look great... sorry)...

This was supposed to be an APS "tall print" but got printed regular,
so it's chopped off... my mom is still there though!

You could see the ugly thing from afar...

Disney's Wilderness Lodge is my favorite of all the on-property resorts. It's pretty much an attraction unto itself. There was all kinds of things to see and do... including renting tiny little speedboats. Despite being in the Navy, mom was afraid of water since nearly drowning as a kid. Even so, she was a trooper and had a great time as we went buzzing around Bay Lake...

It's definitely the best vantage point to look back at the Wilderness Lodge...

Interesting to note that DisneyQuest... a kind of advanced arcade... was being built at the time I was there, though it wouldn't open until the following Summer. It would close in 2016 once Downtown Disney was transformed into Disney Springs..

The following week was spent driving over to Kennedy Space Center... then onward to Disney's Vero Beach Resort for a couple nights... then driving down the coast to Ft. Lauderdale and Miami... then finishing our trip in Key West...

Sooooo... yeah... that was 1997, 24-some-odd frickin' years ago when I was young, handsome, and had the world at my feet. Not like now where I'm old, grizzled, and have been buried by the weight of the world.

I do have a much better camera now, however, so there's that.

A second entry for Friday? Lucky you!

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you undoubtedly are aware of my Disney theme park obsession. Heck, I even designed my own parody theme park DaveLand because my Disney love goes pretty deep...

I collect the map pamphlets from the Disney parks. I have the wall maps. I bought the map book. And every time Disney announces anything new or any kind of expansion, I am compelled to figure out what they're going to do and how they're going to do it.

The lastest news is more announcements for the Disneyland Resort "Westside Expansion" which will turn a bunch of parking lots into an expanded hotel/shopping/dining/entertainment experience...

Now, this concept illustration is not in any way final (indeed, it looks like the previous plans for the "Mickey Mouse Hotel" have been drastically altered or scrapped... and does anybody remember the plans for "Westcot?"). And it's a bit deceptive, which we'll get to in a minute. But you can see that the idea is to add more stuff to snag tourist dollars than they already do. Looks like there's a lazy river tube ride to the left there. The above-mentioned "Mickey Hotel" in the middle. Three entirely new hotels to the far right. A live stage venue just in front of them. And of course more shopping and dining. Disney quite clearly doesn't want you sleeping, shopping, or dining at anything except Disney-owned properties.

As I was saying, the illustration is a bit deceptive though because about 1/3 is already developed with The Disneyland Hotel and Disney Paradise Pier Hotel, which will be surrounded by new construction (which I've shaded in magenta)...

© Google Maps... Click to Embiggen

Yellow shading is over Disneyland and California Adventure so you can compare sizing. Suffice to say, this is not a small endeavor... nor will it be cheap. I'm not sure where all that parking will go. Could be it will be constructed underground. Could be they will expand the Pumba lot that's wayyyy off to the East or the Toy Story lot that's wayyyy off to the Southwest (see below) to be a multi-story garages like they did for the Mickey & Friends and Pixar Pals parking structures that are in the upper-left corner of the map.

It's interesting to note that Disneyland is pretty much at its limit here. To the South is the Anaheim Convention Center. To the North and West is suburban sprawl with hundreds of homes that Disney would have to purchase.

But then there's the land to the East.

And here's where my speculation takes a bit of a sinister turn.

Right now, most of the land to the east is occupied by a bunch of hotels, with the exception of the afore-mentioned Pumba Parking lot (outlined in cyan) which I'm guessing is owned by Disney. The red outline is the land I'm talking about...

© Google Maps... Click to Embiggen

Unfortunately for Disney, there's a shopping Mall to the South of the Eastern region that's likely there to stay unless Disney acquires it (if they haven't already) in which case they could rebrand it as yet another Disney shopping experience.

But let's think about this for a second.

The Disneyland Resort Westside Expansion has at least four high-capacity hotels planned. That's going to take business away from the hotels which popped up to the East of Disneyland. Which means the price to buy them out may cheapen. After enough lost business, they may consider selling to Disney... something that's inconceivable as things currently stand because their occupancy must (normally) be pretty darn high and very profitable. And once that first hotel domino falls... and Disney re-themes it as a Disney hotel... and people flock to it because Disney dangles enough perks... and more hotels lose more business... well, it's not difficult to see how it might be "bye bye Candy Cane Inn"... followed by the rest of them one-by-one.

