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.

No amount of facts or science will convince an anti-masker that they are FULL. OF. SHIT. Even their legal arguments are fucking stupid... just as they are. Believe whatever the hell you want to believe, but businesses have the right to refuse service if you aren’t wearing a mask and they require it, just like they are able to have you arrested for trespassing. Don’t want to wear a mask? Afraid to wear a mask? Order online. Order curbside pickup. Or just stay the fuck home. We just don’t give a shit about your drama...

Legal Dad is so great. His take-downs on absurd bullshit are always worth watching. Like this one about voter fraud nonsense in my home state of Washington...

I mean... I've changed my signature twice. I developed my first signature when I first started having to sign stuff. This is how it looked when I got a checking account, registered for the draft, got a driver's license, and registered to vote...

Eventually I found myself losing my middle initial and changing the "II" after my name to "2"...

And do you know what happened? THE COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE CALLED ME IN TO SIGN A NEW VOTER REGISTRATION CARD SO THAT THEY COULD VERIFY MY BALLOT!

Eventually I changed my signature again so that I could write it faster (I sign my official stuff differently than what you see below... this is how I sign my artwork... but it's kinda-sorta in the same vein as this Mickey-Mouse-looking thing)...

And do you know what happened? THE COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE CALLED ME IN AGAIN TO SIGN ANOTHER NEW VOTER REGISTRATION CARD SO THAT THEY COULD VERIFY MY BALLOT AGAIN!

But I guess all these stupid rumors by hucksters and liars are all anybody cares to listen to anymore, not actual experiences by actual people telling the truth about shit.

Between the anti-maskers, anti-vaxers, COVID-deniers, voter fraud conspiracy theorists, flat earthers, anti-science dumbasses, and all the rest... I am just so fucking tired. Can I go to sleep until Star Trek times happen?

Every damn day there's stuff going on that's worse than the day before, and I am exhausted. I just want to crawl under the covers and forget the outside world exists before I even get to my lunch hour because something in the news was the last straw for me.

Flat earthers. Anti-vaxxers. COVID deniers and mask deniers. Q-Anon conspiracy dipshits. Politicians selling us out to their wealthy corporate owners. Asholes making life so much harder for anybody who isn't a billionaire. The list goes on and on, but it generally boils down to mean people and stupid people. And most of the time the worst offenders are both. Those who lack compassion and kindness. Those who are willfully ignorant and not willing to acknowledge truth. It's depressing just how bad things have gotten because these people are intent on fucking it up for all of us.

The good news is that I finally set aside some time to reinstall Wordpress so the PHP update is no longer killing my blog, so there's that.

So I guess there's nothing stopping me from kicking my Monday to the curb a little early and crawling under the covers to play video games for the rest of the day.

Though I'm pretty sure my cats will want dinner come 6:00.

I bounce back and forth between wanting to know absolutely everything that's happening in the world today... and wanting desperately to know nothing about anything anywhere. But I couldn't live with myself if I turned an ignorant eye to all the crap that's happening, so I do my best to stay informed and wade through the sewage forced upon us by the bullshit media with their bullshit agendas.

Right before my birthday happened, the "big news" of the day was Vice President Kamala Harris not saluting the military detail for Air Force 2 as she walked onto her personal jet to go do... something... or whatever. People were beside themselves with rage over her blatant disrespect.

Except...

The President of the United States of America salutes our troops out of (relatively) recent tradition because he is COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE ARMED FORCES. And even then it's not required OR expected. The Vice President isn’t in command of jack-shit when it comes to the military, so she doesn’t salute them. She's just a civilian in public service.

And yet here comes shitloads of people throwing a fit about it.

Which is like being big mad because a grocery store clerk doesn’t salute our troops, but okay.

Every damn day this country gets more ignorant and more idiotic because people are fucking sheep who don’t even know why they’re mad any more. Somebody on TV or the internet tells them to be outraged, so they get outraged. All people care about is whether the outrage fits the narrative they've been programmed with. Facts, evidence, experience, accuracy, and knowledge simply Do Not Matter.

And I don't know what else to say about it except "Well, have at it then. Keep on being that person who can’t help but announce to the world how big of a dumbass they are." — Because what else can I say? There's no changing anybody's mind, and patiently explaining why Vice President Harris didn't salute the guys outside her fancy plane would make zero difference. They would still be outraged.

And can you imagine if she had saluted?

