You know what the world needs now? A total video game crash like what happened in 1983.

Back then studios got greedy and lazy. They were dumping out as many shitty, overpriced games as they could that were (mostly) lacking in quality and innovation. All so they could make more money at the expense of the gamers that built them. On top of all that, the game system manufacturers had become pieces of shit who went all-in on anti-consumer practices so they could wring out every last cent from their customers.

Gamers, not willing to put up with this bullshit, turned away from video game systems en masse. They played games on their computers that were cheaper, more fun, and gave a quality experience for the money.

And thus the Great North American Video Game Crash of 1983.

It was an interesting time to be alive and be a gamer.

Then a miracle happened.

Nintendo came out with the NES in 1985. The Nintendo Entertainment System was affordable. It had innovative games that were high-quality and a blast to play. There were memorable characters that got you invested in the stories. Everything Nintendo touched was magic. They completely turned around gaming. Not just for North America, but the world. Gaming exploded in popularity again. Everybody thought "This is how gaming should be, and we're never turning back!"

And yet... here we are again.

Except instead of being gaming's savior... Nintendo is now everything that's wrong with the industry.

It's-a me... a greedy fucking piece of shit! © Nintendo

When Nintendo's Switch 2 system was teased, I was thrilled. I loved the original Switch because it had fixed all the issues I had with Wii-U, and surely the Switch 2 would be fixing all the issues I had with Switch, right?

Spoiler Alert: Not even close.

When the latest Nintendo Direct event dropped all the details about the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 gaming system, I immediately ran to Nintendo's site so I could sign up for the option to sign up for a pre-sale of the console system.

Even though I have absolutely no intention of actually buying one.

And let me tell you why...

• Price. The console price is $450 ($500 if you want a copy of the latest Mario Cart game to play on it). This is a horribly bad value for the hardware you get (see next bullet) but it's not the dealbreaker for me. That would be the price of the games. $80 a pop is an outrageous amount of money to pay. AND THAT'S FOR DIGITAL! If you want to buy a cartridge, that'll cost you $90! And these aren't even special editions which includes future DLC! There are precious few games I would pay this much to have. Especially when Nintendo just keeps releasing the same old shit over and over. Absolutely nothing in Nintendo's entire exclusive lineup is worth that to me. I've played it all before. Sure it looks prettier and has more stuff, but it's essentially the same old shit.
• Specs. Nintendo has always had lackluster specs compared to other consoles on the market. They care less about the hardware and more about the gaming experience. When they do innovate in hardware, it's usually a new controller or configuration that makes the system compelling. Which is fine. That's their thing. Nintendo games may look like technology from ten years ago, but they play beautifully, are well-crafted, and are fun. And yet... Nintendo has now become the greedy, lazy assholes that they were fighting against in 1985. For example... they finally have 4K, but to play at that resolution you only get 60 FPS? And you only get 256GB of storage? Seriously? The price is within spitting distance of Sony and Microsoft, yet you're getting these ancient specs that don't come close to measuring up. And this time there's no innovative feature to compensate you for all their shortcomings.
• Cards Aren't Cards. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but apparently some Nintendo games sold on physical cards have no actual game on the card? You still have to download the game. The card is just a license of some kind. This is astronomically shitty because you have to take up what precious little storage space they give you to store a game that should be on the card you're paying $10 extra to own. For this reason alone Nintendo can go fuck themselves and shove the Switch 2 up their asses.
• Cards Aren't Virtually Cards. We never really own the games we buy. It's more like a lease with conditions attached. That alone makes me detest every fucking asshole gaming company on the planet. But it gets worse. Remember when you could share your game cartridges? Remember when you could trade your game cartridges? Remember when you could sell your game cartridges? You bought the game, you can do with it whatever the fuck you want. Set it on fire if that's your thing. But now there's "Virtual Game Cards" that allow none of that. Nintendo has "virtual cards" that you must "virtually eject" so they can be "virtually downloaded" on another system... but only if that other system is in your Account Family Group! This is a laughably evil cash-grab to sell more copies of their games. But if you want to side-step this idiocy... BLAM! $90 instead of $80, please! And, because I wouldn't put it past Nintendo, it could be that even if you do pay for the cartridge it gets permanently linked to your account and can't be shared, traded, or sold. Each card has a serial number embedded... so even if it doesn't arrive with Switch 2, it's still coming.
• Switch 2 Edition. One of the great features of gaming consoles is the ability to be backwards compatible. Meaning all the games you bought for the previous generation system can be played on the newest generation system. Hopefully at a higher resolution and frame rate. Maybe with smoother gameplay. But fuck that! Let's get more money out of the gamers for the games they already bought! Yes, you can play Switch games on the Switch 2, but in order to see any benefit from the Switch 2's improved hardware (such as it is), you have to pay $20 to Nintendo for a Switch 2 Edition. My God how I hate these fucking assholes.
• Not Included. In the good old days, you'd get a simple piece of software included to introduce you to the system. The most famous being Wii Sports. A freebie to show you how things work with your new console in a fun way. But now? Not so much. There's a simple app which introduces you to the system that's called Welcome Tour, but you have to pay for it. Oh fuck no.
• Non-Chat. Nintendo made a big deal about the new in-game chat button (the "C Button"). But it won't work in all games. Even worse, your ability to chat depends on whether or not you have an online membership? The thing that bothers me about this so much is that open peer to peer protocols exist. Nintendo doesn't have to host shit. But they want to host it because that way they can charge money for it. I am not opposed to an online membership unlocking extra features for subscribers. Everybody does that. But if you have a dedicated fucking button on your console that is utterly fucking useless unless you pay to use it? What kind of dystopian bullshit is that? Cannot tell Nintendo to go fuck themselves enough.
• Tariff Fake-Out. It's surprising how many people are saying that the high price is justified in the USA because of tariffs. Except that's Nintendo boot-licking at its finest because A) The system costs the same world-wide, except for a cheaper language-locked Japan-only version they'll be selling in Japan, and B) Nintendo announced today that pre-sales for the USA have been paused because of the uncertainty of the tariff situation... meaning the high price of Switch 2 had nothing to do with tariffs, and the price will likely go even higher once they slap on a tariff surcharge (or whatever) on top. There's no defending this bullshit. Nintendo has taken corporate greed to another level entirely, and I'd play games on my iPhone before I would reward the assholes.

