Washington State already had workplace protections for LGBTQ persons since 2006, but now it's been rolled out nation-wide thanks to a Supreme Court ruling which expanded upon "sex discrimination" to include sex, sexuality, and gender identity.

Naturally, conservatives are losing their fucking minds. They want to be able to "fire them queers" in places like Mississippi and Alabama, I guess.

Their argument seems to revolve around "textualism." Which is to say that the people who wrote the law concerning sexual discrimination couldn't have foreseen things like sexuality and gender identity at the time, so you can't read them into a modern interpretation of the original legislation. Which is hilarious, of course. When the Second Amendment was written, they couldn't have foreseen high-powered assault rifles and automatic weapons, but that hasn't stopped conservatives from saying Americans should be free to own all kinds of advanced weaponry based on what was once written.

Oh well. It's the Supreme Court's job to interept that shit, not mine. And it seems they are on the right side of history this time (surprisingly led by Trump nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch, textualist supreme). Though the dissenting opinions are laughable to knee-slapping extremes if, for no other reason, because they spell out in no uncertain terms exactly how the ruling can be used to support things they detest. I expect this kind of embarrassing idiocy from a dumbass frat-bro like Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but I somehow thought Justice Alito was more devious, more savvy. Apparently his frustration with not being able to stop progress has turned him into that old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn.

Guess he can just stay mad.

And speaking of staying mad...

I worked way too late last night. I think I finally fell asleep around 1:30am. When I woke up five hours later, I wasn't necessarily tired... but my eyes were burning. And they continued to burn all day long. Finally around 3:30pm I just couldn't see any longer and came home to take a nap. My cats woke me up at 5:55pm because the Alexa alarm was blaring downstairs. It was their dinner time and they were not happy that I dared to sleep through it.

And here we are, hours later, and they are still mad about it.

Something tells me I had better not be late with breakfast tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't even know what to say... but here's a new Bullet Sunday anyway...

   
• BLM! Despite being so crestfallen about the state of politics in this country that I'm trying not to blog my rage on a daily basis... something needs to be said. I fully believe that an unarmed citizen should not be dragged from their car by the police and get choked out on the street... all while crying out because they can't breathe as other citizens are telling the officers they they're killing somebody. For nine minutes. That's not law enforcement, it's murder. And when the murder disproportionately targets Black Americans? Well, that's why people are protesting. And I support the protesters 1000%, because this shit has got to stop. And, quite honestly, I don't understand why everybody can't support the protesters. I mean, my God, Black Americans have been trying to get attention to their plight via peaceful protest forever now. And no matter how they try to protest and bring awareness, they get criticized for it. Can't kneel at a football game (even though a veteran advised you it was a respectful way to protest) because people don't like it. Can't try to mention what's happening in an award speech because people don't like it. Can't have a sit-in. Can't have a march. Can't hold a rally. Can't carry a sign. Can't write an article. Can't make a movie. Can't do anything without pissing people off who don't want to be reminded of the horrific systemic racism which plagues us (and from which they likely benefit). Well, too fucking bad. Your "inconvenience" is what's going to lead to change. That's how shit gets done in this country. Just ask those who took part in the Boston Tea Party.

And, lastly, for the love of everything holy, STOP EQUATING PEACEFUL PROTEST TO LOOTING! The vast, vast number of people protesting are not looting a damn thing. As more and more information comes to light, the looting and violence are being started not by protesters, but by others for their own ends. Which include Far Left Anarchists, Far Right White Supremacists, and The President of the United States of America. They want to watch the world burn so they can start something new. Black Americans just want to be able to walk down the street and not get shot by the people sworn to protect them. Don't get me wrong... I support the idea of a police force. And I believe that officers on the front lines should have the tools they need to do their job and stay safe. But the grotesque militarization of our police has only served to escalate violence, and the lack of training for de-escalating situations before they turn violent is woefully inadequate. Instead we've got rogue police officers acting like judge, jury, and executioner. That's heinous. That's wrong. That needs to stop. Today. And a lot of police officers agree, which is why they are joining up with the protesters. It's their community too, and any officer true to their mission should be supporting peaceful protest of law enforcement abuses.

And now I'm going to go scream for a half-hour.

   
• Predictable! And meanwhile, this is happening...

Holy shit.

