• Wildwood! I own every LAIKA Studios film available and obsess over them. This movie will be no different. Holy crap what a phenomenal work of art...

The work that goes into a stop-motion LAIKA production is mind-boggling...

I see how they do it. But I can't believe that's how they do it.

   
• Excuse Me! Jan is speaking Dutch, but there's subtitles... and this killed me...

I laughed way too long at this.

   
• Flexibility! So there I was waiting for some pizzas to come out of the oven at the local pizza joint when I looked at the video games that were running. I saw Marvel Super Heroes, which I had seen before and even played. What I never noticed before is that the header art is by one of my all-time favorite artists: Arthur Adams! How cool is this...

Then I noticed Psylocke's weird... very weird leg position...

He right upper leg is perpendicular to her body (ouch!) and her lower leg is across the title of the machine there. It's a bit strange, but these are comic book characters and it's not anything too bizarre. No... it's her left leg that's just weird as all get-out. She could have easily lodged her knee against the giant "L" there, but instead her leg hangs straight down. It's such a strange choice that a part of me wants to believe that Adams didn't draw it like this, but instead he was asked to re-draw it like this so the logo wasn't crowded? No idea. Maybe it's not strange after all and I'm just jealous that I'm nowhere near this flexible!

   
• Mini! These kind of miniature builds fascinate me. Even if you don't want to sit through 25 minutes of him making the model, you can skip to the very end to see it completed...

I often thought that I would enjoy model-building. It's arts & crafty with a big dash of creativity, which is right up my alley. But the mess. I just couldn't do it. I know what my garage looks like when I do my woodworking. I cannot fathom having that kind of disaster in my home. Even if it was confined to one room.

   
• What DOESN'T Cause Diarrhea Any More? Okay... which one of you had sex with a bag of poop lettuce to create this horror? Sexually Transmitted Diarrhea Is Spreading in the U.S.

   
• Tommy! Watching Abdul El-Sayed speak with an anti-American heckler at one of his rallies gives me hope...

The end of his response is everything we should want in the people who represent us at all levels of government. These faux "Christians" wanting their interpretation of their religion governing every aspect of our lives are the same people who shit their pants at the idea of having somebody else's religion even existing in the Land of the Free where our freedom to practice our religion is guaranteed by The Constitution of the United States of America.

   
• HOW? I cannot fathom how a piece of shit like Ken Paxton continues to convince people that he's a valid choice for Senator of Texas. I mean, I know the guy has so many scandals piled up that about the only thing he's qualified for is politics... but holy crap! The list is absolutely massive, and among the horrific shit on his record is ACCEPTING A PLEA DEAL FROM A MAN WHO ADMITTED TO REPEATEDLY SEXUALLY MOLESTING A YOUNG BOY, SO THE SICK FUCK ONLY SPENT ONE NIGHT IN JAIL AND DIDN'T HAVE TO REGISTER AS A SEX OFFENDER?!??

Seriously. Look at the list of fucked up shit. Look at it and tell me how he should in any way be holding public office. And the disgusting fuck won't debate BECAUSE HE KNOWS IT WILL GO BADLY FOR HIM! What the ever-loving-fuck, Texas?

   
And now... back to recovery!

I wrote this entry which I have written twice previously then deleted. Then I decided to sit on it over the weekend.

At which point I just said "fuck it" so I can move on.

I apologize in advance. After this, I will have my regular post about cats tomorrow, happy things I found on the internet on Sunday, and a week all about games! But in the meanwhile... sorry.

Monday morning I woke up and couldn't see the surrounding hillsides. It's wildfire season and the smoke was terrible. I walked outside to empty the trash and the haze immediately caused my eyes to water, my nose to run, and my lungs to itch. I have bad smoke allergies, which meant I had miserable times ahead of me.

But my misery wasn't what caused me to have a total fucking meltdown.

Last week Thursday, U.S. Representative John James of the great state of Michigan posted this...

I thought this was the height of ignorance, and was compelled to comment...

"When my state of Washington catches fire and smoke is blowing into Canada, they send help... not cruel and nonsensical threats. What a terrible neighbor you are."

I didn't unload on the asshole, I just chastised him for having such a bad take on the tragic situation happening to our neighbors to the north. He doesn't represent me or my state, so that's all I had to say on the matter.

But then...

THEN...

The next day the president of the United States of America decided to chime in...

