I try my best to stay out of politics here any more because it's just not worth it. People are so divided that they're going to think what they're going to think and that's the end of it. You can't change people's minds because they've already bought into a narrative which makes it nigh-impossible to be heard. I've been attacked from all over the political spectrum because I don't adhere to a political party or worship politicians. I'm just a humanist who's critical of politics in general. And that? That's an attitude that's just not possible. Not any more. You have to pick a side.

It's a shame, really. Nobody is growing, learning, and sharing ideas. It's just surrounding yourself with an echo chamber and shouting down anything from the outside trying to get through. So I give up.

Except...

What's happening right now is just so fucking abhorrent that saying something... saying anything is critical.

Jon Stewart and his writers often have good takes on current events. Rational, smart, and researched with a biting humor, I anxiously wait to see if they can make sense of the senseless crap in our world. And in this case, they've absolutely nailed it. If you watch this video from first word to last, you'll know exactly where my head is at...

The hipocrisy and horror of what's happening is so fucking next level that I can't find the words to express just how mortified and angry I am.

And so I'm posting a video.

Which has undoubtedly already been ignored by the people who most need to hear it. They see Jon Stewart, know he's a leftist, and immediately dismiss it out of hand. It doesn't matter that his position here is not a political one. And it really isn't. Not this time. He's merely calling out liars, stating facts, and drawing an inevitable conclusion. But when the liars are people you worship and the facts don't fit the story you choose to believe... well... how could you allow yourself to hear it?

You might draw the same conclusion and have your entire worldview challenged.

And we can't have that.

Not any more.

For decades of my life, I traveled the globe. In the early years, I had no money and ended up doing crazy things like sleeping in bus stations and on trains... eating questionable food... going to "unsafe" places. And I loved all of it. So many amazing memories and fun stories to tell. I could write a book.

As I got older, I had a little more money and wasn't the daredevil I had been when I was young and immortal. I started staying in hostels and cheap hotels. Started eating in better-quality places. Started planning more. It didn't make travel any less fun, but it was a different kind of experience.

Then I started taking my mom on vacations, which felt like another world entirely. Nicer hotels. Nicer restaurants. Only safe, organized travel. It was still loads of fun. And though I still took trips on my own which had tighter budgets and were more adventurous, I was totally "playing it safe" compared to the travels I went on in my 20's and 30's.

Though there's still a part of me that has a deep desire to do something crazy out in the world.

And every once in a while I catch a travel video that has me thinking "How cool would THAT be??" Like this one...

Back in the day, I would have ignored my fear of heights and loved to do something like this. Except I probably couldn't have afforded to hire a guide and all paid for all the expenses that go into it. Which is why I never did something like this.

Now I could save the money to go, but am not in nearly good enough shape to make the hike. I'd have to hire two guides so they could drag me up the mountain.

Maybe something like this is more my speed?

Or maybe I've had enough adventure travel and staying at home is my ultimate vacation? It has been awful nice to not be haning around airports all the time and sleeping in my own bed.

So... probably.

This morning I woke up to the smell of burnt toast.

At first I was hoping it was a heart attack, but then I remembered that I attempted to make garlic toast to go with my pasta lunch yesterday and ended up burning it to a cinder. Because I forgot I had put it in the oven. Because my Whirlpool oven is so fucking stupid that you can't leave the door open when you're broiling something or else the oven turns off. Which means it's painfully easy to put something under the broiler and burn it because you can't keep an eye on it. I don't know if this is just my model or what. But never, ever buy a Whirpool oven when this is a possibility. Every time I have to broil something I'm like WHO THE FUCK DESIGNS AN OVEN LIKE THIS?!?

The butternut squash pasta with brown butter, crispy-fried sage, and pepitas was excellent though. Dang is that such an easy and delicious dish. And cooking it makes my home smell like a movie theater with lots of buttered popcorn. And, this time, burnt garlic toast.

But anyway...

I had mentioned some of the stuff hanging on my walls and got a question about it.

My favorite living comic book artist is Amanda Conner. She's phenomenal. The way she illustrates a story is so flawlessly suited to comic books. She has this incredible sense for crafting body and facial expressions to add to the story. And one of my favorite comic book characters is Vartox. He started as a wacky Zardoz imitation in a cool Superman story. But what he became in the pages of Power Girl is amazing. He's hilarious. So years and years ago when I saw three pages of original artwork by Amanda Conner from issue 12 featuring Vartox for sale? I jumped on them. Did I have the money? No. Did I care that I didn't have the money? No. I just bought them. Pages 13, 15, and 17 were mine.

To display them, I added printed scans from the comic for pages 11*, 14, and 16 (sorry I didn't straighten them out)...

Click image to see the embiggened photo.

The art I bought was relatively cheap (the majority of each page are unpopular characters)... nothing compared to the cost of original Amanda Conner cover art... which is currently $4,000 to over $10,000 per page. So, yeah, profoundly grateful I was about to get what I got. Especially since it has Vartox in it. Conner doesn't do a lot of comic book art any more, so finding anything that's remotely affordable is nigh-impossible today.

