Growing up in the 70's and 80's means that I remember things that a lot of people just... don't. Sometimes that's a good thing. I remember when personal computers started, and they were just fun. I mean, yeah, they would eventually turn into a work tool and ruin everything, but at the beginning they were just fun.
And sometimes that's a bad thing. Things that are treatale and survivable now weren't so much back then. Although, thanks to misinformation and dumbshits with a platform, we're back-sliding into inexplicable anti-science, anti-vax nonsense. So make of that what you will.
And sometimes? It's complicated.
When I was a kid, getting to go to a restaurant for a meal was a special treat. And my most favorite places to eat were as follows...
Sambo's was an old restaurant chain which got its name from the two founders... SAM Battistone Sr. and Newell BOhnett. And it's like... okay. Catchy.
Except... not really.
Because the restaurant leaned hard into a highly controversial children's book called Little Black Sambo. It had racist illustrations and it didn't help at all that "Sambo" would become a racial slur for Black persons...
In the book, Sambo gives tigers his clothes and they fight over them so ferociously that they turn into butter, which Sambo then puts on pancakes. The staple food of the restaurants.
When the restaurants began, they had murals of the story on their walls. But by the time my family was going to the local franchise, they had changed the story to a little Indian boy who ran around a tree until the tiger chasing him turned into butter that he could put on his pancakes. And that was the character in the murals that I remember...
In addition to racism, Sambo's was known for its low prices, as you can see in these commercials...
Eventually the restaurants couldn't outrun their racist connections and turned to butter. Or, in the case of our local restaurant, changed its name to "Season's." I don't remember anything about the re-brand except the name. But, alas, not enough people wanted to eat at the restaurant without the racism, and the chain folded. Ours eventually turned into a pizza restaurant.
I wish the local Big City had an IHOP, but the closest thing we had was a Denny's. Where the pancakes just aren't as good. Maybe they should try using tiger butter?
If you want to know more about Sambo's, here you go...
Don't miss the racist restaurants. Kinda miss the architecture and pancakes.
Though there are copycat recipes all over the internet, so maybe I only miss the architecture.
It's dangerous to make New Year resolutions in these horror-filled days... so instead I've been leaning into other traditions.
One that I adopted from a friend is the Great Expired Food Purge.
This is where you go through every food item in your house and toss things that are expired. Although in this economy, I don't throw out anything that's lightly expired. That stuff gets put on a USE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE shelf so I can try to figure out what to do with it. Which is to say that, preferrably, I eat it.
Most of the stuff getting thrown out this year is the "lightly expired" stuff that I didn't throw out last year.
But a rare subset are things that I bought because they sounded good at the time and were on a sale too good to resist. Then they sit in my cupboard for a few years until there's nothing left to do except reluctantly throwing it in the trash. This is usually things like soup, pasta sauces, and salad dressings. I'll buy into a "Buy One Get One Free" or "Get One Half Price" or whatever. Then eat one and hate it. Then hope that I forget how bad it is so I'll eat it before it expires.
But here's the thing... how often do you forget eating terrible food?
In my case, the answer is apparently "never."
And that's what filled the grocery bag I just walked out to the trash.
Will I ever learn?
Likely not.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
—Santayana
Last night after work I went out to eat because it had been a very long day, I was too tired to cook, and I wanted breakfast. And it was wonderful. Perfectly cooked. Perfectly seasoned. I couldn't have made it better myself. It was so good that I was able to overlook the cost, which was expensive. But no more expensive than anything else out there now-a-days, which means it was actually a fair price.
Tonight when it was time to go home after another very long day, I was seriously wanting to go out for breakfast again, but didn't want it to get weird, and furthermore didn't have the money to be spending two nights in a row.
Instead I went home and had cereal with toast. Followed by apple sauce and crackers. Followed by freeze-dried strawberries and more crackers.
And I ate all that in the cold.
Can somebody please explain Apple's thinking when Siri's response to "Hey Siri, make it warmer" inevitably ends up being "It's 70° in here and could take a while to warm up. Are you sure you want to make it warmer?"
When I'm cold and want it warmer, what the fuck difference is telling me a number going to make? Is their thinking that I'm going to hear a number and think "Oh. I guess I'm not cold after all! Never mind, Siri!"... because what kind of stupid shit is that?
