Baby it's hot outside, but the hot lead from my bullets are even hotter... and an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Pride! I could do an entire week of posts on the TikToks of ileavebreadcrumbs. He is a man who married a male soldier during the era of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," and his stories are just... a lot. I cannot even fathom how straight couples would deal with the same obstacle that gay couples have to endure. Just take for instance their wedding...
@ileavebreadcrumbs Reply to @shiloh_highway ##dadt ##militarylife ##militaryfamily ##military ##pridemonth ##lgbtq ##queer ##lgbt ##gay40 ##pride🌈 ##gay ##pride ##equality ##gaymer
♬ Lo-fi hip hop - NAO-K
The fact that he is willing to put himself out there knowing that homophobic bigots are just waiting to tear him apart in the comments is everything that Pride exists for. Love = Love.
• Pride Again! And it doesn't stop there. His husband is not just "fairly famous"... he's famous-famous." His story has been discussed in many, many places. Including, most famously, on The Daily Show...
@ileavebreadcrumbs Reply to @bigchiefla ##dadt ##militarylife ##militaryfamily ##military ##pridemonth ##lgbtq ##queer ##lgbt ##gay40 ##pride🌈 ##gay ##pride ##equality
♬ original sound - Activism & Embroidery 🤷
He was even a part of The Newsroom...
@ileavebreadcrumbs Reply to @htrabucco ##military ##gay40 ##militaryfamily ##militarylife ##pride🌈 ##gay ##lgbt ##queer ##lgbtq ##pridemonth ##pride ##equality ##dadt ##gaymer
♬ original sound - Activism & Embroidery 🤷
That's all kind of crazy how they found out they were on a TV show! But... remarkable too.
• More Pride! But the TikTok that destroyed me was this one...
@ileavebreadcrumbs Reply to @lucthin ##dadt ##militarylife ##militaryfamily ##military ##pridemonth ##lgbtq ##queer ##lgbt ##gay40 ##pride🌈 ##gay ##pride ##equality ##gaymer
♬ original sound - Activism & Embroidery 🤷
Do yourself a favor and go watch his TikToks. This is why we have a Pride Month.
• At The Car Wash, Yeah! A friend shared this video on Facebook and I must have watched it a hundred times by now. It's just that good...
Somebody filmed him doing it again, but this time we get to see him walk off...
I mean, you can see him just patiently waiting for the brush to come down and then walk directly underneath when it gets low enough. Makes ME want to give this a try!
• Salvage! One of my truly joyful distractions on YouTube is Baumgartner Restoration. Julian is an absolute master of his craft, and his latest project... restoring a van Dijk... is him at the absolute top of his game. If you have time to spare (and I highly recommend making time) this is a remarkable mini-documentary. UPDATE: The second part is even better, so I'm posting it instead (you can still catch the first part here, if you're hungry for the whole story)...
Absolutely incredible. UPDATE: and in this second part, be sure to watch an "end credits scene" that follows the blank black frame at the end (because there are no credit!).
• SHARRRRK! And... I've cleared my calendar for Shark Week starting July 11th. Thank heavens I have Discovery+, because I will absolutely be tuning in for Stranger Sharks!...
Oh, who am I kidding. I'll be tuning in for all of the shows!
• Beer Beer! Truck Truck! You may remember when I mentioned that a guy made a song out of somebody (rightly) critiquing Country music...
Well, it finally came out as an actual song. It's good. But a part of me thinks that something got lost in translation from the demo to the finished song...
The additional twang and polish is a bit distracting from what I was used to in the original track. Even so... that's a song that's going to be popping up on my SONOS rotation! And I'm not even a fan of Country music!
Now, if you'll pardon me, I'll go back to watching my air conditioning electricity bill continue to bankrupt me.
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...
@dianabakerphotography All part of my job! ##babyphotographer ##mumsoftiktok ##momsoftiktok ##babies ##tipsformoms ##baby ##babyboy ##edinburghbabyphotographer ##ukphotographer ##😁
♬ Pieces (Solo Piano Version) - Danilo Stankovic
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...
@titorenogpigs After sunshine comes… ##rain ##pigtok ##guineapig ##fyp ##foryou ##foryourpage ##xyzbca
♬ original sound - titorenogpigs
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...
