It's another scorcher out there today, but never you fear about my melting... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Strange Decks! There is now no question what-so-ever that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is my favorite Trek. It has eclipsed The Original Series, as I knew it would. And this latest episode (dropping early in honor of ComicCon!)... which is a mind-blowing crossover with the comedic ANIMATED show, Star Trek: Lower Decks... is beyond genius. They brought voice actors Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid into Real Life and the transition is seamless. They are very much the same characters, just no longer animated...
Now, they could have easily did this as a throw-away episode. Or dismissed it as a dream. Or any number of things which would have kneecapped it into irrelevance. But it was well-thought-out and completely serious while honoring the tone and characters of their respective shows. It's borderline thrilling how Strange New Worlds keeps one-upping themselves episode after episode. AND THAT ENDING! Brilliant Trek. Brilliant television.
• American Heartland! In a shocking announcement, a new $2 BILLION theme park is being built in Tulsa. Called "American Heartland" this seems like a carbon copy of "Disney's America," a theme park outside of Washington, D.C. that was never built which is based around Americana...
Now, I think this is a cool idea. Definitely. But Oklahoma?!? And not Southern Oklahoma which is close to Texas and might have a longer operating season... Northeast Oklahoma, which likely has fairly mild winters, but not California/Florida mild. And it seems primed for failure given that the biggest city (Oklahoma City, 2-1/2 hours away) has under 700,000 people. The nearest actual major city is Dallas or St. Louis, but they're a five hour drive. Which begs the question... why not just put it near Dallas or St. Louis? They at least have a big population and a major airport there! But still... they are promoting a laundry list of experienced Disney/Universal attraction designers, so there's that. I'd like to see it, of course. But it seems as though this is going to go the way of "Disney's America" and won't be built.
• Seek Discomfort! one of my long-time favorite YouTube channels is Yes Theory which is a group of people doing extraordinary things via travel and adventure by stepping out of their comfort zone. It's a channel I binge for a while, then leave for a while, because while it's beautiful to behold... it's also emotionally overwhelming. We're so inundated with reasons to feel cynical that watching the opposite of that for too long can be tough. And a couple of their latest videos are pretty darn special...
If you're a longtime fan of the channel, that surprise guest in France was almost too much to take.
How amazing is that?
• 'MURICA AI! This Buzzfeed article is nuts: I Asked AI What Europeans Think Americans From Every Single State Look Like, And The Results Are Just Plain Mean. Mean? Maybe. But some of them are scary accurate. Go ahead and click through. I dare you.
• Rescued! Miracles happen. What an incredible story...
Is it wrong that the entire time watching the video I'm screaming "BUT HOW IS THE DOG DOING?!?
• Ketchup> Hallmark Channel's "June Weddings" event is over... but I went back to watch the first half hour of The Wedding Contract because I wasn't paying much attention until the end when I watched it last month. What's REALLY NICE is that Hallmark is putting a little diversity over the same old story... they had an Indian wedding, and this is a Jewish wedding (seriously... she's baking a challah for Shabbat dinner!). But the best part is how it takes place in Chicago... but not really. It's shot in Vancouver. BUT IT'S TOTALLY CHICAGO BECAUSE SHE'S SITTING ON A PARK BENCH WITH A SLICE OF DEEP DISH PIZZA NEXT TO HER! BWAH HA HA HAAA! But wait, there's more! They get a coffee at cart called Chicago's Finest Hot Dogs and... what's that on the cart there?
THERE'S A BOTTLE OF KETCHUP ON THE CART! BWAH HA HA HA HAAAAAAA! HA HA HAAAAAA!!! Clearly the set decorator has never been to Chicago. That ketchup would be hidden and provided (RELUCTANTLY) by request only. Ketchup on a hot dog in Chicago... BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA =gasp= HA HAAAA!!! People have died for less!
• POD PEOPLE! I really, really want to see this...
Looks interesting. Looks different. Has great lead actors. Why not?
Hope you're having a cooler Sunday than I am!