"We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable! I will call the Prime Minister during the day to find out what they are going to do about it. The cost is incalculable! Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal, knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result. This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP"

And I lost it.

This fucking piece of shit does represent me. He represents all Americans.

I then spent the weekend fuming over the fact that people are dying. Animals are dying. Homes are being lost. Livelihoods are being destroyed. And our Idiot in Chief decided the best course of action was to publicly post a predictably stupid, needlessly cruel, and sublimely ignorant statement like this. As if Canada is having a great time at our expense or something.

So I hammered out a rant to post in the morning, then set it aside to review it and post that night. Except I couldn't. I then spent the rest of the week biting my tongue thinking that eventually my anger would subside. Except it didn't.

And here we are.

Last Summer the fires in my area were particularly bad. The company I work for decided to donate some foodstuffs to help out the firefighters risking their lives. Myself and a colleague drove to one of the firefighter camps to unload a truck, at which time I noticed that there was a Canadian flag off in the distance. Turns out that our neighbors to the North saw how bad things were and wanted to help. Their politicians and Prime Minister didn't start unloading tweets threatening tariffs or accusing us of mismanaging our forests or whatever stupid shit our politicians and our president dropped out of their festering asses.

But it gets so much worse.

Five days before the orange piece of shit vomited up his bullshit, Canadian helicopter pilot Nicholas Dale died fighting a fire. IN COLORADO. Which is part of the United States, if you were unaware.

A Canadian lost their life helping us fight our fires less than a week before Trump unloads on his country.

Disgusting.

There's not a day that goes by that I'm not wishing for the repugnant ass in The White House to take a fucking seat and shut the fuck up.

But this past week I wished for it more than usual.

It's the inhumanity for me.

Every fucking day it's the same thing. People advocating harm towards people who are just trying to live their lives in peace and find a corner of happiness to cling to in this sick, sad, violent world.

And I'm not just talking on a global scale (though that's obviously a huge problem), but with everyday life. The small inhumanities which pile up to make life feel unbearably cruel.

A man on a road trip with his two little girls stops to let them use the bathroom. Obviously he doesn't want to take TWO LITTLE GIRLS INTO THE MEN'S RESTROOM, so he made sure nobody was in the ladies' restroom and helped his daughters there.

Enter a fucking asshole with his inhumanity.

Instead of trying to offer up even a fucking OUNCE of compassion for a father trying to take care of his kids and wait TWO FUCKING MINUTES for these girls to wash their hands... he calls the cops...

And then the asshole woman with this asshole decides to chime in. Which I do not understand at all. You would think that a woman would be understanding that this guy was trying to keep his daughters safe by not taking them into the men's restroom and applaud him for being such a great dad... but NOOOOOOOO! Instead she stands by while this asshole terrorizes these two kids.

Not everywhere has a "Family Restroom" available. And in those cases, parents just have to do the best they can.

And it's the job of the rest of us to lend a hand.

How fucking difficult would it have been for this asshole woman to say "No problem, we can wait a minute" and be a fucking human being?

Apparently insurmountably difficult.

And I don't even fucking know how to react. The obvious answer is to be a little angry and a lot sad. But I choose to cling to the fact that the manager of the QuikTrip, Melissa, was a fucking legend for getting in-between the asshole and these frightened kids, trying to help as best she can...

Give her a fucking parade.

And then, erect a statue of this Father of the Year somewhere, who somehow managed to remain calm, cool, and collected during a very difficult situation because he didn't want to upset his kids more than they already were as some asshole was yelling at them...

Yelling at little girls in the restroom. This is where we're at.

Happy Father's Day on Sunday to this man. He deserves it.

   
• News of the Week! I did not see this coming!

I'm not going pretend that the original Romy & Michele's High School Reunion was genius fare... but it was entertaining and did have many quotable moments that have infiltrated meme culture. With this being my favorite...

I have said that line in many an inappropriate situation, and, to people who recognize it, that's solid gold, baby!

   
• Reading is Fundamental! Gawd DAMN that read is cold...

But she deserves it, because that's an incredibly shitty take to have. What a piece of shit... wanting people to be bullied.