Likewise, what good does telling me that it could take a while to heat up going to do? Do they honestly believe that I'm going to hear that and say "Oh, if it's going to take a while, just forget it then!"... because that's even more stupid.
JUST MAKE IT FUCKING WARMER LIKE I ASKED! DON'T WASTE MY TIME WITH THIS NONSENSE THAT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE MY BEING COLD!
This kind of idiotic shit drives me insane. But when it comes to Siri, about all you get is idiotic shit. Siri is 14 years old but, due to how smart everything else is getting smarter while it stays the same, Siri seems to be getting more and more stupid. We were supposed to get an update well over a year ago, but it still hasn't shown up.
What has shown up is a headache, so I guess I'll grab an aspirin and call it an early night.
Assuming my cats don't wake me up because they're cold.
I've been seeing a crazy number of YouTube videos about "Disney Adults." Most always in negative terms... IT'S A CULT! and DISNEY ADULTS ARE STEALING THE DISNEY PARKS FROM CHILDREN! and THESE PEOPLE VOTE! or whatever. To support their thesis, content creators are forever churning out these "in-depth analysis" videos which tries to apply psychology and scientific concepts to the idea that adult fans of Disney are delusional cultish freaks who need to be put down for the good of society. Rude!
I don't mind being called a "Disney Adult." There's nothing wrong with being an adult Disney fan. There's fun Disney things to be had as an adult (and some things definitely not to be had).
What I do mind is being accused of being in a "cult." Something that recently happened in the comments on my cruise post. Which I didn't read until Christmas Day. So Merry fucking Christmas to me.
I'm a massive geek for architecture and design of public spaces. Theme parks are a great expression of both, and I had dreams of becoming a Disney "Imagineer" for ages because of it. Studying how the attractions are made is actually more interesting to me than the attractions themselves. This lead to me having a consulting job piggybacked on Disney in Orlando for several years, and I ended up with friends there. Which is why I end up at Disney World so often, and spend time at their parks, resorts, ships, and whatever. At first it was a place to meet up with friends after work. Then, once my work there ended, it was to hang out with friends I met there. — If I had worked with Betty Crocker, I'd have been in Minnesota all the time and posting about the cakes I was eating while working or hanging out with my friends. But it wasn't Betty Crocker, it was Disney... so I'm in a cult?
I'm a graphic designer who's a huge fan of art, in general, and animation, specifically (there was a time I wanted to be an animator before it all went computer graphics). So, naturally, I watch all the Disney animated movies. But I also watch a ton of other animated stuff. Disney is such a small piece of what I'm interested in... but it's an important one (the news that Disney is toying with the idea of returning to hand-draw animated features definitely has me excited). And because of that... I'm in a cult?
As a fan of art, I have a lot of it hanging in my home. A chunk of it is Disney-related because that's where I've been so many times. I was there for work. I was there for the charity I worked with. I was there to meet up with the friends I made who live in the area. I was there three to five times a year for 17 years. I was given Disney art as gifts. I eventually ended up collecting prints by Disney-related artists like Dave Perillo and Jerrod Maruyama to remind me of my trips. But I also collect non-Disney prints by artists like Chris Ware and original comic book art by artists like Amanda Conner and Curt Swan which also hang in my home. I've also got art I bought from my travels around the world, but because Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is on my wall... I'm in a cult?
Because Disney is such a huge part of my childhood (and the years of work I had), I have a lot of Disney memorabilia displayed in my home. But I also have numerous other pieces of memorabilia from my life which has nothing to do with Disney that's on display. Concert programs, signed records, old tin signs, movie posters... not to mention hundreds of photos of my family friends from over the years. But because I framed the Disneyland map I got as a kid... I'm in a cult?
Alrighty then. Pass me the Kool-Aid, I guess...
The above is most of the souvenirs I have from my very first visit to Disneyland when I was ten years old. I kept it all these decades because my parents bought it for me and I couldn't throw it out. Some of what I had was in pretty rough shape, so I managed to find replacements on eBay in better condition...
You can click the photo to embiggen it... or click on this link right here.
The map, for example, hung in my bedroom for my entire childhood, getting faded and having the corners ripped out from the thumbtacks. It took me years to find a replacement. There's loads and loads of old Disneyland maps out there, but I wanted the one with Mickey, Goofy, and Donald dressed in 1776 fife & drum Americana, because that's what I had as a kid. Eventually eBay listed one from an estate sale and, once I bought it, I decided to get everything framed up. It's fun to look at as I walk into my home and remember back to that visit with my family. And it's interesting too. Because boy Disneyland sure was a very different place back then.