Then the outrage would be SHE'S NOT MILITARY! SHE'S NOT IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND! HOW DARE SHE THINK SHE IS WORTHY OF SALUTING OUR BRAVE TROOPS! WHAT A DISRESPECTFUL PIECE OF SHIT!!!

Because that's what the outrage machine does. That's all they're good for, apparently.

   
Which brings me to this bit of genius from comedian Russell Brand, one of the foremost thinkers on the planet (whether you agree with him or not)...

"I mean in England we have a Queen for fuck’s sake. A Queen! We have to call her things like 'Your Majesty!' Like she’s all majestic... like an eagle or a mountain. She’s just a person. A little old lady in a shiny hat — a shiny hat that WE paid for. Or 'Your Highness.' What the fuck is that?! What, she’s high up above us at the top of a class pyramid on a shelf of money with her own face on it? We should be calling her Mrs Windsor. In fact that’s not even her real name, they changed it in the war to distract us from the inconvenient fact that they were as German as the enemy that teenage boys were being encouraged, conscripted actually, to die fighting. Her actual name is Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

All this drama. All this outrage. All this hate. It's all built around mere humans that used to exist to serve us... but now exist to be worshipped by us. If you are a Republican you are required to worship at the altar of President Regan. If you are a Trump-Republican you are required to worship at the altar of President Trump. If you are a Democrat, then President Obama is your god... with President Biden as some kind of god-adjacent deity or something. And once you've been programmed with which god you'll be worshipping, you are expected to be blindly loyal to them... all while hating everybody's else's god... regardless of circumstance.* Which is how we get to "KAMALA HARRIS IS A DEMON IN LEAGUE WITH THE GREAT SATAN JOE BIDEN AND WE NEED TO BE OUTRAGED WHEN SHE DIDN'T SALUTE EVEN THOUGH SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO SALUTE BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT OUR GOD DEMANDS OF US! (as handed down from on high by Fox News, restrictions do not apply)"

And, I gotta tell you, I'm exhausted by it all.**

If only we could get back to a place where political leaders are public servants again.***

Though, if I'm being honest, I think we've gone too far down the rabbit hole to ever go back. It's going to be politicians as gods, mandatory blind worship, generated outrage, and hate on top of hate on top of hate, from here on out. Which is both sad and inexplicable, because I think if you sat people down individually and asked them if this is what they really want, their answer would be "no." But nobody has time for that conversation. They have to get back to being mad about somebody over something that somebody told them to be mad about.

   
*Which, coincidentally enough, is how world religions seem to work, but I digress.
**Not exhausted enough to pick a god, but still... I digress.
***Or, at the very least, aren't able to be bought by lobbyist payola... no more digressing.

If you put yourself out there on the internet, you're going to get hate. Sure you're more likely to get hate if you have an opinion online, but I've seen people get attacked for every reason and no reason at all. Cyber-bullying is our new normal, and given just how bad it's getting, I worry about kids being able to survive it. Because some don't.

I have a blog where I post my opinions, ideas, and thoughts on a daily basis, so I get my share of hate. In the early days of blogging it bothered me a great deal. As I grew accustomed to it (though, honestly, you never really get accustomed to it) I was able to compartmentalize things and not have it ruin my day. All I can do is be as kind as I can be to people and carry on.

Though some people don't really deserve kindness.

They are so awful that any kindness feels as though it's wasted energy.

Take for instance "That Vegan Teacher" on TikTok...

She's a truly vile and repugnant bully, and I blocked her within days of getting addicted to the app. Unfortunately, she can still be "dueted" so she was still popping up on my feed. And I've hated it. I've been a vegetarian for 35 years, and every time I came across her disgusting antics (seriously, she compares Vegans to Jews during The Holocaust and was horrifically racist in her takes) it made me want to run out and eat a steak because she's everywhere...

She's the absolute worst, and it could easily be argued that she did more to promote eating meat than actually convincing people to stop eating meat. In fact, many of the videos I saw were just people eating meat while dueting her bullshit. Including famous people like Chef Gordon Ramsay whom she would attack often...

Now, if she wants to be a bigoted piece of shit who persecutes people for eating meat, harass farmers as if they are murderers, and be a generally terrible person who attacks non-vegans as a matter of course, then fine. I'd argue she could have done far more to promote veganism by not being such a sadistic fucking asshole, but that's who she wants to be then she has that right. Ultimately I feel she doesn't give a fuck about animals and all the shit she does is to exploit social media for money, but who knows? She's demented.

But then...

