Clearly... clearly... I was born into the wrong class.

I was looking through what was suggested for me on YouTube and a 12-year-old video popped up which I feel to my very soul is the lifestyle I should be accustomed to. Not because of the luxury, but because it isolates you from other people.

First Class is for peasants...

Can you imagine?

The closest thing to flying private that you can get.

Which I also feel is a suitable accommodation for me. I was just trying to lower my carbon footprint.

While I was in Disneyland for the Oogie Boogie Bash at California Adventure, I did what I always do when I'm at any Disney park, ship, or event... I eat! I love the food options at all the Disney properties (with Epcot being the top destination for me). I thought I'd run through my culinary adventures (mostly for myself so I know what to get the next time).

BEST OF THE BUNCH AWARD: Neutron Nachos in Avengers Campus at California Adventure.
I gotta tell you, this came completely out of left field for me. I usually avoid the quick service restaurants because so many times the food is "less than" compared to table service restaurants. But I wanted to try the Pym Tasting Lab alcoholic drinks. When it came to food, the "plant-based" offering was Neutron Nachos, which is described thusly:

Neutron Nachos — Blue and Red Corn Tortilla Chips, Impossible™ Taco Meat, Seasoned Black Beans, Cheese Sauce (vegan), Pico De Gallo, Sour Cream (vegan), and Pickled Jalapeños

This TikTok pretty much sums up the experience (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

They were incredible. So ridiculously tasty. So tasty that I bought all the ingredients and have made them three times since I've gotten back home! Highest possible recommendation.

   
CONSISTENTLY GREAT AWARD: Impossible Burger from Lamplight Lounge in Pixar Pier at California Adventure.
Hands-down my favorite restaurant at the resort, Lamplight Lounge pairs a fantastic drink menu with great food and service. I got the vegan burger my first time and have repeated it every time I visit the park:

Impossible™ Burger — Impossible™ Beef, American Cheese (vegan), House Spread (vegan), Grilled Onions, Lettuce and Tomato on a Potato Bun, served with Seasoned Fries

I always get it without the grilled onions and extra sauce and it's fantastic.

   
A GOOD EATS AWARD: Hearty Veggie Burger from Carnation Cafe in Main Street at Disneyland.
This is an easy staple that's different enough from the Impossible Burger at Lamplight Lounge that I can eat the two back to back without getting bored:

Hearty Veggie Burger — House-made Bean Patty, Vine-ripened Tomato, Chipotle Mayo (vegan), Slaw and Crispy Onions on an Artisan Bun, served with Fresh Fruit

They are happy to replace the slaw with lettuce, which is how I like to order it.

   
FUCK YOU, DISNEY AWARD: Three Cheese Monte Cristo from Carnation Cafe from Cafe Orleans in New Orleans Square at Disneyland.
A Monte Cristo sandwich has Turkey, Ham, and Swiss that's battered and deep-fried... then dusted with powdered sugar and served with jam. It's a famous eat at Disneyland that a lot of people must have while visiting. When my friends took me there a while ago, I thought I'd end up with a plate of fries or something since I don't eat meat... but was shocked to find that they had a Three-Cheese Monte Cristo for non-meat-eaters like me! And it was fantastic! Featuring Swiss, Mozzarella, and Double Crème Brie, it was deep fried, dusted, and served with jam just like the regular version! Heaven! And it became a must-have for me when at Disneyland. EXCEPT THE FUCKERS AT DISNEYLAND REMOVED IT FROM THE DAMN MENU! I WAITED A HALF HOUR FOR A TABLE FOLLOWED BY FIFTEEN MINUTES FOR A WAITER ONLY TO BE TOLD THE SANDWICH WAS REMOVED! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!? INSTEAD OF HAM AND TURKEY, YOU JUST SLAP ON TWO CHEESES! JUST TWO ADDITIONAL ITEMS IN YOUR FUCKING REFRIGERATOR TO MAKE VEGETARIANS HAPPY... BUT NOOOOOOOOO! CAN'T DO THAT! LET'S GIVE THEM A FUCKING SALAD IF THEY WANT TO EAT AT OUR FAMOUS MONTE CRISTO RESTAURANT! What a damn shame. I just don't get it at all.

And there you have it. Three awesome meals and a big FUCK YOU! Or rather, fuck me, because I'm the one who left the happiest place on earth without my Three Cheese Monte Cristo... meaning I was not so happy.

The flight home was uneventful. And not just because there wasn't an annoying asshole screaming about Jesus or anything like that. It probably had more to do with the fact that I was in First Class. To be fair though, for all I know there actually was an asshole screaming about Jesus in the back. I was having a drink while listening to a movie so I wouldn't know.

