I'm not going to let the fact that my neck is hurting worse now than it has been stop me from updating Blogography. At least not this time.. because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Cookies! Isn't it nice how Girl Scouts cookies come in convenient single-serving packs? That way you know exactly how many to eat. I'd consume an entire box of Trefoils if not for the fact that they smartly wrap them into two servings...

Samoas come in a tray, not a package, because there's only one serving per box. Every year I order cookies from Girl Scout Troop 6000, which serves girls in New York City's shelter system. Though I'd buy cookies from any troop, given how Girl Scouts is one of the most accepting, inclusive organization on the planet. A phenomenal model for future generations.

   
• Drone Entertainment! One of the last times I was at Walt Disney World, there was a drone show at Disney Springs. Called Disney Dreams That Soar, it was an experimental free event that ran for about four months. While music played, 800 drones made cool shapes in the air, and most people believed that this was a step towards reducing or eliminating fireworks at the park. Fireworks are not reusable like drones, so they're expensive. And they also cause noise and pollution that upsets people living near the parks. It would make sense that they would want to cut back. And now there's this show in China featuring 22,580 drones...

In all honesty, drone shows are getting so good that I'd argue they're a superior form of entertainment... and could probably simulate fireworks in a way that's as good, if not better, than the real thing. And if anybody could make this work, it would be Disney.

   
• Word! This is one of those simple posts which illustrates a concept so brilliantly that you don't even have to understand what it's talking about to understand what's being said...

Fortunately, I've never had to deal much with Microsoft Word... I've always used desktop publishing or an illustration app for that. But because of that, my frustration with trying to make a photo land where I want is even more frustrating.

   
• And Right Before Wildfire Season! NEWSFLASH: Trump Administration Orders Dismantling of the US Forest Service. Fuck them all. I am sick and fucking tired of losing vital national services to give money to the president's millionaire and billionaire owners, and to finance this illegal, stupid-ass war. The US Forest Service deserves better than this fucking bullshit. They are dedicated, essential workers studying and protecting our forests and grasslands...

Photo credit: Preston Keres / USDA

The American People deserve more than this fucking bullshit. This is probably a set-up so Trump can sell off our vital resources to be plundered by his owners. The office of the President of the United States of America has turned into one massive grift. I mean, it's just been revealed that the steel for his fucked-up ballroom is NOT being sourced from American companies after he championed US Steel during his campaign... he's bought the steel from Europe. Probably from somebody who has incriminating photos of him on Epstein Island.

   
• Greatness! And, while I'm on the subject... exactly where is all the money going from the "big beautiful tariffs" the American people are paying? We keep getting our services and benefits cut... so the money ain't going there. The National Debit is higher than ever... so the money's not going there. Jobs are being slashed left and right... so the money's not going there. Trump has collected TENS OF BILLIONS of OUR dollars. So WHERE IS THE FUCKING MONEY?

It blows my fucking mind that this country isn't in outright revolt right now.

   
• AI Slop... IN SPAAAACE! A photo was circulating today of the Artemis II Orion capsule re-entry... as captured by the International Space Station...

Except when you go to the official ISS Instagram, this is what they had to say: "Our crew on the @iss caught a glimpse of the @nasaartemis II crew as they re-entered the atmosphere from their journey to the Moon! We first saw a bright light and a trail as the service module burned up. We didn’t see the Orion capsule itself as it re-entered, but we saw the wispy trail it left behind in the upper atmosphere. Overjoyed that our friends are safely back on Earth after their awe-inspiring mission!."

THIS is what they saw...

Photo Credit: ISS

And of course when you go to debunk the fake image, you find that the person who posted it has turned off comments. NOT deleted the misinformation... turned off the comments!

There's no bigger metaphor for what's going on right now in the world than this.

   
• Mean-Spirited? Sweet Pee holds a press conference to deny allegations of her ties to Epstein, despite the fact that emails and photos exist showing she absolutely had ties to Epstein. If BULLSHIT had a face, here it is...

