For the LOVE OF GOD, Coca-Cola... could you please stop making it exponentially more confusing to buy your products?
I walk into the mini-mart to buy a Coke Zero. But instead I have to stand there for five minutes trying to figure out which bottle is just plain ol' original Coke Zero. You're flooding the market with a stupid number of variants that nobody gives a shit about which reduces the number of lanes available for the product everybody wants. then you keep changing the labels and hiring shitty fucking designers who let promo art TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER YOUR FUCKING PRODUCT NAME?!? I needed a pair of reading glasses to suss out what the hell I was holding, but I didn't have any so I had to take a picture with my phone so I could zoom in and see if this was actually Coke Zero...
At the BARE FUCKING MINIMUM you need to have an EFFECTIVE calm space behind the product name so that consumers older than 30 CAN ACTUALLY READ WHAT THE FUCK IT IS. And why are Coke and Coke Zero the same color? Make Coke signature red. Take Coke Zero back to black. That would eliminate 50% of the confusion right there.
Stupid marketing shit drives me insane. It drives me thermonuclear insane when companies with millions of dollars hire design firms who don't know how to market products correctly. Making sure the customer can quickly and easily understand and find your product is Design 101. Stop working with shitty design firms who don't know the ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM OF EFFECTIVE PRODUCT DESIGN.
I'd redesign their labels for free just so I could find the shit when I walk into a shop... but effective design isn't something Coke gives a shit about, apparently, so I guess I start taking reading glasses to the mini-mart.
For only the third time in my life, I've changed my mobile company.
I've considered it many, many times, but the effort to switch over something I don't care that much about was never worth it to me. If I can make calls and access the internet, I'm good. But eventually the reasons to switch are far more than the reasons to not switch, so here we are.
My first cellular carrier was Verizon. I liked everything about them and stuck with the company for a little over a decade. Right up until the Summer of 2007. And why did I switch from a mobile carrier that I had been so loyal to? The first iPhone was released, and it was exclusive to AT&T. Had Verizon been able to sell me an iPhone, I would have stayed.
Switching to AT&T was okay. I didn't love them. I didn't hate them. I just went along with them out of sheer momentum for nearly fourteen years. Their coverage was never as good as I had with Verizon, but it was good enough. What was horrific about AT&T was their billing. I have no fucking idea why it was so shitty, but in my last four years it kept building and building until I couldn't take it any more. After I changed plans I spent hours on the phone trying to get my bill straightened out. It never worked. The next month I'd just have to start all over again. The minute I was eligible for T-Mobile's Magenta 55+ plan, I bailed.
The nice thing about T-Mobile was the price. $50 a month. Total. Taxes and fees included. But that price came at a cost... 1) The signal was terrible so many places despite the fact that my handset was showing good bars and 5G. 2) They discriminate against single people, because single-line customers didn't get the perks (like free Netflix) that multi-line customers get, even though single-line customers pay more per line than anybody! 3) They keep changing the game from when I signed up. First I couldn't pay with a credit card any more or they'd take away my auto-pay discount, then they decided to raise the price $5 a month. With no perks, poor quality service, and a price increase, I was done.
And now I've come full circle. I'm back to Verizon. I was going to go with a pre-paid plan just to get the best price, but ultimately went with a regular phone plan because... GET THIS: VERIZON DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE AGAINST SINGLE PEOPLE! Single-line subscribers get all the perks that multi-line subscribers get! So when I factored in an auto-pay discount, a bring-your-own-phone discount, plus the money I would save on stuff I was already paying for by taking advantage of the choose-your-own-perks, I would be paying the same $55 that T-Mobile was charging. Except taxes and fees were not included, so I am paying $8 more. But I was willing to pay it to get Verizon's better service... and to support the fact that VERIZON DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE AGAINST SINGLE PEOPLE! Interesting to note that when I take advantage of other perk savings that are available when my current subscriptions lapse, I can likely recoup the $8, and maybe more...
In three years my "bring your own phone" discount will end. I don't know if Verizon will make an offer to keep me... or if I'll have to switch again... but I think I'm to the point where I'd rather switch for a fourth time than pay more for what I was already getting, so maybe I'll jump to a pre-paid plan then. Or switch carriers. Or give up on a mobile phone altogether.
You can do that, can't you?