The wildfire smoke appears to have abated at long last, but there's no time for celebrating... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Rest in Peace I was saddened to learn that Angela Lansbury had died. What's strange is that just four days prior I had seen that Murder She Wrote was running on Hallmark Channel. After catching the tailend of it, I looked her up to see if she had done any new projects recently (turns out that she has a cameo appearance in Glass Onion, the new Knives Out mystery movie, that's coming to Netflix on December 23rd)...
My mom was a huge, huge, mega-huge fan of Murder She Wrote. After her memory started to fail her, she would watch the episodes constantly. Jessica Fletcher was somebody she could remember...
She will be missed.
• SQUIRREL! These videos never disappoint...
Sad that this third installment is the final installment. Hopefully Mark Rober changes his mind and brings us another.
• More Maximo! I cannot oversell how wonderful the show Acapulco is on Apple TV. The first season was brilliant, sweet, funny, and charming in all the best ways... and they've lost nothing of that magic in Season 02...
I can't believe that Apple managed to strike gold twice with both Ted Lasso and Acapulco. If you're not watching, you absolutely should be. Already hoping that it is renewed for Season 03.
• Ho Ho Ho! Very early this morning I ran to the Big City for some shelf pins, because 1/3 of the ones I had were cracking when I pulled them out. Fresh new pins might prevent shelf collapse and breakage maybe? I dunno. But it was only $6 to replace all of them, so worth it, I think. — Hard not to notice that Home Depot had put all their Christmas stuff out...
Since I don't celebrate the holiday, I am relieved that I won't need to buy anything (I have a wreath for my door to blend in with the neighborhood, and that's plenty). But I'm also a little sad, because my mom liked decorating for Christmas. Every once in a while I toy with the idea of putting a tree up for old time's sake... but Jake and Jenny would undoubtedly destroy it, and that's something I can do without.
• Countdown to Christmas 2023! It's my first Hallmark Christmas movie of the year, Noelle Next Door, and we're off to a good start. Amazing enough that it has one of my most favorite Hallmark stars, Natalie Hall... but Corey Sevier plays a guy who had a stroke and is dealing with some challenges that make him a bit of a Christmas Scrooge... something that shocks me because it's just such a terrific bit of representation that makes for a good film...
This is a simple story with a simple concept that's wonderfully told. Showing that even after all these years, Hallmark still has new corners to explore.
• Movies! I rented Bullet Train which was fantastic. I am shocked that it wasn't dumbed down more, as it's fairly complex and has plots within plots. The entire cast was amazing... but Brad Pitt was just beyond. He has a way of making casual characters be capable of carrying an entire movie, which is a rare talent. Bloody fun!
Then I finally rented Bros, which was actually darn funny and sweet. Liked it a lot even though Billy Eichner's acerbic and abusive wit which works so well in 5-minute Billy on the Street episodes is wearing really thin after a a while. Still, they nailed the ending, and Luke MacFarlane's Hallmark history served him well (as well as provided a hilarious series of in-jokes). I wish they hadn't felt the need to have self-deprecating "Why is it that gay guys..." exposition for the straights, because it kind of dumbs down the film in the wrong ways. Was thrilled to see Guillermo Díaz again (Huck on Scandal is one of my all-time favorite characters).
Lastly I rented Confess Fletch. I am such a massive fan of the Chevy Chase originals that I was almost afraid to tune into this. But it's very good. I like it just as much as the Chevy version, but in a different way. This version is much closer to the original novels, and Jon Hamm is fantastic for the role. I sure hope we get more...
And that's it for the penultimate Bullet Sunday of October 2023.
I've been watching too much television lately, but never you fear... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• UPLOAD! HOW ABOUT THAT UPLOAD SEASON 2?!? This show could have so easily... so very easily.... just kept doing what what it was doing in the first season and stagnated into irrelevance. But they decided to really go for it...
Alas, they dropped it with yet another cliffhanger. Which is fine IF WE GET A THIRD SEASON. But an official renewal has not been greenlit, so who knows. The first season seemed to be just the right length at 10 bingeable half-hour episodes... but we only got seven episodes this time, which seemed a bit rushed. But that's the COVID world we live in, I guess.
