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.

Don't fear the reaper... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Cardio! For somebody whose on the internet way more than he would ever admit, it's genuinely shocking that I somehow missed this viral video from last year...

Poor thing. She nearly had a heart attack. And can you really blame her?

   
• Pet Heaven! Oh man. I need to get Jake & Jenny baptized so they can get into Pet Heaven! Never even thought of it!

A friend sent me this video because they call their cat Boo-Bear, just like I call Jake Boo-Bear. Or "Bubair" if you'd rather.

   
• That Mitchell & Webb Look! The fact that you know what's coming just makes it all the funnier...

David Mitchell is phenomenal in the BritBox series Ludwig, if you're looking for something good to watch.

   
• Fart Patio! I miss Portlandia...

There's something about scathing satire which speak truth in a way you love to see.

   
• I'm Donut! I look forward to this event every Christmas, but didn't find it last year. But they did reenact it, so I must have somehow missed it...

Some traditions should never die. Especially when donuts are involved.

   
• Gain? I've been in a lot of smelly situations. I've had some smelly jobs. But there is nothing... NOTHING... that I've experienced which is worse than the horrific stench of Swiffer "Fresh-Scent with Gain" mop pads. I accidentally purchased them instead of the usual Swiffer I get (the boxes look almost identical) and have been trying to use them every once in a while because it's wasteful to throw them in the trash. Especially given how expensive they are. Tonight I spilled spaghetti sauce in my kitchen and grabbed the Swiffer. And now, in the middle of winter, I have all the doors and windows open because my house smells like total ass. I do not understand how people want their house to smell like this shit. I regret using them every time, and I really, really need to suck it up, take the L, and toss them... because this is awful awful awful.

   
• Greenland? Maybe I'm cynical in that I think this whole load of nonsense about Greenland being taken by the USA is just another bullshit distraction from the Epstein Files. But if it's not? Two things. 1) In 1917, the Virgin Islands were sold to the USA to become a US territory by Denmark, and part of the agreement is that the USA recognize full Danish control over Greenland. In other words, we signed up for this. And, 2) Somebody out of NATO has already said "If you take Greenland, we take every single base of the Americans from Aviano to Ramstein, from Romania, to all the other military bases will be confiscated, and you will lose it, and the whole position of American power since World War II, if you take Greenland, you have to leave." Which is to say that we would be in seriously deep shit. I cannot fathom how incredibly fucking stupid it would be if somebody... ANYBODY... doesn't explain that there are consequences to being a complete moron in this situation.

   
And now? Time to wash another load of clothes.

There's a big trend on social media where people are posting photos of themselves from 2016... ten years ago.

I decided to go back to 2016 for Jake and Jenny, because I got them for my mom in 2016. Which means that they're over ten years old, which seems impossible. The Human Society didn't know exactly when the cats were born, but based on what they were able to find out, they were guessing the first week of December. Since they have to have a birthday to celebrate, I picked December 6th, 2015. We picked them up on February 16th, 2016.

Still one of the better days of my life...

It's so funny how they're so easily recognizable. They look the same. Except smaller.

In the case of Jake, a lot smaller.

I fall down internet rabbit holes very, very easy.

Usually it's animals. I start looking at animal videos and it's so mentally soothing that I can't stop myself. It's the ultimate feel-good hit. But there's lots of other things that get me hooked. Woodworking. Travel. Animation. Art. The list goes on and on. And then there's tattooing.

If I had my way, I'd have minimum quadruple the tattoos I have now. I love tattoos. Even more than that, I love the art of tattoos. Which is why the Instagram algorithm has my number. It's filled with tattoo artists, because they know odds are that I'm going to click through.

And then this morning I ran across "TrippyCats" by Jiho Yoon. And while lots of the tattoos are indeed very trippy, I love the ones that are less trippy...

Has me very close to wanting to buy a ticket to Seoul and book an appointment!

There have been few people in the world of Star Wars which have been more divisive than Kathleen Kennedy, and today it was announced that she is stepping down as the head of LucasFilm. An event which has been a long time coming, because most of the stuff she oversaw didn't really give us anything truly worthy of the franchise.

Most but not all, which we'll get to in a minute.

I'm really hoping that new boss Dave Filoni finds ways of making Star Wars exciting and fresh again.