On a related note... it's people screaming about Jesus on airplanes which has me thinking that being allowed to bring a loaded weapon onboard might be a good idea after all. Sure you risk a gun going off mid-flight and depressurizing the cabin and killing everybody... but, well... assholes screaming about Jesus.

If anything, you'd think that God would approve of gun violence against assholes screaming about Jesus given Matthew 6:5-6 and all that.

And, to be honest, the people who should most approve of gun violence against assholes screaming about Jesus would be the assholes screaming about Jesus themselves. Absolutely nobody wants to be persecuted more than some asshole who is screaming about Jesus. It's practically their entire identity. Probably because they refuse to follow His teachings, so this is the only way they can be Christ-like.

But please don't think that this post is in any way an endorsement of gun violence against assholes screaming about Jesus. I don't advocate gun violence against anyone.

A nice slap across the face would be fine.

Because it would be a shame to fly all the way to Los Angeles for one day, I hung around to visit the Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween celebration at Disney's California Adventure.

Even though Disney has done a lot to improve the place since they dropped a steaming, cheap-ass turd across from Disneyland, it's still not exactly the height of theme park design. Maybe once Coco Land and Avatar Land open up, there will be something more than one great ride (Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout) and one very good one (Toy Story: Midway Mania).

That being said, Cars Land has the best decorations in the park...

The event has a lot of rare and semi-rare characters making appearances. Some of them you can take photos with, but none of them are signing autographs, which is kinda shitty for an event which ain't cheap.

Here's Pain and Panic from Hercules...

And their boss, Hades, who is the most hilarious thing I've seen in a minute. Whomever they got to play him made a flawless casting choice...

Hercules wasn't there, but his girlfriend Megara was...

Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit...

And, look, it's Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb...

Texture mapping is getting seriously good...

One of my all-time favorites, Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove...

Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty who is not rare, but very cool...

And the Evil Queen from Snow White...

Good night, Mr. Oogie Boogie...

And good night to California Adventure...

So long and thanks for all the candy!

The reason I'm in L.A. is a quick diversion to see the 25th Anniversary of Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland. I saw it the second year that they had it, then never made it back. Given my love of The Nightmare Before Christmas, in general (and Zero, specifically) I was interested in seeing how it had changed over the decades.

Turns out it's much the same, but there's also some things which are very different. Like they've been slowly upgrading it year over year. Ultimately it's a lot of fun, even though there are people who are pissed off it gets changed at all...

Halloween is probably my favorite holiday of the year, and Disneyland does a darn good job decorating up the place. Especially for nighttime spookiness...

Doesn't matter that it's two months until All Hallow's Eve, it's a good time to be in the Happiest Place on Earth.

After nearly two weeks of eye trauma spoiling my plans, I decided to head over the mountains to hang out with friends and forget about the day-to-day grind for a while.

The drive over was mostly a good one.

I still can't wrap my head around three things...

1. Drivers who have no plans to drive the speed limit, and are happy to be fucking over dozens of other cars by inviting other drivers to dangerously try and pass them (seriously... if you or your car can't go the speed limit, maybe it's time to stop driving).
2. Aggressive drivers who don't care about anybody's safety by driving like complete assholes... even when everybody else on the road is driving the speed limit or higher. One of the people who could end up dead is you, dumbass.
3. Why does the State always have multiple projects fucking things up on the same roadway at the same time? When your two-hour-and-fifteen-minute trip is 40 minutes longer than usual, it's a problem. In other countries (probably in other states) they focus effort on knocking out one project at a time so that they don't have to have many, many stops along a single route. But my state? No.

All that being said... it could have been worse. I could have been going East instead of West. The traffic heading East was insane. Just a massive line for miles and miles. If I were in the middle of that, I'd have to ask myself if the weekender trip was even worth it.

Maybe it's because I am a homebody at heart now-a-days... but for me the answer would be "no."

When I was in Miami Beach a few weeks ago, I couldn't help but think back to the time I took my mom for a visit. I wanted to stay in a nice place, so I booked a room in the legendary Fontainebleau hotel. When we arrived, I was met by a woman who took me to a desk for check-in. The first words out of her mouth after welcoming us were "And what are you wanting from your Fontainebleau experience this visit?" This puzzled me, so I answered with "Um... a place to sleep while I'm showing my mom around one of my favorite cities?" Which got me an instant look of disdain. She put us in a room that was under a patio room so we could listen to chairs scraping above us all morning. It was a shitty experience, and there was nothing "five star" about my stay. I would have had a far better time staying at a number of hotels which were half the price.