Enter Tommyinnit. A 16-year old kid that she started harassing solely so she could garner attention for her "cause." That was repugnant enough, but she didn't stop there. She started sexualizing Tommy in her videos...

Remember what I said about worrying that kids have a tough time dealing with cyber bullying? You thought I was talking about other kids... and while that's a factor, in this case I was talking about this monsterous adult. And apparently that is what it took for her to FINALLY get her ass booted from TikTok.

And I can't tell you how happy I am that once all the celebrating dies down that I don't have to see her fucked-up shit on TikTok any more.

Look, I'm all for eliminating animal cruelty. I'm all for more sustainable farming. I am all for promoting vegetarianism and veganism to get people to eat less meat or stop eating meat altogether. But this is not a diet for everybody. Some people suffer from anemia and a vegan diet will seriously harm them. Some people simply cannot afford a healthy vegan diet because our government subsidizes meat so heavily (which is why you can get a hamburger on a dollar menu). Some people have beliefs or traditions which include eating meat. There are dozens upon dozens of reasons that veganism is not a one-stop solution for the entire world.

If vegans truly want to do something to help animals... then stop attacking people for eating them and start creating a world where it's easier and more desirable to not eat them.

Lobby the government to cut back on meat subsidies and sink the money into making more affordable fruits and vegetables. Campaign food processors to add more non-meat options to their product lines... then buy them. Help promote more non-meat options like "The Impossible Whopper" at popular restaurant chains. Stop being fucking assholes that want to force people to do what you want, but instead convince them it's a better way to live. Encourage rather than condemn.

And do so in a way that's not harmful... such as making sure they have a doctor to supervise the switch in case a vegan diet is problematic for them.

And you should probably stop attacking and sexualizing kids who have to eat whatever their parents buy for them anyway. I thought this was a given, but... well... here we are.

I guess that's all I have to say. Except FUCK YOU, THAT VEGAN TEACHER, FOR BEING A HORRIFIC PIECE OF SHIT! I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOUR IDIOCY TO GET YOU BOOTED OFF OF MORE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS SO PEOPLE WILL STOP EATING ANIMALS SOLELY TO SPITE YOUR STUPID, ABUSIVE, TOXIC ASS!

In my middle school science class one winter, our teacher had one of us run out and fill a beaker full of snow. Once my fellow student returned with the snow, the teacher started up a flame, crafted a snowball, and asked us what would happen to the snowball if he put it in the flame. Somebody raised their hand and said "IT WILL MELT!" at which point the teacher asked to see a show of hands of how many of us thought that was correct. We all raised our hands.

But the snowball didn't melt.

It did start to slowly disappear though. The science teacher then explained that this was due to SUBLIMATION... where something transitions from a solid directly to a gas. We all thought that was pretty cool.

Fast forward to this week where people in Texas are claiming that the unprecidented snowfall is fake and man-made to... well, I dunno... punish Texans for some bizarre reason...

>

Now, my first instinct was to think "Well, since they normally don't get snow in Texas like this, their science teacher wasn't able to provide the same demonstration that I had as a kid, so I guess this is understandable. They just don't know how snow works." I chalked it up to ignorance, and felt bad for them that concepts like "sublimation" and "soot" were absent in their thinking.

And then I actually watched the video.

"Thank you Bill Gates for trying to fucking trick us that this is real snow. You'll see it's not melting, and it's going to burn. Snow don't burn. Snow fucking melts. No water no dripping no nothing. If I put this shit in the microwave it's going to start sparking because there's metal mixed in it."

I went from feeling sorry that this woman was lacking basic science principles I learned in middle school... to feeling absolute rage.

I will never forgive Bill Gates for saddling us with the shitty Microsoft Windows computer operating system... but he is one of those rare billionaires WHO ARE ACTUALLY USING THEIR MONEY TO ACTIVELY MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, and I am sick and fucking tired of people making him out to be some kind of evil comic book super-villain because they are idiots who don't possess critical thinking skills.

Bill Gates once said that one the biggest barriers towards having good health care in developing nations was the lack of medical records. And he's right. Because people often get displaced by famine or violence, any records that might have been kept on their medical history are often lost. And how can a doctor provide adequate care without a proper medical history? Gates suggested that perhaps medical records could be put on a tiny chip that could be placed under the skin so that these people would be able to have their critical medical information on them at all times. It was a genius solution by a smart man to solve a very real problem.