   
• Taste the Rainbow! I stopped by the local bagel shop that I never knew existed until until yesterday. I asked for a toasted plain bagel with cream cheese. The young woman behind the counter said "Our plain bagels are rainbow this month, is that okay?" — What I wanted to say: "OKAY?? WHY, M'LADY, I AM THRILLED TO FIND A BUSINESS HERE IN REDNECKISTAN BEING INCLUSIVE BY CELEBRATING OUR FELLOW HUMANS IN THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY FOR PRIDE MONTH! BRAVO TO YOU! GIVE ME ONE HUNDRED OF YOUR FINEST RAINBOW BAGELS SO I MIGHT DISTRIBUTE THEM ACROSS THE LAND OF OUR FAIR CITY! THIS IS MORE THAN MERELY 'OKAY'... THIS IS PHENOMENAL! GOOD ON YOU!" — What I actually said: "That would be perfect, thanks."

Icing on the cake? This is a darn good bagel... especially for here, which is nowhere near New York City.

   
• Vegas, Baby! Yeah. No. I'm done with Vegas. Especially since I don't have work there anymore. Couldn't care less if I ever go back because of bullshit that's detailed here...

"Resort fees" were the beginning of the end for me. Deceptive practices with no purpose except to deceive. Everything else is just garbage on top of garbage.

   
• 1%! Dang. We really fucked up, didn't we? As a society, I mean...

But now we've got trillionaires and shit.

   
• Woke Sky? Is there anything more cringe than somebody attempting to unleash a beat-down, but fumbles it so badly that they only end up beating themselves?

It's so painfully obvious that he really, really thought he was doing something with that tweet. It's word salad that incorporates buzzwords he knows his base hates... regardless of whether it makes a lick of sense. WOKE! NON-BINARY! Ha ha! GOTHCA! Jesus. How fucking embarrassing.

   
• I Lie Because I Don't Care! Fuck this asshole. I understand that when you have nothing to support your bigotry, your lies are all you got, but forgive me if I don't give a crap. Your bullshit fantasies endangers people. It whips up hate against people who have done NOTHING to you. Not that you care. You don't care who your lies hurt... as long as it's people you don't like...

It would be different if her audience would take two seconds to verify that what she's saying is true... but we all know they won't. She feeds the narrative they want to believe, and it doesn't matter if it's true or not.

   
And that's a wrap on bullets. Until next week, then!

Nothing surprises me any more. Government can't afford to provide food to hungry kids... but government can afford millions of dollars to gold-plate some statues of horses. Government can't afford Social Security benefits that seniors have earned from a life of work... but government can afford to start a war to distract from its head being in the Epstein Files over 38,000 times. It goes on and on.

This kind of bullshit from the highest levels of government makes everything else seem trite.

But that's not to say there aren't surprising things out there that are giving the government a run for their money.

Because this is the craziest shit I've seen in a minute...

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE... SHIT GETS CRAZIER!

And, I gotta say, the lies coming out of the corporate offices for "Bricks & Minifigs" isn't garnering any sympathy from people. Though I do feel bad for is the franchise owners who are being lied to by corporate and suffering the brunt of the fucked-up bullshit that corporate has enabled...

The original owners of the store are revealing shit about the corporate offices of "Bricks & Minifigs" that's making things far, far worse for this asshole company. There is no doubt what-so-ever that "Bricks & MiniFigs" is a fucking nightmare, and patronizing these poor franchise locations who are blameless feels like a terrible solution, but since they have to send money to corporate, it's pretty much the only solution until corporate is made to pay for what they've done. What absolute fucking monsters.

From top to bottom, this company has done a horrible job of dealing with this situation. The CEO outright lying on tape certainly didn't help.

Whatever happened to right and wrong? It's all shades of grey now, and society is shittier because of it.

Don't think that life without water pressure will hold me back... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts...now...

   
• Take a Look, It's In a Book! When it comes to video games, I'm a creature of habit. I mostly play Minecraft Dungeons, which is such a relaxing way to wind down when I've had a particularly challenging day. I don't generally look for other games to play, but sometimes they find me. The latest of which I can't even play because it's not available for iPad or Mac! It's a weird concept to be sure. A fairy has ripped 3,072 books off the shelves of a magical library. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to put every last one of them back on the shelves where they belong...

The reviews are pretty stellar. People love it so much that even when they earn magical abilities to allow them to complete the game faster, they don't. Instead they put each book back manually. Because it's relaxing. I can't imagine a bigger endorsement than that. I really, really hope it comes to a platform I have available one day soon!

   
• Priorities! Take a look at this nonsense that greets you when you login to Facebook...