Photo Credit: Evan Vucci/Reuters

Photo Credit: CSPAN/GETTY

And you DIDN'T fucking "meet your husband at a party in 1998"... at the time you met MARLA MAPLES' HUSBAND at a party in 1998. Furthermore, if you to expect people to stop making "mean-spirited comments" about you, then you can fuck right off. You stand idly by while your husband makes some of the most vile, disgusting, horrific "mean-spirited comments" towards other people and don't give a shit, so nobody gives a fuck about what's being directed your way. "Be best" for you and yours before demanding it from others.

   
And now back to my neck recovery, already in progress.

Even though my injury was yesterday, it hurt far worse today. I contemplated staying home from the office and trying to work the best I can, but there was no way I could get things done that needed doing at home... so I took multiple doses of Advil throughout the day, and worked my way through it.

Then came home an hour early when the pain exceeded my ability to deal with. At which time I threw a heating pad down on the couch and prepared myself for the re-entry live feed of Artemis II by watching Hidden Figures.

Then it was two hours of NASA...

When I got bored, I watched Artemis-themed videos in-between. Like this LEGO set that's really cool...

And Hank Green with some really cool commentary on the mission photos...

And, of course, I had to watch Professor Dave dismantle dipshit Bart Sibrel...

Watching Bart get clocked by Buzz Aldrin remains one of the more joyous events in human history. I could watch it over and over and over and over.

Though it turns out NASA DOES LIE AFTER ALL! AND NOW THE SECRET HAS BEEN REVEALED!!

And now it's time for beddy-bye. I really hope I can manage to get some sleep, because it seems a bad idea to take any more Advil.

As I type this, Artemis II is about half-way to the moon. Except they're not landing on the moon this time, they're going to orbit it and head back home. Which is still a phenomenal achievement, because few people have an idea just how astoundingly far away the moon is.

When I was a kid I read that if earth was the size of a tennis ball, the moon would be a sphere one-fourth the size of the tennis ball... and it would be over 20 feet away.

I looked for a YouTube video to explain this, and found this one...

Then I found this...

But in order for these to suitably shock you, you really need to have a grasp of how huge the earth is. Try walking around it some time to get an idea.

And speaking of walking AROUND the earth...

Because the Artemis II mission is popping up in social media everywhere all the time, OF COURSE you've got dipshit flerfers (flat earthers) "debunking" the photos of a globe earth taken by the astronauts. In case you haven't seen some, here you go...

And of course you get the same stupid shit that you get from all the satellite photos and the moon-landing photos all over again. The most popular being "WHERE ARE THE STARS? NO STARS IN THESE PHOTOS?!? FAKE!!! FAKE FAKE FAKE!!! NASA LIES!

As if NASA made a boo-boo and "forgot" to paint the stars in thousands of times and somehow "forgot" to paint them in yet again.

Jesus. Google is free. There's literally dozens... maybe hundreds... of videos explaining why.

But nope! A massive conspiracy involving tens of thousands of people around the globe has been yet again foiled because NASA forgot to add stars!

I'm in the middle of cleaning my filthy house, but rushing through a few things I saw this week seems inevitable... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• New Old! The Old Guard (on Netflix) is one of the best comic book adaptations of all time. I was thrilled we were getting a sequel. Though I was really hoping to get back-to-back sequels, darnit...

Now if only we could get a sequel to Atomic Blonde.

   
• 97%! Has anybody seen the 2023 Hulu movie BlackBerry? It's insane. It's just insane! I knew quite a bit about the rise and fall of BlackBerry, but seeing it told like this is nuts. This movie has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 97%... NINETY-SEVEN-PERCENT... and I've never even heard of it!

First of all, Glenn Howerton is remarkable. Frickin' DENNIS from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is remarkable. I had no idea he was even capable of this kind of performance. Just watch it and marvel at a good story told exceptionally well.

   
• Shoot the Moon! I recently saw this image of the true distance from earth to the moon, as taken by the OSIRIS-REx probe at around 3,181,420 miles away from Earth...

This is very cool, because most people think that the moon is quite close to the earth. Good thing for us it isn't, or we'd be in a serious gravity-related nightmare.

   
• First Love! Wait. I've watched this video for a song I love by Father Tiger dozens of times. And I am just now noticing... IS THAT NOAH CENTINEO?!? (not in the thumbnail, in the video). Pretty sure it is...