Even though the art isn't particularly valuable, it means a lot to me. Which is why I nearly had a heart attack when it ended up lost after I moved house a decade ago. I had put it in a pile for me to take, but it got grabbed by the movers instead. Eventually I found that they had tucked it in-between some posters that got wrapped up. Posters that sat for almost a year before I unwrapped them. Talk about your happy surprises. I had long accepted that the pages got lost in the move!

When I started buying picture frames to start framing up all the stuff I had in storage, these were the first that I ordered. And I went all out... bought the UV-protective glass so they ink wouldn't fade. Then made sure I put them in a place which received no direct sunlight, just in case.

And now I can easily look at them whenever I want, which is often because they're some beautiful pages.

   
*I went with printing page 11 instead of 12 because I love that 11 featured her getting a cat!

It's not just another day in hell... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms! I really liked the Dunk and Egg trilogy of books, but was wary of the HBO/HBO Max adaptation because I feared that they would fuck it up like they fucked up Game of Thrones after they ran out of books. But the showrunners say that they will not adapt stories that don't exist, so there's that...

I will say that Dunk and Egg are both flawlessly cast and the first episode is promising. Charming even. I really hope they nail it this time.

   
• DRAMA! Lord only knows I need a cute distraction from the horrors of the day, and here it is...

I don't know how dog groomers don't end up kidnapping a dozen clients a day.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Washington state lawmakers consider 10-cent bottle fee to boost recycling. Christ. Everybody has a recycle container that's bigger than their garbage can now... we already have incentive to recycle. Recycle bins are EVERYWHERE! This isn't the 1970's! This is just going to make shit even more expensive because now you can't use your recycle bin because you don't get your money back unless you make another trip to the store. Get fucked. This stupid shit is driving me insane. Is this going to make such a massive difference as to be worth the trouble for everybody involved? Are stores going to have to raise prices again to cover the labor of having to be a recycling center? This is performative politics, and I really hope that voters ACTUALLY THINK FOR TWO FUCKING MINUTES and shoot this idiocy down. INFURIATING.

   
• Seafarer! My latest YouTube obsession is Joe Franta talking about his life as a U.S. merchant mariner. It's all interesting and fascinating stuff. The first one I watched was when he was working on a cruise ship instead of the cargo ships he usually works on...

He's a fairly level-headed and pragmatic guy, giving you both the good...

And the bad...

My favorite videos are the behind-the-scenes stuff where he talks about what life is actually like and how he gets by when on the job...

If you want a great channel to watch, here's the one for you.

   
• Pengo! This story from years ago is going around again. Some documentarians rescued some penguins... and were roundly criticized for interfering in "natures plan" or whatever...

Yeah... you could not stop me from helping creatures in need. I care more about these penguins than I do 99.9% of the people on this planet, and I am not a part of the United Federation of Planets, so the Prime Directive doesn't apply to me!

   
• He-Him-Man! I gotta say, the new trailer for Masters of the Universe looks darn good...

And of course dipshits across the internet are losing their shit because of the frame where Adam has his pronouns under his name tag. Except ADAM IS HE-MAN... THAT'S THE JOKE! So who is it that's ruining everything? Dipshits like this who just want to complain about how "pronouns" are destroying the American way of life, I'm guessing. Gawd. We truly are living in the stupidest timeline.

   
• Alex Pretti. The right to protest is baked into the First Amendment. It literally guarantees citizens "...peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances..." The State of Minnesota allows open and concealed carry of firearms with a permit. The narrative of Alex Pretti approached officers brandishing a handgun has been proven false. Video evidence shows exactly what happened. Alex Pretti was pepper-sprayed while protecting women and then murdered. Executed. Shot 10 times. The only time his weapon was unholstered was when it was removed from him. The only thing in his hand was a camera at the time of his murder...

I've seen video analysis saying that he was reaching for his gun. It's absurd. The actual analysis is clear to anybody who doesn't buy into a bullshit narrative they cling to. Yes, this video is by partisan MS NOW, but the analysis is on-point...

Alex Pretti worked on curing cancer before becoming an ICU nurse at a VA hospital. He dedicated his life to helping others. He died helping a woman who had been shoved to the ground. Witnesses have testified that he was no threat to anybody... he did not brandish a weapon... he did not reach for a weapon... he did not attack anybody... he was just trying to help when he was executed. Alex's parents released this statement...

"We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump's murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man."

Done and done. It's the very least I can do.

American citizens are being executed in broad daylight by government action while legally filming at a legal protest. And you know it's problematic when even the NRA is chiming in for a full investigation. It's painfully obvious that this country has taken a horrific turn. I cannot help but wonder how history will view this period of our country. I suppose it depends on whether the government or the people are the ones left standing at the end of it all.

   
And now... back to our shared nightmare.

Jake has been very clingy lately. Which is a bit worrying, because I can't help but wonder if there's something wrong. Though I think that's the opposite of how it usually works? Don't cats usually want to be alone when they are feeling poorly? Maybe Jake is different? Cats.