But anyway... Kennedy took over from George Lucas after his terrible prequel trilogy, and and I thought I'd take a look at all the projects that she was overseeing. Except The Madalorian and Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter, because they haven't come out yet.

THE PHENOMENAL

• Andor Season 01 - If there's anything that Kathleen Kennedy did to make her work at Lucasfilm notable, it was greenlighting one of the best television shows of all time. I don't know how much involvement she actually had (other than giving Tony Gilroy the space he needed to churn out this masterpiece in two parts), but I'm going to give her credit for standing behind the show (and renewing it). This is the best Star Wars to come out of Star Wars since The Empire Strikes Back.
• Andor Season 02 - Ditto.

THE GOOD

• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - This is the film which caught me by surprise. The fact that it works so well given the mess that was going on behind the scenes is some kind of miracle. Plus it gave us Andor.
• The Mandalorian Season 01 - I don't know if it was just that it came along at the right time or what, but everything about Mando is entertaining. Whether it's introducing one of the most meme-worthy, cutest, and all-around cool Grogu (aka "Baby Yoda"), or introducing lore to Star Wars which is actually worthy of remembering, this series gave me hope that the franchise was back.
• The Mandalorian Season 02 - The second season rarely lives up to the first. But this one does. And then we get Bo-Katan and a full-on Jedi Luke Skywalker as the cherry on top of the season.
• Ahsoka Season 01 - It may be because I grew to love the character so much that I was able to overlook some of the problems, but I was quite happy with how the series panned out. If you were a fan of the animated stuff (as I am), this was a no-brainer to watch, and the cast was perfect.
• Skeleton Crew Season 01 - Color me shocked. A Star Wars series built around CHILDREN that's actually GOOD?!? Yes. Yes indeed. I wish that it could have been a bit more imaginative in the settings (seemed very earth-like to me), but it had a cool shades-of-gray mentality about it that made me love it even more.

THE MEH

• Solo: A Star Wars Story - I don't think this movie was quite the disaster that many people made it out to be. Though it should have been. Phil Lord and Chris Miller departed, Ron Howard stepped in, and it still ended up being mostly coherent! Yes, things would have likely been stronger if either team had been given the entire project, but I enjoyed it enough to overlook the flaws. Especially since we got Daniel Glover as Lando, which is brilliant, brilliant casting.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi Season 01 - I love Ewan McGregor's take on Obi-Wan. Unfortunately, he's been given nothing but terrible material and has had to make the best of it. When his mini-series arrived, I was so frickin' optimistic. And it turned out that the guy was having to elevate shallow material again! Even with the problems and nonsense, I still liked this show enough to keep watching. And I guess that's something.
• The Acolyte Season 01 - Despite having some killer fight scenes (seriously, some of the best in Star Wars lore), this show really fell short in the story department. And yet... I still enjoyed some of it. I liked that it was a darker take on the Jedi Order. I liked that the heroes and villains were shades of gray instead of black-and-white. The cast was great and everything was entertaining... until you get to the whole "Force Witches" angle, which was so badly done that it sabotaged everything. A lot of people review-bombed the show because it was female-forward. But this was a non-issue to me, and I thought there were far more critical things to be critical about. I am very sad that the show didn't do well enough to give Manny Jacinto's Qimir another series.
• The Mandalorian Season 03 - It's not that the third season was bad, it's just that it was a big drop from what I was expecting after the awesome first two seasons.

THE BAD

• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - Here it is. The last movie with the original Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones that there will ever be. Gotta make it a great story and an even greater film. Right? RIGHT? Nope. While marginally better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and possessing some good moments, this it still a bad film.
• The Book of Boba Fett Season 01 - Turns out there wasn't enough Boba Fett in his own show. Or maybe there was, it's just that his storyline was so boring, uninspired, and didn't give us anything interesting, so it just seemed that way. This should have just been another season of The Mandalorian. Maybe Season 2.5 or something. That way, they could have just focused on what they were good at and had Boba Fett guest-appear in an interesting way. Certainly more interesting than anything we got here.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens - This probably deserves to be a "meh" rated movie, but I watched it again recently and it's just not that good. Though there are some really good moments. And I liked the actors who were cast as Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo... all of whom manage to build compelling characters. Where things fall apart is the story timing. How are Rey, who's not been trained as a Jedi, and Finn, who's not a Jedi, even remotely able to put up a fight against Kylo Ren? Senseless.
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi - As a massive Rian Johnson fan, I was thrilled when he got a Star Wars movie handed to him. But it turns out even a genius can't pick up the broken pieces of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and get greatness out of it. And he made some seriously bad choices here that kinda sabotaged his film. Primary among them would be "Space Leia," which was laughably stupid (and don't get me started on the entire Canto Bight crap). There were bright spots though. "The Holdo Maneuver" made zero sense logistically, but was a visual treat. More eye-candy like that and I probably wouldn't have minded the sub-par story so much? I dunno.

