Back in December of 2024 my faithful Toyota Corolla died. I had helped my mom purchase it in 2006, then took it over when she could no longer drive. Afterwards I donated my Saturn to the veterans, and the Corolla rolled on with not too many problems (except the brakes, which I had to replace in 2024). I am not a "car guy" so my plan was to drive the Corolla until it died, which I did.

My sister made it clear that I had to run out and get another car so I could make it over the mountains for Christmas. Not trusting myself to get a used car because I'd have no idea what to look for (I worried about inheriting somebody else's problems) I went to the Toyota dealership and asked for the cheapest car they had.

Which turned out to be another Toyota Corolla. It was so new they hadn't even gotten all the plastic wrapping removed.

After waiting for them to get it ready, I went for a test drive and ended up buying it. It was a car that could get me from Point A to Point B, and that's all I needed to know.

The car is fine. Nothing special. And since I have nothing else to blog about today, here's my thoughts.

• I like blue cars. All my cars have been medium-to-dark blue. But since I needed the car immediately, I got what I got. Which is grey. I didn't care. The issue is that this kind of grey is everywhere now because all the car manufacturers have been releasing new models with it. The tone is slightly different between manufacturers (mine has a nice purple-ish blue undertone), but this is the color of the moment. Which can make it a challenge to spot your car in the parking lot. I have walked up to totally different brands (and even other Corollas) from the beginning. I'm still doing that.
• Like all modern cars of this class, the construction isn't the greatest. I had random squeaks and creaks from the first week. It's disappointing, but unless you have $250K to spend, it's what there is.
• One of the features I was happiest to have was CarPlay. It's a screen that allows you to control stuff while using your iPhone as the "brain" of the car. The problem is that Toyota's system software is shitty, which means it doesn't always automatically connect to my phone. 75% of the time I have to press a button on the display to initiate it. And it pisses me the fuck off. Once I select CarPlay, I don't ever want to see the Toyota system ever again.
• Another feature I was thrilled to get was a wireless charger. Except the charger is shit. It doesn't work at all. It will start charging, but then fail-out in a minute. I have the most popular phone in the entire fucking world, and Toyota's charger won't work with it? And it's not just me... everybody complains about it. Why the fuck say that you have a wireless charger if it doesn't actually wirelessly charge anything? Toyota should be sued for lying and forced to fix it.
• One of the coolest features that comes with the car is remote access. You can remote-start the car, unlock the car, and the like. After a year it stopped working and you have to pay for it. And that's fine. I know that the cellular communication required isn't free. I don't mind at all. Except you can't just buy the remote access by itself. You have to pair it with Toyota's music service (when I already have iTunes and Google Music) or pair it with their mapping service (when I already have Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, etc.). It's so fucking stupid, and I won't do it. Just let me buy the part I want, assholes.
• The backup camera (which I think it required in American cars now?) is nice, but it would be equally useful to have a forward camera that you could engage when pulling up to something in tight quarters. I wonder why auto manufacturers don't get on that?
• I was going to buy an electric car because electrical power is relatively inexpensive where I live. But I balked at the idea of having to purchase a new battery when this one dies, seeing as how they're almost as expensive as the car itself. Since I don't drive a lot, I went with gas-powered, figuring it would be cheaper in the long run. But now regular unleaded gas is $5.49 a gallon where I live thanks to the president being a dumb fuck asshole who needed a war with Iran to distract from his being named in the Epstein Files. All over nuclear weapons he had already "decimated" with his last distraction. Now I wish I had spent the extra money to go electric.
• This Toyota is slightly wider than my old one. Over a year later and I'm still not used to it. I have to turn into parking spots later than I used to in order to be centered, and it messes with my head. This is a basic car, not a luxury vehicle. I'd prefer something more narrow, not more wide.
• My car is nearing 16 months old and I've never washed it. I just let the rain clean it. When it's not raining, it's a bit dirty but I just don't care.
• The car comes with blind spot indicators on the side-mirrors. It's a nice feature, but I remain paranoid that they will fail, so I still do too many head-checks.
• The car also has lane guidance and proximity detection. This means that if you drift out of your lane, your car will guide you back to the center. If you come up too close to the car ahead of you, your car will slow down. Both would be great if they worked consistently, but they really don't. So I leave them turned on and stay on high alert like I always have.
• I have yet to read the manual. Which is nothing special... I've never read the manual for any car I've ever owned. But in this case I should read the manual because the electronics are so much more complex. Many times needlessly so. I want to make the dashboard illumination brighter. No idea how to do it. Instead of a knob somewhere, I'm guessing there's some menu setting hidden in a maze of menu settings. Annoying.
• I found out that it's next to impossible to purchase the base model of any car. Manufacturers make a base model so they can say the car is cheap... but dealerships make less money on them and don't want to carry them. So you always have to buy "packages" with extra features you probably don't want or need. That was definitely the case with my car. I paid nearly $3,000 over the base price. If I wasn't desperate, I probably wouldn't have done it. I would have tried to order a base model.

