I've been eating more and more vegan than vegetarian... cutting the amount of dairy and eggs I'm eating by at least half. And most of that is eaten outside of my home, because I'm not buying much any more.

This morning I had to make an early run to the nearby Big City so I could pick up some things for work. On my way home I stopped by Wendy's for breakfast, which is always an egg and cheese biscuit. Sure you risk a scorching case of diarrhea and there's enough sodium to harden your arteries almost immediately... but I've got Imodium in my car and they're delicious enough to be worth the risk of heart disease.

What I love about Wendy's is, unlike xMcDonald's, you're not forced to pay for ham or bacon that they then remove from your order. Nope. They charge you for exactly what you're getting because it's a menu item.

Usually I get one chocolate milk and one regular milk with my breakfast. I mix them together to get choccy milk that's not too chocolatey.

But this morning I had a Coke Zero, because milk is not something I enjoy as much as I used to. At home I never buy it, and instead use soy or almond milk on my cereal. And because of that I seem to have lost my passion for the stuff. The cheese and egg on my biscuit sandwich is plenty.

I'll still eat ice cream, of course.

If you can call a Wendy's Frosty "ice cream."

I think it's more like "ice-cream-adjacent."

This evening when I went to post something here at everybody's favorite blog, I found out I couldn't log in. Hardly anything new. It seems that half dozen times each year this is just something that happens. Either somebody hacked me or some plugin update takes down my entire WordPress install or some security issue causes my site to take a header. Because I'm so used to all this, I have a checklist in my head that I run through, and usually I can have it resolved in under an hour.

But not tonight.

It's currently just after 1:00am, and I only just now managed to get things running again. But the weirdest part? I have no idea what was wrong. After going through the things I knew to check for, I just started poking around and randomly restoring files from backup that looked important. I think the one that did it was a WordPress plugin configuration file. No idea which one, because I started from the newest file and just went back for about 4 or 5 others... checked to see if anything was working... and everything was working.

So I'm slapping this together before I pass out and will take a look tomorrow to see if I'm being remotely coherent.

SPOILER ALERT: No. No I was not. The third paragraph made no sense and I smooshed together two sentences in a weird way in the first.

And this boys, girls, and those identifying as neither or both, is why I usually don't post what I write until the following day.

UPDATE: Wasn't my plugins. I installed WordFence security, and it found that my template load page had been hacked and injected with code to spam Google... or something like that. Of course WordFence had to be told that on particular page in my site was not spam. Can you guess which one?

Yesterday I watched the latest batch of Star Wars: Andor episodes and wondered for the millionth time how Tony Gilroy managed to get this series past Disney. Heck, how did he even manage to get it past the Lucasfilm division of Disney?

The 12-episode second (and final) season of Andor is being released in four 3-episode chunks, each taking place one year after the previous chunk as it leads directly into Star Wars: Rogue One (which is the prelude to the very first Star Wars movie, A New Hope).

And this latest chunk? The third of four chunks? No spoilers, but...

Unbelievably phenomenal. You'd be forgiven if you thought things couldn't get better than the previous chunk... because how could you possibly know? Then all this happens.

The first episode, Episode 07, starts out a bit slow. A surprisingly leisurely pace given that we're past the half-way point and should be escalating towards the finish line. But then Episode 08 grabs you by the throat and slaps you across the face. Hard. Then it ends. At which point Episode 09 slams into gear, not giving you a chance to catch your breath.

I'm going to restrain myself talking about the series until a few weeks after it's all over because I don't want to spoil it for anybody. All I will say are these three things...