People can get really aggressive over Memorial Day. Somebody will inevitably say "Today is the day we honor our troops!" at which point somebody else will inevitably respond with "YOU MORON! THAT'S VETERAN'S DAY! THIS IS MEMORIAL DAY WHEN WE REMEMBER THOSE SOLDIERS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY!" I see this and am like dude, calm yourself. This is true, but they were at least trying to do a good thing so there's no need to be quite so aggressive about it.
Then today I turned on my television and saw that PlutoTV had a marathon of movies to "salute the troops" and was all "YOU MORON! THAT'S VETERAN'S DAY! THIS IS MEMORIAL DAY WHEN WE REMEMBER THOSE SOLDIERS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY!" But in my case I was railing against a faceless streaming corporation so it's okay.
Yesterday I had planned to work on home improvement projects, but had to spend the first six hours of my day cleaning my garage wood shop so I could find all the things I needed to actually do the work. Every year I swear I'm going to keep everything organize and clean up as I go... but then I get absorbed in projects and don't do that. So I lose stuff. Which is why I have four hammers, three crowbars, five tape measures, etc. etc.
I found what I needed half-way through cleaning yesterday, so this morning I decided to clean up what was left before continuing work. Alas, it took most of the day so I didn't get much else done. I mean, I did hang the mirror back up in the guest bathroom, so I guess that counts for something.
It was also my big plan to bake bread today but I didn't, so that counts for nothing.
Any other day that would be sad, but isn't nothing what's supposed to happen on a holiday?
I'm deep into home improvement projects, but don't despair... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Read a Book! Two excellent documentaries A Beatles doc on The Beach Boys (Disney+) which was very good, but had a horrible sound mix. The music is blasting... sometimes over the dialogue. And then there's the Reading Rainbow doc (Netflix) which is perfect...
Well worth your time. Especially if you're familiar with the program. I remember it would play in the lounge at college even though it was meant for kids. But it was not dumbed-down entertainment, so it was watchable for everybody.
• Sixty-Nine, Dude!! So there I was, ready to turn in for the night this past Tuesday when I saw a bright light flickering out my window. At first I thought it was just a plane because the light looked red. But it never moved, so I pulled out the StarWalk 2 app on my phone and found out it was a comet named 13P/Olbers which comes around every 69 years. It won't be here again until 2094, so I hope you saw it while you had a chance...
Sweet! Really makes me wish I had a telescope!
• Beautiful Cabin Crew Scarlett Johansson! When powerful people want something and you won't give it to them, then they just take it. Doesn't matter if that power comes from money... or people who are controlling a powerful force in our lives like A.I... what's yours is theirs. In the case of Scarlett Johansson, OpenAI. took her voice after she told them she didn't want to work with them. Hope with all your might that powerful people don't want something you have.
• I'm Good, Thanks! Sonos released the news that their new "Ace" headphones will release on June 5. And it's like they honestly think I would buy their shit? I couldn't use Dolby Atmos on my Sonos soundbar because it took years for them to fix the "pop of death" that plagued it. YEARS! Their interim solution was to "turn Atmos off" WHEN THAT'S THE ENTIRE REASON I BOUGHT IT! Between that and their shitty fucking app that makes using their gear a horrendous ordeal (I am filled with rage every time I have to scroll through a playlist because it keeps pausing to load), there's zero fucking chance I'd spend $450 on a pair of their fucking headphones. It's weird to think that Sonos was once the pinnacle of audio equipment with incredible features you just had to have (considering you could afford it), but now I honestly don't care if they flame out and shut down.
• Smell That Freedom! France has released a stamp that smells like baguettes! Nifty. BUT ALL 'MURICAN STAMPS SMELL LIKE FREEDOM!
Except I still want some of those baguette stamps. Who wouldn't?
• Enter The Sandman: Part Two! I have been anxiously awaiting to see who gets cast as the remaining Endless for the second season of The Sandman, and here they are...
Perfect. But I am still waiting for an adaptation of Death: The High Cost of Living. I don't understand why it's not been announced. It would be relatively cheap to produce. Just write a check for a fraction of the money you gave to Zack Snyder to crap the Rebel Moon movies out of his ass and call it good.
• Pigment! Wonderful look at a 300 year-old artisanal pastel shop in France...
I love stuff like this. In an age when computer-generated A.I. "art" is all the rage, it's nice to see the craftsmanship that goes into the tools of creating actual art.
• Corruption. the only REAL bipartisan issue! I saw this last week and it hasn't left my head. And yet we keep voting for this fucking bullshit instead of persecuting them all for treason...