THE GUT-WRENCHINGLY AWFUL

• Willow Season 01 - I couldn't get past the first episode. No, I wasn't a huge Willow fan to begin with, but this was so badly conceived and implemented that I don't understand what Kennedy was thinking when she greenlit it. Who was it for? The script needed serious work, and allowing it to proceed without another couple of passes is a failing.
• Galaxy's Edge Disney Park Land - Out of all the bad decisions that can be left at Kathleen Kennedy's doorstep, this is the one that blows my mind. Disneyland and Walt Disney World are going to build huge new lands. Imagineers wanted them to be a celebration of the Star Wars that everybody loved. Apparently Kennedy shot that idea down and insisted that they be built around the sequel trilogy instead. No Darth Vader. No Luke Skywalker. No Princess Leia. No R2D2 & C3PO. Instead we get Rey, Kylo Ren, and who-the-fuck-ever. AND THEN... yesterday it was announces that Disney was bringing the original trilogy characters to Galaxy's Edge as they should have done in the first place. And it's about fucking time. I can only guess this was supposed to be announced after Kennedy's stepping-down was announced and somebody goofed. It's crazy that she thought ditching the characters that made Star Wars be Star Wars in favor of the new characters that she oversaw was a winning strategy. Yeah, the time-frames converge, but who cares? It's not like EVERY. OTHER. LAND. at the parks isn't merging different times and even worlds. So dumb. There's no excuse for this nonsense.
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - I honestly don't understand how this nonsense soup was put into production. It's just so dang stupid. It has absolutely nothing to say, doesn't progress Star Wars at all, wastes a golden opportunity for a proper send-off of the original trilogy, and is head-scratchingly awful with story beats that make absolutely no sense. Wayfinders? Really? There's not a lick of internal logic here. Ideas are half-baked. Dialogue is plain bad. As executive producer, was Kennedy asleep at the wheel... or did she just not care?

THE MISSING IN ACTION

• Rogue Squadron - After the hot fucking mess that came out of Patty Jenkins shitting the bed utterly in the awful, awful, Wonder Woman sequel, I can't say I'm upset that this movie was canceled. But it is fucking embarrassing that Kathleen Kennedy championed it to begin with only to have it disappear.
• Untitled Kevin Feige Film - When he was riding high on the incredible success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was kind of a no-brainer to let Feige helm a Star Wars project. Then the movies started tanking, the shows weren't memorable, and his movie had apparently vanished.
• Untitled Rian Johnson Trilogy - Did I love what Rian Johnson did with Star Wars: The Last Jedi? No. But did this deter my enthusiasm for him getting a new trilogy of Star Wars films? It did not. I would have loved to have seen what Johnson would have done if getting to start from scratch instead of inheriting something to work off of. Oh well.
• Untitled David Benioff and D.B. Weiss's Trilogy - Thank God this was canceled. These dumbasses fucked up an un-fuck-upable series with the final two seasons of Game of Thrones in order to rush it to a conclusion so they could do Star Wars. It should have been apparent to everybody... especially Kathleen Kennedy... that Benioff & Weiss were only good at adapting existing material and should have never been given an entire trilogy which would rely on them creating their own ideas. Again, I refer you to the final two seasons of Game of Thrones. Kennedy side-stepped an absolute landmine here, and had this trilogy of movies went forward, I'm almost certain that it would have resulted in her getting fired.
• Star Wars: Duel of the Fates - The original movie ending to the sequel trilogy, this Trevorrow script (which was leaked online) had problems and wasn't perfect... but it was better than the wet fart of an ending we got out of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and my guess is that Kathleen Kennedy is the bad decision that's responsible. Much like her shepherding of the entire sequel trilogy.