@dr.eric.b ##covid ##covid19 ##pandemic ##mask ##fyp ##facts ##vaccine ##doctor
♬ original sound - Eric
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...
@thedudetrader This is how we see Christians - NO LOVE HERE....JUST HATE. #lgbtq #lgbtqtiktok #lgbtq🏳🌈 #lovenothate
♬ original sound - The Dude ✌️
• 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.
Happy Pride Month, everybody!
It would be nice to think that 2021 would keep us moving forward, but there's a frightening amount of anti-LGBTQ legislation that is being introduced... especially on the anti-transgender front. The most troubling of which is targeting transgender kids which, given how vulnerable they already are, is horrific thing to have happen.
I sure hope that voters can find it in their hearts to keep tabs what their representatives are doing and educate themselves on these issues... because, more often than not, I am seeing gross misrepresentation of the facts.
The biggest misrepresentation being that coming out as "something other than straight" is a new trend that's confusing kids and being forced on people like it's some kind of fad.
At which point it may be helpful to look at it in a different context. Because being LGBTQ+ is nothing new... it's just that we're finally getting to the point where people are able to be who they are openly and not have to hide it any more. It used to be that being left-handed was considered evil and left-handed kids were forced to learn to write with their right hand. Naturally, the number of people who claimed to be left-handed during this time period plummeted. But once this nonsense started to fade away, the number of left-handed people increased. Except... they didn't. They had been here all along, it's just that they were not allowed to be who they are. It's the same for LGBTQ+ persons... they've been here all along. It's just that they've been forced to conform to societal "norms" that were forced on them.
It's far past time for that nonsense to stop.
Last night it snowed. Not a ton, but enough to turn the world white here in the foothills of the Cascades.
Back on my 2014 trip, similar conditions were brutal, and it took a half hour to scrape the ice off my rental car and get the tires free from having been frozen to the ground...
But I can't complain too much. Being stuck in Portland in the bitter cold gave me the opportunity to go exploring with my camera and I got some really nice shots that trip because so few people were out braving the weather...
It will be interesting to see how my travel goes in 2021. Now that the charity has shuttered and work travel has halted indefinitely, it's entirely possible that I'll take just one or two trips a year for vacation or visiting friends and that's it. Quite a change from the dozens of trips I was making each year pre-pandemic. Though when you consider I had zero flights in 2020, even one flight will be a huge change from where I'm at now.
Oh well. I guess the frequent flier status and upgraded seats were good while they lasted. I had 5 years of good status followed by 25 years of amazing status and nothing lasts forever. Still... I will surely miss getting International upgrades. Domestic flights are no big deal. Seattle to Hawaii is just over 5 hours. Seattle to Orlando is around 6 hours. I can tolerate just about any seat for that long. But those 11+ hour flights? Having legroom and comfy seats makes a world of difference.
2006-2013 were my best travel years. When both you and your mom (who has zero status) regularly get upgraded to World Business Class for international trips... you know you are flying a lot of miles. An absurd amount of miles...
=sigh=
Those were the days.
In other news... hate comments continue to trickle in because I dared blog about the movie Dashing in December and showed a photo of two gay cowboys dancing together. I hardly ever read hate comments and delete them the second I know what they're about... but this morning I awoke to a comment which merely said "YOU WILL BE DAMNED!" and I had to really appreciate the artistry in that. A comment short enough that I had read the entire thing before I realized it. If I were to respond to this kind of idiocy (and I don't) it might be along the lines of "Settle down there, snowflake! It's not like I posted images of the gay cowboys kissing!"
Well I'll be damned. I actually did do that!
Please keep your hate comments short and to the point.
Oh wow... hate comments! It's been months!
Yesterday I wrote about the most romantic scene from a movie I've ever witnessed... the dance at the squash festival in the old rom-com Doc Hollywood... then compared it to a similar scene from the new rom-com Dashing in December.
But because the latter film features a romance between two men, that was apparently a bridge too far for some people to take. And so... hate comments! I can only guess that I was put on some kind of watch-list ages ago because every time something like gets posted, whomever it is that's hate-reading my blog apparently tells their entire cadre of like-minded friends to come leave nasty comments that I'll barely read (and never approve) because life is just too short. The IP addresses are from all over the USA, so it must be some kind of online group (One-Dozen Moms... is that you?).