Treason, which I'll remind you, is punishable by death in this country.
Until next time, buckaroo.
The fact that my cats are such a small percentage of my size and yet occupy a far greater percentage of my bed is an irony that's not lost on me. And do you think that they care even a little bit that I have to struggle to find a place to sleep? The answer will not shock you. It's no.
Take this show from last night, for example...
Now, lest you think that the square-ish lump is my legs folded up, it's not. That's a pillow that Jenny was propped up against that I couldn't move or else she'd get mad (seen in green below). No, I'm barely on the bed at all, with my legs almost falling off (seen in red below)...
Now, the good news is that Jenny rarely wants to stick around after I go to bed. The minute I close my laptop and turn the lights off, she's running downstairs to sleep who-knows-where. So once she's gone I could move the pillow and move my legs on the other side of Jake where I have a little more room. He will be in that exact same spot when I wake up in the morning. At which time he'll let me know he's hungry.
Cats have got to be the most narcissistic creatures on the planet (after humans, of course). The world really is all about them. And when it's not, they make it that way.
Apple's release of their new iPads got me to wondering about how much the Adobe apps have approved over the past three years. I had bought a 2020 iPad Pro because I heard that useable versions of Illustrator and Photoshop were out for iPad (or coming soon to iPad... I can't remember). But then found out that they weren't really in a state that I could use them to do actual work. They were but a shadow of the full program. It was a bummer, but I had something fun to play with during pandemic lockdowns, so it was all good.
Turns out that the apps have improved dramatically. Not only can I open and edit full-on Illustrator and Photoshop files, the feature set is rich enough that I can do real work on it. So that's nice. But it's not the most impressive thing I've discovered after ignoring my iPad for years.
That would be an app called "Adobe Fresco" which is around 4 years old now.
Meant to compete head-to-head with "Procreate," it's a drawing and painting program that's darn good. It has a different approach in some areas, and is a vast improvement in others (particularly with their animation tools and "live brushes"). It's matured a lot in the past few years...
And so... looks like I'll be taking a closer look at that this holiday weekend.
Though, call me old fashioned, but I will always prefer physical media over digital drawing tools. There's just something about getting your hands dirty that makes art seem more "real" to me.
The trailers for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice dropped today!
I tell you what, it's so nice to have something to look forward to. There has been a real dearth of good genre entertainment lately (Madame Web!), and I'm ready.
This movie looks exactly like what I'd want it to look like...
As does this one...
I have massive expectations for more Deadpool...
And then there's the new Cap movie coming...
And don't forget about Acolyte, which will be here in a few weeks...
Looks like the most Jedi thing to ever come out of Star Wars. FINALLY we might get to see the full potential of what a group of Jedi is capable of. Something I thought we'd get in Attack of the Clones when they teased The First Battle of Geonosis. But nope! Sure we got Mace Windu being all badass and cool with his Jedi acrobatics. But that's it. All the Jedi in the background are just indiscriminately waving their lightsabers around and using "Force Push" against a bunch of robots while firmly planted. It was fucking embarrassing. I've plaed LEGO Star Wars video games that were more exciting. Why not have all of the Jedi leaping around and being badass cool instead of this nonsense...
Kit Fisto deserved better. And Star Wars fans definitely did.
But anyway... nice to have something to look forward to.
UPDATE: And now this...
I'm excited about this, even though it's delaying a new season of Poker Face. But that logo... ACK!! Not centered up correctly because they did it mathematically instead of visually. Hopefully the movie will be better than that!
Kapgar left a comment on Monday's entry which reminded me of something that always puts my stomach in a knot: The Chicago Blackhawks sexual assault scandal.
Kyle Beach was on my radar when he came up to the practice squad in the Blackhawks because I saw that he had played in Spokane (which is across the basin from me in Washington State). He never made it to any NHL play, so I lost track of him fairly quickly, but I absolutely knew of him back then.
A decade later in 2021 he came forward as a victim of sexual assault at the hands of a coach during his time with the team. He was 20 years old at the time. When the news broke I was still a diehard Blackhawks fan, because the Kraken had only just started playing and I wasn't invested with the team yet.
I will never forget hearing Beach's interview about his assault at the hands of coach Bradley Aldrich. It was so incredibly painful to watch him break down as he talked about feeling so utterly alone and afraid as he had to endure ridicule by his teammates. Even worse, he was told by the organization that what happened was his fault, which means he got no support from the staff who essentially called him a liar.