1. Andor deserves to win all the Emmy Awards. All of them. Writing. Directing. Acting. Design. Effects. Costumes. Music. Whatever. There's no other show that's doing what Andor is doing and, even if they were, nobody is doing it like Andor is doing it. If the show isn't at least getting a nomination in all categories for which it's eligible, then the Emmys mean nothing.
2. The show's greatness is that you don't have to have seen any other Star Wars show to enjoy it. There's a complete story being told here. But if you're a massive Star Wars fan, you're seriously rewarded. If you've watched the cartoons and read the books and played the games and followed the stories, your mind will be reeling with every episode. The entire time I'm watching, my brain is thinking "Oh... while this is happening, this person is doing this and that person is doing that!" or even "Holy crap! This character is at the same location at the same time as that character!" And then "ZOMG! Right after this happened, THIS happens!" It goes on and on. For those into Star Wars, there are inconsistencies that pop up of course, but Andor is the gift that keeps on giving because it's all going on at the same time as so much is going on.
3. But it's more than that. This series makes you recontextualize everything you think you know about Star Wars. And it does so while making complex scenarios so beautifully accessible. I cannot fathom how they will manage to top this, but I seriously hope that somebody at Disney is filling a dump truck with cash to back up to Tony Gilroy's house and offering him whatever he wants to continue with more Star Wars projects.

And so, yeah, if you're not watching... what in the heck are you waiting for? These are the droids you're looking for.

Well this is weird.

There I was reading through Kazza's blog feed, saw this meme about blogging, and read that Neil's blog was where she found it. It's weird because Neil is a long-time blogging friend, and I thought his blog had shuttered a while back because I noticed the feed hadn't updated in a long while. I went to his site, saw a bunch of social media icons, and assumed he stopped. I keep up with him on Facebook, so I didn't give it another thought.

He never stopped! So now I have subscribed to his feed again (which is working just fine for me now).

And now back to that meme...

Why did you start blogging in the first place?
Long story short? My own amusement. — I had a website back when the web was new, and everything was hand-coded in HTML. Just a half-dozen pages with fake news articles for my fictional existence as ruler of my own planet called Dave's World (and later DaveWorld). Then the Netscape Navigator web browser had a programming language added to it. I re-wrote my site to have the "news" of my world created on-the-fly via something I wrote in LiveScript (eventually called JavaScript). It assembled the front page "story" from randomly assembled snippets (taken from of a huge library of snippets I dreamed up). You could keep refreshing and get a new story. Eventually I started writing the fictional news articles myself because the generated articles were getting stale. It was just a way to be creative with my writing. Later on I had a kind of "Behind the Scenes of DaveWorld" section where I talked about my real interests instead of fake ones. This eventually got spun off into a hand-coded Online Dave Journal which lasted until blogging platforms became a thing. Then it was re-titled DaveBlog (using Blogger, I think?)... and ultimately renamed to Blogography when I was looking for my own domain, and here we are.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
I switched to WordPress because it was free, and my previous platform was being moved in a more commercial direction.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?
My previous platform before WordPress was Movable Type. I was a hardcore fan, adopting it as soon as I found out it existed. I goofed around with other platforms from time to time on other projects (most notably Joomla, Blogger, and LiveJournal), but Blogography proper has only ever been Movable Type then WordPress.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?
I used the online interface for Movable Type, then moved it offline to a tool called "Kung-Log." That was eventually renamed "Ecto." When that stopped being developed, I started using "MarsEdit." I still use that to compose my entries, but I have to paste them into the WordPress "Classic Editor" because it can't use the security I had to adopt when my blog was getting hacked regularly.

When do you feel most inspired to write?
After I got up-and-running, I committed to 1000 entries of Blogography. To speed through that, I started blogging daily. I've been blogging daily (with a few breaks every now and again) ever since... way past the 1000 entries I was planning. What used to inspire me was technology. Then it was travel. Now it's just living my life. I write out of habit, and stuff that happens along the way is what inspires me to keep going.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
Depends. I usually let it sit until I have a chance to read it and fix mistakes the following day (meaning I'm always a day behind). Sometimes, if it's something like this meme that doesn't require much revision comes along, I'll just publish immediately afterwards (the entry I had ready for today will now be published tomorrow). Sometimes, if I'm really fired up, I will let it sit for days, reading it and revising it a few times, until I'm sure I want to publish it. More than a few posts have then ended up deleted once I've calmed down. Even if I'm busy, I still make sure to write something down every day... but don't have time to read them and can get behind, so they pile up to be read and get published all at once (but keeping the original date they were written).