• Presence! Well that was unexpected. Easily one of the best Hallmark movies I've ever seen (which is saying something considering I've seen... well... most all of them), The Presence of Love is worth a look if you enjoy the occational rom-com flick...
Gorgeously shot on location in Cornwall and beautifully-acted by Eloise Mumford and Julian Morris, this is a very special film that caught me entirely by surprise.
• Unintended Use! Now that I have a new chair, I've been working on sprucing up my studio so it's more comfortable and productive. A big part of that is getting rid of the cardboard box that's clamped to my drafting table to hold all my stuff. It doesn't really work very well and I have to dig through it to find things. So I bought these little kitchen trays that have just enough friction to keep from sliding around. As a bonus, the soap holder fits inside the tray to organize my pens...
It's always nice to run across something that works for what you need when it's not the intended use of the item!
• Adam! Ryan Reynolds makes even bad movies watchable, so I knew I'd enjoy his latest for Netflix... The Adam Project...
And while not in any way groundbreaking, it was darn entertaining. It also had a story that wasn't terrible, assuming you don't think about it too hard. If you're a fan of Ryan Reynolds and sci-fi fun, this is the movie for you.
• Construction! The guy from Primitive Technology is back at long last. I love his videos...
• ER! The second season of Transplant, which has been playing in Canada for MONTHS has finally been released here in the USA on NBC (I just bought the Season Pass on iTunes again). This is hands-down my favorite medical drama ever (and my third favorite show of 2020 after Ted Lasso and The Mandalorian). If you're not watching it, you're missing out...
If you give it a try, be sure to start with the first episode of Season 01, because it starts out with a bang you don't want to miss.
• Edward! Ever since finding out that Mitchell Ryan passed away on March 4th, I've been rewatching the first season of Dharma & Greg, where he was in top form as Edward Montgomery. He was hilarious in the show, which was really great for a couple seasons...
Rest In Peace, sir.
Until next week there, buckaroo.
I am way behind on my Hallmark Christmas movies. And will only get further behind because I've got so many work projects on my plate and now Hallmark has Winter movies starting to run.
I keep telling myself that maybe this is the year I finally give up on Hallmark since all the movies are essentially the same at this point. Something made hilariously clear by the many, many parody videos that have been released...
Oh well. It's something to listen to while I work, isn't it? Though at this rate I'll still be watching Christmas movies in July.
JUST IN TIME FOR HALLMARK CHANNEL'S CHRISTMAS IN JULY MARATHON! WOOO!
I worked all weekend, so I woke up really early not to get a jump on my day... but to clean my house. The only thing I managed to get to yesterday was steam-cleaning the cat feeding station. That's something I do regardless of whatever else I have going on because I want to make sure Jake and Jenny stay healthy.
But anyway...
As I was scrubbing, vacuuming, and dusting, I had a Hallmark movie playing. The last thing I want is to get behind, because there's like a hundred of these things dropping from Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, Netflix, and the rest. Half-way through the movie I realized that I wasn't paying attention to what was going on. Not that you have to... most of these movies are painfully basic, redundant, and lacking anything requiring critical thinking. It's just that I'm kinda done with them. 95% of them are the same damn thing you've seen a hundred times before, and only rarely is there anything trying to be different. The only reason I didn't turn this one off is because it was starring Katee Sackhoff and I'm a fan.
Do I dare hope that I'm over my Hallmark addiction? Lord, I hope so... but probably not.
Far more interesting was this video that got forwarded to me this morning...
I don't know about you, but this is far scarier than the original Jurassic Park!
And now? I should probably go to work seeing as how it's almost 9:00am.
Falling in love is one of those things that most everybody can relate to. And it all comes down to a moment. That one moment when the wind gets knocked out of your lungs, your heart feels like it's going to explode, and you feel yourself falling out of the earthly confines of your body. There's no other feeling quite like it.