Facebook now prioritizes their shitty AI slop bullshit over your friends. Which speaks volumes. The reason they want you to use their product is not to communicate with those who mean something to you... it's to generate stupid AI crap. And I honestly don't get it. What do they gain by de-prioritizing your friends? Running AI nonsense is expensive. Having you engage with your friends is relatively cheap. Which is why it seems insane that you have to skip past TWO AI products before even getting to your friends. I don't fucking understand any of this. Probably too old.

   
• I'm on a Float! This past week I happened upon a discussion about how "stupid" water beds were, yet they were everywhere anyway. They didn't offer much support for sleep, they were impossible to move, they could have serious problems when it came to the water getting slimy, and they required a heating pad under or else the water would be freezing to sleep on. It was totally a messy idea that made no sense. And yet... I liked my water bed! It was comfortable enough (when warm) that I was able to fall asleep easily. Not sure it did much for sleep after I nodded off, but for the five years it was functional, I enjoyed sleeping on it. But then the heater had to be replaced for the second time, which requires you to completely drain the bladder, at which point my parents told me it was time to be rid of it. I kept the bed frame though, because it had a padded edge I liked, and just threw a regular mattress inside. So... stupid? Yes. Very. But not insanely so. Sometimes I miss flopping down on a squishy, sloshy bed at night.

   
• Full Disclosure! I haven't thoroughly enjoyed a Steven Spielberg movie since Minority Report in 2002. Before that there were quite a few. Despite it all, I never stop rooting for him out of pure nostalgia. His latest, Disclosure Day looks like he may break his 24-year dry spell for me...

At least I sure hope so.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter to plead guilty in child sexual abuse case, adding to pattern. "Once is an anomaly, twice is a trend." This is the sixth... SIXTH!... January 6th insurrectionist arrested for being a child predator? And that doesn't even touch the number of sex crimes and other criminal acts from the January 6 mob. All pardoned by the president. The so-called "law and order president." What a fucking joke.

   
• Inhumane! Years ago, a woman tossed a cat looking for affection into a trash bin. The cat was rescued, but the woman was caught on video and (rightfully) became a total pariah of society. People (rightfully) loathed her. She (rightfully) became one of the most infamous people in Britain. Her response made things even worse. If you hadn't heard about the story, here you go...

This morning a news story hit my feed with the headline 'Cat Bin Lady' Mary Bale still lives in Midlands - and doesn't feel forgiven. And I was like. Good. Fuck that piece of shit. This is all I could possibly want for her. Anybody who would cause suffering to an animal which did nothing but show them affection deserves to be an unforgiven outcast. People like this have no place in society.

   
• Talk About Performative! Good Lord am I exhausted over this stupid shit. It burns. IT BURNS!

When you are invited somewhere which has different traditions than you hold, it's merely being polite to be respectful to these traditions. People like this need to get out of the house and fucking travel more. I've been to countless places where I was respectful to my host by doing something I wouldn't usually do. What always, always, gets me is how these same people will totally lose their shit if somebody were to disrespect their traditions. Get a fucking life, asshole.

   
And now back to my regularly-scheduled water outage.

The Easter Bunny may be coming to town, but I'm goofing around on the internet ... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Work Chums! I've seen this several times, but I don't think I've shared it before...

If you've dealt with insurance before, you get it.

   
• Smartest Phone! Kit-Kat drama aside, this was my favorite April Fool's joke I saw...

Makes me want to actually buy a Bluey Phone!

   
• Geography! Washington is weird, y'all...

If you're not from here, you don't know how weird though.

   
• NEWSFLASH: MS. NOEM IS DEVASTATED. THE FAMILY WAS BLINDSIDED BY THIS, AND THEY ASK FOR PRIVACY AND PRAYERS AT THE TIME. And I'm asking you to fuck off with your bullshit. You used your position to utterly destroy lives without any regard to their privacy... and you certainly didn't pray on their behalf. Yet you have the absolute gall to ask for "privacy and prayers?" I do wonder if she was fired for this because the White House had advanced notice. They're already neck-deep in scandal, so it makes sense they would want to get this as far away from them as possible. I'd try to feel sorry for Bryon Noem getting attacked over something that was his own private business... but he knew what he married into and what she was. It's no surprise this is blowing up because of his own doing.

   
• Turn It Off and Back On Again! What's delicious about living in the digital age is that assholes can get internet detectives crawling up their ass with a microscope after they do something shitty. Take for instance this judge, who was a heinous douche to an IT worker helping him out. Many judges think they are gods, and when you show them that they're not, they react badly...