Ultimately, one year and a few months on, I'm happy enough with my car. It was more expensive than I wanted to pay and had more features than I needed, but it's still basic and fairly inexpensive by today's standards.

And it works, which is all I truly care about anyway.

Guess what... it's allergy time!

I went outside to take photos for my landscaper and came back in with itchy eyes and a runny nose. And so... it's time for me to be miserable for a while as my body adjusts to this assault on my mind, body, and soul. Or so it feels. All I know for sure is that I want to move to Antarctica this time of year.

In other news, it's official. I can't buy any more spices thanks to The Spice House coming out with two must-have-blends that filled out my spice drawer.

Back of the Yards is an instant favorite. It's the perfect blend of salt, pepper, garlic, sugar, shallots, peppers, and parsley, which tastes phenomenal on my Beyond Burgers! So crazy good.

Golden Herb Salt is one of the best vegetable toppers I've ever had... featuring salt, garlic, mustard, onion, MSG, pepper, parsley, rosemary, oregano, turmeric, and mace! I have all these spices already, but any attempt to make this blend on my own would never get a balance this good, so I'm content to leave it to the professionals.

To make room, I had to remove my Spice House Sea Salt & Tellicherry Pepper (fine, coarse, and peppercorns) and they're next to the stove now. And I had already moved my Dutch cocoa and put it with my coffee service.

We won't discuss how Spice House changed their labels, so now the non-matching designs sets my ADHD on edge. Not only that, they've drifted upwards... and one of them was crooked...

WHY? LORD, WHYYYY? It's like when they change the design of book covers half-way through a series and now nothing matches any more. How am I supposed to live this way?

Thanks to all of you who are flooding my social media with birthday wishes! Now that I'm officially old and slow, it will take a while to reply to all y'all... but I'll get there eventually, because the outpouring of kindness means the world to me!

But so does money. Money is great. Feel free to send money as well. In fact, if you would rather not spend your precious time sending a happy birthday message, you can just skip that part and send money. I promise I'll appreciate it just as much. If not more. Probably more.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! Dave2, Jake, and Jenny.

I know it's an honest mistake, but that's not me in the video.

But that's an adequate representation of what it's like for me getting out of bed every day.

For the past couple months, it feels as if time is passing me by. It's Monday and I brace myself for a busy week... then all of a sudden the weekend is here and I'm mentally and physically exhausted.

All the plans I have and all the things I need to do seem impossible. Anything beyond laying on the couch and watching television feels out of reach. Then I blink and it's Monday again.

Maybe this is normal as you age? The good news is that, at this rate, I'll perish soon, and finally be able to get some sleep!

And, on that note...

I had a ridiculous crush on Miss Tessmacher in Superman: The Movie back in the day. Valerie Perrine played her so flawlessly... a bit ditzy, but smart enough to have things figured out and know the score...

Rest in Peace.

Blergh. I was too tired to work last night, then didn't feel like working on Saturday, so here I am trying to get it all done on Sunday night. Just like I was back in school! But don't think that's going to keep the bullets from flying... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• D2! One of my most favorite video games of all time is Minecraft Dungeons. I love it so much that I ended up buying it for my Xbox S|X because the copy I had for my Nintendo Switch ended up stuttering when there was too much stuff happening on-screen at the same time. Fortunately, that's mostly cleared up on the Switch 2, even though the game hasn't been optimized for the platform. I have been yearning for a sequel ever since I played through the last of the DLC packs, and was beginning to give up hope. And now? Minecraft Dungeons 2, baby!

Such a fun game. I hope the sequel is beyond my expectations.