Still don't understand how any of this puts me into a cult.
Maybe I should watch more clickbait videos to find out for sure...
That last video is particularly hilarious, because her fucking SurfShark advertisement is more cringe than anything she's presenting as "cringe" in her "takedown"...
But anyway...
Do I think Disney Adults exist which are problematic? Oh hell yes. I run across them every time I'm anywhere Disney-related. Usually they are "social media influencers" and that's what makes them problematic. It's not that they love Disney, it's that they intrude on other people who are just there to have fun. They hold up lines and block traffic to get a selfie or shoot a video. They take over spaces and experience just to get likes at the expense of other people who are trying to enjoy themselves. People who likely spent a considerable amount of money to be there. It's annoying as hell, and dunking on these assholes is justifiable.
And, sure, there actually are people who build their lives around all things Disney and their entire existence revolves around their next trip to Disney World (or Disney-wherever). And good for them. People should be allowed to follow their bliss, be happy, and escape from the horrors of the world doing whatever is going to make life bearable. You do you. It doesn't affect anybody else. Spend the money you have and the time you have however you want.
Because, I gotta say, there are people building their lives around far worse things than Mickey Mouse.
Like spending their time trashing people who are enjoying their best life at zero cost to others as an "influencer.".
Can you believe that I was actually considering ditching Bullet Sunday and Caturday in 2026? Madness! But fear ye not... because you got a Caturday yesterday and all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Muji! One of my favorite brands is not a brand at all. At least, not a brand like we normally think of brands. When I was going to Japan frequently, I happened across
Muji is very, very Japanese. To understand the brand is to understand a lot about the Japanese people. And the lovely host of The Science of Products does an amazing job of breaking it all down. Somewhere in the boxes out in my garage are the Muji notebook and pen I bought on my very first trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. I wanted to write down all the weird, wild, and wonderful stuff I was experiencing and came unprepared. My Japanese was terrible, but I could make myself understood. I popped into a hotel in the area I was at, said "Kami to pen wa doko des kamasu ka?," and was given a map with the location nearby. A few days later I found (and fell in love with) "Tokyu Hands," a massive, massive stationery store in Shinjuku. But there's a soft spot in my heart for Muji, a not-brand I still love. One of these days, I need to get to Portland, Oregon and visit the store there. Or, you know, go back to Japan and visit a few of them there.
• Akasaka Nooooo! And speaking of... I wanted to locate where I bought my notebook, found it, was curious how far away from my hotel it was, then saw on Google Maps that it was "permanently closed." So I ran to Google and got this: "Yes, the Akasaka Excel Hotel Tokyu permanently closed on August 31, 2023, due to the termination of its lease agreement, after serving Tokyo as a business and tourist hotel since 1969. The closure was announced by Tokyu Hotels (TOKYU HOTELS Co., Ltd.) as part of their company press releases." This is really sad to me, because I would have totally stayed there again if I ever make it back to Tokyo.
• Tubs! I needed this...
Aren't animals wonderful? Case in point...
I really need to get me a trash panda.
• Bugged! Finally rented Bugonia. I am not a Yorgos Lanthimos fan, but admit he kinda knocked it out of the park with this one. You get a true ending, thankfully, but I have so many questions about what transpired...
Watching the game develop between Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons relied entirely on them selling it as actors... and they did not falter.
• Hey Nancy! Good news, everyone! We're mere hours away from me starting to write my all-new all-SEXY version of Nancy Drew! She's solving mysteries by day and breaking hearts by night... and doing both SEXILY this time!
It's only a matter of time before I think of an idea for a new Mickey Mouse and Nancy Drew crossover novel.
• Zipf! If you have an interest in languages, then this 20 minute video is for you...
Surprising... but shouldn't really be surprising. If you know what I mean.
• Triangle of... Sadness? I wonder if I beseeched Beecher's Handmade Cheese to stop making their cheese in thick triangles and switch to triangle logs if it would do any good? Cutting up thick triangles results in inconsistent piece sizes.
