• Greed Hike! After record-breaking financial quarters worth billions upon billions of dollars in profit, Tim Cook announced that price hikes for Apple devices are "unavoidable," and they arrived this week. It's been noted that last year alone Apple raked in $112 billion and spent $310 billion on stock buybacks. Which is to say that Tim Cook is full of shit. His company has more money than some countries, and the idea that they can't absorb the RAM price increases THAT APPLE FUCKING CONTRIBUTED TO WITH THEIR AI BULLSHIT, well... forgive me for laughing. And for hanging on to my existing Apple products for a good, long, while.

   
• Don't Get Grifted! The insanity just keeps piling up...

People are entirely too easy to manipulate when it comes to their health. And I have no idea how we got here.

   
• Feral Hogs! This may seem funny... but my friend Doug and I were chased by feral hogs in Kauai, and it was terrifying. They are horrific. Which, if you've seen the movie Hannibal, you already know...

You would not want to meet a feral hog in a dark alley. Or anywhere else, I'm guessing.

   
• She's Super! The hate being lobbed at Milly Alcock because she dared to accept an acting job as Supergirl in a movie is repugnant. Snyder fan-bros aren't just content to say "I am not going to watch the movie because I don't like the direction of the James Gunn universe"... oh no. They have to attack Milly's looks and anything else they can think of to make it personal, despite the fact that she's getting rave reviews by people who don't care for the movie that much...

On every post where Supergirl is even mentioned, Snyder-bros are unloading with hate and adding things like "FLOP!" and "Sasha Calle is the ONLY Supergirl!" and whatever. And here's the thing. These same people didn't even turn out for Saha Calle's only appearance as Supergirl in The Flash, which is widely regarded as one of the biggest box office flops of all time. The projection here is insane.

   
• Cut-Proof? It's genuinely jaw dropping how the fact that an abundance of evidence exists to disprove the non-stop lies, but people are still choosing to believe them all...

Counting to 45,000 isn't difficult at all when you don't fucking count in the first place.

   
• Receipts! Megyn Kelly unleashed a disgusting viral video against Haitians who arrived here with a temporary protection status. It was horrific enough that people are coming forward with viral comments of their own to hit back. And, if they are even half-true, they're damning enough that they should ruin her. But we all know how that works. People like this get a pass for some reason. I can't fathom how Amy Coney Barrett will explain voting to strip TPS protections from endangered Haitians when two of her adopted children are from Haiti and this will likely result in some... or many... of them losing their life.

   
• Watson is on the Case! There's a practice at Apple whereas some company comes out with a very good app for their various devices which has killer features... at which point Apple will put those same features into their own apps or operating systems, essentially destroying the app which had the idea first. Way back in 2001 an app named Watson was released by a small developer which added a lot of useful tools to Apple's Sherlock search utility. Soon after, Apple released an updated Sherlock which could do all the things Watson could do... and it was game over. After this kept happening, the term "Sherlocking" was popularized to describe the process. Fast forward to now and Apple's new Siri-enabled Calendar app allows you to add appointments and such just by talking or typing to it with natural language commands. This was the hallmark feature of a competing calendar app called Fantastical, which I purchased back in the day. And I still use it, even though the developer switched to the dreaded "subscription model" which I do not pay for because my old license allows the basic functions to still be used. So now the question becomes... will I ditch Fantastical in favor of Calendar? And the answer is yes, probably. I'd rather not have additional apps installed to worry about, and odds are Apple's built-in app will work fine for me. Not that Fantastical's developer will care, because they're not getting any money off of me anyway. On one hand I'm sad that another developer has been Sherlocked. It's bad for the platform. But, on the other hand, I hate subscription models so much that I won't be losing any sleep over it either.

   
And now back to my recovery.

Though today is a double 626 day because it's 62626 this year.

The chaotic alien from the animated masterpiece Lilo & Stitch is "Experiment 626," but he's better known as "Stitch." And, as somebody who absolutely loves this brilliant Chris Sanders character, it's a day I celebrate. Usually by buying something new for my collection of Stitch crap.

Last year for 626 I purchased a print from my trip to Disney's Aulani resort...

This year I bought a couple of Lilo & Stitch picture discs to frame...

They'll look pretty cool hanging in my guest bathroom with my other Stitch stuff once I get them framed.