   
• Misbehavin'! One of my favorite TV shows from 2019 took me completely by surprise... it was The Righteous Gemstones starring John Goodman as a mega-church televangelist pastor. And one of the best bits to come out of that show was the performance of a song called Misbehavin' by the wife of John Goodman's character and her scheming brother...

I've watched that video at least a dozen times. And if your curious about how the song came about, here's an article for you.

   
• From My Ranch To Your Kitchen! I've not been cooking much lately because I just haven't felt up to it. But yesterday I decided that I really need to start using the ingredients I've purchased while they're still good, so I started looking for ideas. Then somebody on Facebook reminded me of one of my favorite cooking channels on YouTube... De mi Rancho a Tu Cocina. Sure, she cooks most everything with meat, but it's fascinating. And, thanks to Google's auto-translation subtitles, you can actually follow along fairly well when you turn them on (CC button) and select "auto-translate" in the settings (gear button)...

Great stuff. Love her. It was this channel that convinced me to give a recipe with tomatillos a try with my Martha Stewart recipe box subscription.

   
• Armchair Traveler! So many museums and cool places are putting up virtual tours and I'm absolutely loving it. But the best one I've seen so far is the Statue of Liberty, which is sensational. You can go around and inside of it and look around 360°. Here's just a sampling of what I saw when I virtually-visited...

In the day time. But there's also night views from the exterior...

Having been up the Statue of Liberty a couple times, I fully admit that the dizzying heights and cramped quarters aren't something you can reproduce virtually, but at least you can get a taste of it. This is a view inside the crown...

Looking down...

The photos I just posted (courtesy of the National Parks Service) really don't do the experience justice. Head over to their site to see for yourself.

   
• Dates! One of my favorite vloggers, Johnny Harris, has yet another cool video up. This time he's exploring the International Date Line and why it's the way it is...

This wouldn't be the first time Google Maps has screwed up. A decade ago there was an error which caused Nicaragua to invade Costa Rica. So even though Google Maps is often viewed as a definitive source of information because it's so heavily used, it really shouldn't be. Always check your sources. And if you can't get enough Johnny Harris, check out this fascinating video about Swiss neutrality.

   
Stay safe, everybody.

I'm not "running out of things to watch," but I am getting bored with the massive amount of stuff that's available to watch. Binging Plan Coeur (The Hook Up Plan) yesterday really made me want to revisit some of my favorite French films, but it's tough to work and read subtitles at the same time, and I can't afford to lose the hours like I did yesterday. I thought that I would instead put on some of my favorite Japanese anime since I was once fairly fluent in the language and "it's just cartoons," but that didn't work out at all. My Japanese comprehension is so out of practice now that I have to stop and think about what's being said, which is actually more distracting than reading subtitles.

I was lamenting the idea of starting in on another Netflix series when a friend in a Zoom meeting mentioned that they've been watching a lot of YouTube videos. This seemed like an excellent idea, because that's somewhere below mindless entertainment, and the YouTube app for my AppleTV will just keep playing them one-after-the-other all night long!

When I asked for suggestions, the first one out of their mouth was Mr. Beast. I was going to take a pass because the only thing I had ever heard about the guy was that he drops a lot of homophobic slurs, but my friend said "He's done so many good things," and I was intrigued.

At first I was just going to start at his first video and run through them all, but he's been doing this for six years(!) and most of his earliest videos are just him playing video games and stuff. He then made a slew of videos speculating on the wealth of other YouTubers and making fun of other YouTubers. Then he went through a phase of counting to really high numbers... reading the entire dictionary... and doing other time-consuming and inane stunts.

Yeah. No thanks.

But then things started getting interesting about two years ago.

Mr. Beast started giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars (which he gets from sponsorship and branding deals). He'd give somebody $10,000 for winning a video game challenge. He'd tip a server $20,000. He'd give random subscribers to his channel huge amounts of cash. And he also started doing crazy stuff like trashing his friend's car then give them a new car... buying every billboard in his city... spending 24 hours in prison... and having his friends do random challenges for huge cash prizes.

I began to see his appeal. His stunts are genuinely interesting.

My favorite stunt he pulled was buying a house then ordering a pizza from Dominos. He offered the pizza delivery guy $2,000 if he would help them go shopping for stuff to move into the house "for a friend," then he gave the fully furnished house to the delivery guy after they were done. Watch the video. It's pretty great...

