I may be fucked up because the fucking clocks were fucking changed again, which is fucking rough because I'm hard at work on this fine Sunday, but don't worry about bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• For the Love of God, Make the Stupid STOP! Look, more people want us to go on permanent Daylight Saving Time than don't. Some of us are so fucking desperate to stop dicking around with the clocks that we're even considering permanent Standard Time (which is not a better option, but it is the only one you can make happen without getting the fucking dumbasses in Congress to ACTUALLY FUCKING DO SOMETHING). This is all so stupid. Just do it. Just make Daylight Time permanent and fucking MOVE ON FROM THIS BULLSHIT.
• Nacho! One of my favorite chefs is Saúl Montiel, who appears on Epicurious often. He's entertaining and a genius in the kitchen. Even when he's cooking with meat, I learn new things that I can then adapt into a vegetarian recipes. Yesterday I found that he recently made Perfect Nachos that are vegetarian from the jump. They look incredible...
Damn that looks delicious. No clump of stuff dumped on top of the chips, and when you grab one chip you don't take the entire plate of cheese as you would with cheddar. My next grocery order is going to include the ingredients for this bad boy. Best cooking tip you'll ever get from me... go to the Epicurious page and search "Saúl Montiel" to get more awesome tips than you can shake a spatula at.
• YOU FOLD IT IN! After Catherine O'Hara's passing, I'm seeing a non-stop parade of clips with her in them. But this is the first time I've seen her in LEGO. It's one of her most classic scenes...
Oh how I miss Schitt's Creek.
• Libarry! Every time I see the Obama Presidential Library in the news, I wonder what in the hell they were thinking...
I detest this design. It looks like a brutalist nightmare... lacking warmth, beauty, elegance, or architectural fluidity. It could have been so much more. I often wonder what type of statement these oppressive-looking monuments are supposed to be making. Whatever it is, this one feels opposite of the presidency it is supposed to be representing.
• Lanterns! It's interesting how James Gunn is trying his best to differentiate all the DC projects so they're not merging into sameness. And while I can't say that the concept for a cosmic-spanning character like Green Lantern to be trapped in a distinctly earth-bound scenario, I do appreciate that Lanterns is striving to be something different...
And then there's the rumor that Gunn wants to bail from his contract a year early because he feels at odds with his studio's new Paramount overlords. And wouldn't it be interesting if he returned to Marvel? Seems like Paramount would do just about anything to avoid that.
• NEWSFLASH: LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy. For better or worse, I put my name on the shit I say. My name is at the top of the sidebar of every entry on Blogography. And my real name is used on all my social media as well. And, believe me, I struggled with whether or not I wanted to go that route. In The Beginning Times, it felt like more people were using a pseudonym than their real names, but I ultimately decided to skip past that. Who cares what I say? And then I got a reader showing up where I live, and figured I may have made a mistake (the threats were also having me re-think things). But now, decades later, it turns out that staying anonymous is a thing of the past. AI can unmask you with "surprising accuracy." I wonder if this will cut down on the number of people making "anonymous" threats? One can only hope.
• Frod! I think I shared this years ago. I bears re-sharing....
I do the same thing... for my cats.
• Denial Isn't Just a River In Egypt! Every time washed up, bargain basement Hercules homophobe Kevin Sorbo opens his mouth... it's either to say something shitty. Or work in movies like Meet the Spartans so he can kiss dudes...
That's it, Sorbo, put your back into it! Such a hypocrite. Lord what a piece of shit.
And now I'm going back to work. Feel sad for me since my circadian rhythm is fucked.
Yesterday I wrote about my... um... "experience" when I ate two Beyond Burgers instead of my usual one. In case you missed it, my "experience" was explosive diarrhea.
Am I discouraged? No. I will still be eating Beyond Burgers, just in moderation. The taste is too good to be true, and it's the best veggie burger I've ever had. Even if I can only eat them one at a time.
But what about their latest product? Take a look at this...
I was never much of a steak connoisseur, even when I ate meat... 40 years ago April. Probably because, unlike hamburger, steak looked too much like meat. But I am interested in having something new, so I'll be giving it a try.