Back when I was traveling to Vegas a few times a year when I was volunteering with a charity, I saw that a new Fontainebleau property was being built in the city. Every time I visited, it looked further along until it just kinda... stopped.

I never knew what happened. I just assumed that financing was paused or whatever. On my last trip to Sin City before the pandemic hit, the property was no closer to opening and my guess was it had been abandoned. The actual story was a little more complicated than that, which I found out when this video popped up in my feed...

The place finally opened at the tail-end of 2023.

But has apparently had a tough go of it. Las Vegas has lapsed into a massive disappointment where prices have skyrocketed as the experience has cratered. Especially when it comes to food and drink because in addition to being incredibly expensive, meals are small portions with poor quality even at celebrated restaurants. Drinks are watered-down. Add on those fucking "resort fees" which mandatorily charge you for bullshit that should be included with the room price, and I'm very glad I don't have to go there 2 or 3 times a year. Because even though I wasn't paying for my visits, I would still be mad to see charity money being wasted like this. Assuming that the charity would still be going to Vegas given how the city has calmed down considerably, and most of the reasons I was working there have evaporated.

Odds are that eventually I would have been put up at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

Which has me wondering if they're still asking people "And what are you wanting from your Fontainebleau experience this visit?" Because I know exactly how I'd answer this time... "I am wanting a clean, comfortable, QUIET room where it might be possible to sleep in after a very long night." Which you'd think would be a given in Las Vegas, but likely not at the Fontainebleau hotel, where you can assume nothing.

Here I am, back from vacation and ready to start dropping bullets I've been collecting over the past week... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts...now...

   
• Trash Panda Review! Let's start out our Sunday by looking at something uplifting, shall we?

I love raccoons. YouTube knows I love raccoons. So you can bet at some point while I'm scrolling through YouTube that there will be raccoons on my page. Interesting to note that raccoons may be the next animal to be domesticated for wide-scale adoption as pets...

Not sure how my cats would react to having a raccoon in the house though.

   
• GAAAAAAH! If only I could afford to purchase something like this for my home...

Nicholas Hernandez Art is an Instagram account I was following seconds after I saw the finished product. Gorgeous. Friction' gorgeous. And oh-so-expensive... but worth the price.

   
• King of the Road! Good God. When people think that they can regulate who gets to park on a public street... and get the police to help them enforce it... then society is fucking fucked...

Nothing surprises me any more. Nothing.

   
• Learn from Example! Totally valid...

I learned everything not to do in life from watching television.

   
• Olympic! If you want to step away from the horrors of the world, this guy is visiting one of my favorite hotels on earth... not so far from me in Seattle!

I really need to pay a visit again one of these days. I can't really afford to spend the night... but the bar and restaurant are worth the money to visit.

   
• Bad Omens! I have few regrets in life. Watching the finale of Good Omens is one of them. What a complete betrayal of all that came before. I cannot fucking fathom what would make the writers come up with something so devoid of joy for two characters that people adore. Let alone what would make Prime Video greenlight it.

Terry Pratchett would not... COULD NOT... approve. It doesn’t even make sense. I would have much rather lived with a cliffhanger forever than to have suffered through this abomination. Everybody deserves a do-over.

   
• Enjoy Our Hellscape! I tried my best to avoid the news while I was gone. And catching up this week has been the nightmare you'd think it would be.