I'd probably buy double the amount of my beloved Marco Polo if I knew I could cut it into consistent piece sizes that would fit on crackers.
• Smart Dumb Home! For anybody wondering what I ended up doing after I couldn't get Apple's HomeKit HomeShit to recover, I actually did end up deleting about seven devices so I could re-add them and then re-write my Automations. Apple bastards. Those devices wouldn't resolve no matter how many times I rebooted my hubs. Beyond shitty... but at least I didn't have to start over from scratch.
And there you go... the first Bullet Sunday of 2026 is in the can.
My cats saved my life this past week. Again. It's an annoying habit they have whenever I'm circling the drain of depression and despair.
But enough about me...
Sometimes when Jenny comes up to me to be petted, she's wet. Never smells like urine as if she's peed all over herself, so I just figured she's been rubbing against something wet out in the catio and dismissed it. But then... I was petting her, she left, went and got a drink of water, then came back wet. And there it was. Her tongue that's half paralyzed (which is why she makes such a mess when eating wet food) is somehow splashing water everywhere which then bounces off of whatever to land on her. Or maybe her tongue is throwing it on her back? Weird. One of these days, I'm going to have to run over to her while she's drinking so I can try and figure out exactly how it's happening. Because it seems physically impossible.
Jenny seems to alternate between being wary of me...
Or resentful of me...
Except when asleep, of course...
Or pretending to be asleep...
Or when I'm petting her. Wet fur and all.
More tech drama. Have I mentioned how much I loathe Apple HomeKit HomeShit?
If I haven't (let's be real, I definitely have) then you should probably know that my hatred is very real, and has now reached such depths as to send me into a rage just thinking about it. As I wrote yesterday I awoke to find that on the first day in this Year of Our Lord, 2026, 3/4 of my "smart" home devices were offline and half my Automations were missing. Now, when this happens I can usually get most of those devices to come back online if I power-cycle all my hubs (nothing can be done to bring back the automations). It's for this reason that I have non-HomeShit power plugs on all my iPod minis and AppleTVs.
And so, before I left on an errand I had to run before work, I sat in my car to power off all the hubs. Then, when I finished my errand and made it to the office, I turned them all back on. Three hours later as I ate lunch, I pulled up Apple's HomeShit app on my iPhone... and... there were stil six devices which hadn't recovered. Which means I'm going to waste time removing them then resetting them so I can re-add them before re-writing the Automations that got trashed somehow.
Easy.
Just time-consuming.
And here's a new wrinkle... the re-written automations do not work!
No idea why. I can test them. They test as expected. But they don't work.
For exmaple... I have it so when one of the lights in the guest bathroom is turned on, the other light turns on too. Turn one off, they both turn off. It's incredibly basic, but important because otherwise it's not light enough in there.
Absolutely no idea what I do now. After dinner I'll delete them all and try re-writing one more time. If that doesn't work, I guess I have to try removing devices and re-adding them. If that doesn't work, then I guess I have to completely reset absolutely everything and start over from scratch.
If that ends up being the case, I can say goodbye to my weekend.
Which brings me to a decision I have to make...
I gotta tell you... Option #3 is looking very appealing to me. If I waste two days and the shit is still broken, I'm going to be angry and never get over it. If I trash HomeShit and start over with something else which ends up broken, I'm going to be angry and never get over it. If I just end up giving up completely on having a "smart" home, I'm totally going to be angry.
But I'll get over it.
I just have to go back to remembering where all the light switches are and figure out and possible have to re-think some lighting in a few places. Like the guest bathroom.
In other tech drama, I'm slowly getting all my data transfered from my QNAP NAS to my UGREEN NAS.
This is taking a while because I have a metric shit-ton of photos to copy. I always took a lot of photos when I traveled. Then when the charity closed and I wasn't traveling as much, I ended up with Jake and Jenny and started taking a metric shit-ton of cat photos. You know how it goes.
My problem is (and always has been) that I don't sort through photos after I take them. I snap! snap! snap! snap! take them with the intent of keeping the best images and tossing the rest. Except I never have time to do that. Maybe I'll commit to sorting through 50 photos every morning when I wake up and see if I can whittle down the number of photos in my archive by half. Or, if I get serious about it, whittle down to a quarter of what I'm sitting on. Which should be easy because there's just so many pictures that are practically identical. There's AI software which is supposed to make the task easier, but I've not looked into it. And maybe I should.