To put all this another way... if Nintendo started making toilets, they would find a way to charge you a convenience fee if you want to wipe your ass after you shit. That's where we're at now. In 1985 they were crowned a savior. But now Nintendo has lived long enough to become the enemy. Nintendo 2025 is everything Nintendo 1985 was trying to destroy.

And this is why we need another video game crash like we had in 1983.

Look, I know that the video game business is a business. And it's a business that's competitive and tough. And maybe Nintendo is being smart about how they launch a Switch 2. Instead of letting the secondary market buy their gaming system for $300 and re-sell it for $500... they're just going to initially sell it for $500 themselves so they get the money for their efforts instead of re-sellers. Then, once their system has distribution in-depth, they'll "listen to the people" and lower the price back down to $300. I dunno. It seems like a pretty good strategy, if I'm being honest. Helps curb inflation taking a bite out of selling the system at a loss so they can make their money on the games.

And that's where my grace towards Nintendo stops.

Because the shitty fucking way that they've come up with to sell their games is fucking abhorrent. Astronomical prices for games you aren't even allowed to fully own. Deviously cutting out companies like GameStop by charging $10 additional for the game card version that's sold in stores. Re-making the same fucking games over and over and over (sometimes by literally just doing a conversion of an old game you already bought). Not to mention making you pay for the privilege of using a fucking button that only a few games will even use. It goes on and on and on.

Abso-fucking-lutely not.

Maybe if enough people stop rewarding Nintendo for being evil bastards, they'll stop being evil bastards.

Except who am I fooling? People will buy into this abomination simply because it's something new from Nintendo, and Nintendo is going to make billions off of Switch 2. I know it. You know it. And Nintendo absolutely knows it.

And coming soon to a bathroom near you? Nintendo is going to make that fucking toilet. I can feel it.

I find it categorically disgusting that credit reporting companies have such absolute and total control over your ability to EXIST in this world, but have absolutely zero accountability for this power they hold over you.