After a while you start really getting invested in the lives of his friends. Poor Cameron kept losing challenge after challenge and never won anything. You really started to feel sorry for the guy because he was constantly made fun of. Then, finally, he won one and I was far more happy for him than I had a right to be...

Yeah, this is not highbrow entertainment, but it is entertaining. I've certainly seen worse uses of time and money on YouTube.

After my Mr. Beast marathon, I started catching up on all the YouTubers I follow but have neglected over the past several months. Like Unbox Therapy, who unboxed Apple's SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLAR WHEELS for their MacPro computer so you don't have to. It looks to be an oddly unsatisfying experience...

Don't worry. Eventually he made a skateboard out of the wheels.

Yahtzee at Escapist's Zero Punctuation took a look at Animal Crossing: New Horizons and it's oddly comforting in its raw predictability...

John Kirkwood made cheese & onion pasties... something I am dying to make and will attempt soon, because it's like a gorgeous blend of some of my favorite things...

Ryan at ScreenRant unleashed another hilarious pitch meeting...

Two amazing thinkers (who just happen to be brilliant comedians) discuss atheism and other deep topics in a fascinating conversation...

And lastly there's Johnny Harris, who actually spent his valuable time looking into flerfers (insert eye-roll)...

After all that, I was ready to start watching regular ol' television again, and started in on Ryan Murphy's latest... Hollywood... which is currently airing on Netflix. Not exactly sure this is going to be my thing, but it sure looks like it was expensive to make.

Look, if I end up contracting the Coronavirus and die, so be it. I've been as cautious as I can be. I've had a decent life. Shit happens. I'm good to go.

But if I end up dying because I was attacked by a murder hornet? Yeah, just kill me now. I have no desire to wait around for that.

As you have undoubtedly read, so-called "murder hornets" have reached the United States and... in what I can only describe as a fucking horror story and just my luck... where they've landed IS RIGHT HERE IN MY HOME OF WASHINGTON STATE!

Disturbing photo by Yasunori Koide via Wikipedia Commons

My reaction to the news?

You know that moment in Galaxy Quest where Sigourney Weaver finds out they have to run through "The Chompers" in order to keep the ship from being blown up? And her line is "Well fuck that!" but they changed the film from an R-rating to a PG-rating, so she ends up saying "Well screw that!" but her mouth is still saying the original line?

It was like that.

Murder hornets (which actually aren't called that anywhere but here in the USA where absolutely everything has to be sensationalized) are 2-inch long death-bringers from the sky who get their kicks ripping the heads off of bees and pulping their thorax to feed to their baby murder hornets.

Considering that a huge chunk of our food supply either directly or indirectly comes from bees polinating flowers and crops, this is insanely bad news. I hope that once everybody studying the Coronavirus comes up with a vaccination or cure or whatever... they turn their attention to finding a way to kill every last one of these bastards before I have to worry about running into them when I walk out to check my mailbox.

I tell you... the way things keep going on this planet, the more I am hoping for alien abduction.

Life in isolation may be better than no life, but your life is about to get measurably better... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Dough! I finally broke down and baked a couple loaves of my beloved SourJo bread. It was too hard going without, so I used the last of the flour I had been saving and went for it. The result was as delicous as it was beautiful...

I have decided to slice and freeze the pan-loaf so I can thaw it out as toast when I need a bread fix. The round loaf, however? That I'll be eating in copious chunks with butter and jam! I sure hope that flour, sugar, and yeast come back to grocery store shelves sometime soon.

   
• Various Corn! Oh look... John Oliver is back to drop some truth on the outrageous levels of stupid shit that have been plaguing us as of late...

The Below Deck: Sailing Yacht drop-in was particularly wonderful for those of us who are fans of the show.

   
• Terms of Agreement! HOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM: COURT RULES PHOTOGRAPHER GAVE UP EXCLUSIVE LICENSING RIGHTS BY POSTING ON INSTAGRAM. This is categorically absurd. A feature of Instagram is that people can embed and share what you post. Mashable wanted to use the image without embedding the Instagram framing. They offered money. The artist refused the amount of money. So Mashable just used the Instagram framing as it was DESIGNED TO BE USED!! If you don’t want people using your work in ways that social media was designed to be used... THEN DON’T FUCKING POST IT TO SOCIAL MEDIA! Especially a site like Instagram where you have to agree to their terms specifically allowing this kind of thing when you sign up for an account. Put your work on a PRIVATE SITE and EXPLICITLY STATE the terms of use (or lack of use) where you are sharing it. This is not rocket science. Nobody should be shocked or surprised as to what can happen when you post your work to social media. THIS IS WHY THEY CALL IT "SOCIAL MEDIA!"