Last night he climbed on top of me when I fell asleep. I'm a side-sleeper, so this was a bit precarious for a cat his size, so I grabbed a pillow so he would be supported. When I woke up, I had rolled over on my back, but Jake was still there...

In other cat news... look what appeared at the bottom of the stairs this very morning!

MUFASA! This was truly surprising, because Jake lost interest in him months ago. I finally just put his plushie in the cat toy box because he wasn't dragging him around everywhere like he used to. Then this morning... BAM! Mufasa! After breakfast Jake went back to ignoring him, so maybe the reunion is over.

Earlier this week I was on a call for work when the kitty breakfast alarm chimed. A few minutes later I went downstairs while still on the phone, and had to pause my call to take a photo of the cats sitting on the table angry because I didn't immediately rush down to feed them...

I mean... just look at Jake's face. He's furious to have been kept waiting. Even Jenny is surprised at the depth of his rage!

But don't worry about my safety. I was forgiven ten minutes later...

Cats.

Is it just me, or has hope for the future dropped to an all-time low?

It's not just one thing, it's everything. Everywhere you turn, there's bad news. I was going to recap with some examples, but I don't want to depress everybody even more than they probably are. Starting with myself.

I thought I would make myself feel better with some retail therapy, but the thought of buying something I don't need and can't afford... then having to pay the credit card bill... doesn't make me think that it would make me feel any better.

So instead I watched last night's episode of The Traitors (US version) and ate a bag of Bugles corn snacks for dinner.

Probably should have bought a fifth of Jack Daniels.

For the last couple of days I have been having allergy problems. Which is bizarre to me because I never have noticeable allergies in January. They always hit me in March and April when new plants arrive... then again in September and October when everything is dying. Summer and Winter are blissfully allergy-free.

But then I went to put the garbage cans back and walked around my yard.

Only to find that there are flowers which never died. And greens are popping up everywhere...

This could be very, very bad for us.

We haven't had snow this year. Any sprinkling we get disappears in short order. The hillsides are bare. The mountains aren't covered nearly enough. This is looking like drought for us this Summer, which means high water prices, rationing, dead lawns, and other problems I don't even want to think about.

Meanwhile... a winter storm of scary proportions is about to hit everywhere from New York to Texas.

Climate change is not cool, yo. Not cool at all.

I have a stack of feel-good YouTube videos that I watch when things are shitty.

As you can imagine, I've been running to my list a lot lately.

This video has 22 million views. It's worth your time if you're looking to forget about the world for a little while. BONUS: Canning Tatum and Bradley Cooper are in this one!

Titus is a teenager now. Apparently he likes soccer more than basketball.

And now... back to the horror, where terrified 5 year old children are used as bait...

What's happened is up for debate. The lawyer for the family says that the father has an active asylum case with no deportation order. So... it would seem that they're doing immigration "the right way."

At the bare minimum, the charges against the father should be public. As should what has happened to these people. So far as I know, body-cams are required for these operations, so the truth is likely out there... but whether it will be shared with the public at large is anybody's guess. All we're getting "officially" is what they want us to hear. In my humble opinion, body-cams should be required, and the footage should be publicly available so we know what's being done in our name.

Like traumatizing a little kid who has no say in anything that's happening in his life, but is aprehended like a violent criminal and used as bait.

I can't help but wonder what's happening now, and if the actual truth will ever come out.

Or if this will all disappear without due process, like so many others.

I've been burning the candle at both ends for months, and it's starting to catch up to me. In one of life's cruel ironies, I get so tired lately that I can't sleep. I start yawning and yawning, so I go to bed... then am wide awake.

And so I run through my social media pages looking for something to distract my mind from all the things that are running through my head that I should be focusing on that's keeping me from falling asleep.

And that's when I reached this...

I laughed out loud, which was a real bummer for my cats who were sleeping next to me.

Jake was a little upset, but quickly fell back asleep.

Jenny, on the other hand, glared at me for far longer than was comfortable, then left in a huff.

Until 4:20am, at which point she got her revenge.

I used to pride myself on keeping up with current events around the world. But lately I just don't have the mental fortitude to see what new horrific shit is going on. It seems to get worse by the day, and the added anxiety would probably push me over the edge.

I slept horribly last night. Tossed and turned and didn't fall asleep until well after midnight. Jenny woke me up a little after 6:00am, and I ended up petting her until it was her breakfast time at 7:00am. After that I went back to bed so I could read some documentation for work and... somehow dropped off to sleep again, and didn't wake up until nearly 10:00am?? That's something that just doesn't happen to me. When I wake up, that's it. I'm awake for the duration. But not this morning...

Nearly eight hours sleep? That's very rare. Any more I feel lucky if I can get five or six!

Then I somehow ended up falling down a rabbit hole of shelter dog adoption videos. Like this one...

And this one...

And this one...

And then I listened to Martin Luther King Jr. speak, amazed as always how his words are more relevant than ever, then got back to work while listening to a podcast called Why this song? which talks to the artists behind popular songs. It started with Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins, which is one of my favorite tracks of all time. Good stuff.