This, of course, is all conjecture. It could be that Disney has zero interest in the budget hotel business, or that the existing hotels will continue to be so popular that the selling price would be insane. Or maybe the chain-owned hotels don't care about lost business and just want a Disney-adjacent property in their portfolio. It's hard to say. All I know is that both parks are overcrowded year' round now, so maybe it's worth it to Disney to buy everything up... and simply not provide budget lodging. At least not as it looks right now. A Disney "Budget Hotel" will be cheaper when compared to their other hotels, but still Disney-pricey. Because if there's one thing that Disney knows how to do... it's make money. Lots of it.

And they could, of course, use the land to build a third theme park. Or relocate the structures that are currently to the North of Disneyland so they can expand the park there. Or just shift the Mickey & Friends and Pixar Pals parking to the East so another big chunk of land opens up for entertainment and hotels on the Westside.

However...

That's not the end to Disney's (estimated) land holdings. They either own or lease a rather large piece of land to the Southeast which is currently the Toy Story parking lot. Not sure if the parking for the hotels/businesses to the North is Disney-owned (that's outlined in green)... but if Disney does own this, they could build a massivley huge parking structure which could replace all the lost parking for Westside... and absorb parking for any hotels they buy, which could then be expanded or rebuilt... or replaced with more theme park to attract more customers (or maybe spread the crowds out a bit)...

© Google Maps

I dunno.

All I do know is that Disney gobbling up that Eastern parcel... along with the area above the Toy Story parking lot... creates a nicely contiguous chunk of land which would nearly double what they have now.

Not that contiguous land is essential. Just look at Walt Disney World. Build another monorail or an air-tram... or expand the bus system... and that third theme park could end up in the Southwest section. Or anywhere, really. I remember reading how Disney wanted to expand to a beachfront property in L.A. or something. Heaven only knows how much land in the greater L.A. area they own either directly or via shell companies.

What I wouldn't give to work for the team at Disney which gets to plan all this stuff. That's my dream job right there. But since I don't, all I can do is have fun speculating and be excited for what's coming next.

Until then, there's always Daveland.

UPDATE: Well looky what we have here... a site that Disney created to shame Anaheim into rezoning their property for multi-use purposes called Disneyland Forward. It doesn't do anything to curb speculation because it's just Disney tossing out ideas, but it does clarify a few things. First of all is their plans for expanding into the Westside property and Northward...

Note that Disneyland gets an addition to the West, so those weren't hotels, they were attraction buildings. The only hotel expansion looks to be another tower for Paradise Pier?

Which is not to say that Disney couldn't change their mind and drop a bunch of hotels once they get their way so that they can still buy out everything to the East and raze it for a third theme park. And idea which still makes a lot of sense. Though remember that land to the Southeast? Hotel and shopping have been dropped there as an example of what could happen...

   
Interesting stuff! You can see everything for yourself at Disneyland Forward.

I'm set adrift on memory bliss... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Star Wars on Disney+! There were loads of announcements at Disney’s Investor Day 2020 event, and there was a lot of gold to be found for pop culture geeks like me. So let's dig in, shall we?

• Ahsoka. The reason Rosario Dawson was tapped to play Ahsoka in The Mandalorian is because they very obviously wanted to spin her off in her own show... and here we are. A fan-favorite from the cartoons, she worked really well in a live-action series, and I can't wait to see where they go with her character.
• Rangers of the New Republic. The second spin-off from The Mandalorian, I have no idea what this will be about. But the fact that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are producing it (and Ahshoka) leads me to believe it will be more Star Wars excellence. That all three of their shows will cross over at some point is intriguing.
• Andor. One of the few Star Wars movies past The Empire Strikes Back that I enjoyed is Rogue One, and a huge part of why I liked it so much is Diego Luna's Cassian Andor and Alan Tudyk's K-2SO. The fact that Disney wisely decided to give them a prequel series is great news.
• Lando. The other movie past The Empire Strikes Back that I enjoyed was Solo. And the reason why was becaues Donald Glover's take on Lando Calrissian was =chef's kiss= perfection, and I sincerely hope that he's involved in the show. Otherwise, what's the point?
• Obi-Wan Kenobi. I loathed the prequel trilogy, but greatly enjoyed Ewan McGregor's take on the iconic character. Exiled to Tatooine where he can watch over Luke Skywalker from a distance, I can only imagine that Obi-Wan will be called off on some grand adventure, because Hayden Christensen is returning as Darth Vader in the series.
• The Acolyte. Well this was unexpected... Leslye Headland getting a new series which takes place in the "High Republic" era? How did that happen? Needless to say, I'm intrigued. The "High Republic" is the golden age of the Jedi back when they were revered and at the height of their power and influence. Hundreds of years before the trilogy of trilogies. Who wouldn't want to see that?
• Droid Story. R2-D2 and C-3PO are joined by a new droid hero for a new (I'm guessing animated) story.
• Visions. This is a series of short films crafted by some of the best Japanese anime creators. The idea is almost too good to be true if you've seen any of the anime Star Wars projects that have popped up over the years.
• The Bad Batch. Another cartoon coming out of The Clone Wars which may prove to be interesting... or could drag out the Clone Force 99 concept to a poor end. I'm hoping for the former, and with Dave Feloni in charge I'm hopeful.