Once it's in stores.
Because right now it's only available in a 10/$100 at the Beyond Test Kitchen.
Which is tempting, because the reaction has been pretty positive...
I just worry that eating one will cause my ass to explode, so I'd rather wait so I'm not flushing $100 down the toilet.
Literally.
One Beyond Meat "Stack" Burger? Delicious! Wonderful! One of my favorite things to eat! Seriously, I like them better than an Impossible Whopper, which is something I didn't think was possible.
"Diarrhea after eating Beyond Meat is often caused by the product's high fat content (coconut oil), fiber, or specific, highly processed ingredients like pea protein and methylcellulose, which can cause digestive upset. Users reported symptoms like stomach cramps, nausea, and vomiting."
Well alrighty then!
Guess I won't be eating my "Stack" burger... um... stacked, because that was a never-ending experience I don't want to re-live any time soon. Fortunately my medicine cabinet was stocked up with Imodium. This is an excellent dieting tool. It forces you to eat only one. And if you can't resist and end up eating more than one, then you'll shit yourself stupid, thus you'll end up with the calories of less than one!
I gotta say, this is a crazy turn of events. For my entire life I've traveled the world eating dicey foodstuffs from even dicier places and was never worse for wear. But now I cook a veggie burger and end up glued to the toilet.
Say! Maybe Beyond Burgers could be used as a delicious colonoscopy prep! And now...
DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! TOO MUCH INFORMATION FOLLOWS!
Do you want to know how I knew it was the Beyond Burgers causing my explosive diarrhea? It smelled like Beyond Burgers! My bathroom reeked of deliciousness! Kinda. I guess.
Insomnia has been kicking my ass, but I'm not letting that stop me... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Punch-kun! I ran across the tragic story of the macaque snow monkey "Punch-kun" because I still follow Japanese news. Punch was abandoned my his mother and took comfort in an IKEA stuffed orangutan named "Djungelskog." There were numerous photos of the poor little guy doing his best to find acceptance and love from a plushie...
But then, after days on his own, he finally got a hug from one of his troop...
So that's nice. Especially after the shit-show of a week we've had.
• Whither Pixar? When Onward was released in 2020, it was a turning point for me when it came to Pixar. With one exception, I didn't like any of these films. And I never really understood why. I never bothered to search my feelings to understand what it was about Pixar that was turning me off. Then this morning I saw this...
And there it is. The reason there's one exception to Pixar from 2020 onward? It's because I've been to the coastal Italian towns which inspired the film Luca. I have a personal connection to the movie because I can draw on an experience that I've had. It's also why I can like a movie like Elio, but not fall in love with it.
• Dave Smash! I've been a big Morningstar Farms fan since becoming vegetarian decades ago. I veered away to Boca Burger for my burgers because they had superior taste and mouthfeel, but after Kraft bought them out and fucked up the recipe, I went back to Morningstar Grillers. They aren't great, and you have to know how to cook them so the texture isn't awful, but at least I'm not gagging them down. And then... Beyond Meat released Beyond Stack Burgers...
Now, I should say that Beyond does make an actual smash burger product, but they're not sold near me and aren't meant to be frozen (though you can), which means you have to eat them the day you open the package. The "stack" version always come frozen and are meant to stay frozen until used. Which means I don't have to eat them all after opening the package. But anyway... I found that I can get the Beyond Stack Burgers locally (well, 25-minutes away locally, but still). I absolutely love these burgers. A little high in sodium (260mg per patty), but not atrocious. They also cook weird, with a strange foamy residue in the pan, but the results are tasty enough when you smash them that I just don't care. As a bonus, Beyond has packaging that actually works... unlike shitty Morningstar Farms packaging which I hate, hate, hate.
• Thor Tells Jokes! I really want to see this standup as a special... where is Netflix when you really need them?
@thortellsjokes Tour starts now! Honestly best time of my life #comedian #fyp ♬ original sound - Thor Stenhaug
Hearing this makes me want to watch Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King again. It's a highly personal work which happens to be very, very funny. And touching.