In the meanwhile, I guess I save my money for a new pair of hard drives, given the ones I have are all older and probably not very reliable. They will likely be giving up the ghost soon.
Like myself.
Or like my patience with HomeShit, which has now evaporated.
Happy New Year!
Or not.
I woke up this fine New Year only to find that Apple's HomeKit HomeShit had shit the bed... yet again. Most of my devices were non-responsive and half my Automations were missing. I'd say that this is a bad omen of how my 2026 is going to go... but this happens at least twice a year (it happened four times in 2025, I kept count)... which means this is likely just a coincidence. As always, no fucking clue why this happens or how to fix it without resetting everything. And rewriting all my automations, since Apple doesn't bother to back up anything despite these failures being a regular occurrence. Holy fucking shit I wish I hadn't moved to Apple for my smart home. But my previous gear was discontinued, so I did it. And should have gone with something else. Anything else.
In an inexplicable turn of events, a shocking number of fireworks went off last night. An insane number. They started at 7:30pm and ran constantly all night... traumatizing my cats. And I don't get it. We didn't get this many fireworks for the 4th of July. Perhaps people are so sick and tired of 2025 that it seemed appropriate?
Though why they think 2026 is going to be any better is a mystery.
There was no white Christmas where I live this year.
When my mom was a kid, the snow got so deep that they used to jump off the roof of a two-story house into it. When I was a kid, the snow got so deep that we used to tunnel under it from yard to yard. But this year? Nothing. No snow, last night it was just bitter, bitter cold. It was so cold last night that I double-bagged my feet with wool socks. Something I never felt the need to do when I was in Antarctica. I also asked Siri to "make it warmer" in my house, at which point I was told "Your thermostat is already set to 71°, and it may take some time to warm up." Very helpful. Thanks so much. Not a great night to have no working electric blanket.
But maybe I'm getting a white New Year?
As I type this, it's trying to snow. A light, loose powder, but enough to cover my back porch and that's something.
Not enough to stave off drought this Summer, but... something.
Well, here we go.
The entry where I recap all the things that happened in the year. Except... I just don't do as much interesting stuff anymore. That was a time that passed when I stopped traveling constantly for the charity I volunteered for. Now I just sit at home with my cats most of the time. But, because tradition is tradition, you get what you get...
Finally snapped over faux "Christians" finding a way to use the horrific L.A. fires as fuel to be fucking assholes.
I decided to buy a garage freezer to try and save on insane food costs gone wild.
Found joy in cursive spelling...
I mourned the loss of Farmhouse Mexican Rice, which is a staple in my cooking.
Went to a Valentine party at Disneyland, and completed my Loth-Cat mug collection (I have both Batuu-West and Batuu-East editions)...
Ran across somebody who refreshingly knows how to be funny without punching down on trans persons...
I will never understand parents who are content to let their child die... then double down to say "AND WE'D LET THEM DIE AGAIN!" but here we are...
Fulfilled my lifelong dream of owning a Le Creuset Dutch oven...
Learned that Jake does not like to be interrupted when cleaning his paws...
Paid another visit to Disney's lovely Aulani Hawai‘i resort...
Discovered the sexiest cooking video yet made...
And the most fucking embarrassing video of the most fucking embarrassing parade ever...
@freecitizen909 #trump #trumpparade #armyparade #kristinoem #deportation #noem #prosest #nokings #nokingsprotest #viral ♬ original sound - Free Minds
Or was this the most fucking embarrassing? It's probably a toss-up...
I learned to be afraid of AI. Be very afraid...
Spent my Summer floatin'...
...and boatin'...
Fell in love with growing my own tomatoes...
I watched the most fun podcast episode of the year, thanks to a very good interview with T-Swift...
Reveled in one of the best super-hero scenes of all time, featuring a super-hero most people have never even heard of in my favorite movie of the year...
Survived the end of the world. Yet again.
Repeated a double-bill concert of Cheap Trick and Heart which I watched... 34 years ago...
Finally realized my dream of drinking around the world (of Epcot) and visiting the new Beak and Barrel Tavern at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom...
Took a cruise onboard the Disney Wish...
And, lastly, I said a sad farewell to one of my oldest friends.
Hope everybody has a safe and happy New Year. See you in 2026.
Which is tomorrow, apparently.
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