What are you generally interested in writing about?
Absolutely anything. A lot of time it's strange stuff I notice or weird things that happen to me. It can also be me talking about an article I read, a TV show or movie I watched, or something else that crossed my path. I no longer write much political stuff (and have deleted some of my older political entries) because I don't see the point to it. People are so polarized now that nothing I say is going to matter, and all I seem to get is hate for my opinions. I do miss writing about travel, because that's one of the things I've been most passionate about in my life.

Who are you writing for?
I began blogging to let my friends and family know what I'm up to (because I was up to a lot of stuff back in the day!). Now that I'm mostly staying at home with my cats, I'm writing for myself. To be honest, I've probably always written for myself from the start. Everybody else is along for the ride if they want to be.

What's your favourite post on your blog?
Most all of my favorite entries are from a long, long time ago. Back when the blogging community was how people kept in touch, and blogging comments were our "social media." I have a section here for my favorite entries, but I haven't found reason to update it since 2012. The #1 entry on that list still makes me laugh because it was just so stupid. I brushed my teeth with baking soda. It was awful. I wrote about it because I thought it was funny. A lot of my early blogging days were like that.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
No plans at all. Maybe if it had a ton of regular traffic, I'd want to change things up (though I like this design as it is, and haven't changed it in decades)... but blogging is mostly dead now. Social media is where everybody is at. I do get a lot of traffic from strangers via Google simply because I've been doing this for so long and there's tons of random content here, but most of my regular interaction with people (including long-time friends made by blogging) is on Facebook now.

Who else do you want to tag?
So few of us are blogging that there's not much of a reason to do that. Those of us still around will see this eventually and take part if they want to.

Every once in a while I run across a really cool question that makes me long for the good ol' days when blogging was still popular and memes were a Big Deal.

This time is was on BlueSky where somebody was asking a music question which, let's face it, is a darn good question because I had to really think about it...

I came up with...

• Pet Shop Boys released Yes 23 years after Please (And Yes is hands-down my favorite PSB album)
• Depeche Mode released Ultra 15 years after Speak and Spell
• Madonna released Ray of Light 15 years after Madonna
• OMD released History of Modern, English Electric, The Punishment of Luxury, and Bauhaus Staircase all 30 (THIRTY!) years and more after Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
• a-ha released Minor Earth Major Sky 15 years after Hunting High and Low (And Minor Earth Major Sky is hands-down my favorite a-ha album)
• Erasure released Nightbird almost 19 years after Wonderland
• Human League released Octopus 15 years after Reproduction
• Heart released Brigade and Desire Walks On 15 and 18 years after Dreamboat Annie
• Fleetwood Mac release Tango in the Night 19 years after Fleetwood Mac
• New Order released Waiting for the Sirens' Call 24 years after Movement
• Elton John released loads of great albums 15 years after Empty Sky

Jester came up with...

• Bonnie Raitt released Luck of the Draw 20 years after Bonnie Raitt
• Aerosmith released Permanent Vacation almost 15 years after Aerosmith
• Prince released Love Symbol almost 15 years after For You (how the heck did I miss frickin' Prince?!?)
• Paul Simon released Graceland 21 years after The Paul Simon Songbook
• Tina Turner released Private Dancer 23 years after The Soul of Ike & Tina Turner
• Genesis released Invisible Touch 17 years after From Genesis to Revelation

Marty (from Banal Leakage) came up with...

• Foo Fighters released But Here We Are 28 years after Foo Fighters
• Duran Duran released Astronaut 23 years after Duran Duran (along with All You Need is Now and Paper Gods, both of which I loved... how I missed Duran Duran on this list, one of my favorite bands, is impossible to comprehend)
• Steely Dan released Two Against Nature 28 years after Can't Buy a Thrill
• Crowded House released Time On Earth 21 years after Crowded House
• Tears For Fears released The Tipping Point 39 years after The Hurting
• Pearl Jam released Dark Matter 33 years after Ten
• The Cars released Move Like This 33 years after The Cars
• The Cure released Songs of a Lost World 45 years after Three Imaginary Boys
• David Bowie released Let’s Dance 16 years after David Bowie (really embarrassed I missed this one)

The biggest shock to me was Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. All these albums I love by the band were released THIRTY YEARS after their first album? How often does that happen?