   
• Sucks So Good! One of my favorite movies of all time is What We Do In The Shadows. It's hilariously funny in all the right ways. It spawned a television serious on FX that was every bit as well-done and hysterical. And now they've started their second season...

I was late to the television series (I didn't know it even existed), but now I'm crazy for it. I pre-ordered the entire season at iTunes because I just know that I will be watching them over and over again. Highest possible recommendation.

   
• Moo! Cows are truly some of the most gentle and beautiful animals. Part of why I can’t bring myself to eat them...

THAT is one content kitty right there!

   
• Color! This is probably the coolest thing I've seen all year. A series of RGB colorspace books which depict every color imaginable...

Image attributed to Brittany Schall

Photo by Vegard Kleven

You can read about the RGB Colorspace Atlas over at Colossal. You can see the work over at artist Tauba Auerbach's site.

   
• 'MURICA! And let's wrap this up with a shut-out to the brave nurses confronting IGNORANT STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLES protesting lockdown BY BARRICADING STREETS DURING A PANDEMIC WHEN AMBULANCES MAY NEED TO GET THROUGH...

Two nurses, who have witnessed first hand the toll Covid is taking in Colorado, stood up and peacefully counter protested. Here is how they were treated. I had join them.pic.twitter.com/iJnNcqZxSv

— Marc Zenn (@MarcZenn) April 19, 2020

I am so fucking sick and tired of this idiotic trash that I want to vomit. You can read about it here.

   
And that's all she wrote for bullets this Sunday.

You'd think that the time I'm not spending hanging out with friends and traveling would be spent doing something constructive. But, alas, it's not to be. You'd think I'd at least make the effort to learn a foreign language... or even clean my kitchen... but you'd think wrong.

Instead I've been playing Animal Crossing, watching movies, sleeping, and being otherwise lazy. For a month now.

But, hey, maybe next week?

And now this...

I am open to a lot of different ideas, philosophies, and beliefs. I try to have an open mind and an open heart and accept that I don't know everything (even though I obviously do). The hope is that by trying to understand why somebody thinks the way they do it will lead to a better understanding of my fellow humans. Even ideas which I am personally opposed to I try to understand and respect. But there are certain no-go areas for me. Bigotry, racism, homophobia... persecution of minorities, the poor, and disenfranchised... to name a few.

Privatization of the USPS is another no-go area. There is literally NOTHING you can tell me that will make me change my mind that this is a horrific idea. Politicians have screwed over, exploited, and villainized our postal service for decades. All of it is bullshit of the highest order... often to distract from larger problems. Because just like the fire department, our mail system is an essential service for a host of very important reasons, and privatizing it so that eventually only wealthy individuals or powerful corporations can afford to send mail is an abomination. The very notion that privatization will make the USPS "more efficient" or "cheaper" or "better" is laughably absurd, and you can just keep the fuck away from me with this idiocy. Privatization would eliminate mail as we know it and disenfranchise a goodly chunk of Americans when they eventually become deemed "unprofitable."

This Twitter thread is essential reading for every American...

By Dingus J McGee, ESQ*, OBE* (@DingusJMcGee)
   
Okay, I've been with USPS for several years now, so here's my big dumb #SaveThePostOffice thread. I don't know how many tweets it's gonna take for me to ramble through my thoughts, so stick with me. Or don't, whatever.
   
First things first: we're not taxpayer funded. At all. Sure, we get government monopolies on certain things of value (and things like cheap loan terms), but the budget isn't by the taxpayer. It's by the services provided. If you buy stamps, you fund us. If you don't, you don't.
   
Second: our financial issues, while not ENTIRELY from the 2006 PAEA bill that required 70 years of retiree prefunds, are mostly artificial. They would not exist if not for a congressional lame duck bill passed mostly by a certain political party on their way out the power door
   
Third: We're in the constitution. Literally. You know that thing you occasionally pretend to love when it serves your interests? It's explicitly in there. We're legally required to exist.
   