I honestly wasn't going to write more than two posts about Pride Month. It was going to be one post at the beginning, wishing all my friends in the LGBTQ+ community a Happy Pride... then another at the end, summarizing the genre movies I watched for the month. That's it.

But holy crap are people up their asses this year.

So much faux persecution, hate, and bullshit.

And though this excellent piece by Dan McClellan is about baseball, you can apply it to many, many, other scenarios...

And then there's this nonsense...

Serious question... do these assholes even READ the Bible?

Because the meaning of the rainbow for Christians is right there in the Book of Genesis: "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant..." — Genesis 9:13-15

Rainbows are widely interpreted to be a sign from God that his judgement over the earth has passed and he won't destroy the world with a flood again. Kinda the opposite of a "weapon."

And, oh yeah... THE PRIDE FLAG IS NOT A LITERAL FUCKING RAINBOW!!!

It was intentionally made as its own symbol, with each color representing LGBTQ+ values. Six colors instead of seven. And originally it had 9 or something. The LGBTQ+ community is not "stealing God's rainbow" which is categorically absurd. When Hawaii put a rainbow on their license plates, did they steal it from God? Give me a fucking break.

I swear these assholes spend more time thinking about gay stuff than any gay person I know.

Which is not surprising given the rate that most of them turn out to be closeted homosexuals, and this is just an attempt to divert attention away from them.

Misdirection always works!

Until it doesn't.

It's the inhumanity for me.

Every fucking day it's the same thing. People advocating harm towards people who are just trying to live their lives in peace and find a corner of happiness to cling to in this sick, sad, violent world.

And I'm not just talking on a global scale (though that's obviously a huge problem), but with everyday life. The small inhumanities which pile up to make life feel unbearably cruel.

A man on a road trip with his two little girls stops to let them use the bathroom. Obviously he doesn't want to take TWO LITTLE GIRLS INTO THE MEN'S RESTROOM, so he made sure nobody was in the ladies' restroom and helped his daughters there.

Enter a fucking asshole with his inhumanity.

Instead of trying to offer up even a fucking OUNCE of compassion for a father trying to take care of his kids and wait TWO FUCKING MINUTES for these girls to wash their hands... he calls the cops...

And then the asshole woman with this asshole decides to chime in. Which I do not understand at all. You would think that a woman would be understanding that this guy was trying to keep his daughters safe by not taking them into the men's restroom and applaud him for being such a great dad... but NOOOOOOOO! Instead she stands by while this asshole terrorizes these two kids.

Not everywhere has a "Family Restroom" available. And in those cases, parents just have to do the best they can.

And it's the job of the rest of us to lend a hand.

How fucking difficult would it have been for this asshole woman to say "No problem, we can wait a minute" and be a fucking human being?

Apparently insurmountably difficult.

And I don't even fucking know how to react. The obvious answer is to be a little angry and a lot sad. But I choose to cling to the fact that the manager of the QuikTrip, Melissa, was a fucking legend for getting in-between the asshole and these frightened kids, trying to help as best she can...

Give her a fucking parade.

And then, erect a statue of this Father of the Year somewhere, who somehow managed to remain calm, cool, and collected during a very difficult situation because he didn't want to upset his kids more than they already were as some asshole was yelling at them...

Yelling at little girls in the restroom. This is where we're at.

Happy Father's Day on Sunday to this man. He deserves it.

Happy Pride Month to LGBTQ+ persons across the country and everywhere! I see you. I appreciate you. I want you to be happy, safe, and authentically you, always. You contribute to society in meaningful, fabulous ways, and I'm proud to stand with you as you celebrate your culture and history.

And, don't worry haters, I see you too! Every year there's a segment of society living in ignorance which feels the need to shit all over Pride by saying things like "WHAT ABOUT THE MILITARY? WHY DO GAYS GET A MONTH BUT OUR MILITARY GETS NOTHING? I'M UNREASONABLY MAD ABOUT THAT, AND BEING MAD SHOWS EVERYBODY I'M A REAL AMERICAN PATRIOT!!"

So here we go...

1. May was National Military Appreciation Month.
2. November is Veterans and Military Families Month.
3. Which is to say that Pride Month isn't taking away anything from our troops being recognized.
4. If you really want to recognize our troops in June, nobody is stopping you. I used to collect foods and snacks so I could send care packages to soldiers every month. The site I used for this was AnySoldier.com, which shut down last year. So now I donate to the USO Care Package Program and Operation Gratitude.
5. Which is to say that if you need a "recognition month" in order to recognize our troops, that's on you. You can do something to support and recognize troops every month if you want. So attacking an important time for LGBTQ+ persons "for the troops" is just performative nonsense.