I remain pissed that The Recruit was canceled. Centineo was exceptional in it.

   
• Money! If the government was actually interested in saving American taxpayer dollars instead of padding the wallet of its biggest doner...

We keep being told about all the billions of dollars that's being saved. So where is it? Where has that money gone? Anyone? Anyone?

   
• Science! Just in case, you know, the God-given miracle of mRNA vaccines is not yet understood, here you go.

   
• Renaissance! The only season of The White Lotus that I enjoyed was the first one. Everything since has just been a boring slog that doesn't have a worthwhile payoff. That being said, the opening credits and theme song are pretty great. This rendition of Renaissance is pretty great...

That vocalist just went for it, and it was a joy to watch.

   
Back to cleaning my home. Dangit.

Don't worry about there being only one month of Summer left because there's bullets 52 times a year and... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Opponent! The only way this could more accurately describe American politics would be if they asked "WHAT DO YOU HATE?" and the politician answered "MY OPPONENT!" or even "WHATEVER YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU TO HATE!"...

Oh how I love Berkeley Mews. Though not all of the posts there are negative. Take this one, for example...

For more wackiness, see Ben's Berkeley Mews site.

   
• Stargirl! It took a total pass on Stargirl because the whole "Arrowverse" of DC Comics shows turned into a suckfest of boredom. Earlier this week I had the first episode pop up and watched it because there was nothing more interesting going on. Turns out it is fantastic. This isn't just "Stargirl"... it's the entire Justice Society of America being reborn from the ashes of the old one...

I am only half-way through the first season, but watching everything come together is one of the better super-hero comic book shows I've seen. A pity that the rest of the awful Arrowverse shows were tied to Stargirl like a boat anchor and sunk the show.

   
• Cat Walk! I've watched this entirely too many times and cannot fathom how this is not CGI (here's a link in case Instagram is being a dick)...

The fact that the first two fell off when the third one jumped on is some kind of talent.

   
• Just Ken! To think there was a time that I actively avoided Ryan Gosling projects. I remember him mainly being in sports movies and such before he appeared in his breakout role in The Notebook (a movie I still haven't seen). Then in 2016 I saw his incredible performance in The Nice Guys and was an immediate fan. I went back through his movies and found out just how talented he is. Then he was in Blade Runner 2049 and I was a fan for life. Now he's Ken in the Barbie movie, which seems an odd choice, but seeing videos like this makes me think that he probably killed it...

Gosling's next film is The Fall Guy with Emily Blunt. Cannot wait to see what that's about.

   
• Sharing is Caring! They've come a long time since Love is sharing a password...
Netflix: DON'T SHARE YOUR PASSWORD! EVERYBODY HAS TO PAY FOR A SEPARATE ACCOUNT! LOVE ISN'T SHARING A PASSWORD, IT'S YOU GIVING US MORE MONEY!
Also Netflix: We are going to force you to select a user profile every FUCKING time you use our service... even if you only have one profile!
God. Just fuck off and make up your damn minds. Or at least stop forcing me to choose my only profile every time I start up your shitty streaming service. I regret never sharing my password.

   
• SHAT! William Shatner is NINETY-TWO YEARS OLD! And don't mistake the satellite delay of him hearing the question as him not understanding the question in this video. The guy is sharp as a tack!

The only comment I have is that maybe the visiting aliens have a "Prime Directive" which, like in Star Trek, means that they can't interfere with the natural development of earthlings. And that's why they are hiding?

   
• Invasion Secret! I had such high hopes for Marvel Studio's Secret Invasion, but it ended up being a total dud. Whereas the original comic book story was an epic event where a ridiculous number of heroes had been replaced by Skrulls... the Disney+ adaptation had... one? And it was kinda a nerfed one, because they never had the hero even use their super-powers at all. Add to that some totally unnecessary and non-eventful deaths of beloved characters... and a resolution so sloppy that had me wondering why they even bothered with this waste of Samuel L. Jackson's talents... and I wondered what in hell Kevin Feige was smoking to greenlit it. Maybe it's for the best that Disney+ is reducing their output of Marvel stuff. Because with the exception of Hawkeye, which I loved, none of it has been worthy.