Take for example, Experian. I have to create an online account with them. I fill out all the information they require, but it says they can't verify me. I try THREE TIMES, making extra careful that I was accurate in the information I provided. Won't verify. So I call the number they give you.

No person answers of course. You get some awful automated system that asks you what you want. I tell them I need to verify my account online. It doesn't understand. I try again. THE SYSTEM HANGS UP ON ME.

I go through this crap TWO MORE TIMES, trying to rephrase it in different ways. Not even saying "REPRESENTATIVE" works. So I have to Google for a different number. I call it, get connected with customer service, who proceeds to ask me numerous questions. I answer each question accurately... even looking up specific amounts online to make sure I'm correct. Doesn't matter. I'm told that I answered one of the questions wrong. EXCEPT I DIDN'T. I VERIFIED EVERY DANG ANSWER IN REAL TIME.

So what now? NOTHING! THAT'S WHAT! The rep was going to escalate my to somebody, but their manager refused to talk with me because I answered a question wrong? Again, I didn't. BUT ISN'T THAT WHY YOU TALK TO A MANAGER IN THE FIRST PLACE?!? So what now? Wait 72 hours and try again. I'm not even joking.

I've wasted 40 minutes dealing with Experian, got nowhere, and have to call back... at which point they'll likely find a way to deny verification AGAIN.

How is this legal? If this company has this kind of power over me, they shouldn't get to blow me off when I need help. When a company has this kind of power over me, they should be REQUIRED to resolve stuff like this BY LAW.

Then again, a company shouldn't have this kind of power over me in the first place.

I'm just a boy. Standing in front of the blogosphere. Asking it to love him... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Well Hello Hello! YouTube's algorithm has found me some really cool content over the years. But sometimes it comes too late. This small channel of blacksmithing videos was being shut down. The two guys who created it could never seem to get any traction, as they were continuously buried by the algorithm. But then? YouTube promoted their final video. And it finally took off. They ballooned to 15,000 subscribers, and a lot of people who would have watched had they only known about it, commented as such. And so here they are... coming back...

Kinda a happy ending for everybody. I hope they can keep growing their channel. If you want to take a look, it's pretty cool.

   
• Future Dutch! So there I was taking a phone call after putting my television on pause. Eventually the Google screensaver engaged, and I came very close to saying WHAT THE BLADE RUNNER ALTERNATE FUTURE IS THIS SHIT?! And noted that the title of the photo included "Vinkeveen" from the Netherlands. So I looked it up and Google Maps and, sure enough...

© Google Maps

© Google Maps

© Google Maps

That is very cool, isn't it?

   
• Oh, Grand! Just a reminder to everybody who hasn't already used a VPN to watch the new Wallace & Gromit movie on the BBC (they've had it since Christmas)... Netflix finally got off their asses and has it available for streaming in the USA. I'll be watching it again just to show Netflix that this is the kind of awesome content I want to see... not another pile of shit that Zack Snyder crapped out his ass...

The movie is just amazingly well-done and well worth your valuable time.

   
• The Prologue and the Promise! I recently watched a video on the history of Walt Disney World's Epcot. That lead me to a video on one of the earliest pavilions in Future World called Horizons. I always thought it was a bit shit to two times I visited before they closed, but there was a giant mural inside that I loved. Never really knew who painted it until I watched this video. Apparently some genius at Disney thought to hire renowned futurist painter and celebrated "space" artist Robert McCall to create it. And it is stunning...

© Disney and McCall Studios

© Disney and McCall Studios

You can read more about this amazing work (plus see many others) on the artist's website here.

   
• Mixbox! WELP! Looks like somebody finally solved the thing I hate most about painting digitally... pigments never work as they should. Programs like Photoshop and Procreate use an additive model which turns everything into a muddy mess. But now a company has come up with a model which simulates actual pigments. This is incredible...

I hope that the Mixbox technology is added to mainstream apps very soon now... it's amazing to me that it's taken this long to get here.

   
• IT'S THE FOG! The Mystery Government Fog is out to get us! DEFEAT THE FOG 2025! (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick).

FINALLY! The threat of alien spores is being taken seriously by the health care community! Thanks, Dr. Eric!