• The Dow! The Dow! This is an absolute banger...
I couldn't even watch the hearing because Bondi is a gaping fucking asshole. Instead of using her position to serve the American people and seek justice, she's conspiring to protect child predators. She's such a massive pile of lying fucking shit that any time she speaks I see red, so I don't put myself in a position to watch. Thanks to this video, I can see the highlights in a way that doesn't make me want to hide under my bed and start screaming.
•
SANDIWARA! Given my love of all things Michelle Yeoh, I was thrilled when a friend shared this with me...
The comments having people saying this should be a Malaysian tourism video. I cannnot disagree. This definitely makes me want to visit Penang (I've only ever been to Kuala Lumpur in the country).
• Finalizada! Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família... AKA the Sagrada Familia basilica, is finally nearing completion. After 144 years...
Fascinating. I've visited Sagrada Familia three times over a 20 year span. It never seemed like it was any closer to being completed. Now that we're so close, it feels like it might be time to visit Barcelona again. Not that I need an excuse... it's one of my favorite cities on earth.
• Sci-Fi Entertainment! This list isn't perfect, but dang if it doesn't make me want to re-watch every one of these films...
Even though I've already seen all of them more than once. Some of them many times.
And now back to needing more sleep.
Smartfood has come up with one of the most phenomenal popcorn flavors I've ever tasted.
I hope people are willing to try "Brown Butter with Sea Salt Kettle Corn" even though the photo of the flavor is a little scary. It looks like a slice of butter with sesame seeds hovering above a jar of gravy fat or something...
If you see it, you should give it a shot! Hopefully EVERYBODY will give it a shot so it won't get discontinued.
I may be in desperate need of sleep, but don't you fear about your weekly smattering of bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Seek Shelter! This squirrel got lucky during a storm...
Adorable. But animals usually are.
• NEWSFLASH: Young Wisconsin man dies from asthma attack after price of inhaler skyrocketed nearly $500. BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD, PEOPLE!
• Fuzzy & Buttered! Am I the only one who freaks out over how sage is fuzzy before you cook it? Delicious delicious sage...
Can't beat it on butternut squash with browned butter poured over the top! Except now my home is going to smell like buttered popcorn for the next two days.
• Eight! Eight Dollar Foot Long! Subway is advertising their new "Sub Club" where you buy three foot-longs and get the fourth for free. So I go to the app to find out how much they’ve increased the prices to cover this promotion. A Veggie Delight is $10.69 now. With a free fourth sub, the price ends up being $8.00. This is for a veggie sandwich with extra cheese (because their cheese is whisper thin now, and they stopped putting double cheese on veggie subs years ago). A bun, cheese, and veggies is $8.00... but not now... eventually. — Remember $5.00 foot-longs, which you could get with pricey meat options if you wanted? I wonder how much those subs cost now? This kind of "deal" is such bullshit. I’d rather eat at a place that just gives me a fair price at the start rather than holding my money hostage until I buy enough to get a fourth sub. Yeah, I know a lot of places do this to encourage repeat visits, but $10.69? My burger meal card has initial lower prices which earns you a free meal after ten. That seems a smarter deal because you don’t face sticker shock every time you eat there. $10.69... for a cheese sandwich? Really?
• Techflation! This bullshit is getting out of hand...
And here it is in action...
I'd like to know how asshole corporations are justifying this. Assuming they feel the need to. It's all monopolies and collusion from here on out. We've got a government that doesn't give a fuck. On the contrary, the government is being paid to look the other way.
• Apple Macintosh Hot Take: It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons. And indeed it is very hard, because it's fucking sloppy. But that's Apple now... fucking sloppy.
• Cinematically Real! This is the video that nails it. This is why the Avatar movies work when others abusing technology in film fail...
These movies are pure cinematic spectacle. I cannot wait to see Fire & Ash.
And now back to your regularly-scheduled Sunday...
Growing up in the 70's and 80's means that I remember things that a lot of people just... don't. Sometimes that's a good thing. I remember when personal computers started, and they were just fun. I mean, yeah, they would eventually turn into a work tool and ruin everything, but at the beginning they were just fun.