   
And now I'm off to comfort my cats, who are cowering under .

A bit of a Summer setback for me today as the weather turned cold as balls, but never fear... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Zipline! Whenever I run across something incredibly cool that has been around a while... but I never heard of... that's gold right there. Take this drone delivery system that's been running for SIX YEARS. And I had no clue. This will be one of the coolest things you see in a bit...

Fantastic. Ingenuity like this gives me hope for the future.

   
• 1D! I keep running into songs by One Direction that kinda blow my mind. Like this song, which I had never heard before. I was scrambling to Shazam it thinking it was brand new. Nope...

It actually feels like a classic soft rock hit or something.

   
• Topol! The Flash Gordon movie from 1980 was absolute genius... even if most people didn't see it that way. I've seen it a dozen times or more, and will likely watching it many times more. A big part of what makes the movie work is the over-the-top performances, among them being Chaim Topol's performance of Dr. Hans Markov...

But that's not my favorite role of his. This honor goes to Columbo on the James Bond flick For Your Eyes Only, where he chewed up the scenery unapologetically...

Sadly, Topol passed away a couple weeks ago... but his legacy will live on with his works.

   
• Hyper-Real! I will never complain about any of my tax dollars going to NASA to explore our solar system and our universe. On the contrary, I wish more of my tax dollars went to NASA. Especially when I see images like this...

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team

You can get a much better view and more information on Saturn's moon Hyperion by going to NASA's website.

   
• TO INFINITY...! The stuff that you can do with LEGO truly knows no bounds. Take this infinite domino track...

Pretty nifty, isn't it?

   
• Cunk! Finally got around to watching Cunk on Earth (Netflix)... and it's madness. Absolute madness. Mostly because she sounds like a lot of real-life people...

It's relentless. She doesn't stop unleashing stupid. Ever. It just keeps going. And I am deceased.

   
• WORF! The first season of Star Trek: Picard was just okay, though the ending was messy. I didn't like the second season because it was a scattered crapfest and tried to shoehorn in characters that should have never been there in the first place. But this THIRD season? Holy crap. Quite probably the best Next Generation show I have ever seen. Cinematic and exciting. It will be very interesting to see if they can wrap it all up in a satisfying manner given that this is the last season we're getting. And ZOMG... WORF! His character has made a radical shift that's absolute genius, and Michael Dorn is playing him with such deft ease...

It makes me wish that this is what we were given from the start. Paramount+... please give Worf his own series ASAP, dammit!

   
• Flerfer! The thing I will never, ever understand is how there are people thinking that the earth is flat. It makes absolutely zero sense from every possible observable fact. We new about the earth being a sphere thousands of years ago. And yet... ignorance is still here. Which is why I love videos like this....

Of course it makes no difference how many facts you throw at Flerfers. Logic, reason, and common sense has already been thrown right out the window.

   
And away with you! Begone!

Don't you dare touch that dial... because an all new, all YouTube Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Heartstopper! Easily one of the best series I've seen so far in 2022, Heartstopper (Netflix) is about the most adorable TV show you'll find. What really got me is how much of the lives of young people today are invested in immediate feedback from texting. The struggle to put your thoughts and feelings in short little messages... the frustration of not knowing what to say... and the agony of sending something and immediately regretting it... we had absolutely nothing like this in school. Maybe note passing. That's it. The game is entirely different today...

What amazes me most about this show is how many opportunities they had to fall into the Hallmark trap of letting a misunderstanding sabotage their entire relationship, but were actually more adult about talking things out than adults are in Hallmark movies. Refreshing! There's also a guest star playing Nick's mom who may not be a known face to American audiences, but she was a major "get" across the Atlantic, and I was SO happy it wasn't spoiled in the trailer. Worth a watch. 100% Dave Approved television.

   
• Hard Rock Park! I don't have many regrets. But I do regret that I never made it to Hard Rock Park. The year that it opened, my travel calendar was packed, but I had plans to visit the following year. Alas, it closed after a single season. It would become "Freestyle Music Park" for another season before closing permanently. One of the most unique things to ever come out of Hard Rock and I missed it! Then I ran across a couple videos about the park, and regret not making it even more...