Next thing you know this simple concept which can be easily verified via a Google search becomes this sinister plot to microchip everybody so Bill Gates can track your movements. Like he would even give a shit about your boring-ass life. And never mind that everybody has credit cards and mobile phones which make tracking you a piece of cake already, the conspiracy theory bullshit is somehow what people want to believe?

Bill Gates has been using his massive wealth to invest in medical research, medical solutions, and vaccination programs in countries where vaccinations are tough to get. He does all this because he's a genuinely decent human being who wants to leave this world better than he entered it. VACCINES. SAVE. LIVES. PERIOD. and Bill Gates doesn't think that the poorest of humanity should have to go without.

Next thing you know, somebody on the internet decides that vaccines are bad despite history being replete with evidence to the contrary, the anti-vax idiocy movement is started, and Bill Gates is once again painted as a villain who somehow wants to vaccinate everybody so he can get rich or whatever. Never mind that he has so much money that he couldn't spend it in ten lifetimes... never mind that he's done his best to make sure vaccines can be had for free... the conspiracy theory bullshit is somehow what people want to believe?

Bill Gates has been an advocate for combatting climate change. A threat so serious that it is already affecting every living creature on the planet and may one day be our doom. Wanting to divest his investments from contributing factors like fossil fuels, Gates took his money out of oil companies (or whatever) and sunk it into emerging green energy development. He does this because he gives a shit about the world that his kids will be living in.

Next thing you know, somebody who doesn't understand basic fucking science can't melt a snowball with a cigarette lighter, and Bill Gates is trying to control the weather. Ironically, figuring out how to control the weather might be our only option for dealing with climate change if we've reached a tipping point where there's no fixing things. But hey... the conspiracy theory bullshit is somehow what people want to believe?

Being ignorant or uneducated is one thing.

Buying into bullshit anti-science conspiracy theories to vililfy a guy who has invested huge sums of time, effort, and money into helping people live healtheir lives on a healthier planet is another thing entirely.

I am quickly coming to understand how reeducating these people with evidence, facts, research, and logic is a losing battle. They don't give a shit about any of that. They only care about what fits their idiotic narrative regardless of how stupid and absurd. So what to do? If you can't make them see facts or reason, what's left? Tell them to go fuck themselves and move on? Maybe. But too many people are being too stupid for this to be a long-term solution. We've got people who think the earth is flat, for Christ's sake.

In chemistry, SUBLIMATION is the process by which solids (like snow) are converted to a vapor via heat. The vapor can be liquified via condensation, then turned back into a solid via cold.

Outside of chemistry, SUBLIMATION is the act of refining or purifying something to achieve a better, higher state.

I am convinced that Bill Gates has been sublimating into a higher version of humanity due to his amazing generosity and investment into planet earth and the life which inhabits it. He is what wealthy people should aspire to be.

Though why anybody would want to be Bill Gates when some willfully ignorant whack-job who doesn't know how snow works is cursing your name is beyond me. Far easier to just sit on your massive wealth and buy gold-plated toilets for your private jet collection. Sure this just keeps humanity moving ever-closer to its destruction, but at least people don't think you team up with The Joker and Catwoman to battle Batman as you try to loot Gotham City.

The country may be on the brink of fascism, but you've got bigger fish to fry... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Long! Ewan McGregor has made two documentary series about long-distance motorcycle trips... Long Way Round (London to New York City, 19,000 miles) and Long Way Down (Scotland to Cape Town, 15,000 miles). Both were really good series, and I was happy to learn that Apple TV+ had another series being released... Long Way Up (Ushuaia to Los Angeles, 13,000 miles)...

It was weird watching Ewan and Charley arrive in at Malvinas Argentinas Ushuaia International Airport, which was where I landed for my Antarctica expedition, and be able to say "Hey! I've been there!" The series is notable for a number of reasons, the biggest being that this time they are using electric motorcycles! Indeed, most of the show is dealing with running out of electricity and not being able to charge (25% is being cold, 25% is actual journey). The first three episodes dropped on the 18th and now they are releasing the rest of them, one each week. If you like motorcycles or travel or really cool people having amazing adventures... or, if you're like me and love all three... this is the series for you. All it takes is an Apple TV+ subscription!

   
• RGB! Very sad to hear of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Her dedication to the law and this country resulted in a lot of good things. Even sadder at the thought of a Supreme Court Justice landing in The Court who will strip rights from women... from LGBTQ persons... from minorities... from the poor... from the disenfranchised... from anybody who doesn't fit into the singular mold of making sure that straight, white, wealthy, Christian men are the only people who have rights and protections in this country. But, alas...