And for religious haters who find joy in condemning Pride Month as celebrating sin... go right ahead. This is America, after all. But you should know that your highly selective reading of the Bible and your non-contextual interpretation of those passages which you weaponize against LGBTQ+ persons is an incredibly sad way to live as a "Christian," and you really need to read deeper into your Bible for the ultimate message Jesus was trying to teach us. I'm not a Christian, but have been in a Bible study group for the past 22 years. Studying historical context, language translation context, and the different interpretations of Scripture has been an eye-opening experience I highly recommend.

But anyway...

Happy Pride to all who celebrate!

Don't think that life without water pressure will hold me back... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts...now...

   
• Take a Look, It's In a Book! When it comes to video games, I'm a creature of habit. I mostly play Minecraft Dungeons, which is such a relaxing way to wind down when I've had a particularly challenging day. I don't generally look for other games to play, but sometimes they find me. The latest of which I can't even play because it's not available for iPad or Mac! It's a weird concept to be sure. A fairy has ripped 3,072 books off the shelves of a magical library. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to put every last one of them back on the shelves where they belong...

The reviews are pretty stellar. People love it so much that even when they earn magical abilities to allow them to complete the game faster, they don't. Instead they put each book back manually. Because it's relaxing. I can't imagine a bigger endorsement than that. I really, really hope it comes to a platform I have available one day soon!

   
• Priorities! Take a look at this nonsense that greets you when you login to Facebook...

Facebook now prioritizes their shitty AI slop bullshit over your friends. Which speaks volumes. The reason they want you to use their product is not to communicate with those who mean something to you... it's to generate stupid AI crap. And I honestly don't get it. What do they gain by de-prioritizing your friends? Running AI nonsense is expensive. Having you engage with your friends is relatively cheap. Which is why it seems insane that you have to skip past TWO AI products before even getting to your friends. I don't fucking understand any of this. Probably too old.

   
• I'm on a Float! This past week I happened upon a discussion about how "stupid" water beds were, yet they were everywhere anyway. They didn't offer much support for sleep, they were impossible to move, they could have serious problems when it came to the water getting slimy, and they required a heating pad under or else the water would be freezing to sleep on. It was totally a messy idea that made no sense. And yet... I liked my water bed! It was comfortable enough (when warm) that I was able to fall asleep easily. Not sure it did much for sleep after I nodded off, but for the five years it was functional, I enjoyed sleeping on it. But then the heater had to be replaced for the second time, which requires you to completely drain the bladder, at which point my parents told me it was time to be rid of it. I kept the bed frame though, because it had a padded edge I liked, and just threw a regular mattress inside. So... stupid? Yes. Very. But not insanely so. Sometimes I miss flopping down on a squishy, sloshy bed at night.

   
• Full Disclosure! I haven't thoroughly enjoyed a Steven Spielberg movie since Minority Report in 2002. Before that there were quite a few. Despite it all, I never stop rooting for him out of pure nostalgia. His latest, Disclosure Day looks like he may break his 24-year dry spell for me...

At least I sure hope so.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter to plead guilty in child sexual abuse case, adding to pattern. "Once is an anomaly, twice is a trend." This is the sixth... SIXTH!... January 6th insurrectionist arrested for being a child predator? And that doesn't even touch the number of sex crimes and other criminal acts from the January 6 mob. All pardoned by the president. The so-called "law and order president." What a fucking joke.

   
• Inhumane! Years ago, a woman tossed a cat looking for affection into a trash bin. The cat was rescued, but the woman was caught on video and (rightfully) became a total pariah of society. People (rightfully) loathed her. She (rightfully) became one of the most infamous people in Britain. Her response made things even worse. If you hadn't heard about the story, here you go...

This morning a news story hit my feed with the headline 'Cat Bin Lady' Mary Bale still lives in Midlands - and doesn't feel forgiven. And I was like. Good. Fuck that piece of shit. This is all I could possibly want for her. Anybody who would cause suffering to an animal which did nothing but show them affection deserves to be an unforgiven outcast. People like this have no place in society.

   
• Talk About Performative! Good Lord am I exhausted over this stupid shit. It burns. IT BURNS!