   
• Star Wars Movies! While there were some parts of the sequel trilogy that were okay, the movies as a whole were disappointing. A mediocre rehashing of far better stories that had already been told. And nobody was sadder about that than me. Then The Mandalorian came along and suddenly I was thinking that perhaps Disney+ was the best future for Star Wars. Until... Taika Waititi was brought onboard to create a new movie and I was excited again. No details have been released on that, but we did find out that Patty Jenkins (of Wonder Woman fame) is developing Rogue Squadron about the best of the best X-Wing fighter pilots, and I am understandably intrigued by the possibilities...

"The greatest fighter pilot movie of all time?" Um, yeah. Sign me up!

   
• Marvel Studios on Disney+! Boy oh boy were there a smorgasbord of tidbits dropped about upcoming Marvel shows on Disney+... and announcements of entirely new shows we hadn't heard of before...

• WandaVision. Wanda's mental breakdown after the death of The Vision is straight out of the comic books. The previews from the live-action take on the material looks like it's going to be interesting... if not over-the-top oddball strange. I have no idea if this will be any good, but I'm certainly hoping so.
• The Falcon and The Winter Soldier looks to be far more in the ballpark of what I want to see out of Marvel Studios. Fingers crossed.
• Loki. Well, well, well. Now we know what this series will be about... Loki falling afoul of some kind of temporal space/time regulatory agency. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it looks interesting enough that I'll definitely be tuning in.
• Hawkeye. It's been rumored that the upcoming Disney+ series will be based on the Matt Fraction and David Aja series of the same name... one of the greatest comic book stories of all time. And now we know the rumors are true, as we're getting a lot of images of Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop. All I can do is hope that it does the source material justice.
• Ironheart. In the comic books, child genius Riri Williams builds her own Iron Man armor and has her own adventures. Now we're getting a live-action version of the same. Not sure if they will skew this one towards a younger audience or not, which I think would be a mistake.
• Armor Wars. After playing guest shots in many Marvel Studios films, Rhodey is finally getting a series all his own after the Iron Man technology falls into the wrong hands. Don Cheadle is back in what seems like it will be an action-packed show, which is all you can hope for.
• She-Hulk. We finally get confirmation that Mark Ruffalo's Hulk will be appearing alongside Tatiana Maslany's She-Hulk, so at least they are taking things seriously. Absolutely no idea which way they will take this, but the comic books have so many ideas as to how things could be approached that there's no excuse for doing something deserving of the material.
• Moon Knight. No confirmation that Oscar Isaac will be taking the role, as rumored, which is a shame considering how perfect he would be for the part.
• Ms. Marvel. In addition to Kamala Khan getting her own series, we've also learned that she will be appearing in Captain Marvel 2 along with Monica Rambeau. I don't really know how this will work given how odd her stretchy powers are, but it does bode well that she's going to be a part of something bigger in the MCU.
• Secret Invasion. Finally. Samuel L. Jacson's Nick Fury and Ben Mendelsohn’s Skull Talos get their own series! Secret Invasion was a Marvel Universe-spanning comic book arc, so I'm not exactly sure how they will be able to adapt it with just two players... but maybe they aren't? Maybe anybody who's anybody will be making guest appearances? How cool would that be? Since Sam has been in all their movies, the least they can do is return the favor. And hopefully Samuel L. Jackson will be making calls to Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans in order to get them to drop by for Skrull guest appearances!
• Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. James Gunn is working on this one, which is going to shoot at the same time as Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3. If it's taken seriously, I'm excited for it. If not... and we're going to get some kind of farce in the vein of The Star Wars Holiday Special... I wish they just wouldn't.
• I Am Groot. A series of shorts featuring Groot which we don't know if they are going to be actual stories... or some kind of breaking-the-fourth-wall anthology (like the Forky shorts that came out of Toy Story 4).
• What If?. Now that I've seen the beautiful animation they've created for this series of stories which might have happened had circumstances unfolded differently than they did... including What If Peggy Carter Became Captain America and What If T'Challa Became Star Lord... I am really, really looking forward to this series.