What the issue always seems to boil down to is A) My acknowledging that LGBTQ+ people exist and this is somehow considered offensive and dangerous, because B) My blog has "cartoons" on it which attracts children who might see such unholy perversions as this...
And all I can say is... you're welcome!
Because if your kid happens to be gay and does come across something as innocent as a photo of two guys dancing together on Blogography, then maybe it will be a little ray of sunshine which validates their existence and helps them to deal with the toxic atmosphere you've cultivated which lead so many LGBTQ+ youth into self-harm and even death.
And if you're one of those people who would rather have a dead child than a gay child, then fuck you sideways, because you're everything that's wrong with our society. Nobody "turns gay" from looking at a frickin' photo like this. I mean, you didn't. Or did you?
The truly telling thing about hate comments FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN on yesterday's entry is the fact that I regularly drop F-bombs in blog entries and never hear a single discouraging word about that. So it's not all the things I write about here... only some things. Maybe before I started blogging I should have asked the internet for a list of things that are and are not acceptable? Well, too late for that now.
I can no more relate to a movie about gay cowboys falling in love than I can relate to a movie about straight people falling in love (apparently, =insert cry emoji=)... but I find them equally entertaining. Actually, I find the gay cowboy romance more entertaining because it's something I haven't seen a million times before (at least not since Brokeback Mountain fifteen years ago). Happy people falling in love are happy people falling in love and I just don't give a crap so long as it doesn't involve children or unwilling animals. And, on top of it all, Dashing in December is GOOD. Really cute stuff if you are into the whole Hallmark Christmas movie rom-com thing like I am.
And if you think that a bunch of hate comments is going to get me to change my mind about posting innocent photos of LGBTQ+ persons merely existing, read this entry and get back to me.
(hint: the answer is "no")
And now, because I love y'all more than sandwiches, here's the song Take Me Home For Christmas by Dan + Shay which plays at the end of Dashing in December. It's a totally great song... and doesn't have gay cowboys in it, if that's important to you for some reason...
Awwww. Santa puppies are the best puppies.
The more virulent a politician is at being anti-gay and persecuting LGBTQ persons, the more likely it is that they will get caught escaping from a 25-man orgy out a window. You cannot make this stuff up.
You can bet on it happening though.
You can set your watch by it.
Which will give you something to think about the next time you read about some politician drafting anti-gay legislation or finding new ways to strip rights from the LGBTQ community.
It's either that, or they're trying to distract you from even bigger skeletons in their proverbial closet.
Or both.
It's not that I give a shit what sexual stuff Jerry Falwell Jr. is into... it's that he has ruthlessly persecuted other people for exactly the same kind of thing he's done. And while he can claim that God has forgiven him, his wife, and the pool boy, he won't be getting one fucking iota of forgiveness for me. Pieces of shit like Falwell are responsible for creating an atmosphere so toxic that our LGBTQ youth are killing themselves rather than having to spend one more day living in it, so Falwell can go fuck himself. While his wife and the pool boy watch.
Image from Getty Images
Not that I believe for a second that all Falwell did was watch the pool boy rail his wife. At the bare minimum, his dick was in-hand. More likely he was all up in that pool boy. Or the pool boy was all up into him. Or both. Who can say?
Image from REUTERS/Jonathan Drake
And of course Falwell Jr. is claiming that all of this is a criminal conspiracy and has asked the FBI to investigate. He claims that people who were feeding information to the press were "cowardly" for not using their names. I guess it's less cowardly if you claim to do something in God's name? Well, whatever. Absolutely none of the salacious details coming to light should surprise anybody. This is just one in a long, long line of church scandals that are continuously being unearthed which feature hypocritical assholes who are 100% in the "Do as I preach, not as I do" camp.
Image from REUTERS/Scott Morgan
But what does it matter? Whenever this happens (and it happens a lot), all you have to do is say that Jesus forgives you, therefore everybody has to forgive you.
Image from Twitter
Falwell and his wife are, after all, most certainly "Very Fine People™®" and totally worth forgiving despite the fact that they have condemned their own behavior in the eyes of God on a regular basis.