   
• Unsurprised! My grievances against PayPal are well documented. They stole money from me. They said that a customer didn't get merchandise I sold to them and reversed the money. I provided USPS tracking showing the delivery. I provided an email from the customer saying that they received their order and that they didn't receive a refund. PayPal didn't give a single fucking shit. They kept the money. And since they are not governed by banking regulations, there's NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. After pestering them for months, they simply stopped responding. So I closed down the Artificial Duck store and was done. I never made a single dollar profit on the shop, sold everything at cost and exact shipping, and did it for the fun of it all. There's no way I could continue and take a loss because payments are revoked over a total lie.

And now it comes out that these heinous fucking assholes at PayPal are just as bad as we knew they were. They've been fucking over their advertisers and their customers with their "Honey" service. Get a load of this...

Nothing would make me happier than PayPal being sued out of existence and shut down. But that will never happen. They get protection from shitty fucking laws that our government creates because our government is too busy sucking Big Business dicks to give a shit about protecting the citizens that elect them. Welcome to the hellscape that it The United States of America.

   
Alrighty then. Until next Sunday then!

Yesterday I blathered on about asshole movie studios depriving customers of what they paid for... access to movies and shows that were sold to them. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Something I cannot fathom is how studios will sit on shows they own and not release them for people to enjoy. This was something that hit me pretty hard after Stephen Dunham died in 2012. He was the star of Oh Grow Up! (from 1999), a series I loved that can't be watched anywhere. It was never released on DVD, was never offered digitally and, from what I can tell, has never been shown on any network after its original run. I have it recorded on 8mm tape somewhere, but don't know that I have a player capable of playing them even if I could find the tapes. You can tapes to be converted to digital, but companies won't do it because they're copyrighted material.

What a waste. Dunham was a good actor and his work deserves to be seen. The pilot episode is on YouTube, but not much else...

Sometimes you can get lucky. There was a show called The Palace Guard (from 1991) which I loved that was eventually released as a part of a Stephen J. Cannell DVD collection set (and I've seen it on some free-view services from time to time... it's currently playing for free on Plex). It was a fun show about a cat burglar that becomes a security expert for an international chain of hotels. But I don't know how much longer those DVDs will even work, if they haven't crapped out already (see yesterday's post)...

Other times you can get... kinda lucky. A Connie Sellecca and Greg Evigan vehicle I liked called P.S.I. Luv U (also from 1991) was never released for home video in any format... but some kind soul uploaded all episodes to YouTube nine years ago, albeit in atrocious quality, and I have watched through them all a couple times...

No idea how legal it is, but if the studio who owns it isn't going to do anything with the show, somebody has to. It's one of six series I would very much be thrilled to purchase (and there's plenty of others)...

• P.S.I. Luv U (1991)
• Strange Luck (1995)
• Cupid (1998)
• Oh Grow Up! (1999)
• Now and Again (1999)
• The American Embassy (2002)

The frustrating thing about all this is that it costs practically nothing to convert a show to digital format. It's all automated. You put the tapes in the machine and push a button. The software which encodes it and cleans it up doesn't require any technical expertise. Just a person to load/unload.

You'd think with streaming networks desperate to have content for their services which are exceedingly cheap, this would be a no-brainer. But it's not like you could accuse studio executives of having a brain.

I own a bajillion DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs. I love movies and television. I love owning my favorite shows so I can re-watch whenever I want. When digital streaming came along, I made the switch happily because I simply didn't have the space to store all that physical media. But then we all found out a sad truth... shows and movies you bought and paid for can be taken from you with absolutely no recourse. You pay for the right to stream something, and that right can be stripped from you at any time when a studio removes it from Google Play or iTunes or wherever.

So back to buying physical media, right? The studios can't break into your house and take those back!

Except they don't have to. Because physical media isn't made to last, and some studios know that... but don't give a shit. They got your money, and that's all they care about. Something this video talks about in depth, mostly focusing on the abomination that is Warner Bros., who is a fucking shitty company for many reasons, and this is a big one...

It's absolutely bonkers that those of us who do the right thing and pay for the stuff we want to own get punished for it. And yet here we are.

Buy physical media? It rots and no longer works.

Buy digital copies? Studios can strip them from you at any time.

Subscribe to a studio's streaming service directly? Studios can remove those shows even more easily.

