Insomnia has been kicking my ass, but I'm not letting that stop me... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Punch-kun! I ran across the tragic story of the macaque snow monkey "Punch-kun" because I still follow Japanese news. Punch was abandoned my his mother and took comfort in an IKEA stuffed orangutan named "Djungelskog." There were numerous photos of the poor little guy doing his best to find acceptance and love from a plushie...

But then, after days on his own, he finally got a hug from one of his troop...

So that's nice. Especially after the shit-show of a week we've had.

   
• Whither Pixar? When Onward was released in 2020, it was a turning point for me when it came to Pixar. With one exception, I didn't like any of these films. And I never really understood why. I never bothered to search my feelings to understand what it was about Pixar that was turning me off. Then this morning I saw this...

And there it is. The reason there's one exception to Pixar from 2020 onward? It's because I've been to the coastal Italian towns which inspired the film Luca. I have a personal connection to the movie because I can draw on an experience that I've had. It's also why I can like a movie like Elio, but not fall in love with it.

   
• Dave Smash! I've been a big Morningstar Farms fan since becoming vegetarian decades ago. I veered away to Boca Burger for my burgers because they had superior taste and mouthfeel, but after Kraft bought them out and fucked up the recipe, I went back to Morningstar Grillers. They aren't great, and you have to know how to cook them so the texture isn't awful, but at least I'm not gagging them down. And then... Beyond Meat released Beyond Stack Burgers...

Now, I should say that Beyond does make an actual smash burger product, but they're not sold near me and aren't meant to be frozen (though you can), which means you have to eat them the day you open the package. The "stack" version always come frozen and are meant to stay frozen until used. Which means I don't have to eat them all after opening the package. But anyway... I found that I can get the Beyond Stack Burgers locally (well, 25-minutes away locally, but still). I absolutely love these burgers. A little high in sodium (260mg per patty), but not atrocious. They also cook weird, with a strange foamy residue in the pan, but the results are tasty enough when you smash them that I just don't care. As a bonus, Beyond has packaging that actually works... unlike shitty Morningstar Farms packaging which I hate, hate, hate.

   
• Thor Tells Jokes! I really want to see this standup as a special... where is Netflix when you really need them?

Hearing this makes me want to watch Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King again. It's a highly personal work which happens to be very, very funny. And touching.

   
• The Dow! The Dow! This is an absolute banger...

I couldn't even watch the hearing because Bondi is a gaping fucking asshole. Instead of using her position to serve the American people and seek justice, she's conspiring to protect child predators. She's such a massive pile of lying fucking shit that any time she speaks I see red, so I don't put myself in a position to watch. Thanks to this video, I can see the highlights in a way that doesn't make me want to hide under my bed and start screaming.

   
• SANDIWARA! Given my love of all things Michelle Yeoh, I was thrilled when a friend shared this with me...

The comments having people saying this should be a Malaysian tourism video. I cannnot disagree. This definitely makes me want to visit Penang (I've only ever been to Kuala Lumpur in the country).

   
• Finalizada! Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família... AKA the Sagrada Familia basilica, is finally nearing completion. After 144 years...

Fascinating. I've visited Sagrada Familia three times over a 20 year span. It never seemed like it was any closer to being completed. Now that we're so close, it feels like it might be time to visit Barcelona again. Not that I need an excuse... it's one of my favorite cities on earth.

   
• Sci-Fi Entertainment! This list isn't perfect, but dang if it doesn't make me want to re-watch every one of these films...

Even though I've already seen all of them more than once. Some of them many times.

   
And now back to needing more sleep.

I talk to my cats... like... all the time. Especially when they talk to me.

They answer back but, don't worry, I'm not pretending I can understand them. At least not yet. It's entirely possible that sometime in the future I'll finally have that mental break that will take me all the way.

Because I reply to my cats when they talk to me, they are talking more and more. Jenny will alter how she meows based on whether she's mad, happy, hungry, wanting to be petted, or is frustrated. Her "mad" meow is very noticeably different than everything else she says. So she's fairly easy to decode.

Jake, on the other hand, just squawks. He can't meow for some reason. Which means I have no idea what's going through his furry little head and have to guess. Usually he wants attention. But sometimes he is looking for a toy or wants food... and it's a matter trial and error to get him figured out.

Ever since I got back from Kansas City, Jake has been spending a lot of time sitting on me. Assumably because he doesn't want me to leave again...

Fortunately, the only "leaving" I will be doing for quite a while is going to work. But I'll be back at the end of the day so I can be pinned to my couch.

The other day I got an email from somebody who was reading through all my posts from the start. This is something even I am not brave enough to do, so I commend them on their bravery.*

But anyway...

New Blogography reader Jacob pointed out that I invented the "low fare calendar" in 2005 before airlines started using low fare calendars...

Interesting to note that I was using Northwest Airlines as an example, but that airline doesn't even exist because this was 20 years ago!

Kinda funny. I wonder what other stuff is rolling around on this blog that I should have patented when I had the chance?

   
*Though I've often thought that I should go through all my 23 years of entries and do a series of posts where I comment on them with updates or whatever. How fun would that be?