Image from MSNBC
In the end, I guess there's nothing to see here. This is just another day on planet earth, and raging hypocrites being hypocritical is happening every day.
Summer is here and the heat is on, but you'll have no trouble staying cool... because despite being sick sick sick, an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Dads! Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there... no matter what your family looks like. I think this photo is my favorite I've seen today...
The baby girl's T-shirt is the best! Since that photo was taken, James and Charlie welcomed another baby...
You can follow this awesome family on their Instagram right here.
• Victor! And speaking of awesome families... I managed to keep down water and dry toast while binge-watching Love, Victor last night. As somebody who loved the movie Love, Simon, I honestly had low expectations for the 10-episode spin-off series. I was certain it was just going to tell the exact same story we already knew. — Couldn't have been happier to have been wrong. Love, Victor is pretty great. They didn't just retread the movie, instead they expanded upon it. In the movie, secondary friend characters and Simon's parents were merely one-dimensional backdrops. In the series they had time to give them all their own lives with their own issues to work through. There are certainly problems... they fell into some trope traps and reused elements that should have been rethought, but it was still entertaining. I like that they made it feel like an extension of the movie by having a similar soundtrack and making sure the "voice" of the series was intimate and familiar. Plus we get to find out what happened to Simon and Bram a little bit!
Still kinda disgusted that Disney yanked it from Disney+ and put it on Hulu because it was deemed "not family-friendly," or whatever, but at least it aired. I really hope we get a second season.
• Boys! I recently purchased the My Boys DVD set so I could back-up the episodes to my Plex server. After having mentioned it, somebody sent me a link to this...
There are many, many shows I'd like to see revived... Veronica Mars and Will & Grace was just the beginning. Pretty sure that My Boys would be on that list as well. The characters were just so good.
• NEWS FLASH! Fox News Argues Viewers Don't Assume Tucker Carlson Reports Facts. I know I sure as fuck don't expect to get any actual facts from Cucker Tarlson. The dumbass piece of crap has no choice but to lie and falsify "alternative facts" to support his bigoted bullshit narrative. And FOX "News" was forced to admit it because they're in the middle of a lawsuit over it. This means nothing to the morons who think that Cucker is actual news, but it's a start. They should seriously just adopt "We Don't Report Facts" as the motto for the entire network. That much is mostly true.
• NEWS FLASH! Austria Has 90% Drop in Coronavirus Cases After Requiring People to Wear Face Masks. If we tried that here? People would be all "BUT MY FREEDOM!!! Your right to not die from a highly contagious virus does not trump my right to infect you with it because masks are uncomfortable!" — In related news, US FDA pulls its emergency approval of chloroquine use for COVID-19. But drinking bleach and shoving a UV light up your ass is still an acceptable way to prevent COVID-19, right? I mean, which presidential doctor advice am I supposed to listen to? WHAT? NONE of it? Because he's not a doctor? Oh. Wait... why was he offering medical advice then? There is no aspect of our pandemic response that this stupid fucking administration hasn't managed to fuck up completely.
• Solstice! Since travel is still severely limited, English Heritage Site decided to livestream sunset and sunrise at Stonehenge...
It was far less exciting than I was expecting. Perhaps my having experienced Stonehenge in person at sunrise killed the experience for me? Being there is always better than a webcam, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have gotten to experience it...
Happy Solstice, everybody.
• Pooch in Boots! When I was picking up kitty litter at Petco, I walked by these...
I was fascinated at the idea of having a pet which would stand still long enough to put these on their paws. My cats would have less than none of this... cute as they may be.
And that's it for Father's Day bullets.
I tend to ignore Taylor Swift, only becoming aware of her when one of her songs grabs me on internet radio or something.
But then Taylor performed the song ME! At the billboard music awards with Brendon Urie (from Panic! At The Disco), and she instantly became impossible to ignore. Not only was it a great pop song, but the spectacle which accompanied it was fantastic...
The actual video for ME! (on which the Billboard performance was based) was equally amazing, using CGI to excellent effect...
And then today she released the video for her follow-up single, You Need to Calm Down, featuring a star-studded cast that completely delivered...
Yes, haters, please... have several seats and just shut the fuck up. Your shade ain't going to make anybody less gay, and your homophobic bullshit is tired to people just trying to live their life...