Fourth: Certain nameless people want us privatized because we're worth a lot of $. Even without the physical materials (truck fleet, offices, computer networks, etc), we have billions in proprietary data (route sequences, mailing lists, logistics, etc) that businesses would love
   
Fifth: You can be certain, if given the chance, certain politicians would love to GIVE AWAY this infrastructure, a la the $70 billion in digital broadcast licenses they gave away for free to Telecom companies in 1996 with no strings attached.
   
So, why should you not want this? Well, for starters, if you're not in a major city, you've been subsidized by one via the post office for decades. It's a lot cheaper to mail and deliver in dense population centers. But we charge the same in rural Delaware, too.
   
Why? Because the idea is everyone in America, no matter where they are, should have the same, guaranteed access to a valuable line of communication. A birthday card from across country is as valuable as a wedding invite from one town over.
   
Now, no one likes their junk mail, but you know what? Carrying 4 Geico ads and a Subway coupon in my satchel with your card is the reason the latter only cost $0.50 to cross the country. And if you'd like to name a cheaper way to ship a book or a record, I'd like to hear it.
   
But the one thing I pride myself on the most in terms of service is something you can guarantee won't happen in privatized, for-profit model. UPS, FedEx, Amazon, DHL, etc ALL dump packages on our docks every single day. Ones they say aren't profitable. We take them the last mile
   
Why? Because Every. Single. Address. In. America. deserves service. Even places accessible by only boat and plane. They'll be cut off in a second in a private market. Heck, it's only because of our last mile service that you don't realize the private sector already cut you out.
   
I work in a position called a "T6," or a "Carrier Technician." Put simply: USPS delivers 6 days a week, and employees work 5 days. For every 5 routes in an office, there's a T6 to carry the 6th day on each of those 5 routes who have a regular the other 5 days. Full-time position
   
In my case, that's 5 routes, averaging 700 addresses each, totaling 3,500 addresses, and approx 10K names and faces. Names and faces that I recognize, communicate with regularly, and can identify the forwarding information for, without even consulting a reference sheet.
   
I know which senior residents would like their mail delivered to the door, even if they have a curbside box. I know who needs their packages (often for home business) tucked into a corner behind the garage. Who is going to need an extra minute to get to the door to sign.
   
I know whose lawns to not cut across, whose dogs want to bite, and whose want to play. I know whose day will be made brighter with a short convo, and who wants me to go away. I know who is bad at checking the mail, and who to call for a wellness check on if it starts to pile up
   
For millions across the country, we're the only face they often see all day, even before social distancing. Their connection to the world around them, even if it's just for a comment on the weather, or to be a two minute ear for a rant about "kids these days."

Read it. Then go buy some stamps. I've bought a load of stamps and I send maybe two or three letters a year. But I rely on the USPS for RECEIVING mail every day. This is a critical time for a service so important that most people don't even have to give it a second thought. But rest assured that you will miss the USPS when it's gone.

It's funny the things you miss.

Today I had a massive craving for these date-filled soft oatmeal cookies I used to eat as a kid. I haven't had them in at least a decade... maybe two... I'm not even sure if they sell them any more. Usually I would hop in my car and head to the grocery store so I could see if I could find them. But I'm trying to be a good citizen and stay socially quarantined, so I just added them to my grocery list for when I'm out of food and am forced to go get more.

In lieu of the cookies I had some Eggo toaster-waffles.

It's weird to think that we're a month into quarantine and there's still weeks to go if we want to keep from overrunning our hospitals with people dying from the Cornavirus. Every time I turn around there's some promising news about vaccine trials or drugs that may help with recovery... but it's all hypothetical until it isn't, so it's not like quarantine is ending tomorrow.

The thing I find both surprising and totally not surprising is all these churches encouraging their parishoners to break quarantine and go to church. I guess filling that donation plate is more important than keeping people safe. It wouldn't bother me so much if we could somehow tag these people so that if they end up catching COVID-19 and need hospitalization they can be denied for being fucking assholes. That would free up hospital beds for those in need who didn't actively try to get infected.

Unless...

Well I guess that's all she wrote for the Coronavirus!

And it's about time. I really want some of those cookies.

I've been to markets around the world. INCLUDING so-called "wet markets" in China. And Thailand. And Japan. And Korea. And Vietnam. And SEATTLE... which is what The Pike Place Market would be called if we applied the same naming to it that gets applied to markets in Asia. I get so sick of dumbfucks constantly spouting their ignorant nonsense that I could just vomit. If you want to know what these "wet markets" are actually like, here you go...