I've had my share of love... and loss. Though the one time I fell the hardest was the time it came back to bite me in my ass the worst. She destroyed me in the worst possible way and I don't think I ever fully recovered. I'd rather never fall in love again than go through that hell again.
The Hallmark rom-coms I have playing for background noise rarely have any kind of authenticity to them. You never see that moment where you feel that the characters have fallen in love. Forget Hallmark movies... you rarely see that in any films.
There are exceptions, however.
The most romantic moment I've ever seen in a movie comes from the most unlikely of places. A Michael J. Fox rom-com called Doc Hollywood. They give you that moment where you feel the characters have fallen in love. Up until that point, there was some clumsy flirtations and you get the sense they might like each other, but there's nothing really past that. Then Michael J. Fox asks Julie Warner to dance as Patsy Cline's Crazy starts to play. It's just a casual social kinda thing...
But then the mood of the scene changes. Colorful lights from the carnival rides start exploding in the background and their posture becomes more intimate...
The dance floor is crowded, but you feel that it doesn't seem that way to them...
And then... the other dancers start to twirl away...
All of a sudden they're the only people left in the whole world. Everybody else has... vanished...
And there's the moment. Their relationship has changed utterly, and there's no doubt they've fallen for each other because you feel it. Then, just like that, the song is coming to a close and the world fades back into existence again...
But they can't even see it. To them, they're still the only two people on earth...
I'm not the most romantic guy in the world, but that scene is about the most romantic thing I've ever seen. Director Michael Caton-Jones and cinematographer Michael Chapman knew exactly what they were doing when they crafted that scene. Something that good doesn't happen by accident.
Doc Hollywood was released in 1991. In the near-thirty-years which has followed, I don't think I've ever seen its equal.
And yet... I did see something recently which comes close. It's in the new gay rom-com Dashing in December (streaming from Paramount Network). And it doesn't matter how gay you aren't... or whether you can relate to their relationship at all... it's still dang romantic.
Peter Porte is a New York financial whiz who returns to his home at a small-town Colorado ranch so he can convince his mother to sell it because it's gotten to be too much work for her. Much to his surprise, his mother is being helped out by Juan Pablo Di Pace, a ranch hand that's living on the property. Naturally, they butt heads immediately. But after they start spending time together, you get the sense that they might be interested in each other.
Then one night after dinner, Juan Pablo Di Pace leads Peter Porte down to the gazebo where he's decked it out like a homecoming dance because he found out that Peter Porte had never danced with a boy before...
As if the setting wasn't romantic enough, one of my most favorite songs... Oh What a World by Kacey Musgraves starts playing on the radio. Despite having been out of the closet for years and having dated a string of guys, Peter Porte is clearly uncomfortable with the idea and goes to get a drink after telling Juan Pablo Di Pace to start without him...
But changes his mind pretty quickly...
Then they pan down to those boots again as they Peter Porte walks up to him, and you know their relationship is about to change...
Peter Porte is nervous, unsure, and every inch of it is written right on his face...
And there it is. There's that one moment...
"Your heart is beating so fast" — "Yeah, that's on you."
I think the reason that this hit me so hard is because it has such a resemblance to the dancing scene in Doc Hollywood. The difference being that, unlike in Doc Hollywood which takes its time, the Dashing in December scene was cut way too short... it's just a brief moment in the film. Less than two minutes. Which seems criminal for such a pivotable moment (not to mention the price they paid for that Kacey Musgraves track which is barely there). I guess either the editor made a terrible decision... or it was truncated so as not to get people too upset that two men would dare to dance together on television. Regardless, it hurts an otherwise good "Hallmark-style" flick.
It's a shame that we don't get more holiday movies with LGBTQ+ characters... or Person of Color characters... or anything other than the same straight, white, Christian stories we've seen a million times before. Because, like I said, the different is what makes it interesting.
Oh well. Hopefully having boundary-pushing movies like Dashing in December getting greenlit will lead the way for more new and different stories to be told.
Dashing in December is playing on Paramount Network or you can buy it for $6 on iTunes.