   
• Minutes! I've stumbled across a YouTube channel called "minutephysics" that's pretty great. And it all started when I saw their video on masks this past week...

The entire channel is gold, and you can check it out right here.

   
• Yo! And, on that note, WE GOTTA YEET THIS VIRUS, YO!

SO DOPE!

   
• Closer! Because I rotate through my streaming services, I didn't get to Sundance Channel in 2019 so I could watch the second season of So Close when it debuted. Instead I got to it late... which worked out okay because I saw it at a time I needed to see it most...

In the first episode, there's a laugh-out-loud moment that really got me into the new season. But then it crashed right into showing just how big a mess that Michael and Kate are. Again. And if you thought that Michael was screwed up the first time around, you haven't seen anything yet. Because it's not him being deaf or gay that defines him... it's that he's a fucking disaster. A bomb just waiting to explode all over everybody. Again. And I had gotten to the point where I was going to stop watching because we've seen this all before. But I stuck with it. And then they kinda used that to take the show into an interesting place and I was hooked. By the time we were at the final episode I was in love with the show and wanting more. Again. Except... NOT IF WE'RE JUST GOING TO END UP BACK WHERE WE WERE FOR THE THIRD TIME! For the love of God, get these people to a healthier place and grow their characters from there. Anything else is just more of the same and we're bored of it. You can watch This Close on The Sundance Channel.

   
• Criminal! And speaking of television... I absolutely love happening across a show I’ve never heard of before and finding something really good to watch. Criminal: UK is fascinating, and the stories and guest stars for each episode are great! Worth a look of you’re into this kind of show...

I binged every episode, and am looking forward to watching the other versions of this show... Criminal: Germany, Criminal: Spain, and Criminal: France.

   
• Conspiracy! Sometimes you see something float by on Facebook and feel it to your very soul...

Pretty much how it goes.

   
And that's all she wrote, true believer.

=sigh= I've drastically cut down on the number of political posts I drop on my blog because there's nothing new to say. On top of that, it always makes people mad because I am critical of politicians no matter which side of the political divide they get their lobbyist money from.

But recently something has been dominating the news cycle which has really bothered me, so I'm just going to dump my thoughts here for all the world to see and let the chips fall where they may. And that "something" is Impeached President Trump bragging about being able to pass a cognitive test like it's certified him as some kind of very stable genius.

As the caregiver for my mother through her dementia, it's a test I'm painfully familiar with.

Far from an IQ test, the test our impeached president is referring to is designed to be a screening tool for diagnosing cognitive decline and brain-related problems. It looks like this...

This is the Montreal Cognitive Ability Test. I'm not positive this is the version of the test my mom took but, if it wasn't, it was very close to this. She took it twice. And watching her struggling to get through it is something that still haunts my nightmares. The first time she attempted it she pretty much failed at everything, and it was all I could do to not break down into tears right there in the doctor's office. I was so close to her problems that I wasn't seeing them for what they were. It was this test that put everything into perspective for me, and it was gut-wrenching. I am having anxiety just remembering back to it.

The second time we got through question three and there was really no point in going any further. That time I did break down in tears, but it was after I had excused myself and somehow made it to a stall in the men's bathroom.

Ironically I remember her taking the tests like it was yesterday because my cognitive abilities are (assumably) mostly okay.

The first question has you running through a maze of characters which are alternating numbers and letters of the alphabet. The challenge is to get them in alternating order, which anybody with a brain can manage easily. Except people with an injured brain, of course. Despite having it explained to her twice, my mom connected the numbers and ignored the letters. The next question asks you to draw a 3-D cube. Even if you don't have artistic talent this is something people can copy fairly easily. My mom managed to get a square okay, but then it was just random lines.

Next you have to draw a clock with the time set to 10 past eleven. This might be tricky for some but, again, a person with normal cognitive function can draw a circle, put a tick at 12 O'clock and 6 O'clock, draw in the 15 and 45 minute ticks, then put two ticks between the ticks you have. Then you draw the little hand and the big hand at the appropriate time. This had my mom completely flummoxed. She got a kinda-oval shape, but then just started drawing random lines really close together, and she had to be coached to get that far. I think the hands she drew weren't even on the clock face.

Then you have to name some drawings of animals. Mom blazed through these with no problem. At the time of her first test her long-term memory was in pretty good shape.