I'm not saying that there are not unsanitary and possibly dangerous markets out there. Of course there are. But here in the USA we have restaurants and markets closed for hepatitis and E. coli and the like, so painting the rest of the world with the same ignorant brush is pretty pathetic.

The news has been anything but cheerful lately, but hang in there... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• U-S-A! U-S-A-! U-S-A-! But before we get started... this video is two minutes long. I encourage you to take a hard look at every second of it. This is what happens when you call the coronavirus a "Democrat hoax" and don't take things seriously early on. And, for us here in the USA, we're not even at peak coronavirus yet because there are still states which are refusing to do anything because "We don't have many cases here." Well, yes, you dumb-fucks, the whole point is to KEEP IT THAT WAY...

Stay healthy everybody. You could end up breaking a hip or having a heart attack or chopping off a finger only to find that you can't be seen at a hospital because it's been overrun with coronavirus patients. You may consider yourself able to survive COVID-19... and that's great. But your actions could infect others who end up taking up hospital space you might need for other emergencies. It's in everybody's self interest to keep hospitals from piling up. Let's all pray it's not too late already.

   
• Warz! If you don't know who Max Brooks is, you really should. His book World War Z is sublime apocalyptic zombie-fiction which reads so realistically because his research into pandemics was brutally extensive. He's so well-studied and important to the field of disaster preparedness that he has lectured at the U.S. Navy War College, for heaven's sake. Which is why his viewpoint on current events is worth noting: 'All Of This Panic Could Have Been Prevented': Author Max Brooks On COVID-19. This is some scary shit.

   
• ACCESS! Just in case you aren't watching Star Trek: Picard... and you absolutely should be... here's your chance to do so for free. I did not like Star Trek: Next Generation that much, but am loving Picard. I loved Star Trek: Discovery even more (especially the first season), and this freebie unlocks all of CBS All Access, so you can take a look at that one as well!

   
• Live! There was a meme running through Facebook where you are asked if you can name a band you've seen live for every letter of the alphabet and one that starts with a number. I did pretty good...

• # - (The) 1975
• A - a-ha
• B - B-52's
• C - Cheap Trick
• D - Depeche Mode
• E - Erasure
• F - Foster the People
• G - Green River
• H - Heart
• I - Idol, Billy
• J - James, Etta
• K - Ke$ha
• L - (The) Local Strangers
• M - Matt & Kim
• N - Nirvana
• O - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
• P - Pet Shop Boys
• Q - Queens of the Stone Age
• R - Rogers, Nile (and Chic)
• S - (The) Shore
• T - Thompson Twins
• U - Ure, Midge
• V - (The) Vapors
• W - Wrabel
• X -
• Y - Yanni
• Z - ZZ Top

Many of these letters could have had multiple answers. I'm fairly certain I saw at least one band with a name starting with "X"... especially some of those indy bands that were playing during the whole "grunge" movement in Seattle when I was hitting the clubs... I just can't think of any.

   
• Museum Project! People are getting way creative in finding ways to spend their quarantine time. One of my absolute favorites are those who are recreating famous paintings. Some of them are absolute gold, and there's a terrific Instagram feed where they showcase some of the best ones...

A lot of creative use of toilet paper in that Insty-feed!

And there have also been some professional reimaginings that are absolutely sublime. My favorites by a wide margin are those that popped up by Dutch photographer Jenny Boot. Here is Pearl inspired by Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (housed at Museum Mauritshuis in The Hague)...

©2019 Jenny Boot Photography

The original Vermeer...

© Museum Mauritshuis

Here is de Kus, inspired by Vermeer's The Kiss (housed at Museum Belvedere in Vienna, which I was lucky enough to see in person)...

©2019 Jenny Boot Photography

The original Klimt...

© Museum Belvedere

And here is Davinci's Cat inspired by Lady with an Ermine (housed at Muzeum Czartoryski in Krakow)...

©2019 Jenny Boot Photography

The original Da Vinci...

© Muzeum Czartoryski

For more of her insanely gorgeous Jenny Boot photography, you can visit their Instagram and website.

   
• Disneyland-ish? It's not just fine art which is being recreated while people are in quarantine... people are recreating Disneyland and Walt Disney World rides at home! Some of them are just beyond cool...

I guess if you can't visit in person, this is the next best thing? Kudos to those who are using their alone-time to be so creative!

   
And now we resume our self-imposed exile.