I finally caught up on 2020 Hallmark Christmas movies this past weekend. I had been putting it off because after so many good ones (Christmas by Starlight, Five Star Christmas, The Christmas Doctor, and A Timeless Christmas), they were starting to go downhill. And, what's worse, they are not improving. Last night Hallmark finally debuted this year's Danica McKellar movie that I had been looking forward to for weeks... and it sucked. It sucked so hard. Not even my undying love for Danica McKellar could save it because it was just so bad. Not Christmas Coupon tragic-bad, but still... not so great.
Fortunately, other studios have been picking up the slack with excellent Christmas movies to watch while I'm working... like Netflix with Holidate and Midnight at the Magnolia. Even though I am essentially using my television as background noise, I still want my background noise to be good television.
Enter older "Hallmark-style" Christmas movies that I come across which I haven't seen yet.
There I was paging through the movies I get for free with my Amazon Prime membership and I see A Frosty Affair starring Jewel Staite. She's an actor I've had a crush on for near-decades thanks to her being in Firefly, and there was no way I wasn't going to give it a look...
Loved it.
Yeah, yeah, it's no Shakespear. These movies never are. But it's good fun and Jewel Staite was, as expected, perfect in it...
There were some very clever lines that made it well worth watching. "You should probably allow an inch or so for shrinkage... probably two..."
Make no mistake, this is one silly movie. But it's more charming than absurd, and I ended up liking it quite a lot.
In Canada (where the movie was shot and takes place) it was originally released with the title 40 Below and Falling... and was the first ever rom-com shot in 3-D. I don't recall it ever being shown in local theaters here (let alone in 3-D), so I'm guessing it wasn't in wide release? I dunno. I generally don't pay to see rom-coms in theaters, so it could be that I just never noticed it when it was playing.
If you're looking for a distraction, have Amazon Prime, and like Hallmark-style movies as much as I do... then A Frosty Affair just might be to your liking.
Time may wait for no one, but time definitely waits for this blog... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Wonder Max! And so... Wonder Woman 84 is coming to HBO Max on Christmas Day. And I will absolutely be subscribing to HBO Max for a month to watch it. My enthusiasm for theaters has lessened more and more over the years thanks to rude people talking on phones and texting... theaters not replacing projector bulbs when they start to dim... and the absurd cost of snacks. The only time I ever go to theaters are to watch the latest Marvel Studios films or when invited by friends. I'm MUCH happier watching at home. And yet... some of the big budget films (like Marvel Studios movies) rely on box office revenue to justify the money investment. If theaters go under because they can't wait out the pandemic, what does that mean for the movies I love?
Still... kudos to HBO Max for not charging extra to see the film like Disney+ did with Mulan.
• Maximum! The advertising "feud" between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman keeps getting better...
But they've been pretty funny in their own ads as well...
Even when they appear in each other's ads...
And let's not forget Ryan's ad from last Christmas...
If only all of Hollywood put such effort into their charity endeavors.
• Hallmark? Let's see...
Big city executive goes back to their small town for Christmas: ✓ CHECK!
Small town has an unbelievably wholesome and cheesy name: ✓ CHECK!
White cast, but Person of Color best friend: ✓ CHECK!
Runs into some country hick that gets dismissed: ✓ CHECK!
Country hick has unexpected depth that city-slicker was too ignorant to see: ✓ CHECK!
Christmas romance ensues: ✓ CHECK!
Man and woman live happily ever after: WAIT ONE DANG MINUTE!!!
Not Hallmark after all... Paramount Network.
• Life Day! I am old enough that I actually saw the original Star Wars Holiday Special back in 1978 when it aired on television. Back then it was the only new "Star Wars" available since the movie was released the previous year. It was horrifically bad. Phenomenally horrifically bad. Forty-two years later and LEGO is giving us an all new version...
While nothing great, it's darn clever... mashing up all the various Star Wars characters throughout space and time. It's also funny. And far, far, better than the original live-action version. That's LEGO for you.