Next is a memory test where you are given five words and asked to repeat them back. This is where things can get tricky. If you just throw five random words at me, I won't remember them at all... likely not even five minutes later. But if you tell me I have to remember five random words, then I can do that no problem because I use memory association. FACE • Okay, I am picturing a woman's face. VELVET • Okay, the FACE is Isabella Rossellini and she is rubbing a piece of blue VELVET on it. CHURCH • Okay, we pull back from Isabella Rossellini's FACE being rubbed by blue VELVET and she's sitting on the steps of a CHURCH. DAISY • Okay, Isabella Rossellini's FACE is being rubbed with blue VELVET as she sits on the steps of a CHURCH which has a DAISY growing in front of it. RED • Isabella Rossellini's FACE rubbed by blue VELVET as she sits on CHURCH steps with a DAISY growing in front of it and a PeTA nut job just drove by and threw RED paint on everything. FACE, VELVET, CHURCH, DAISY, RED. Got it. My mom, of course, couldn't get through the list at all. She couldn't remember a thing, and this was all really confusing to her.

Then you repeat some numbers and have them repeated back... and have to clap when you hear the letter "A" when a series of letters are read to you. Then you have to count backwards from 100 by sevens (which, is something I can do easy enough, but it takes a minute!). My mom just kinda stared blankly and couldn't be coaxed into even attempting any of this.

And now we're finally to those last five VERY HARD QUESTIONS which has Impeached President Trump thinking he's some kind of medical miracle.

1. Repeat a couple sentences back to the reader. How is this in any way "very hard" if you have full cognitive functionality?
2. Name as many words as you can which begin with the letter "F" in one minute. The goal is greater than 11 words. Granted, this may be a challenge with somebody who doesn't use communication skills much, but what is so "very hard" about this?
3. Find the similarity between two words. Yeah, knowing what's similar between "train & bicycle" and "watch & ruler" is a real brain twister.
4. Recall the five random words you were given. This might be a challenge for somebody if they don't have a good memory or they don't know to use memory association to remember stuff... but, yeah... not rocket science here: Isabella Rossellini's FACE rubbed by blue VELVET as she sits on CHURCH steps with a DAISY growing in front of it and a PeTA nut job just drove by and threw RED paint on everything.
5. Name the Year, Month, Day, Place, and City. Okay, I admit the date stuff could totally be a challenge for me. Since I work long hours seven days a week, the dates just blend together. But I would absolutely know the date if I was taking my mother to an appointment on that day. And a president who has appointments all the time would (hopefully) know this too. But how is knowing WHERE you are and what CITY you're in a challenge to anybody with a functional brain? If that's a "very hard" question for Impeached President Trump, then we have a serious problem.

When Impeached President Trump brags about five fairly simple questions being "very hard," I am understandably concerned. Everybody should be. But more than being concerned, I am very, very pissed off. Whether your brain is cognitively functional or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether you're an evil asshole or not! Do I think Joe Biden could run through this test and get 30 out of 30 correct? No. No I do not. Do I think that Impeached President Trump actually got 30 out of 30 correct? No. No I absolutely do not. We will never see that test. And even if we saw that test, there's no guarantee whatsoever that it's the actual test or that he wasn't coached all the way through it. That's politics. And as thrilling as it might be to see Joe Biden and Impeached President Trump go head-to-head in a cognitive test when I think that they both have demonstrated that they have cognitive issues... that isn't going to get us anywhere. It's not going to tell us which special interest groups are buying them off. It's not going to tell us what they'll be fleecing off the American people's hard-earned tax dollars. It's not going to tell us what back-door deals and shady cronyism their administration will be party to.

All it will tell us is whether they can remember what a lion, rhino, and camel are.

But my biggest takeaway from all this brouhaha is that there's a serious stigma against people with brain and memory problems. I read the comments on these news stories and it's mostly people making fun of Impeached President Trump or Joe Biden because they (allegedly) have cognitive decline. Which is to say that they're making fun of my mom. And as I sit here and type these words my heart is aching.

I am not going to lie, though. I absolutely do this too.

I try not to. I know better. And it's never necessarily to make fun of people, but more to offer armchair assessments as to somebody's mental state or cognitive abilities from a clinical perspective when it comes to the responsibilities they have. I've said that Joe Biden looks like he's sundowning, which may be true... but it could just be him attempting to speak when he suffers from a stutter. I've said that Impeached President Trump scares the shit out of me because everything he says is insane and he's got his finger on the button to unleash the nukes... but it could just be him being an evil, disgusting excuse for a human being. I honestly don't know.

As always, all I can do is try to be better about not stigmatizing mental health.