   
• Marvel Studios Movies! Now that we're a year behind where we are supposed to be thanks to the pandemic, there's future news to be had to tide us over, I guess...

• Black Panther II. We have confirmation that Marvel will not be recasting T'Challa after the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman, which is as it should be. But after Shuri herself, Letitia Wright, came out as a full-blown anti-vaxer and conspiracy theory dumbass on her social media, I find myself wishing that they would just not do anything more with Black Panther until the inevitable MCU reboot a decade from now. Let Okoye and Nakia appear in other movies... give them their own series (along with W'Kabi, HINT HINT HINT!)... but just let Black Panther Rest In Peace.
• Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Peyton Reed is back for a third film, which was great news... but the big news was that Jonathan Majors has been confirmed as Kang the Conqueror! As one of the MCU's most powerful villains, it will be interesting to see if his appearance here will lead to the next big event for the movies.
• Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. The first movie was good, but was mired in origin story stuff that didn't really get us the Doctor Strange we have been dying to see. THAT came in Infinity War and it was glorious. Now we are getting a sequel which will be exactly what we've been hoping for: a real Doctor Strange movie. Plus Scarlet Witch. Plus Mordo. Plus Wong. Plus Dr. Palmer. Plus America Chavez(!). Plus maybe even Spider-Man (because Doctor Strange will be in the next Spider-Man movie). And while it's upsetting that Scott Derrickson won't be back to direct, I choose to see Sam Raimi stepping in as a good thing, even though I really wanted to see the horror movie that Derrickson was promising us.
• Fantastic Four. After three utterly shitty FF movies from FOX, we're finally... finally... going to get a proper Marvel Studios movie. And it's going to be directed by Jon Watts! We know nothing more about it, but if there's any hope at all of us getting something good, Marvel is the way it's going to happen.
• Shang-Chi. No real news... but we did get confirmation that Michelle Yeoh will be in it, which is all I need to know.
• Captain Marvel 2. What this movie will entail is a mystery. Given that she's one of the most powerful characters in the entire MCU, it's difficult to have earth-based adventures with her that can make much sense. Anything that's cosmic enough in scope to be a worthy adversary would surely attract the attention of every hero on earth and not just Carol Danvers. My guess is that it's a space adventure of some kind, but given that it's going to have Kamala Khan in it makes me wonder. Monica Rambeau will undoubtedly be getting her Photon powers (if she doesn't already get them in WandaVision), so she could certainly go cosmic, so anything's possible I suppose.

   
• Disney-Pixar! New movies Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto, Iwaju, Luca, Lightyear, and Turning Red. New series for Disney+ built around Zootopia, Baymax, Tiana, Moana, and Cars. But the only news I really cared about was Dug Days, which looks fantastic...

Perfect.

   
• Alien! In one of the bigger surprises, Noah Hawley is creating an Alien series for Hulu?

All we know is that it will be set here on earth, and is supposed to be scary. Good enough for me.

   
• Kiss! Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair recreated their kiss from Cruel Intentions for the 2020 MTV Movie Awards...

Just makes me want to watch the movie all over again.

   
• Rook! My dad taught me how to play chess when I was fairly young. It wasn't really a game I was interested in, so I never played it much. In high school I'd play an occasional game for something to do, but I didn't really care enough to study so I was never terribly good. During my gap year I had a new found interest in the game and started playing via the internet. I got fairly good, read a few books on chess theory, and could hold my own by the time I started college. I haven't played a game since. It was for this reason I had decided to skip The Queen's Gambit when it debuted on Netflix. But the reviews were so stellar that I ended up watching it the following week...