On New Year's Day I did something a little crazy. I ordered all the movies I own by their release date, then started watching them in order from oldest to newest.

It's quite an enjoyable way to be entertained. I started with the oldest movie in my collection, The Thin Man (1934), then moved on through The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), North by Northwest (1959), and a slew of James Bond movies (plus 2001: A Space Odyssey). From there the 70's came along, which included a slew of classics (like Star Wars, Grease, Foul Play, Death on the Nile, Superman: The Movie, Alien, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Airplane)...

...and then the 80's hit with The Empire Strikes Back and then Xanadu (1980)...

I am not a fan of musicals. But I loved A) Olivia Newton John, B) Electric Light Orchestra, and C) Greek mythology... so I saw it in the theater with friends when I was in high school. While not a great movie, it was an entertaining spectacle with phenomenal music.

And beautiful Olivia Newton John in that amazing dress she wore, of course.

Every night since I saw the film 46 years ago, I've said a little prayer to Zeus that these dresses come back into fashion. Because, damn...

No joke. The muses wouldn't be sexier if they were naked. Yeah, the wardrobe is very 80's... but I think that's why I'm so into it. It's retro-chic-sexy in a way that we never quite got back to. Even animated...

And of course I fell down a rabbit hole...

The movie actually plays better in 2026 than it did when it was released somehow.

I worked a very long day, but after arriving home I couldn't help but feel as though it was Sunday and the end of my weekend. No idea why. Maybe it's because I traveled all day Sunday, and Monday was a holiday for me? Whatever the case, all my plans to clean house, unpack my suitcase, and wash clothes went out the window because I felt displaced and exhausted.

So I caught up on A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms instead.

I wish I remembered more about the book, but that was 25 years ago. From what little I do remember, the series is faithful to the source material. I don't remember the flashbacks in the fifth episode, but I appreciate that they tried to flesh out Ser Duncan as a character with a backstory which fit nicely into the battle.

With one episode left to go, I am hopeful that they don't fuck it up at the end. The awful taste of the final season of Game of Thrones is still in my mouth, so you can forgive me having doubts.

One thing I can't get over is just how impeccably cast the leads are. Peter Claffey as Dunk and Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg are just too good to be true...

With each episode they do not falter. The show could have so very easily collapsed under a shitty child lead, but dang is he good. Duncan the Tall is a character that could have gone badly wrong if the actor didn't have a subtlety that felt authentic, but Claffey feels like he's inhabiting the character in a way that works for the series every minute he's on-screen. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms makes you appreciate brilliant casting at a level many shows can only hope to reach.

And, on that note, I guess I'll try to get some sleep.

Something which, understandably, hasn't been easy for me after my sojourn to Kansas City.

It is astonishing to me the mental gymnastics that people are doing in order to justify protecting pedophiles. I would have never in a million years have thought that people would ever endorse such a thing.

And yet here we are.

And I have no fucking clue why. The further down the rabbit hole I fall, the more inexplicable it becomes.

And, no, Pam Bondi did not actually say this. But her actions make it clear she might say this.

In all honesty... does a system deserve to stand if it built around protecting those who would sexually assault children?

Hell no.

So burn this mother-fucker down. I don't give a shit who gets prosecuted or what the consequences are.

Sucked in again!

I haven't had access to Hallmark Channel since May 2024, but wanted a mindless watch on my flight home. So I ended up buying a movie called The Royal We for a bargain $8 on the iTunes Store. I picked it because I really like Mallory Jansen.

Turns out it's everything you could want in a Hallmark flick. It was so good that it instantly became one of my favorite Hallmark flicks. Sure it's the tired old "I'M SECRETLY A PRINCESS" movies, but that's not really the focus, which was a refreshing change. They also bypassed the "I'm so goofy and inept" idiocy that plagues secret royal movies. Nice.

SO... if you've been missing my Hallmark reviews and you're looking for a great Hallmark watch, here's your film.

You're welcome!

I've said my good bye to Aaron, have returned home from Kansas City, and am more exhausted than I can process, but never you fear about bullets gone missing... because a Very Special Ace Fontana Memorial Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• It's a Cluster! I headed to Seattle on Wednesday afternoon and spent the night at the airport so I wouldn't have to stress about making my morning flight (Seattle traffic can be notorious). And all day Wednesday and very early Thursday, I was desperately trying to check in with Alaska Air, but couldn't. Worried that something was wrong, I got to the airport three hours early for my 8:21am flight. And was met with a massive crowd of people. Nobody could check in. You had to stand in line for hours to get a boarding pass, and it was so badly organized that nobody really knew what to do. I barely made my flight. — Look, I know technology goes wrong sometimes... but when you have ZERO plans for how to handle things when it does (especially when you knew there was a problem the previous day) that's a serious fucking oversight. I love Alaska Airlines, but this was one of the biggest cluster-fucks I've ever seen in 45 years of travel. That's saying something.