Boy. I wish somebody would rescue all that material and published it in a book or something. I could have spent hours going through all that!

   
• Miriwoong! Few things are as sad to me as a language dying out. Because it means an important part of humanity's culture is lost, because in so many ways language is culture. Or at least a very good symptom of it...

I've long been fascinated by languages, and Miriwoong is an example of exactly why I'm fascinated.

   
• Giza! Holy cats I love videos like this. And, let me tell you, that walk into the pyramid is something I will never forget. It was hot, stuffy, and claustrophobic for sure, but it's the fact that the passage could collapse behind you and leave you trapped inside that's the real scary part. What would they do? Rip apart the pyramid to save your life? Yeah, probably not...

Manuel Bravo is a YouTube creator I've never heard of before. But I subscribed after 2 minutes in on this video, only to find his entire channel is magic. Give it a look if this kind of stuff interests you.

   
• Bud! The fact that John Oliver releases short videos like this on the weeks he's off to tide you over until his next show is why his YouTube Channel is a must-subscribe...

I mean. Holy cow. The dogs got super-powers?!? Where have I been?

   
• Space! If you're not excited to bits about the James Webb Space Telescope, it's because you don't understand it properly. Lucky for you, Marques is here to drop some knowledge...

I have gone through so many rabbits in learning about what this incredible telescope is going to do for our understanding of the universe, and all of it is positively mind-boggling.

   
• History! The Statue of Liberty is one of those things that we kinda take for granted. It's there. It's been there for a while. France gave it to us. But there's so much more than that. For a very cool glimpse into all things Lady Liberty, this video is worth a watch...

   
And that's it for year another fascinating Bullet Sunday. Tune in next Sunday where I may... or may not... have even more interesting things to share!

There's several government programs that I'm happy to support. One of the best, in my humble opinion, in NASA. The volumes of "stuff" we've learned from it have resulted in all kinds of technological advancements that have made our lives better. Not to mention the cool stuff they are doing.

One of the most current projects that I'm completely obsessed with is the WEBB Telescope. It's going to be able to see further back into the origins of the universe than we've ever been able to before, further understand planets outside our solar system, and all kinds of other amazing things. Every once in a while I drop by NASA's website to see how the project is going and read up on any new information available.

Every time I visit I marvel at how cool the WEBB logo looks. Somebody at NASA got a very good designer to boil the project down to this awesome graphic...

While I was at the site, I spotted the "NASA Eyes" project, which has various interactive toys to play with.

And promptly fell down a rabbit hole of exploration for over a half-hour using their Solar System Viewer...

After the solar system appears, you can click on objects to explore them. Naturally I started close to home with Mars...

Then various asteroids...

Then I started clicking on various man-made objects...

Some of these things are utterly fascinating, and are out there doing things I never knew were even happening...

Still others I knew about, but didn't know what was happening with them. Like OSIRIS-REx, that little probe that landed on an asteroid a while back and is currently heading back to earth with specimens...

After a couple objects I got to DART... Double Asteroid Redirection Test...

This cool-looking thing has the thankless task of crashing into an asteroid to see if it can redirect it. This is the first step in building a defense against an asteroid hurling towards earth. I figured that it must be the size of a frickin tank to have any hope of making a dent, but it's actually quite small. Something you can verify by comparing it to earth objects. As you can see here, it's only about the height of a human scientist...

But slightly wider than a school bus...

Though considerably smaller than the Rose Bowl Stadium...

There's all kinds of information available to say how the mission was set up, what it hopes to accomplish, and how it aims to accomplish it...

The poor thing is on-target to crash into the smaller half of a double-asteroid called Didymos. And if you zoom back a bit, you can see exactly where it's located in relation to DART...

So there he is out there seeing the sights and thinking that he's got some really cool exploring ahead of him... when the entire time his purpose is to crash. Sad.

And because I just couldn't help myself, I started looking for Voyager 1, the first man-made object to leave the solar system. At least that we know of. I had to zoom out quite a bit to see that...

From there I kept poking around the solar system until I had to get back to work.

Fascinating, fascinating stuff. If you've got a little time to kill, there are far worse ways to spend your time than exploring the solar system . Enjoy!