And sometimes that's a bad thing. Things that are treatale and survivable now weren't so much back then. Although, thanks to misinformation and dumbshits with a platform, we're back-sliding into inexplicable anti-science, anti-vax nonsense. So make of that what you will.
And sometimes? It's complicated.
When I was a kid, getting to go to a restaurant for a meal was a special treat. And my most favorite places to eat were as follows...
Sambo's was an old restaurant chain which got its name from the two founders... SAM Battistone Sr. and Newell BOhnett. And it's like... okay. Catchy.
Except... not really.
Because the restaurant leaned hard into a highly controversial children's book called Little Black Sambo. It had racist illustrations and it didn't help at all that "Sambo" would become a racial slur for Black persons...
In the book, Sambo gives tigers his clothes and they fight over them so ferociously that they turn into butter, which Sambo then puts on pancakes. The staple food of the restaurants.
When the restaurants began, they had murals of the story on their walls. But by the time my family was going to the local franchise, they had changed the story to a little Indian boy who ran around a tree until the tiger chasing him turned into butter that he could put on his pancakes. And that was the character in the murals that I remember...
In addition to racism, Sambo's was known for its low prices, as you can see in these commercials...
Eventually the restaurants couldn't outrun their racist connections and turned to butter. Or, in the case of our local restaurant, changed its name to "Season's." I don't remember anything about the re-brand except the name. But, alas, not enough people wanted to eat at the restaurant without the racism, and the chain folded. Ours eventually turned into a pizza restaurant.
I wish the local Big City had an IHOP, but the closest thing we had was a Denny's. Where the pancakes just aren't as good. Maybe they should try using tiger butter?
If you want to know more about Sambo's, here you go...
Don't miss the racist restaurants. Kinda miss the architecture and pancakes.
Though there are copycat recipes all over the internet, so maybe I only miss the architecture.
It's dangerous to make New Year resolutions in these horror-filled days... so instead I've been leaning into other traditions.
One that I adopted from a friend is the Great Expired Food Purge.
This is where you go through every food item in your house and toss things that are expired. Although in this economy, I don't throw out anything that's lightly expired. That stuff gets put on a USE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE shelf so I can try to figure out what to do with it. Which is to say that, preferrably, I eat it.
Most of the stuff getting thrown out this year is the "lightly expired" stuff that I didn't throw out last year.
But a rare subset are things that I bought because they sounded good at the time and were on a sale too good to resist. Then they sit in my cupboard for a few years until there's nothing left to do except reluctantly throwing it in the trash. This is usually things like soup, pasta sauces, and salad dressings. I'll buy into a "Buy One Get One Free" or "Get One Half Price" or whatever. Then eat one and hate it. Then hope that I forget how bad it is so I'll eat it before it expires.
But here's the thing... how often do you forget eating terrible food?
In my case, the answer is apparently "never."
And that's what filled the grocery bag I just walked out to the trash.
Will I ever learn?
Likely not.
Last night after work I went out to eat because it had been a very long day, I was too tired to cook, and I wanted breakfast. And it was wonderful. Perfectly cooked. Perfectly seasoned. I couldn't have made it better myself. It was so good that I was able to overlook the cost, which was expensive. But no more expensive than anything else out there now-a-days, which means it was actually a fair price.
Tonight when it was time to go home after another very long day, I was seriously wanting to go out for breakfast again, but didn't want it to get weird, and furthermore didn't have the money to be spending two nights in a row.
Instead I went home and had cereal with toast. Followed by apple sauce and crackers. Followed by freeze-dried strawberries and more crackers.
And I ate all that in the cold.
Can somebody please explain Apple's thinking when Siri's response to "Hey Siri, make it warmer" inevitably ends up being "It's 70° in here and could take a while to warm up. Are you sure you want to make it warmer?"
When I'm cold and want it warmer, what the fuck difference is telling me a number going to make? Is their thinking that I'm going to hear a number and think "Oh. I guess I'm not cold after all! Never mind, Siri!"... because what kind of stupid shit is that?