The interview was heartbreaking, but incredibly important...
That hurt me to watch back then. A lot. In some ways it hurts more now, because the entire scandal irrevocably changed my relationship with my favorite hockey team.
Seeing how horrifically this was handled by the Blackhawks and Beach's teammates soured me on them instantly.
Indeed, it was directly responsible for me becoming a fan of the Seattle Kraken, where I could start anew with my love of hockey. That they are my local team just made it all the easier. I've never left the Blackhawks behind completely, but it's seriously tough to follow the team when Kyle Beach is still fresh in my mind. My Blackhawks jersey still hangs in my closet, where it's been ever since. I think the only way I'd wear Blackhawks gear again would be if I got a customized Beach jersey...
Because I'm just going to say it: Beach is a fucking hero for coming forward and advocating for change. Nobody deserves what he went through, and I wish every single man everywhere could see this so they understand that assault can happen to anybody, and our toxic masculinity culture means that nothing and nobody will save you. Instead you get dismissed, called a liar, and ridiculed. This isn't the way it should be, and things have got to change.
Lucky for all of us these assaults are finally being dragged kicking and screaming into the public eye. And we have heroes like Kyle Beach to thank for it. He says that he received a lot of support after speaking out. I sure hope that's true because he deserves nothing less.
There's no Krispy Kreme anywhere near me. Which is probably a good thing, because their "doughnuts" are pure sugar, and I don't need to be eating that.
But I was in Seattle yesterday for eye surgery and there's a Krispy Kreme on the way home... AND DOLLY PARTON HAS A COLLABORATION WITH THEM FOR A COLLECTION OF FOUR EXCLUSIVE NEW FLAVORS!! If you don't think I'm stopping by for a half-dozen to support Dolly Parton, then you don't know me at all...
Once I walked inside, I saw that Dolly's Southern Sweets Doughnut Collection was displayed together on the top row in a place of honor...
I wanted a half-dozen, so I got two each of the ones that I thought I'd like best (Spoiler Alert: my guesses for favorites were correct). Look at how pretty...
Here they are, in order of preference...
But anyway... a triumph. Could have been better if they'd just stop with the glaze already, but I was very happy with them. If you've got a Krispy Kreme in your area then it's definitely worth stopping by.
I've mentioned more than a few times here, I try really hard to not have regrets in life (okay, I've probably mentioned it several times... give me a break, I've been blogging for over 20 years!). It's just not worth it to pine away over something you did or didn't do, something you said or didn't say, or somewhere you went or didn't go. Just be happy with what you got out of this life and not worry about the rest. It happened. Or didn't. What more can you do without the ability to travel in time?
That being said...
This is not to say that there aren't things I wish could have happened or not happen for one reason or another. Missed opportunities, if you will.
As an example... I really wish I had visited the Aspen Hard Rock Cafe when it was open. It would have been so easy to do. So easy that I kept putting it off so I could hit the more difficult ones in foreign countries. But then the cafe closed with little warning and my plan to visit every US cafe evaporated. That really sucked. It haunted me for years. Now-a-days, when I've pretty much given up on visiting Hard Rock properties, it's like... meh.
As another example... I really wish that I had visited the infamous "Star Wars Hotel" (AKA Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser) at Walt Disney World in Florida. I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, and the immersive properties of the hotel seemed like something I would have enjoyed. But it was ungodly expensive, and I just couldn't afford it. My plan was to wait until the newness wore off and the price would (hopefully) drop a bit when Disney needed to draw in more visitors.
Except rather than lower the price when they weren't getting enough visitors, Disney CLOSED THE HOTEL! I was bummed. Just like the Aspen Hard Rock, I had missed my opportunity forever.
And then I saw this video by one of my favorite YouTubers, Jenny Nicholson, detailing her totally fucked and busted experience at the doomed attraction. It's four hours, but time well-spent...
Holy shit!
Thank God I didn't have thousands of dollars to throw away on this awful experience. Knowing my luck, I'd end up with a worse stay than Jenny, and it's not like Disney is going to give you your money back if they failed to accomplish what they promise. At least I assume that's the case. If you go to one of their theme parks and an attraction you were dying to ride is broken down, you don't get part of your ticket price back. Unless you're an influencer with huge social media reach, apparently.
So, yeah, absolutely no regrets when it comes to Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.
As it should be.
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