I'm not exactly sure why I'm taking time to fire off some bullets given how much stuff I have to get done today, but here we are... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• The Hawk! I had just finished rewatching Hawkeye, easily my favorite Disney+ Marvel Studios series, and was commenting how I wanted a second season so badly. Then this happened...

Well, shit. The guy was literally a part of billions of dollars in profit for Disney, and they want to pay him half of what he got for the first season? It's beyond shitty that this is how he was treated. Especially given how brilliant his series was.

   
• Unkerned! What is it with all these letter kerning crimes against humanity? This is atrocious. The Catholics couldn't get a designer for a tomb THIS important to them?

Literally "FR A NCISC VS" on that marker.

   
• Use The Force! Oh yeah, before I forget... May The 4th Be With You today!

Every once in a while I wonder what the world would be like if Star Wars never happened. It's honestly impossible to imagine. So much of sci-fi hinges on this one film. Sure there was the Star Trek TV series that came before it, but that was seen as a failure at the time (kept alive only by force of will from Lucille Ball and Desilu Studios). It was Star Wars that redefined what it means to be a blockbuster, and paved the way for so much of the science fiction we ended up getting. Sure, there might have been some other sci-fi movie that filled the void that the absence of Star Wars would have left... but I cannot even fathom what it might have looked like.

   
• Five Year Mission! And speaking of Star Trek... whenever I find an ad that I willingly want to watch, it makes me loathe bad ads even more. This ad is gold, and I love that the actors were game to do it...

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the show that basically sells itself with its genius (and I cannot wait for the upcoming season), but it's nice to know that when they have to sell it they're trying to be interesting about it.

   
• Construction! Oh man. If you like carpentry, watching an American-style house get built by a Japanese carpenter is your new bliss...

I'm not saying that the final result is the design direction I would have taken... but the artistry that was involved in creating this incredible structure can't be denied. What a cool video.

   
• Elevation! Here's what's possible when you don't hand over the bulk of your country's GDP to the industrial complex that supplies your war machine...

It's proposed that the 2026 Military budget will be increased to $1 TRILLION DOLLARS. It's so absurd how modern warfare has changed so radically when it comes to how battles are fought, yet we're still throwing money into building this vast military force like it's the 1980's. I don't get it. I really don't. A trillion dollars?!? And we've got $92 million going to go into a fucking military parade on the president's birthday? What the fuck?

I mean, when you think about it, this is hardly surprising. But we're cutting NPR and PBS funding for this senseless crap? Seriously? We're cutting childhood cancer research for this shit? THIS?!?

   
• NEWS: CDC reports 216 children died this flu season, the most in 15 years — Congratulations anti-vaxers... things are looking up for you! Just think of how successful your campaign will be now that RFK is championing your cause! Maybe you'll go from hundreds of child deaths in 2025 to thousands in 2026! I mean, that's what you want, isn't it? That's the goal?

   
Not exactly sure how to wrap this up after delving into childhood cancer and easily avoidable child deaths. So... see you next week. I guess?

This past Sunday I was sitting in the living room working while the television was on. I catch a blur in the catio, look ourside, and Jake is climbing towards the ceiling. Usually this means a bird is around, but it ended up being a bee.

I tapped the window and said "JAKE! JAKE... LEAVE THE BIG FUZZY BEE ALONE!"

Which got his attention...

The bee was oblivious and eventually flew out without becoming a chew toy for Jake...

Jenny hasn't been going out into the catio as often as she used to. She's far more interested in lounging on the couch.

Which would be fine except she like to have her feet held while she sleeps for some reason.

So there I was, rewatching Andor Season 02, Episode 03 to get ready for Episode 04, while composing an email when Jenny came up and plopped down next to me. She meowed to get my attention, and that went like this...

She always gets what she wants. Always.

Spending money is something that I try to avoid whenever possible. I'd much rather save it for a rainy day when something goes wrong and I really need it. Which is to say I don't have to have a bunch of luxuries because I'm a lot happier knowing that I have some savings in the bank. Which, when you think about it, is the ultimate luxury anyway. Rare though it may be.