Likewise, what good does telling me that it could take a while to heat up going to do? Do they honestly believe that I'm going to hear that and say "Oh, if it's going to take a while, just forget it then!"... because that's even more stupid.
JUST MAKE IT FUCKING WARMER LIKE I ASKED! DON'T WASTE MY TIME WITH THIS NONSENSE THAT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE MY BEING COLD!
This kind of idiotic shit drives me insane. But when it comes to Siri, about all you get is idiotic shit. Siri is 14 years old but, due to how smart everything else is getting smarter while it stays the same, Siri seems to be getting more and more stupid. We were supposed to get an update well over a year ago, but it still hasn't shown up.
What has shown up is a headache, so I guess I'll grab an aspirin and call it an early night.
Assuming my cats don't wake me up because they're cold.
Can you believe that I was actually considering ditching Bullet Sunday and Caturday in 2026? Madness! But fear ye not... because you got a Caturday yesterday and all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Muji! One of my favorite brands is not a brand at all. At least, not a brand like we normally think of brands. When I was going to Japan frequently, I happened across
Muji is very, very Japanese. To understand the brand is to understand a lot about the Japanese people. And the lovely host of The Science of Products does an amazing job of breaking it all down. Somewhere in the boxes out in my garage are the Muji notebook and pen I bought on my very first trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. I wanted to write down all the weird, wild, and wonderful stuff I was experiencing and came unprepared. My Japanese was terrible, but I could make myself understood. I popped into a hotel in the area I was at, said "Kami to pen wa doko des kamasu ka?," and was given a map with the location nearby. A few days later I found (and fell in love with) "Tokyu Hands," a massive, massive stationery store in Shinjuku. But there's a soft spot in my heart for Muji, a not-brand I still love. One of these days, I need to get to Portland, Oregon and visit the store there. Or, you know, go back to Japan and visit a few of them there.
• Akasaka Nooooo! And speaking of... I wanted to locate where I bought my notebook, found it, was curious how far away from my hotel it was, then saw on Google Maps that it was "permanently closed." So I ran to Google and got this: "Yes, the Akasaka Excel Hotel Tokyu permanently closed on August 31, 2023, due to the termination of its lease agreement, after serving Tokyo as a business and tourist hotel since 1969. The closure was announced by Tokyu Hotels (TOKYU HOTELS Co., Ltd.) as part of their company press releases." This is really sad to me, because I would have totally stayed there again if I ever make it back to Tokyo.
• Tubs! I needed this...
Aren't animals wonderful? Case in point...
I really need to get me a trash panda.
• Bugged! Finally rented Bugonia. I am not a Yorgos Lanthimos fan, but admit he kinda knocked it out of the park with this one. You get a true ending, thankfully, but I have so many questions about what transpired...
Watching the game develop between Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons relied entirely on them selling it as actors... and they did not falter.
• Hey Nancy! Good news, everyone! We're mere hours away from me starting to write my all-new all-SEXY version of Nancy Drew! She's solving mysteries by day and breaking hearts by night... and doing both SEXILY this time!
It's only a matter of time before I think of an idea for a new Mickey Mouse and Nancy Drew crossover novel.
• Zipf! If you have an interest in languages, then this 20 minute video is for you...
Surprising... but shouldn't really be surprising. If you know what I mean.
• Triangle of... Sadness? I wonder if I beseeched Beecher's Handmade Cheese to stop making their cheese in thick triangles and switch to triangle logs if it would do any good? Cutting up thick triangles results in inconsistent piece sizes.
I'd probably buy double the amount of my beloved Marco Polo if I knew I could cut it into consistent piece sizes that would fit on crackers.
• Smart Dumb Home! For anybody wondering what I ended up doing after I couldn't get Apple's HomeKit HomeShit to recover, I actually did end up deleting about seven devices so I could re-add them and then re-write my Automations. Apple bastards. Those devices wouldn't resolve no matter how many times I rebooted my hubs. Beyond shitty... but at least I didn't have to start over from scratch.
And there you go... the first Bullet Sunday of 2026 is in the can.
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