• Muties! I detested the FOX X-Men movies. They were all pathetic cash-grabs that in no way lived up to the promise of the comic book source material. I did like X-Men: First Class and kinda liked The Wolverine, but that's it. Everything else was garbage. When it comes to The New Mutants, I was a fan of the comic book during its Claremont and Sienkiewicz run. The movie is very loosely inspired by their "Demon Bear Saga" story arc from The New Mutants 18-20...
What was promoted as a super-hero horror flick wasn't very scary at all. I was 100% bored and regret having spent $6 to rent the thing. It's mostly just angsty teens calling each other "bitch" and "asshole." What a waste. But, as the final film from the whole FOX Marvel super-hero era, why did I expect it to be anything else?
• Do You Know Bo? As good as The Mandalorian was in its first season, it's really knocking things out of the park in the second season. The most current episode is the best thing to come out of Star Wars since The Empire Strikes Back. I won't spoil it. But I will say that LAST week's episode was incredibly rewarding. Especially if you watched The Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons...
Look, there's some things that don't quite add up with Bo-Katan, I am fully admitting this. But can we just be happy that she made the leap from animation to The Mandalorian? Can't we just be grateful that Katee Sackhoff was asked to play the character since she was the voice in the original cartoons? Can't we just assume that some things about her appearance won't be explained, and we'll just have to fill in the gaps with TV magic or something? Because, I gotta say, her showing up caused me to squeeeee my ass off. In The Big Picture this works just fine. Don't get caught up on too many of the tiny details... just enjoy it.
And that's enough bullets for me. I'm out of time after all.
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.
Cooking on Sunday seems like a tough sell before facing your Monday, but sometimes life throws you an easy recipe... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• LEWKS! Dolly Parton is one of my favorite people on earth. This video of her looking back on her leaks over the year is a great indication why...
National. Treasure.
• Rona! Thinking that overcoming COVID gives you immunity is most probably a mistake.
• UnHallmark! SQUEEEs in Hallmark...
Amazing how some of the best Hallmark movies aren't actually made by Hallmark any more. This film, for example, features an interracial couple. That is so exceedingly rare at Hallmark that you could reasonably argue that it doesn't exist. But, hey, they're producing a gay Hallmark Christmas movie this year, so maybe anything is possible?
• Meow! This made my week. Do not mess with a cat's pet!
The cat is fantastic, yes... but that puppy is too adorable.
• Pete! I think it's important to revisit this moment in Pete Buttigieg's "town hall" on FOX "News" from 2019. It's where he's asked about what people are labeling "late-term abortion"... something which is not medically accurate ("late-term" is past an expected due-date for birth), but generally accepted to mean 21 weeks or later in pregnancy. I keep seeing "late-term abortion" pop up in conversation lately, and I honestly don't think people truly get what it is. As explained by Mayor Pete in the video below, for the vast majority of women who have been carrying a baby for 21 weeks, they're expecting to carry it to term. They want that baby. So if they're needing to get an abortion into the third trimester, it's not because they've changed their mind, but because of a catastrophic medical problem for either the mother or child. So to deny women a necessary medical procedure under those circumstances is both horrifying and cruel (read this, as just one example... there are thousands more). Yet this is what some very unreasonable and sadistic people are wanting to deny a woman in need at one of the worst times in their lives.
I was initially a fan of Buttigieg, but ultimately problematic in some areas. That being said, I'd sure pick him over Trump or Biden. His thoughtful, measured response to serious issues is something we are sorely lacking in government.
• Flix! I laughed far more than I should have at this...
Lord only knows what people would think when looking at my Netflix!
• T-RAV! One of the best things about visiting St. Louis is their "Toasted Ravioli" (AKA "T-Rav"). Which, most places, is actually deep-fat-fried instead of toasted. It's amazing stuff. It's not always easy to find a non-meat version, but it's always worth it. My problem is that St. Louis is 1600 miles away, so the only way I'm going to get it is to make it myself. Fortunately, it's pretty easy, and I'm giving my recipe below...
And that's a wrap on this delicious Bullet Sunday. THIS TIME!