After you get past the true luxuries needed to survive in the modern world (at least to me)... your health, clothing, a place to live, food to eat, a job, health insurance, a car, a phone, a computer, internet, a television, music, and books... most everything else is gravy. Here are my top ten unnecessary luxuries once the basic necessities have been covered...

1. Central Air — When you live in the middle of hell during the Summer, this is the very definition of luxury. Going from window or wall air conditioning to an HVAC system seems very much like magic. Cool air in every room of the house... all at the same time?
2. Washer & Dryer — Not having to go to the laundromat to wash your clothes? Being able to wash whenever you need to? Does luxury get much better than that? Like a garage, you never realize how nice it is until you have it. Could I go back to doing my laundry away from home? Sure. Would I want to? Not really.
3. A Garage — The winters can be brutal here. The Summers are brutal here. Yet I never had a garage until I moved to the home I'm in now. I never even had covered parking. Which means I've scraped a lot of snow and ice off my automobile. And I've climbed into a blistering hot car more times than I can count. But that's not even the most luxurious part of having a garage... it's the storage! And if you're a woodworking fan who has a lot of power tools, that's about as good as it gets. As is being able to park outside and use the garage as a wood shop.
4. Lawn Sprinkler System — I don't need a yard. I'd honestly rather not have one. But if I do have one, watering it is something I dread. Having to set a timer to move a sprinkler around your yard, then having to get up and actually do it isn't a horrific task. It's just a really inconvenient one. But the best part of having a sprinkler system isn't even that... it's luxury of being able to water at 2am when the sun won't evaporate it off your lawn and waste expensive water! And even better than that? Not having to find somebody to water your yard while you're away. That's brutal.
5. Garage Freezer — I've never had any freezer except the one that was in my refrigerator. And it's never enough space. Whenever there's a big sale going on for frozen goods, I find myself playing freezer Jenga to try and make as much room as possible for cheap food. Except that's never all that much space because there's barely any to begin with. As food prices were reaching all-time highs early this year, I saw a sale on a garage freezer and slapped down my credit card. And, let me tell you, it's a luxury of luxuries for me. I've cashed in on so many sales that have saved me a ton of money on things I am eating anyway. It makes me wish I had spent a bit more money and bought a bigger one. I didn't because I thought I'd never fill it up waste electricity freezing nothing. I was so wrong. But still... I now have triple the freezing capacity, and that's not nothing.
6. Power Tools — Being able to fix stuff that breaks so you don't have to hire somebody... or being able to make something more cheaply than having to buy it... is a critical necessity to me. Never mind that I've likely spent as much money on tools as I've ultimately saved, but having a hobby you enjoy is the real luxury here.
7. Automated Litter Box — It's not that I care about having to clean a litter box, it's that I am not available to clean it constantly and Jenny doesn't like to use a litter box that's too dirty. That's a serious problem when I have to travel or go to work. Not having to clean cat poop up off the floor or using an odor removal spray when cleaning up urine is pretty great. The problem is that most automated litter boxes make a worse mess or are unsafe. Getting an actual Litter-Robot to keep things clean and safe for my cats is a luxury on many levels.
8. Air Fryer Multi-Oven — When appliances drop in price to be so cheap as to be ubiquitous, the least expensive models usually having the least amount of features. Air fryers can be found really cheap, but all they can do is air-fry foods. Which means that you end up with four different appliances doing slightly different cooking things. But when my fryer died, I ended up spending a bit more money to try and consolidate appliances and free up some room in my kitchen. My air fryer (which is bigger than my old one) also doubles as an oven, a grill, a rotisserie basket cooker, and has a dozen other modes for all kinds of cooking. It's quickly become my go-to way to cook. The only thing I don't use it for is baking bread. It's so remarkably handy and energy efficient as to be considered a luxury to me.
9. Backup Cam — Where I live, a car is more a necessity than a luxury. The real luxury for me was paying off my car and not having to make that payment every month. Until last December when the used car I've had forever finally died and the cost to repair it was more than it was worth. Not caring about having an expensive car, I walked into the showroom and asked what was the cheapest new-ish car they had on the lot. I was expecting a car that was 2 or 3 years old used. Instead I ended up with a new car because it was only slightly more expensive than an older car with a lot more miles and far less warranty. I was pretty raw about the fact that I was paying for a bunch of features I didn't want and didn't need. Including a backup camera. Except... once you have a backup cam, it's very hard to go back. It's a luxury that you get accustomed to very quickly.
10. Floor Scrubber — I spent countless hours with a scrub brush trying to get my kitchen grout clean. And almost as much time trying to get my hardwood floors looking clean. Never worked. Getting an Oreck Commercial Orbiter Scrubber changed everything. Scrubbing floors has never been so effortless and effective, and that's a luxury that I'm increasingly grateful to have.