The only option left is to buy physical media, then "back it up" by ripping it to your computer. Legally, you do have a right to have a backup so long as you continue to own the original media. Which is to say that you can't buy a DVD, rip it, then sell the DVD. Except... it's illegal to circumnavigate copy protection to actually make the backup. And of course DVDs and Blu-Rays have copy protection.

It's a total load of shit. Personally I am of the belief that once you buy a DVD or Blu-Ray or digital copy of something, you should maintain the right to view it regardless of what happens. If a DVD rots, you should have the right to purchase replacement media at cost or get a digital copy for free. And once something is sold digitally, studios don't get to take it back from you. They must provide a way for you to get what you paid for. Or else they shouldn't be allowed to sell it in the first place.

But powerful studios own our politicians, so that's expecting too much.

THEY doing illegal shit to strip you of what you bought is forgivable. YOU doing illegal shit to have access to what you paid for is not.

Typical.

Another day another way Sonos is screwing their customers. I am so fucking sick and tired of this shit.

First Sonos forces you to upgrade to a new piece of shit controller app that's missing features and is badly unintuitive. But they dumped it on us before it was ready so they could release a new pair of headphones that requires it. And while I can forgive a lot, having to constantly wait for playlists to load is driving me up the fucking wall. This is what I see ALL THE FUCKING TIME NOW...

And it gets worse. Playlists constantly, unrelentingly pause to buffer. If you've got a lot of songs in a list, scrolling is absolute agony...

I'm guessing this is because you can no longer control your speakers locally, and have to go out on the internet through the shitty fucking Sonos servers to access the shitty fucking speaker sitting in the same room with you.

Then today it was revealed that Sonos removed the line from their user agreement saying that they won't sell your data. It's still in the agreements outside of the USA but, because this fucking country cares more about corporations than people, Americans get fucked by Sonos. Again.

So what's next? Sonos starts charging you a subscription fee to use their idiotic fucking app that's required to control the speakers you bought? At this rate, it seems not only possible, but expected.

Sonos should be forced to allow local control of their gear by consumer protections... because that's how it was when we bought it. Now it's just an internet device that puts you at the whim of Sonos's fucking stupidity, and I would have never signed up for that.

I'm in full-on construction mode here in my home, but have no fear... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Shield Gate! Yesterday I mentioned that every time I watch Rogue One: A Star Wars Story I go running to the internet to watch the super-cut of all the space battles because they're just so cool and amazing to look at. And here you go...

You're welcome! Dang pushing the Star Destroyer into the Shield Gate was brilliant fun.

   
• Acolyte! The big news out of yesterday was that Star Wars gave us a peek at new Star Wars on Star Wars Day...

Looks darn good! But I'm so used to being shown the best bits of the show in the trailer, then finding out that it's nothing like what they showed us. So I guess we'll see.

   
• Mazes Got Nuthin' on This! I fell down a rabbit hole of videos of crows being geniuses. Then octopi. And then... rats?!?

Rats driving a car. Who knew?

   
• Dementia Village! The dementia care home I found for my mom wasn't a sterile, boring, hospital-like place. It looked more like a home with different textures and colors and interesting things to look at... other patients to visit with. Her room was likewise nothing like a hospital room, and could be filled with all her stuff so it felt familiar. The hallways was in a big loop so she couldn't get lost. For what it was, I thought it was quite nice. The only thing missing was a way for her to wander outside and look around. And idea which was has been explored by this Dutch facility, which is incredible...

As happy as I was with the facility I found for my mom, I would have been thrilled if she could have stayed in a place like this. So much more friendly. I really hope these "dementia villages" catch on.

   
• Hulk Smash! The Incredible Hulk Coaster at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure Orlando is hands-down my favorite rollercoaster. I rode it the year it debuted, then rode it plenty more times over the years (one visit to the park I rode it five times!). This video talks about the coaster, and I've skipped past all the non-Hulk-Coaster crap at the beginning...

I did ride it after the refurbishment, and was impressed. They kept the classic coaster everybody loves... just made the experience better from start to finish. No other coaster I've ridden since has compared to it. Not bad for a coaster 25 years old!

   
• AI FAIL! I had the same thing to say about both the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1: "Once Apple & Google unleash AI assistants on their phones, all these additional gadgets are toast." But this was before either of these devices were released to horrific reviews. They're useless. Snazzy Labs has a great overview of both devices at the same time so you only have to watch one video...