Even if I fail in the attempt.

Which I do a lot.

Take my trying to eat better, for example.

Yesterday I had to go to the grocery store because I needed an onion and a few other items. While I was there I passed by a display of sugary bakery products that were on sale. These are things that I just can't eat any more... most of the time I don't even want to eat them any more... but I saw a box of raspberry jelly donuts and was immediately intrigued. When I was in college, I was eating a box of these things a day. But as of now? I haven't had a raspberry jelly donut in decades.

I bought a box of course. If I'm careful and eat them in moderation they're not going to kill me, right?

Yeah... I ate half the box that afternoon and downed the other half this morning for breakfast.

But I'll try to do better tomorrow, I promise.

My thumbs may be numb from too much gaming, but that won't stop me... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Last Week, Every Week! John Oliver doing what John Oliver does best...

I don't pretend to know what the answer is. But something has got to change. The time for people joining the police force so they can legally be violent towards their fellow humans with hyper-militarized hardware is over. Time to get back to the original mission of our officers in blue... to serve and to protect.

   
• Support Our Troops! For the LAST FUCKING TIME... rubber bullets were NEVER designed to be fired directly at people and never at close range. Especially unarmed, non-threatening people with their arms up. They were designed specifically for times when an officer's life is in imminent danger from an approaching crowd, AND ARE TO BE FIRED AT THE GROUND SO THEY RICOCHET INTO THE CROWD AND DISPERSE THE DANGER!!! The kinetic energy of the projectile must be diffused or else the force of a rubber bullet can be LETHAL...

Support the troops? This guy served as a fucking Marine, but ends up getting shot up right here at home by the very people charged with protecting him.

   
• Trumpism Unmasked! To say that I am disgusted and disappointed in our president right now is a grotesque understatement. Not just in his horrific response to protests which, by and large, are non-violent and have nothing to do with the opportunistic looting going on, but his being a terrible leader in general. Take his latest appearances where he is shown touring factories and going everywhere unmasked... despite the CDC telling us that wearing masks is the easiest way to help slow the spread of the virus and overwhelming our medical care system. Even if he did nothing else but set an example by just wearing a fucking mask, he'd at least be doing something presidential.

And if he could do that and just come out and say something like... "Scientists have said that wearing a mask in public is the easiest way to get this country back on track after the pandemic which has ravaged the world. Masks stop the droplets that carry the virus from infecting other people but do nothing to those who are already infected. Some of you may heard that masks trap carbon dioxide and are unhealthy. But the masks they are talking about are high-filtration masks, not the simple fabric masks which can stop the droplets, but easily allow carbon dioxide to pass through. Cloth masks causing hypercapnia is 100% untrue. I know they're uncomfortable. I know they feel awkward. I know it's not an ideal thing to have to do. But it's a simple kindness towards your fellow Americans, and we all have to do our part to prevail against a virus which doesn't care if your Democrat or Republican. Whether you're young or old. Whether you're a man or a woman. Whether you're healthy or sickly. And doesn't discriminate based on our faith, sexuality, or the color of our skin. I ask that all my fellow Americans join me in following CDC guidelines set to protect us. Wear a mask in public. Respect social distancing. Be kind. Be patient. And above all be united. May God bless all of us, our great country, and peoples around the world as we do whatever we can to prevail against the threat of COVID-19. Thank you and good night."

But instead we get his dumbass tweets about stupid shit and conspiracy theories which do nothing to help anybody except his ego. I don't like Joe Biden... at all... but I would vote for a pile of dog shit knowing that it would be a better leader and a better example than Impeached President Cadet Bone Spurs. I blame him for his terrible response to the coronavirus costing tens of thousands of American lives, but I emphatically condemn him for everything that followed... including the inevitable second wave of deaths which is almost a certainty thanks to his complete lack of "leadership." At which point I am obligated to remind you that a Twitter account which did nothing but tweet the exact same thing as the president was suspended after only three days. If only that applied to the president himself, maybe we wouldn't be quite so bad off as we are now. Because don't even get me started on his repugnant attempt to use the death of George Floyd to endorse fucking job numbers.

   
• FOX "News!" I agree that there's a clear and present danger to this country from "fake news." Unfortunately the fakest of all fake news, FOX "News," mostly gets a pass from our impeached leader (except when they lob a rare criticism his way, at which time they're garbage too!). Their nonstop parade of falsehoods, exaggerations, and outright lies are bad enough... but they insist on being racist fucks on top of it all.

