ANNNNNND... DONE! NOBODY IS SELLING YOUR DATA TO CHINA EXCEPT AMERICAN COMPANIES! THERE! WE'VE FIXED ALL OF AMERICA'S PROBLEMS! NOW WE'RE VOTING TO GIVE OURSELVES A RAISE AND THEN GO INTO RECESS FOR A FEW MONTHS! — God how I fucking detest our politicians. What a bunch of worthless fucking pieces of shit.

NEWSFLASH: Biden signs bill that could ban TikTok, a strike years in the making

Yet another case of politicians loudly announcing "DON'T LOOK AT WHAT I'M DOING! DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO ME! LOOK! OVER THERE! IT'S TIKTOK! SURE EVERYTHING'S FUCKED AND WE'RE DOING FUCK-ALL ABOUT IT BECAUSE PEOPLE GIVE US MONEY IF WE DO FUCK-ALL... BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT! IT'S TIKTOK! TIKTOK IS AN IMMEDIATE THREAT TO ALL AMERICANS! SO APPLAUD US! BOW DOWN BEFORE US! RE-ELECT US! IGNORE THE UNGODLY AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU PAY US! BECAUSE WE'RE WORKING HARD ON YOUR BEHALF! BECAUSE TIKTOK! YOU'RE WELCOME!"

How did we, as a country, end up in this sorry, pathetic state?

Oh well. TikTok was on it's way out anyway because they're shoving ads down your fucking throat every five videos and I'm sick to death of it... but I suppose Congress needs something to do to have the appearance that they're doing anything at all.

UPDATE: And now... this...

If somebody would throw a science text book into Alabama, that would be great. Preferably science book on tape, as it seems lawmakers are not much into reading words in those learnin' books.

And while we're on the subject, I thought it was unlikely that politicians could be more fucking stupid and willfully ignorant than the likes Lauren Boebert, Louie Gohmert, and Majorie Taylor Green. But then along comes fucking Tommy Tuberville and it's all "Hold my beer." Jesus.

We have seriously got to have a basic competency test for all political condidates before they can even get on the ballot. I mean, critical thinking skills would be nice... but right now I'd settle for not being as dumb as a box of fucking rocks.

Hulu forces me to choose between commercials for KitKat or Reeses... then, after I finally choose one so I can get to my fucking show... THEY SHOW ME A COMMERCIAL ABOUT BOTH BECAUSE "I DESERVE BOTH!"

Fuck Hulu for wasting my time with a non-choice. And definitely fuck the assholes at KitKat and Reese's for coming up with a stupid-as-shit ad campaign which wastes people's fucking time and actually makes me hate products I used to love.

Fire your fucking advertising agency for being obscenely fucking stupid. Who thought this was a good idea?

Christ.

There's nothing that indicates just how fucking beyond stupid Apple has gotten than this bit of drama I experienced tonight. The AppleTV remote in my bedroom has never worked. The trackpad on the top doesn't move reliably. So I threw it in a box in the garage and just use my iPhone.

At least I did until tonight.

I went to turn on my TV/AppleTV and got this nonsense...

Which is essentially saying that you need a remote to use your iPhone as a remote.

Seriously. How do they come up with this shit?

Is ANYBODY at Apple actually using their products or beta testing shit any more?

Number 6,438 in my list of SHIT APPLE DOES THAT NOBODY FUCKING ASKED FOR: Apple Mail Inline Link Preview.

Who the fuck thought that this useless fucking PREVIEW OF NOTHING is needed, desired, or in any way helpful? It's like... here's a link to a Facebook page, and Apple removes the link to put a HIDEOUS BIG-ASS LINK LOGO IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR EMAIL...

And, of course, because this is fucking Apple, there' no way to turn this shit off by default.

Oh no. You have to right click and tell it to go back to a sane "plain link."

God I am so sick and fucking tired of this kind of crap. It's only slightly less annoying that Adobe changing the way shit has worked FOR DECADES with no way to go back to the original behavior. Or the way that they randomly switch between origin-zoom and scrubby-zoom in Illustrator with no way to force a default. Typical. It's like... PICK ONE. I don't give a shit which way you go... JUST FUCKING PICK ONE!

The heat is on and my air conditioning is struggling to keep up... and so am I! But never fear... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• SPACE LEGO! LEGO is re-releasing a couple of their most popular sets from days past, but updating them with modern pieces so that they appeal to modern LEGO consumers. The one I am sorely tempted to get is the "Galaxy Explorer"... one of my favorite sets of all time...

It looks so good. Similar to what made the old set so great... but with some very cool changes. But, alas, that's a wad of cash I don't have burning a hole in my pocket!