A few things...
• And so I guess the feud between Taylor and Katy Perry is over...
• Trailer Trash Taylor is my favorite Taylor...
• I really hope that Laverne Cox finds a new show to land on post Orange is the New Black...
• Oh hey there, Hannah Hart...
• Oh hey there, Tan France...
• And there's Ellen DeGeneres getting a tattoo from Adam Lambert which says "CRUEL SUMMER," assumably the name of Taylor's next single...
• Oh hey there, Ryan Reynolds...
• And, lastly... oh hey there, RuPaul...
I'm sure that there will be those who say Taylor Swift is merely cashing in on affiliating with LGBTQ Pride Month, but I think that's a bit of a reach. Far safer for her to just keep on doing what she's been doing and not rock the boat so she doesn't endanger her revenue stream. But instead she's proclaiming herself an ally and trying to use her fame for something good. If nothing else, she's setting a good example for her legions of young fans.
So bravo, Miss Swift.
The Trump Shutdown may be only temporarily suspended, but don't let that get you down... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Vax! =sigh= I was fully vaccinated as a kid, but it's been recommended that I get the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) shot again because of a measles outbreak here in the Pacific Northwest. Since it's highly contagious, I never had it as a kid, I regularly climb into a confined metal tube with lots of people, and I only received one shot (not the series that's now recommended)... it's better safe than sorry I suppose. Fun! Thanks, anti-vax parents, for continuing to bring back diseases with gusto that we thought we had dealt with long ago. Polio, anyone?
• Just Die! And... apparently another idiot missionary is rolling the dice. If forced to choose between the death of a tribe of indigenous persons who are not equipped to handle the germs, disease, and overall bullshit that the outside world brings when it intrudes on their lands... or the death of some piece of shit missionary who KNOWS that it's illegal and KNOWS their actions can cause irreparable harm... I'm going to root for the asshole missionary to die. Hopefully in the most brutal way possible as an example to other assholes who might have similar ideas. Except that didn't seem to work the first time, because you just can't fix stupid. In the meanwhile, these Christian groups calling for the tribe to be arrested can go fuck themselves.
• Other Other! When I first heard that SNL alums Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider had a new series coming to Comedy Central, I was intrigued. Shows that fall out of Saturday Night Live talent are hit or miss, but the ones that hit are usually the most interesting and imaginative stuff to appear on television. And now The Other Two has arrived and it is about the funniest thing I've seen in a while...
Yes, that's Molly Shanon as the mom, and she's as good as you'd expect. And, yes, that's Wanda Sykes in there too (Lord, I wish they would find a starring vehicle for her that's worthy of her talent). It's a raunchy show to be sure, so it's not going to be for everybody... but, if you're intrigued, you can watch the first episode for free over at Comedy Central.
• London! I've wondered about London's airports for a long, long time. At last there are answers...
And... part two...
This guy's entire "Unfinished London" channel is gold.
• Out of Network! Regardless of where you land on the health care debate, this is essential reading. Now more than ever you have to be very careful about what care plan your doctor comes up with for you. It's critical that you know to question everything so as to avoid getting blindsided by outrageous medical costs.
• TransBan! The irony is not lost that President Trump (AKA Cadet Bone Spurs), who dodged the draft with a fake ailment, is in charge of deciding who gets to serve their country now (yes, it was fake... the daughter of the physician who signed off on his foot problem came forward). His desire to strongly curtail (or outright ban) transgender persons from serving was recently upheld by The Supreme Court. To those who understand that a strong military requires talents from all sorts of people, this makes no sense. So what is the president thinking? Not surprisingly, there's a series of tweets to explain it...
“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming ... victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
— President Donald Trump
Huh. Looks like our Commander in Chief doesn't know how the fuck our modern military works. But what does he understand? Let's hear what an actual fucking soldier has to say...
"When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter on that dusty field in Iraq, I didn't care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white, male or female. All that mattered was they didn't leave me behind."
— Senator Tammy Duckworth
Oh, and forgive me for completely discounting his fucking bullshit about the "medical costs" being a disruption to our military. It's not like he gives a shit about the millions of taxpayer dollars our military spends shuttling his fat ass to golf courses around the world.
Have a pleasant week, everybody!
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