When you are invited somewhere which has different traditions than you hold, it's merely being polite to be respectful to these traditions. People like this need to get out of the house and fucking travel more. I've been to countless places where I was respectful to my host by doing something I wouldn't usually do. What always, always, gets me is how these same people will totally lose their shit if somebody were to disrespect their traditions. Get a fucking life, asshole.

   
And now back to my regularly-scheduled water outage.

Had water... then didn't have water... then had water, but low pressure. Which meant I could take a shower, but not a very good one.

Then the water was gone again when I got home, which means no butternut squash pasta in brown butter with crispy-fried sage. Again.

In other news, how cool is this...

Probably won't offset the utterly insane decision to shut down federal bee labs, but even a little progress in the face of absolute disaster is better than nothing.

Surely there has to be somebody in the administration who understands what an absolute fucking disaster it would be for life on earth if the bee population collapses?

Here I am, back from vacation and ready to start dropping bullets I've been collecting over the past week... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts...now...

   
• Trash Panda Review! Let's start out our Sunday by looking at something uplifting, shall we?

I love raccoons. YouTube knows I love raccoons. So you can bet at some point while I'm scrolling through YouTube that there will be raccoons on my page. Interesting to note that raccoons may be the next animal to be domesticated for wide-scale adoption as pets...

Not sure how my cats would react to having a raccoon in the house though.

   
• GAAAAAAH! If only I could afford to purchase something like this for my home...

Nicholas Hernandez Art is an Instagram account I was following seconds after I saw the finished product. Gorgeous. Friction' gorgeous. And oh-so-expensive... but worth the price.

   
• King of the Road! Good God. When people think that they can regulate who gets to park on a public street... and get the police to help them enforce it... then society is fucking fucked...

Nothing surprises me any more. Nothing.

   
• Learn from Example! Totally valid...

I learned everything not to do in life from watching television.

   
• Olympic! If you want to step away from the horrors of the world, this guy is visiting one of my favorite hotels on earth... not so far from me in Seattle!

I really need to pay a visit again one of these days. I can't really afford to spend the night... but the bar and restaurant are worth the money to visit.

   
• Bad Omens! I have few regrets in life. Watching the finale of Good Omens is one of them. What a complete betrayal of all that came before. I cannot fucking fathom what would make the writers come up with something so devoid of joy for two characters that people adore. Let alone what would make Prime Video greenlight it.

Terry Pratchett would not... COULD NOT... approve. It doesn’t even make sense. I would have much rather lived with a cliffhanger forever than to have suffered through this abomination. Everybody deserves a do-over.

   
• Enjoy Our Hellscape! I tried my best to avoid the news while I was gone. And catching up this week has been the nightmare you'd think it would be.

• Soon after massive honeybee deaths, Trump moves to close the nation’s premier bee lab. I know he likely doesn't understand how totally screwed we are if the bee population collapses, but isn't there anybody in his entire administration who has a clue and can speak out?
• Former ‘pray the gay away’ Orlando ministry leader arrested for soliciting a teen boy. Why don't we just save the time? Any time somebody speaks out against the gays, the drag queens, the trans community... any of it... just go and arrest them. Because they are obviously trying to point attention away from whatever messed up stuff they're into. Like preying on a 14 year-old boy. It's always the same with these people. Every accusation is an admission. And every time I see somebody attempting to drum up hate against a marginalized community, I'm just going to assume they're a pedo asshole.
• Conservative Group Sues ‘Find A Black Doctor’ Directory Over Discrimination. Jesus. It takes minutes to Google the absolutely abhorrent discrimination and lack of care provided to Persons of Color. Even the most fundamental basics... like pain management... is another world when you’re Black. It isn’t racist to want a doctor who will care for you from a perspective you share. Not even a little bit. This kind of thing blows my mind. Just fuck ALL the way off with your ignorance. The fact that this lawsuit is even a thing IS VIVIDLY DEMONSTRATING PROBLEM!
• FDA staff blindsided by move allowing more e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches onto US market. So first RJ Reynolds donates $5 million to Trump. Then Trump invites their executives to Mar-a-Lago where they ask him to loosen regulations on flavored vapes. Then Trump calls RFK Jr. and tells him to change government policy. I guess now we wait for strychnine to be allowed in breakfast cereals because General Mills and Kellogg's sends their executives to Mar-A-Lago to explain that testing for poisons costs them too much money. All they have to do is throw a little cash his way, and it's done! He doesn't care about anything but money, so what does the health of American citizens matter? Spoiler Alert: We don't matter.
• Republicans call off vote on Iran war resolution that was on the verge of passing. So there it is. There's no representation in government any more. The minute our representatives work to initiate change, the President's goon squad simply prevents them from being able to act. Isn't democracy great?
• Trump accused of downplaying the 13 military lives lost in Iran war: 'In other wars you lost hundreds of thousands'. "I get a kick when I look at somebody on television saying, 'he's lost 13 people'" — As Commander in Chief, he is directly responsible for 13 soldiers under his command losing their lives. All to distract from him being in the Epstein Files over 38,000 times. And this is what he has to say about them? Our soldiers laying their lives on the line deserve better than this kind of flippant bullshit.
• Trump Endangers Wild Animals by Authorising Lethal Cyanide Bombs Across Millions of Acres of Public Land. Not just animals... people. People are probably going to die. This is sadistic, horrific shit that everybody agrees needed to go away. But when you're going to sell public lands off to enrich your corrupt family, you can't have coyotes running around, can you? They really mess up being able to build an AI data center.