• Soon after massive honeybee deaths, Trump moves to close the nation’s premier bee lab. I know he likely doesn't understand how totally screwed we are if the bee population collapses, but isn't there anybody in his entire administration who has a clue and can speak out?
• Former ‘pray the gay away’ Orlando ministry leader arrested for soliciting a teen boy. Why don't we just save the time? Any time somebody speaks out against the gays, the drag queens, the trans community... any of it... just go and arrest them. Because they are obviously trying to point attention away from whatever messed up stuff they're into. Like preying on a 14 year-old boy. It's always the same with these people. Every accusation is an admission. And every time I see somebody attempting to drum up hate against a marginalized community, I'm just going to assume they're a pedo asshole.
• Conservative Group Sues ‘Find A Black Doctor’ Directory Over Discrimination. Jesus. It takes minutes to Google the absolutely abhorrent discrimination and lack of care provided to Persons of Color. Even the most fundamental basics... like pain management... is another world when you’re Black. It isn’t racist to want a doctor who will care for you from a perspective you share. Not even a little bit. This kind of thing blows my mind. Just fuck ALL the way off with your ignorance. The fact that this lawsuit is even a thing IS VIVIDLY DEMONSTRATING PROBLEM!
• FDA staff blindsided by move allowing more e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches onto US market. So first RJ Reynolds donates $5 million to Trump. Then Trump invites their executives to Mar-a-Lago where they ask him to loosen regulations on flavored vapes. Then Trump calls RFK Jr. and tells him to change government policy. I guess now we wait for strychnine to be allowed in breakfast cereals because General Mills and Kellogg's sends their executives to Mar-A-Lago to explain that testing for poisons costs them too much money. All they have to do is throw a little cash his way, and it's done! He doesn't care about anything but money, so what does the health of American citizens matter? Spoiler Alert: We don't matter.
• Republicans call off vote on Iran war resolution that was on the verge of passing. So there it is. There's no representation in government any more. The minute our representatives work to initiate change, the President's goon squad simply prevents them from being able to act. Isn't democracy great?
• Trump accused of downplaying the 13 military lives lost in Iran war: 'In other wars you lost hundreds of thousands'. "I get a kick when I look at somebody on television saying, 'he's lost 13 people'" — As Commander in Chief, he is directly responsible for 13 soldiers under his command losing their lives. All to distract from him being in the Epstein Files over 38,000 times. And this is what he has to say about them? Our soldiers laying their lives on the line deserve better than this kind of flippant bullshit.
• Trump Endangers Wild Animals by Authorising Lethal Cyanide Bombs Across Millions of Acres of Public Land. Not just animals... people. People are probably going to die. This is sadistic, horrific shit that everybody agrees needed to go away. But when you're going to sell public lands off to enrich your corrupt family, you can't have coyotes running around, can you? They really mess up being able to build an AI data center.

The mess we're in is crazy-easy to understand when you consider how things work now...

Confirmation bias. It's a hell of a drug.

   
And now... back to work. Because yesterday I fell asleep before I could finish. Tomorrow is a holiday for me. Here's hoping that I can take at least one day off.

When it comes to a cruise, anything less than 3 nights doesn't feel worth it... and anything more than 7 nights feels too long to be trapped on a big boat. My cruise was 5 nights, which is just about perfect. But that's not to say that I was happy about disembarking. Oh heck no. I would have gladly stayed onboard for those two extra nights. Bet.

Since they kick you off the ship early in the morning, most people just book a trip home that same day. I usually do not, preferring to stay an extra night at a hotel. It beats having to spend a big chunk of the day waiting for my flight at the airport. And, even more importantly, this time the cost to fly out the same day was significantly more expensive than waiting for some reason.

So... off to Fort Lauderdale Beach for a bit.

To drink seven mojitos of various flavors. Yes, seven...

The place was The Salty Sombrero, which I highly recommend. Great food, great drinks, great service, great view...

My room also had a great view, but it didn't have somebody serving me fresh mojitos all day...

But of course the beach is always better when you're not having to look at it through a window...

And that was it. All that was left to fly home the next morning...

Oh Florida, don't ever change.

Yesterday I went over arguably my favorite things about the Disney Destiny... the themed lounges. But, like the other ships in their line, there's a lot of great theming throughout the entire ship. The overall theme is "Heroes and Villains" and most everything is geared around the concept.

For one thing, the regular staterooms can be decorated with either Hercules, Mulan, Brave, Raya, The Incredibles, or Big Hero 6. Mine was Herc...

Hercules is easily the most prominent character on the ship. He's everywhere...

A neighbor was a pretty big Herc fan and decorated their door accordingly...

And his biggest moment is a live stage show that's remarkably well-done. Easily my favorite of any Disney onboard theater show I've seen, with next-level performances. I liked it so much I saw it twice. And I don't even like Broadway...

But villains have a moment too. One of the "big gets" onboard (in addition to the Cruella show I talked about yesterday) is a magic show by Dr. Facilier in his parlor (and I was sure to tell him that he got robbed because he wasn't in the Tiana's Bayou Adventure ride, and he refused to acknowledge the attraction)...

Maleficent had her own show, and appears in various places around the ship in art and furnishings...

Black Panther is the atrium sculpture, but Loki is the one with his own show...

Most cruise ships do their level best to keep you well-fed and entertained, and Disney is no exception. They've got it all. Including... BABY RACING?!?

Gotta tell you... there were a lot of people on their feet screaming at babies to crawl to the finish line. I honestly don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing. Probably a good thing.

Except for the trauma of being disqualified because you walked instead of crawled.