HONERABLE MENTION: Ninja Creami — I don't eat a ton of ice cream, which means whenever I buy some means it goes bad before I can eat even a quarter of it. And the smaller containers are way too expensive. Being able to "creamify" ice cream or other frozen treats from just about anything on a small scale at any time at all is a dessert luxury! The good news is that you can often find them at a good discount. The bad news is that they release new models with added features (the latest of which can dispense soft serve!).

Not on the list as it currently stands is travel which, for most of my years, was a priority to me. Couldn't really afford to do a lot of it, and so I did volunteer work that had travel attached so I could add a few days for myself once I was sent somewhere. It's a lot cheaper to pay for a couple nights of hotel and food after the flight was covered by work! But now that I've been lucky enough to have seen a lot of the world? Not such a priority. Very happy to stay home with the cats.

Oh yeah...

I was going to say that having a voice-controlled "smart assistant" is a luxury, but here's a conversation I had with Apple's fucking useless Siri "assistant" tonight...

At which point I had to go back upstairs and get my laptop so I could open the Find My app, locate my iPhone, tell it to play a sound, then run to back downstairs to find it before my cats freak out.

Such a luxury.

To decompress from the horrors of the day, I've been playing Torchlight II, which is one of my favorite Diablo video game clones.

On regular difficulty, my pet is an orange cat named Jenny, and she's just a normal companion that helps when she can...

When playing on casual difficulty (where I don't want to stress so much) my pet is a gray cat named Jake. Because it's so easy to play, I prefer to just use my abilities and not any spells, so I give all my spells to Jake.

And he's gone all psychotic. CONSTANTLY summoning zombies or skeleton archers to help with a fight, even if it's not needed. CONSTANTLY casting all kinds of spells just because he can, not because it's helping.

It's both funny and upsetting. All I can say from my experience is that I would never give a cat magic spells in Real Life.

I fell down a rabbit hole of nurse abuse and had a really tough time getting out of it.

It's a raging epedemic that just gets more shocking the deeper you go.

Nurses, who provide a shocking percentage of the care that patients receive, are all too often treated like shit. And many of the stories I've read reveal that a lot of times the abuses happen while they're advocating for the care of people in their charge.

My journey started with this video...

A few thoughts...

• In what fucking universe should this asshole be allowed to practice medicine? If he treats nurses like this, how is he treating his patients?
• This hospital has a lot of explaining to do. I hope they respond appropriately and, if they don't, they deserve to have their reputation absolutely trashed.
• If this doctor hates this country so fucking much, go to another country then, you psychotic bitch. Your feelings about the USA are no excuse to treat this woman like this. Yelling at a nurse in such an unhinged manor is beyond disrespectful... it's abusive and dangerous.
• Fuck off, asshole.

And it doesn't stop there. So many articles and videos about nurses getting verbally assaulted by enraged doctors. And while, sure, some of it is could be a reaction to something, it's still no excuse. Whether because of a god-complex or just the profession attracting a certain personality type, it's mind-boggling to me. I cannot fathom in my wildest imagination my doctor acting like this! And if he ever did, he wouldn't be my doctor.

Until now I thought that nurses getting abused was due to patients... but doctors?!?

I'd like to blame it on stress, but I have a difficult time imagining that nurses have it any easier.

UPDATE: Annnnnnd... she was fired. Why am I not surprised.