   
• Day-Old Goodness! Why is it that baked spaghetti always tastes better the next day? Yesterday I made garlic bread from scratch and put together a nice baked spaghetti to go with it. The stuff was amazing. But today's lunch? Even better!

I cook spaghetti as usual... but make my own sauce so I can use tomato paste instead of thinner tomato purée. Mix it together with the noodles and cheese. Put into an oven-proof container with lid (I use a large skillet), then bake at 325º for a half-hour. That way you get a lovely dry "sauce" that's really concentrated and sticking to the noodles instead of making a wet, sloppy mess everywhere. I top with toasted almond slices, parmesan, diced chives and Italian parsley. Food of the gods!

   
• A Legend Passes. I forgot to mention last Bullet Sunday how sad I was to learn that legendary comic book artist Tim Sale passed away. The guy was only 66, so this is a tough loss to take. Tim Sale was highly gifted, and worked on some characters and titles that cemented his upper-echelon status with fans. Rest in peace, sir.

   
• ALEXA, STOP!!! Alexa used to be so good. But then Amazon Alexa added a bunch of shitty bloat that nobody gives a crap about to fuck over the service. She regularly gets simple requests wrong now EVEN WHEN SHE UNDERSTANDS WHAT YOU SAID, whereas Google Assistant ACTUALLY WORKS. Embarrassing as fuck for Amazon to just toss it all away like this. Also? Alexa acknowledged the command in my bedroom (where I’m at)... but then played the song in the bathroom down the hall? WTF?!?

At first I thought... "Well, maybe Amazon Music doesn't have the song?" But nope. There it is...

I never had problems like this even two years ago. Now it's almost every day.

   
• Mr. Bats! I've shared this video before. But this morning I ran across it again and was compelled to share it again because it's one of the most adorable things I've ever seen...

That bat really likes bananas! I've always loved bats, and it's just crazy to me that there are people who don't... especially considering how incredible they are for the environment and controlling pests!

   
• How Stupid Are We?! Apparently very stupid. We keep ignoring the serious problems facing us. And it's not like there aren't actual solutions out there, it's just that we're not looking into them. Take our disappearing water supply, for example...

God forbid we don't stop building golf courses out in the middle of a dessert and adopt water-saving solutions instead of creating more water-consuming problems.

   
Enjoy your Summertime Sunday heat without me! I'm stying indoors.

"Well, shit, I'm alive. The COVID booster didn't kill me. So I guess I have to go into to work."

Zero side-effects from the third Pfizer shot. Which worries me a little bit... how do I know that it did anything if there's no side-effects from my immune system getting charged up with COVID-fighting instructions? Though I didn't have side-effects the second time either (only the first, where I had a fever for three hours and soreness in my arm for three days).

In my county here in Central Washington, there's been 102 COVID deaths out of 10,912 total cases since tracking of the pandemic began. Right now they say that 638 people have tested positive in the first half of October. When I check the CDC site, it says that the eligible population here in my county is 73.6% vaccinated and 34 new people have been admitted into the hospital. If it's accurate, that's really good news. Given the number of anti-maskers out and about, I really expected us to be under 50% vaccinated. Some counties east of me in Idaho and Montana are 40-some-odd-percent, which is pretty scary. But not as scary as those counties sitting at 20% once you head over to the Dakotas. Holy shit. It's like a COVID incubater in some parts!

Which is how we end up with COVID variants like Delta, Beta, Gamma, Lambda, Mu, and the variants of those variants. It's all pretty crazy when you consider that the virus will only become more communicable and deadly as it changes to survive.

But that's nothing compared to the heinous level of idiocy coming out of the mouths of pieces of shit like Marjorie Taylor Greens, who is just the worst...

God she's awful. There's really no level to which this horrific excuse for a human being will stoop. I am disgusted to my core.

I'd say that I can't wait for her to get COVID, but you just know that she's been vaccinated. Pandering to her base with this hipocritical bullshit is how she stays in office.

School teachers are sick of the shit they have to endure and are getting out of the profession for something less asinine and stressful... like bomb disposal, I'd imagine.

If communities keep this up, soon there won't be enough teachers to teach your kids. Which is by design, really. The wealth and power running this country want to keep people uneducated. Makes it easier to control them with stupid-ass misinformation.

Critical thinking is dangerous to the puppet-masters who are maintaining their wealth and power, so let's make sure people don't get the mental fortitude to threaten that. You don't need critical thinking to become a labor resource. Just fall in line, believe the bullshit you're fed, hate people different than you to keep the country fractured, and do the work. Everything will be just fine.

Enlightening...

The guy quit teaching after 13 years to become a standup comedian.