The mess we're in is crazy-easy to understand when you consider how things work now...

Confirmation bias. It's a hell of a drug.

   
And now... back to work. Because yesterday I fell asleep before I could finish. Tomorrow is a holiday for me. Here's hoping that I can take at least one day off.

   
• Quokka Edition! In today's episode of Adorable Animals Eating stuff...

If I hadn't seen a quokka in real life, I would have sworn they were AI or something.

   
• Flour or Corn? I have been watching tortilla challenge videos, and now I’m dead, y’all...

A challenge I would most certainly lose.

   
• NEWSFLASH: F.D.A. Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe. Suppressing scientific findings because they disagree with your idiotic bullshit... whodathunkit? OH... EVERYBODY WHO'S FUCKING SANE!!! Lying to keep people from being safe and healthy is exactly what you want from those in charge of keeping you safe and healthy. But that's RFK Jr. and the Trump Administration in a nutshell.

   
• Second Verse, Same as the First! Why? Why is he not telling the whole story? Because he's a fucking dumbass piece of fucking shit that's going to get babies killed...

Go fuck yourself you unbelievable fucking asshole. Jesus CHRIST why aren't these fuckers held responsible for their misinformation? All it takes is one person who listens to him and loses their kid before it's murder.

   
• Half Off Energy! Are we great yet?

Oh... wait a sec... we still have one month left before gas prices are cut by 50%. Which means it will be going from the $3.12 a gallon at the time Trump took office (national average) to $1.56 a gallon (national average) any day now! That will be a refreshing change from the $4.46 (national average) we're paying now! — Just remember... during the campaign Trump pledged to "rapidly drive prices down" and reduce energy/electricity costs by half within 12–18 months. We're almost there, so hang on, everybody! Just so long as the person in charge isn't falling asleep at the wheel, everything will be fine!

   
• The Real World! Yes. You have that exactly right. Instead of serving the American people as his job requires, this piece of shit went on a fucking seven month vacation on the taxpayer’s dime...

When are people going to wake up and realize that this administration is a fucking sham? They do nothing but make life easier for wealthy people. That’s it. War profiteering, grifts, lies, and crimes. That is the entirety of what they do.

   
• Worship Him! Posted without comment...

Except to say that this is as accurate a critique as it could possibly get.

   
And... good night.

Jalopnik: With 12,000 Flights Canceled In May Already, We've Got Bad News About Your Summer Vacation.

"The U.S. is now two months deep into an unprovoked war with Iran and the results have not been kind to anyone. In the states inflation tripled with surging gas prices, which quickly reached an average of over $4.00/gallon nationally. And in a world completely dependent on fuel, any shortage in the supply system hurts everyone, especially concerning air travel. It's bad enough that Matt Smith, Kpler director of commodity research warned on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that the 12,000 flights have been cancelled in May — of which we're only five days in — was only the beginning. Expect jet fuel prices to affect your summer travel, or even cancel it."

This is what incompetence in government looks like. They're so desperate to distract from the Epstein Files that we're now in a war that's fucked the entire country... and, indeed, the world.

I'm so sick of this non-stop parade of horrors I could vomit.