The Humane AI Pin was fucking useless on paper and is worse than useless in practice. I was a little more bullish about the Rabbit R1 because it at least had a screen to interact with stuff and sounded like it had a better service. But it turns out that it's worse than useless too. Which is to say that Apple & Google are winning before they've even released anything. How boring.

   
• Fuck This Fucking Fuck! I gotta say... watching puppy-killing piece of shit Kristi Noem getting dragged from one end of the internet to the other is the best thing ever. She murders animals not because she needs food or is in danger... but because she just fucking loves to kill (surrendering your "problem" puppy to an animal shelter means you can't kill it, so she must love it)...

I hope her political career is truly toast, because a sadistic fuck like this has no business holding any political office. If she thrills to kill a fucking puppy... can you imagine what she would do to make lives harder for people she doesn't like? And now she's blaming all her lies and bullshit on her ghost-writer. Which is hilarious given that SHE NARRATED HER OWN AUDIOBOOK AND KNEW FULL WELL WHAT IT CONTAINED! That happened after she fucking lied about staring down Kim Jong Un. Jesus what a dipshit asshole.

   
And now back to construction, already in progress.

I woke up mostly pain-free, so my ambition was to clean my frickin' home. But I can't let cleaning get in the way of my Sunday obligations... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Dead! I enjoyed Netflix and Neil Gaiman's Dead Boy Detectives. Though it really makes me want a Death: the High Cost of Living series even more. But anyway... the one thing that disappoints me is that in the original comic books, they were dead BOY detectives. Young boys. 12-year olds I think. These "boys" are in their twenties. Not really boys at all. This changes the dynamic of the story in a kinda weird way. But they did keep the random weirdness that makes the comics so good, so there's that...

I really wish that they had cast young kids, but I guess that wouldn't work if we get a second season because they would age out when they're not supposed to age at all? But odds are we won't get a second season because Netflix gives all their money to Zack Snyder for his shitty fucking movies (Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver was BEYOND shitty). Oh well. Netflix keeps this up and I won't have a need for their service. One more streamer in the toilet.

   
• Street! My favorite YouTube rabbit hole this week was courtesy of Printographer. He takes street photos of people... then prints out a photo to give to them. The results are sometimes pretty great...

Public employees like police officers and public workers seem like the best candidates for this. I'm not sure how I feel about snapping random women... and especially kids? Seems like an invitation to trouble? I'm too cynical, I guess. I hope that all these people (public or not) give their permission to be posted to YouTube.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Many people say their Apple IDs were inexplicably reset last night. — I was one of the people affected, and it fucking sucked. All my app-specific passwords now have to be reset. Does Apple know how much time that takes? DO THEY GIVE A SHIT?!? And of course Apple's promise to kill having to enter passwords is fucking bullshit, because NOT ONCE was FaceID or TouchID used for anything. It was just an endless loop of entering fucking passwords. Assholes. Jesus Christ and I sick and fucking tired of Apple's hypocrisy cycle.

   
• FUCKING ARREST HER! I don't give a shit if if this psychotic asshole is the D.A., why the fuck wasn't she treated like ANY OTHER PERSON would have been if they acted this way during a valid traffic stop? Why wasn't she dragged the fuck out of her garage, slammed up against the back of her fucking vehicle, fucking handcuffed, THEN FUCKING ARRESTED?

"Let me call my supervisor." Good Lord. She's a D.A., so she gets to drive 55 in a 35mph zone? Fuck that. Fuck her. She's absolute garbage, and the fact that she thinks people like her are above the law means she has NO FUCKING BUSINESS BEING A D.A. OR EVEN NEAR THE D.A.'S OFFICE. I hope she gets fucking fired from her job and thrown IN FUCKING JAIL. You know... LIKE I WOULD BE IF I WERE TO ACT LIKE THIS DURING A FUCKING TRAFFIC STOP. And can you imagine if this was a Black woman pulling this attitude? D.A. or no D.A., she would be lucky to survive it. "I had a bad day." Yeah, that's a valid excuse to get out of speeding. Seriously, public officials who exploit their office for personal gain need to be in jail.

