I may be feeling nauseous and very close to puking on my keyboard, but the internet must go on... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Deli Bro! I think the reason I'm sick is because working non-stop has finally caught up to me. And so... instead of cleaning my pit of a house, I spent yesterday laying on the couch watching Deli Boys on Hulu. The first episode is available on YouTube, but I don't know for how long...

I loved the show. Which means it'll get canceled. Don't know why I bother getting invested in television any more. None of them seem to be given a chance to find an audience and grow. Like Amazon just canceling The Recruit.

   
• Hot Bill! =sigh= Bill Murray always fires on all cylinders. And he's in true form on Hot Ones... a show I'm flabbergasted he wanted to appear on. But I'm so glad he did...

Is the guy ever not funny? I doubt it.

   
• Fraud! I am begging y'all to freeze your credit reports at the Big Three: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. It may be a pain (especially at Equifax, may they burn in hell for all eternity) but it is a vital protection. I just received an email from BECU telling me that they were "unable to approve your application"... and the email headers say it's from the actual BECU, not a scammer. This is the third time this year somebody has tried to credit fraud me. By having your reports frozen at all three places, new credit can't be established in your name. You will, however, have to un-freeze if you decide to open a new credit card or get a loan. You can read about how to do it here at USA.gov.

   
• Goin' with the Moen Flo! When I had to get my water shut off valve replaced, I went for a “smart” valve that would allow me to remotely shut off my water when I’m away and automatically shut off my water if a pipe bursts. But it also monitors water usage. And it’s pretty good. It can distinguish between a short flush and long flush for the toilet. It can tell me how much water is spent washing clothes and dishes (my dishwasher uses a ridiculously low amount of water). But it’s also misreading stuff, because I’ve not turned on my irrigation or my hose, don’t take baths, and I have a quick shower every morning but it’s not seeing it always...

Guess it’s still learning? Apparently it keeps getting smarter over time. Unlike "Apple Intelligence."

   
• Silly Goose! On one hand, it's nice to know that geese care more about the people in their life than my cats do. On the other hand, this is kinda a cruel trick to play on the poor things...

Jake would just crawl on top of me and go to sleep. Jenny would start meowing at me for food.

   
• What a Drag! I haven't played Dungeons & Dragons for decades. But I still like to watch play from time to time, usually on YouTube. And YouTube knows this, which is why it recommended a show called Dungeons and Drag Queens...

And these aren't any random unknown queens either. Bob, Monét X Change, Jujubee, and Alaska(!) are all top-tier queens! Very cool. And this is season two! I missed the whole first season.

   
• YOU GET LESS MONEY AND YOU GET LESS MONEY... EVERYBODY GETS LESS MONEY! I just finished my taxes! And despite the fact that I had to pay out thousands upon thousands of dollars for eye surgeries, I'm getting less money back than last year. But surely that will change now, won't it? It's hard to tell. Back in October the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a A Distributional Analysis of Donald Trump’s Tax Plan and it comes out looking like this...

And I was like "Oh thank God!" I was worried for a minute that my taxes wouldn't increase so that millionaires and billionaires can have more money. Turns out I was worrying for no reason, because it looks like more taxes for the majority of Americans is totally what's going to happen! Maybe. This could all change, just like the tariffs have been. But if it does end up being true, hey, at least groceries are cheaper! Oh... wait a minute...

   
And now I need a nap. Blogging really takes it out of you.

For the life of me I don't understand why "smart home" technology is so fucking brain-dead.

Companies have been working on this shit for years. I started with Apple Homekit. But it was so horrendously fucking shitty that I abandoned it within a week. I then moved on to a piecemeal system where I bought the best parts from each manufacturer, then used a half-dozen apps to control everything. Sure the parts couldn't work very well together, but at least they worked! Eventually I took a leap with INSTEON, and it was pretty great. everything worked together and things happened practically instantaneously (hence the name). It was perfect. Until it was discontinued.

At which point I went back to Apple HomeKit. Even though nothing had changed. Once HomeShit, always HomeShit. Everything was slow. Scenes and actions were glacially slow. After living with INSTEON, this was torture.

But I bought into it because it was promised that eventually HomeKit would transition to the new "Matter" smart home standard, which was a massive initiative by dozens of smart home companies that would guarantee everything would work together. To be sure I could jump onboard, I made doubly-sure that everything I bought was able to be upgraded to Matter when the time came. This meany mostly buying everything from Eve Smart Home.

After waiting and waiting and waiting, Eve made their motion sensors the first device that could be upgraded to Matter. So I grabbed one of the two sensors I owned, did the upgrade, and... fail. It was bricked. Wouldn't work any more. Nothing I tried would bring it back, so I put it in a drawer, said several curse words, and resigned myself to sticking with HomeKit, no matter how fucking shitty it is.

Until last week.

I grabbed that motion sensor out of the drawer and attempted to bring it back to life. And failed again and again. Then I found a comprehensive list of things people did to get their device working again after upgrading to Matter and tried them. Nothing worked. So then I decided to try all the suggestions at the same time.

I shut down all my HomeKit hubs. I made sure my router was able to process IP6 addresses then rebooted it. I rebooted my phone. Then I started my preferred HomeKit hub (my AppleTV). Then I pulled up my Eve Matter ID number for the motion sensor... and... there we go. I was able to add it back to my HomeKit configuration.

I shudder to think how much time I wasted on this stupid bullshit.

And so now I've given up on Matter. It's far, far more trouble than it's worth, so I just don't give a crap any more. HomeKit may be flakey as hell, but it mostly works, and since that's the best I can hope for, I guess I'm done.

Which brings me back to the question of the decade: Why is it so damn difficult to get a smart home system to work and stay working?

Maybe one day a company will finally figure it out. But right now I'd be happy with something that was better than what we've got now.