And now the internet has been digging up everything from his bankruptcies to other asshole behaviors and publishing them for the whole word to see. Good. That's what the internet should be used for.

   
• How is The Dow? In honor of the puss-filled piece of shit who used her position to protect sexual predators getting fired, I am re-posting the only good thing that came out of her tenure...

Now you can fuck off and just go away until somebody drags your ass in front of The Hague. And, God-willing, your former boss will be there with you. Speaking of which, here's the only good thing to come out of his tenure...

Any guesses as to who's next on the administration firings distraction BINGO card?

   
And on that note, Happy Easter to all who celebrate.

I'm a vegetarian. I choose to not eat meat. So imagine for a minute that I am a cook at a vegetarian restaurant. One day, the owner decides that we're going to start serving meat. I refuse to cook it because it goes against my vegetarian beliefs. The owner says "Well, that's the job. You either do the job or you can't work here." I not only refuse to cook meat, I also refuse to quit. Then I refuse to leave the restaurant. So the owner calls the police to have me removed. I go to jail for trespassing for five days. The owner says that this entire ordeal has made them decide to fire me, and they tell me to never come back.

And you should know that the entire time I was working for the vegetarian restaurant I was moonlighting as a cook for Burger King, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I was eating at McDonald's while I was cooking at Burger King.

Seven years later I petition the Supreme Court to ban meat completely.

Because if I don't want to eat it, nobody should have the freedom to eat it!

So there I am petting Jenny, my skittish orange cat, when my phone rings. Because of my job, I can't turn my phone off or set it to only ring for known callers, because I can have people calling from anywhere at any time. And I have to answer.

And so I do.

After Jenny gets scared by the ringing and goes running upstairs.

At which point she hangs up on me.

Outright LYING to people over their finances is about as low as it gets. Fuck you. Making it sound like you're some official calling about a person's credit cards like there's a problem when you're just another fucking scammer asshole credit card consolidation company trying to drum up business by throwing out some random number and hoping it hits.

This scammer piece of shit should consider herself very, very lucky that I don't have the ability to make people's heads explode over the phone.

VERY.

Yesterday I blathered on about asshole movie studios depriving customers of what they paid for... access to movies and shows that were sold to them. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Something I cannot fathom is how studios will sit on shows they own and not release them for people to enjoy. This was something that hit me pretty hard after Stephen Dunham died in 2012. He was the star of Oh Grow Up! (from 1999), a series I loved that can't be watched anywhere. It was never released on DVD, was never offered digitally and, from what I can tell, has never been shown on any network after its original run. I have it recorded on 8mm tape somewhere, but don't know that I have a player capable of playing them even if I could find the tapes. You can tapes to be converted to digital, but companies won't do it because they're copyrighted material.

What a waste. Dunham was a good actor and his work deserves to be seen. The pilot episode is on YouTube, but not much else...

Sometimes you can get lucky. There was a show called The Palace Guard (from 1991) which I loved that was eventually released as a part of a Stephen J. Cannell DVD collection set (and I've seen it on some free-view services from time to time... it's currently playing for free on Plex). It was a fun show about a cat burglar that becomes a security expert for an international chain of hotels. But I don't know how much longer those DVDs will even work, if they haven't crapped out already (see yesterday's post)...

Other times you can get... kinda lucky. A Connie Sellecca and Greg Evigan vehicle I liked called P.S.I. Luv U (also from 1991) was never released for home video in any format... but some kind soul uploaded all episodes to YouTube nine years ago, albeit in atrocious quality, and I have watched through them all a couple times...

No idea how legal it is, but if the studio who owns it isn't going to do anything with the show, somebody has to. It's one of six series I would very much be thrilled to purchase (and there's plenty of others)...

• P.S.I. Luv U (1991)
• Strange Luck (1995)
• Cupid (1998)
• Oh Grow Up! (1999)
• Now and Again (1999)
• The American Embassy (2002)

The frustrating thing about all this is that it costs practically nothing to convert a show to digital format. It's all automated. You put the tapes in the machine and push a button. The software which encodes it and cleans it up doesn't require any technical expertise. Just a person to load/unload.

You'd think with streaming networks desperate to have content for their services which are exceedingly cheap, this would be a no-brainer. But it's not like you could accuse studio executives of having a brain.