And so we've come to the end of a three-day weekend, and I'm really sad about that, but not so sad that I'm taking a day off from bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Jolene! Okay... so Beyoncé didn't just cover Dolly Parton's Jolene she changed it in a significant way. Instead of begging Jolene not to steal her man, Beyoncé is warning Jolene to not try and steal her man...

A good cover song comes from making it your own. Beyoncé did that completely. AND SPEAKING OF DOLLY PARTON...

Tina Fey's talent literally knows no bounds. She claims to have gotten the part accidentally because it was shot during COVID and she was the only one around, but the fact that she nailed it anyway is incredibly cool. DESPITE THE FACT THAT SHE CLAIMS SHE DOESN'T DO IMPERSONATIONS...

Yeah, Tina Fey is the gift that keeps on giving.

   
• Ultimate Evil. I don't think I was ever going to be in the mindset to watch the documentary The Truth vs. Alex Jones, but I felt it important to watch so I did. I expected that my takeaway would be sympathy and heartache. It wasn't. It's all-consuming rage. On way too many fronts. Parents who lost their kids at Sandy Hook were already going through hell before Alex Jones started unlashing his fucked up lies and bullshit that had them constantly under attack. He doesn't just deserve to lose all his money, he should be in prison for what he did. Over and over again we hear about how the "absence of trauma helicopters" and how "the parents were acting like actors" was proof-positive of Sandy Hook being fake. How the fuck does any rational human being hear that and say "Yeah, that sounds about right!" and feel justified in screaming at grieving parents? Holy fucking shit. Who needs Satan as a symbol of ultimate evil? We have Alex Jones.

   
• The Willow World! This new Hulu Shōgun adaptation is not the book, but something... else. I've read the novel multiple times and fully admit some of the changes bother me a bit, but most of them do not. The series is its own thing, and I'm appreciating it for what it is instead of what it's not. It's interesting to me how the latest episode is spending a relatively huge amount of screen time in a brothel. But not for the reason you'd think. They are making an effort to contrast what a "brothel" is in Japan vs. what it is in the Western world. But they're doing so in a way which explains things that are happening in the story, albeit in abstract. It's all so beautiful and brilliant...

What I love most is that the series isn't married to simply following Anjin around. I'd argue that he's not even the main character of this series. He really isn't the focus of this episode... he's an accessory. A minor distraction that pops up from time to time. And it's a bold... very bold... tact to take. Ladies of the Willow World is an episode that is very much the calm before the storm, and I'm thrilled that it exists. This is what happens when you take your time and give yourself ten episodes instead of six. Because it makes the big picture so much more rewarding. This is exceptional, not-to-be-missed television.

   
• SO WOKE! I'm going to put this riiiiiight here...

   
• Polska! You guys... YOU GUYS... Netflix has a Polish rom-com streaming! — I swear, in a lot of ways, Polish rom-coms can out-Hallmark Hallmark. This one is called Nic na sile (No Pressure) and it has one of the guys from Uwierz w Mikolaja (I Believe in Santa) in it...

I wish there was a Polish streaming service with American subtitles here. Because I would stream the heck out of that! Good news if you're not into subtitles... Netflix has dubbed it into English if you want.

   
• Harrassment! Can somebody please explain the point of texts like this? I am not a Democrat. I never have been. I always support the best candidate regardless of party...

But if I were a Democrat, I wouldn't be after this harassment. I have texted STOP to this same exact text a dozen times. And each time I block the number. But they just use a different number and text me again and again and again. I have very few regrets in this life. But donating to every Democrat I could find in the 2019 midterms via ActBlue is one of them. I have been relentlessly hounded ever since. There is no way... none... to escape it. They text you no matter how many times you tell them to STOP... they text you no matter how many times you block their numbers. I just looked on my phone. I have 78 blocked numbers. Seventy-eight. To be fair, not all of them are from Democrats. But I bet most of them are. I bet a huge majority are. Because they never, ever stop. So good luck getting another fucking cent out of me via ActBlue. Fuck you and your dataset.

   
• Visibility! Um... before anybody gets their fucking panties in a bunch and start screaming "PICK ANOTHER DAY FOR TRANS VISIBILITY DAY... EASTER IS TAKEN!" You should know that Easter is on a different day each year, but Trans Visibility Day has been on March 31st since it was created in 2009. I swear, nobody loves to be persecuted more than Christians. They are constantly finding ways for their faith to be assaulted... even if it's not even happening. But anyway, happy International Transgender Day of Visibility! Especially to my trans friends who deserve to be seen when society is working overtime to try to erase them just for existing and being themselves.

   
On with your Sunday then...

Yesterday on my way into work I decided that I wanted some of that cheddar popcorn I like so much. So I stopped at the mini mart, grabbed a Coke Zero and a bag of the popcorn and made my merry way to the office.

Then, once lunchtime rolled around, I grabbed my Coke from the refrigerator and opened the bag...

And was disgusted by what I was tasting. It was awful. Tasted like chemicals poured over a pair of crusty gym socks. I couldn't understand it. Until I looked closer at the packaging and saw that Smartfood didn't just update their packaging... this was a "Simply" version of the product that was low-calorie or whatever...

   
"GAH! THIS POPCORN IS WOKE! I exclaimed.

Because people seem to be incredibly fond of using "woke" to describe things they don't like now-a-days, despite it simply meaning to be awake and empathetic to what challenges other people are facing. But People who don't give a fuck about other people have co-opted it, branded it as "wokeness," and use it to show people just how un-empathetic they are towards anybody but themselves...

Brilliant creator unknown.

Today I went back to the mini mart to buy a replacement for the WOKE popcorn I had to throw out because I was still craving it.

Mmmmmm. Yummy.

Yes, from now on I'll be very careful to buy only UN-WOKE popcorn.

The way God and the Founding Fathers intended it to be.

When the term "woke" was first being tossed around the internet, I thought it was over-used, but ultimately a good thing. When you are no longer asleep at the wheel while people are suffering around you, that's woke. Keeping your eyes open with compassion and caring for people who are being continuously persecuted by a systemically flawed society is woke. Taking action to make sure that everybody has a seat at the table is woke. And those are... bad things?

It amazes me how people are so quick to weaponize something to distract from their bullshit. But that's the modern world for you, I guess. Every time you turn around people are attacking "wokeness" and "woke mind poisoning" and "woke culture"... almost to an almost hilarious degree. It's like... okay, you want people to go back to sleep and close their eyes to injustice? Maintain the status quo which only works for precious few people? Really?

But what really blows my mind is how everything is how everything that detours from the status quo is considered "woke" now... whether it makes sense or not... whether it has anything to do with actually being woke.

I don't usually share graphics created by other people, but I came across this one and nearly pissed myself laughing, so here you go...

Brilliant creator unknown.

I dunno.

Now-a-days it seems like for every step we take forward as a society, we're taking two steps back. Sure people have always been resistant to change, but now it's fallen below a debate we can have and become a non-stop hate machine from our politicians and the media.

Which isn't terrible surprising, really. History shows that hate is a fantastic tool for manipulation.

Especially when people don't even understand what they're hating.

It's just whatever they've been conditioned to hate.

UPDATE: And then I saw this...

BWAH HA HA HA HAAAAA!