Guaranteed he's happier now than he ever could have been dealing with school bureaucracy and having to deal with stupid-ass school board bullshit. He's also probably better-paid.

It's getting so that even people who want to be a teacher... it's their fucking calling in life... are hanging it up. And if you can't keep those people... what's left?

Fall days are here, but it's still Summer Vacation at Blogography... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Bags! Washington State is one of those bizarre states that wants to do a good thing... but often ends up doing it badly. Take for example the "Single Use Plastic Bag Ban" that recently went into effect. The idea is to make people bring reusable cloth totes to the store in order to keep plastic bags out of landfills. But... holy shit. Those bags were never single-use to me. I use them to carry stuff all the time (like my lunch) and they're also the garbage bag I use in my kitchen and bathrooms. Stores will still have plastic bags available for a mandatory 8¢ each, but Washington State requires them to be thicker plastic so they're tougher. And I'm like... okay... 8¢ is still the cheapest garbage bag I can buy... and now they are going to be five times thicker, so it's actually one of the best frickin' garbage bags you can get. EXCEPT NOW THERE'S FIVE TIMES MORE PLASTIC GOING INTO THE LANDFILL!! Lots of people use them as trash bags, so even if a bunch of people switch to cloth totes, people will either be buying more plastic trash bags or using the thicker bags, meaning that we might actually have more plastic in the landfills. Does anybody think about this shit before passing these laws? ANYBODY?!??

   
• Finale! Not sure how to feel about the finale of Ted Lasso. In many ways, it was disappointing. There were zero surprises, if you've been paying attention. But I didn't hate it. The entire purpose of the second season was to lead up to the endgame of the third season, which was designed to be the last. It seems entirely likely that it will continue past that... there's just too much to lose... but Bill Lawrence says the three-season story arc will remain regardless...

He also says that Doctor Fieldstone and Trent Crimm will be back, so there's that. And so... until next year, I guess.

   
• Make Mine Marvel! And so now there's a Kathryn Hahn spin-off with Agatha Harkness from WandaVision. Add to this the rumor that some Netflix Marvel shows are headed to Disney+ as well (Jessica Jones? Daredevil?), and the future is looking very good for Marvel Studios fans... with Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, Armor Wars, Wakanda Series, and an Echo Series, already announced...

And heaven only knows how many are being roughed out that we don't even know! I'm guessing that the Marvel stuff is the most popular part of Disney+, so increasing the number of new shows is a no-brainer.

   
• Kenan! The new cast lineup for Saturday Night Live seems solid. But the killer app of the show is Kenan Thompson. He's the most memorable part of every skit he appears in, but it's only due to how he plays it... not necessarily the material they give him. In Billionaire Star Trek he had a bit part as an Amazon delivery guy and Kenan is all I remember of it. The meeting with the school board sketch was instantly forgettable... except for Kenan. Everything EXCEPT for Kenan in the funeral skit evaporated minutes after I saw it. This is most decidedly not a great way to start the season. They had months to prepare for the first show, and nothing sticks in my head except how Kenan managed to make the most of what he had to work with? I dunno. SNL has a problem that's not an easy fix. Hopefully everything will gel and get dialed in before Jason Sudeikis shows up, because that show is something I am really, really looking forward to.

   
• Weekend! How my weekend started...

VS. how its going...

So pretty darn delicious, I'd say!

   
• Retired! Good riddance you crusty old homophobic, racist, misogynistic bigot. I’ve got a bottle of champagne chilling in the refrigerator for the day you depart this earthly plane. Don’t keep me waiting...

This asshole may be retiring now, but his brain retired decades ago.

   
• Inside! God. Could Intel reek any worse of desperation? This ad is fucking embarrassing. And the "random strangers" they pulled in are ridiculous. Like Apple fans are completely unaware that other products exist. I mean... holy shit... is Intel SO worried that people are leaning away from their chips that they have to be all pathetic like this? Sad. Just sad...

Somebody would have to be legit brain-dead to think that this reflects any semblance of reality.

   
Everybody remember to drink responsibly...

Tonight I was finally let out of Facebook prison. I guess 24 hours was all it took to be rehabilitated from stupid shit that should have never got me banned in the first place. But, hey, it's not my world... I just give up my privacy and time to play in it.

I did finally end up doing what most every person who regularly gets hit with the ban-hammer does on Facebook... create an alternate account.

Meet John Baron II...

Obviously I can't let my cats on Facebook without a disguise as well... meet Bubair and JennAir...

And now that Fake Jake is back, it's time to meet Faker Jake...

Yes, it's childish and juvenile... but so is stupid Facebook and their inconsistent and absurd policies for banning general statements out of context while ignoring direct threats to specific people.