   
• In Remembrance! Aaron's Celebration of Life was well-attended, and there were two things I took away from it: 1) Aaron touched a lot of people, and if only a fraction were able to be there, we may never know how many people that is... and 2) It was sobering to find out that our friendship, which I thought was atypically special, wasn't all that unique at all. Everybody there felt as though their friendship was atypically special. How many people have the ability to make most every person they meet feel like that?

His 51st birthday is on Tuesday and, as I found out on Saturday, it's hard to celebrate his life without him in it.

   
• Arena KC! Aaron's band performed at his celebration, which was bittersweet. Made even more so because they had just completed a new promo video last month...

A rock star from start to finish.

   
• An Aaron By Any Other Name! While I was waiting for my plane in Kansas City, I was looking through the many, many photos I had collected of Aaron over the years. One caught my eye, because it was double-Aaron...

I first knew him by his blogging handle, Jester. Then I knew him by his name, Paul. Then I knew him by his stage name, Ace. And then I knew him by his middle name, Aaron, which he took as his name because he thought he was more an Aaron than a Paul. But no matter what I was calling him, he was always a great friend.

   
• FindMy! It's interesting to note that the only person I've ever had in Apple's "FindMy" service was Aaron. Because we were either meeting up when I was in town for work or we were meeting up in some random city with other people, it was just easier to use the technology of the day to make our lives easier...

I don't think I ever bothered to open the app unless I was specifically trying to find him. Which is a shame. Because if I had opened it when I was in Anaheim last February, I would have seen that he was in the city at the same time. But, alas, I never knew he was there until he saw that I was in the city and texted after I had already flown home.

   
• The Football! My hotel was across the highway from Arrowhead. Just think how close I was to where Taylor Swift likes to watch her boyfriend play football!

Of course that's also where she played her KC stop for the Eras Tour. And where Travis Kelce attended the show in order to try and give her a friendship bracelet, which is far more historically significant than some silly sportsball game.

   
• MCI! I love Kansas City International Airport. It's beautifully maintained. It's smartly organized. There's plenty of places to sit. There's good variety of things to eat. It's just a generally great place to fly into and out of. In other words, the complete opposite of the shit-show that Seattle-Tacoma International has become. =sigh= I probably wouldn't be so jealous if only Seattle didn't keep ripping out seats to put in retail shops... and could manage to keep all the escalators running for more than five fucking minutes.

   
• Bright Light! Bright Light! For nearly a decade I had to stop driving in the dark because I couldn't see properly. Even the smallest light source would flare out and obliterate everything. Then I got the lenses in my eyes replaced and, suddenly I could see at night again. Driving back across the mountains from Seattle in the dark was a relaxing experience... except not really. It's shocking (or not) how many people drive with their brights on. And though it doesn't blind me any more like it used to, it is irritating. Whether they are coming at me or are behind me (or coming at me with regular lights and then turn on their brights before they fully pass), it's set me back to square one. I don't remember it being like this before I stopped driving at night but, given the way things are going, I shouldn't be surprised.

   
And now I really should get some sleep. Or try to.

Welcome to another Caturday Pupperday!

I am in Kansas City, far from my cats, so I'm having to make due with Aaron and Henry's dogs this time. It made for a nice change given how adorably enthusiastic dogs are to see you when compared to cats. Especially when you find out just how little dogs seem to care about respecting personal space. I had dogs all over me, and it was pretty great...

The first lapdog was a (relatively) small poodle who was very polite. Just wanted to sit on my lap for a while and be petted...

Fortunately, when my lapdog left, there was a backup lapdog to take their place...

Then a backup to my backup lapdog entered the picture...

And then a backup for my backup's backup lapdog entered the picture. Absolutely no understanding of physical space. Climbed right up on my lap, my chest, my face, and eventually my head...

Then it was a big change in a small package. I had met Asher when Aaron and Henry were living in San Francisco. She patiently waited her turn for pets as a replacement backup lapdog...

Then it was time for a brief return of one of the backups for belly rubs...

Meanwhile, back at home, the home security system alerted me that Jake and Jenny were sleeping.

No worries I'm sure when I return on Sunday afternoon they will be upset that I smell like dog, but eventually wanting lap time of their own.

I said I was done with commenting on Bad Bunny's Halftime Show, but the hate... it just won't stop.

The things people are saying just blow my fucking mind. On top of the blatantly racist hot takes on somebody daring to sing in Spanish during the Superb Owl... or denying that Puerto Rico is a part of the USA when it's a US territory... and now we've got next-level racism coming at him in the form of The Great Replacement Theory? What the ever-loving fuck?

Just look at this bullshit...

"America first."

Puerto Rico is a part of "America"... a territory of "The United States of America." So what the fuck are you even talking about, you dipshit white supremacist piece of shit? This country's entire purpose is to be a melting pot of cultures. I wonder if this asshole makes similar declarations for Oktoberfest celebrations around the country? Probably not... that's European and white. It's just Cinco de Mayo, Bad Bunny, or anything where people are celebrating while non-white.

Meanwhile, Bad Bunny just goes about being the adorable human being he is.

Like he was when he went on Hot Ones last year...

Yeah. Tell me again how this guy is a threat to American "culture."

Bad Bunny is American culture.