   
• On the Tip! TLC Forever is on Netflix. I've seen TLC documentaries before, but this one seems different? Not sure if I saw it when it was released last year. They just got to the part where they are shooting the making of the video for Waterfalls where they are out in the middle of a giant water tank. I was there at Universal Studios California while they were shooting it...

I even took a photo, but I have no idea where it is because I'm pretty sure it was taken on film. Regardless, they have a heck of a story.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains. This... this right here... is a miracle. The ultimate goal of RNA vaccines since the very beginning. And yet there will be people who would rather suffer and die (or, tragically, rather their child suffer and die) than accept this gift from science... or gift from God, if you're so inclined. I will never understand where this world went off the rails. We used to embrace science. It used to not be all absurd religious drama and conspiracy theories. Maybe Satan does exist, and this is his handiwork?

   
• Full-On Drag! Glorious. Everybody already knows my thoughts on Jamie Oliver, so you'll understand why I loved this video...

It's always nice when I'm not alone in my loathing of public personalities!

   
And now back to cleaning up. Can't somebody buy me housekeeping services? Is that really too much to ask?

Anybody who supports revoking Net Neutrality either has no idea what the fuck they are talking about... or they run a Big Cable or Big Telco company and lust over the idea of controlling the internet for a buck... or are politicians sucking Big Cable and Big Telco dick for cash. There's seriously no other options here. Revoking Net Neutrality is a seriously bad move from every possible angle when seen from the perspective of the American people. Period.

And now that the FCC isn't being raw-dogged by eternal piece of shit Ajit Pai, the commission agrees. Because Net Neutrality has been restored. Granted, it was in a 3-to-2 split vote along party lines (apparently Republicans are really into sucking Big Cable and Big Telco dick for cash all the way down the line). But who cares? The right thing finally came out on top. So now we don't have to worry that Comcast will throttle certain sites that might be competing with their interests... and Verizon won't charge extra if you want to stream movies from a company that's not paying them a bunch money. The list of good things go on and on. It's a free an open internet the way the internet should be.

At least until another Ajit Pai ends up in the FCC to fuck things up again due to some bullshit tactics by politicians who don't mind selling out the American people for cash.

And speaking of bullshit political tactics...

Biden just signed a bill that could ban TikTok. His campaign plans to stay on the app anyway.

OF COURSE the fucking Biden campaign is still using TikTok after he signed a bill that could ban TikTok! Did you honestly think they wouldn't?

This possible ban conveniently takes place AFTER the election, so that was likely the plan all along. Hypocrisy. It's what's for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. And dessert. And brunch. And snacks. And... reason No. 1,756,342,456 that I loathe our fucked-up political system in general and oh-so-many politicians specifically.

It continues to blow my mind that people are into politician worship over common sense, and we allow a system of having to vote for the lesser of two evils be the system we keep allowing to happen.

UPDATE! If you have eclipse glasses you will be throwing away, donate them instead! This is so great.

The first eclipse I remember viewing was the Great Eclipse of February 1979. We were right on the edge of the "Totality Zone," which means that everybody in the region was eclipse-crazy. "We don't even have to travel to have the best seat in the house!" Except... Central Washington in February (especially back then) is usually overcast skies, so nothing (especially the "best seats in the house") was guaranteed.

But then the Big Day arrived and, miracle or miracles, the skies were not terrible. It was a school day, which meant that our science teacher showed us how to view the event with a piece of paper with a hole in it casting the shadow of the sun onto another piece of paper. AKA the shittiest way to view an eclipse. You'd think for this monumental event, the Washington State Department of Education would have sprang to give us all safety glasses, but it was what it was. We all went outside with our papers, and I remember a lot of it very well despite my being 12 years old (almost 13) at the time. But mostly I remember how thrilled I was to get out of science class.

The next eclipse was only 92% where I lived back in 2017, but I had great equipment to view it and take photos, which made it a heck of a lot more memorable than looking at a shadow on a piece of paper...

Plus... my cats had fun because I was staying home with them, so there's that.

The eclipse today wasn't that eventful... we were told it would be just a small chunk out of the bottom. I brought my glasses to work to have a look since the skies weren't too terrible, but then forgot. Oh well.