Sane Humans: You can't put a price on a human life!
FOX "News": Sure you can! We do it all the time! Well... we do for Black men...

FOX "News" is doing stupid racist shit like this all the fucking time...

Laura Ingraham on Black players: "Shut up and dribble."
Laura Ingraham on white players: "They are allowed to have an opinion.. they have worth as people.... and speaking against them is Stalinist!"

FOX "News" doesn't even pretend they're not racist pieces of shit. Their agenda is full-on white supremacy, and people like Laura Ingraham who dismissed peaceful protest and encouraged everybody to persecute peaceful protesters is exactly why shit is going down right now. But of course they blame everybody but themselves. And note that Drew Brees ultimately realized he was acting like a privileged piece of shit and apologized. You won't get that from FOX "News." That would go against their agenda of praising straight white Christian men and demonizing those who are not straight white Christian men. This is apparently what they're talking about when they say "All Lives Matter."

The utter trash that is FOX "News" having viewers believe and support everything they say perfectly encapsulates how sick we are as a country and how totaly fucked we are.

   
• Do Better Democrats! And don't think for a minute that my political ranting is over and Republicans get all my attention... because wait, there's more! THE ROOT: NY Rep. Eliot Engel Caught on Hot Mic at George Floyd Press Conference: "If I Didn’t Have a Primary, I Wouldn’t Care."

Democrats claiming moral superiority over Republicans is laughable when y'all have dumbass garbage like this representing your party. Outright saying that he doesn't give a crap about the people he represents? I may die of unshock. Where is Democrat leadership in this? Oh... I know... they're nowhere... he's a powerful long-term incumbent, so I guess he gets a pass? Fuck that. And fuck this piece of shit. And if you want to make excuses for this? Fuck you too. We are way, way past the time when career politicians should get a pass on their heinous behavior and actions just because they're entrenched and have power. This repugnant do-nothing Democrat (who admits he only shows up when he has to) is on his 16th term in Congress. Where are our fucking #TermLimits?? Still waiting. And I'll keep waiting because trash like this are the ones writing the rules. We see you NY District 16. You elected him with 74% of the vote in 2018. Are you going to continue to support him knowing he doesn't give a shit... just because you find him "comfortable? You get what you vote for. Do better.

   
• Led Zep! And just because I want to end this on a positive note... I've been following Luca Stricagnoli for years. This is his latest, in which he is playing Led Zep on a single-neck guitar... a little different from how he usually performs...

Amazing what he's able to get out of an instrument.

   
And now... back to hacking and slashing monsters in a dungeon, I guess.

This past weekend was about as unproductive a weekend as I've had in a very long time. I didn't do much of anything. I think the long weeks of not being able to hang out with friends or, you know, enjoy life, are starting to get to me.

What also gets to me? Going to watch The Abyss and finding that my DVD will no longer play despite still being in flawless condition. The good news is that HBO has it playing, so I was able to watch it after all. The bad news is that I was sent into a total panic at the thought of my massive DVD and Blu-Ray collection deteriorating into unplayability.

I've re-purchased or converted or as much of my collection as possible into digital. But so many things... so many, many, things aren't available digitally. Some movies (like The Abyss and True Lies) inexplicably never made it past DVD. So if you want to own them, that's all you got. As for television shows? Forget about it. Can't be converted, and a huge number of them not only never made it past DVD... but they are out of print and unavailable.

If my old television DVDs become unplayable, then that's all she wrote.

And so I've taken a dip into the quasi-legal arena of backing up my irreplaceable DVDs with digital copies. I say "quasi-legal" because technically breaking the DVD encryption is legally discouraged. But what the fuck else can I do? I can't buy them digitally. All I can do is buy yet another DVD copy that's likely just as old and deteriorating as the one I already own because it's gone out of print.

Like one of my favorite shows, Kitchen Confidential.

I can't believe that the show was canceled after 4 episodes. All 13 that they filmed were dementedly hilarious and featured a stellar cast (including Bradley Cooper, John Cho, and Frank Langella). It's a total bargain at $15 on DVD, but if the DVDs are becoming unplayable, it's a waste of $15.

And so I've ripped digital backups of DVDs I already own because it's all I can do to preserve what I purchased. And if FOX eventually comes to their senses and releases it digitally? Of course I'll re-buy it. I love the show and want to support everybody who worked on it.

Even if I am a bit bitter about supporting the studio which canceled it.

And speaking of bitter...

Like they always say... if you can't stand the heat, don't go into the volcano.