It's a really good series. The acting is excellent and the way they communicate the strategy and energy of the game is terrific. But the best part is the production values. They are exceptional. They've recreated the 1960's right down to the last detail, and I ended up watching parts of it again last night just to look at the appliances, automobiles, dishware, music, clothing, and all the other things which made it such an experience to watch. If you've got a Netflix subscription and haven't seen it, I'd recommend giving it a look.

   
• Interview! I was Leah's guest on her podcast Finding Favorites where I talk about travel (my favorite thing) and you can listen to it right here. I really need to get a better microphone for things like this.

   
And that's an end to my bullets, Sunday.

The first snow of the season would cause lesser blogs to crumble, but not this blog... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Bridges! One of the things that boggles my mind when I travel is how old the world's architecture is. Notre Dame de Paris cathedral started construction in 1163, for example. The Colosseum in Rome was built in in the year 0070-something. And the Great Pyramid of Giza? Oh... that started in the year 2580 BC. How they were constructed is not really a mystery (despite people thinking the pyramids were built by aliens and shit) and it's no less fascinating than the structures themselves. Still, reading about how they were made is not the same as seeing it...

Makes me think of the amazing David Macaulay books, which were responsible for my escalating love of architecture as a kid. Some of them were animated by PBS, and boy wouldn't it be amazing to see more of that. In the meanwhile, we get an occasional video like this tossed our way.

   
• More! And so... Borders is dead. LONG LIVE BORDERS!

Thank heavens Johnny Harris is still making videos despite the rug being pulled out from under him when his series was canceled.

   
• Quibi-Free! It's kinda hilarious that absolutely everybody knew that crappy short-form streaming service, Quibi, would be a massive failure... except founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman. They had a shitty concept with shitty "shows" and it was inevitable that it wouldn't work (WE BELIEVE SHORT-FORM VIDEOS ARE THE FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT... HERE'S PART ONE OF SEVEN!). I thought it might take a year before they shut it down. It only took six months. Not a good day for the people and companies which invested ONE POINT SEVEN BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS! Wealth is wasted on the wealthy. Holy shit... just think of the shows we could have gotten for that kind of money. Blergh.

   
• Hallmark? Weird that the promos from Netflix's slate of cheesy romance movies are out-Hallmarking Hallmark. As shown in the movie Falling Inn Love and the trailer for Operation Christmas Drop, Netflix is serious about quality over quantity, which is the exact opposite of Hallmark. We got another darn fine looking cheesy trailer for another cheesy Christmas romance...

Yeah, I'll be tuning into that one too.

   
• Normalization! I've added my pronouns to all my social media crap because I am 100% onboard with anything that encourages somebody to be who they are and live their best life at zero cost to me...

If you can remember their name, you can remember their pronouns. You don't have to agree with it. You don't even have to care. Because it has absolutely nothing to do with you. It's just common courtesy and common courtesy should be normalized. This should be our default.

   
• Bennu! After a little over four years, NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) finally made contact with the asteroid 101955 Bennu. It's mission is to grab a 2oz. sample of "asteroid stuff" off the asteroid...

Miraculously, OSIRIS-REx did too good a job. It ended up grabbing for more than anticipated. It sucked up so much that the sample collection door couldn't close and they are having to deal with that. But will this sample give us any insight into the origins of the universe? We won't know until OSIRIS-REx returns in three years. After that, we're not exactly done with 101955 Bennu. In its Wikipedia entry, we learn that the asteroid has a "cumulative 1-in-2,700 chance of impacting Earth between 2175 and 2199."

   
• Hole! Falling down a YouTube rabbit hole is not always a bad thing. I've grown tired of trying to hunt down new podcasts to listen to while I work, so I've been playing YouTube videos that I can listen to while I work. One such YouTube channel I've been obsessed over this past week is Lindsay Ellis. She's a writer who has an interesting viewpoint on a number of topics. I accidentally came across her while researching the term "Streisand Effect" and there was no turning back. My favorite videos are when she does deep dives on Disney. They're fantastic...

But don't stop there, she's got thoughts on a myriad of topics. This one completely surprised me...

Intrigued? You can find her YouTube Channel here.

   
I'd go out to play in the snow, but it has long since melted.