INTERESTING TO NOTE: My last kidney stone was in 2017. The date of the last eclipse here was 2017. — OBVIOUSLY NASA IS CAUSING KIDNEY STONES WITH THEIR WOKE "ECLIPSES," WHICH WE ALL KNOW IS REALLY JUST THEM REPAIRING HOLES IN THE FIRMAMENT DOME! I DEMAND THAT MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE USE HER FULL POWER IN CONGRESS TO INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY!

IN OTHER ECLIPSE NEWS: No wonder people thought that The Rapture was going to be today. It happened on Rex Manning Day! (happy Rex Manning Day to all who celebrate)...

I can't celebrate Rex Manning Day without looking up this awesome commercial that Ryan Reynolds gave us last year...

I will spend tonight watching Empire Records for the hundredth time, of course. Such a classic.

IN OTHER, OTHER ECLIPSE NEWS: So how about that Rapture? A ridiculous number of people were coming out of the woodwork claiming that the pending eclipse was clearly a sign that the End of Days was here because they were "activating" the CERN Super Hadron Collider to open a portal and invite the devil to invade so his demons could collapse society and power off the grid (or whatever dippy shit they came up with). Did God change His mind? Shouldn't all these false prophets be getting stoned to death? I'm not holding my breath that the same people posting this shit to social media are going to recant and say they were wrong. Oh hell no. They're already off to the races on whatever other stupid crap they can dream up. Like blaming President Biden for the high cost of shit while corporations are reporting record high profits. Almost as if the corporations are using inflation as an excuse to raise their prices to all-time highs so they can make billions upon billions of extra dollars without getting blamed for it (thus driving inflation even higher). Imagine that! Nope. BIDEN DID IT! And it's like, come on. The Biden Administration has done plenty of actual fucked up shit without having to push stuff like this. But, it's an election year, and high prices are an easy campaign talking point for people to understand, so here we are.

IN OTHER, OTHER RELIGIOUS NEWS: Today The Vatican took time away from their busy schedule of passing around photos of altar boys to declare that surrogacy and gender-affirming care are on par with euthanasia and abortion when it comes to being an affront to human life and a violation of God's Divine Plan...

First of all... if God didn't want surrogacy to produce life, he wouldn't allow it to be possible. Period. My theory is that Catholic priests just find confessional stories about surrogacy to be boring, and would rather hear about a parishioner confessing to getting raw-dogged by a football team because it gives them something fun to beat off to (because they're not having sex... right? RIGHT?!?). Otherwise, why are people who can't have children weighing in on how other people have children? It's insane. You'd think that they'd love the idea of the new Catholics this might create. That's just sound financial sense when it comes to the number of donations on the plate.

Second of all... as a former Catholic, I feel that I'm completely within my right to say that I don't give one single solitary fuck as to what these assholes think is "dignified" about "life." They continue to protect their priests who routinely abuse and sexually assault children. They continue to exploit people in ways that are in direct contradiction to the Bible. They are a monstrous corporation masquerading as a church. Until they clean their own fucking house, they have absolutely ZERO authority to even have an OPINION about what people do with their lives (especially when it comes to gender-affirming care, which can literally saves lives... lives that they don't give a fuck about in the first place, mind you). And even if they did clean house, they can still fuck off with their bullshit, because unless somebody CHOOSES to turn to them for guidance, their OPINION is worth less than jack-shit. Keep your idiotic bullshit within the walls of your fucking child indoctrination camps for the benefit of sexual predators, AKA "Catholic Churches."

I realize that my time as a youngster spent with the Catholic Church was me wearing rose-tinted glasses... but it still pains me to be gunning for them like this because, for better or worse, it was an important part of my life. Particularly when it comes to my grandmother. In all honesty, I don't think the majority of Catholics approve of how The Church deals with many things, but they need their Faith in their lives, so they continue to look past all the heinous shit out of self-preservation. And honestly? I don't blame them. This world is a cesspool, so whatever you need to get through the day is what you need to get through the day. I just wish that more Catholics would hold The Church accountable so that it wouldn't get to keep abusing people and ruining lives without consequences.

Now... I'm off to make dinner and get ready to Say no More, Mon Amour with Rex Manning!

I should have baked cupcakes.