   
• Centimeters! This is the funniest thing I've seen in a minute, and I'm compelled to share it...

The pain on his face! Oh noes!

   
• Future Imperfect! Yeah, I don't know how "real" this video is, but the trajectory of what's being said seems like it's entirely accurate...

Which means this is nothing less than a horror film.

   
• The Source! WHAT A NOVEL CONCEPT! WHEN ADAPTING A BOOK INTO A MOVIE, STICK TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL THAT PEOPLE ALREADY LOVE!

I'd say this is a no-brainer, but soooo many books I was dying to see adapted got fucked up beyond recognition. So, in that respect, Ryan Gosling is a fucking genius. But there's always some director or some studio exec who wants to "put there stamp" on something... which is just saying that they don't want to do their job. Your "stamp" should be STAYING FAITHFUL TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL! I can't wait to see this film because I loved the movie so much.

   
• Fade Left! Oh man. Coming from Washington State, I assumed that I could make a free left to a one-way everywhere. I shudder to think how many times I've broken the law when driving in other states. AND NO FREE LEFTS AT ALL IN MAINE??...

I used to go to Maine twice a year for work, and took free lefts ALL THE TIME! Yikes. It's a miracle that I didn't end up with a ticket.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Afghan father, former U.S. military ally, dies in ICE custody in North Texas. — I am disgusted to my very core. This man risked his life to save the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan. He's a hero to this country. He was brought here legally. He was in the process of immigrating legally, as was promised him. By all accounts he was doing things "the right way." And yet he was still abducted by ICE and is now dead. We may never know what ACTUALLY happened. What we do know is the promise of ICE removing only "illegal" criminals is a fucking lie. The blood is on our hands for allowing this. There's a right way and a wrong way to go about the immigration challenges we face. This is the wrong way.

I hope his family sues. I hope they win millions. But it will never be enough to compensate them for their loss. Nothing ever will be. Rest in Peace Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal. You deserved so much better at our hands.

   
• Meta Versed! Apparently Mark Zuckerberg's "Metaverse" is now dead...

Which is essentially makes it NFTs 2.0...

Apparently Meta wants to take the billions of dollars they were pumping into the "Metaverse" and instead pump it into AI. And while I never cared about the "Metaverse" and wished them well, I don't have the same attitude when it comes to AI. I want that bullshit to become NFTs 3.0.

   
• Dig Duggar! So there I was looking through the news when I saw that old story about one of the Duggar kids from 19 Kids and Counting being arrested for child sexual assault or misconduct or something horrific. I didn't understand why they were rerunning the story from years ago until I realized it was a different Duggar...

I was just relieved that it didn't turn out to be one of my favorite YouTubers, William Osman...

For the love of God I don't understand this country's love affair with conservative evangelical "Christians." It's become a cult which seems to be encourages this kind of shit. Because when you can commit heinous crimes then it all disappears when you beg God for forgiveness, how could it not encourage it? But, yeah, keep blaming drag queens and trans persons for the crap that these assholes are guilty of.

   
And... back to work.

My cats are being absurdly fickle again.

I always grab a few random cans of food when I go to the pet store, just so I can know which foods I can get if the food I normally buy for them is out of stock or discontinued.

One of the foods from my last haul was so favorably received that I decided to buy some of it to add a little excitement to their lives.

You know what happened next. They turned up their nose to it.

And so... the cans are going to the back of the cupboard. This is what I do when this happens, because many times when I try it again later, they're obsessed with it again. And if not? I give it to the neighbor's cats, because they aren't at all picky like my spoiled little kittens.

In other news, Jake has gotten so comfortable laying on me that he now has no problem at all giving himself a bath...

Not only that, but he makes for a great foot-warmer on cold days...

And of course both of them are still sleeping with me. I regularly wake up to find them somewhere on my bed...

Now it's time for me to try and sleep. A task my cats excel at.

I had to go to the Big City on a work errand today. While I was waiting, I remembered that my driver's license will expire soon, so I went online to renew it. Except I couldn't renew it online. And that's when I noticed that now you can make appointments at the DMV. How handy is that? What was even more surprising? My appointment time actually meant something, and I was in-and-out pretty quick. Interestingly enough, I had the option for an eight year license! And, for good measure, I went ahead and got an "enhanced" license since I had my passport and a pile of mail with me, which allows me to use it at airport security and stuff.

My visit was a far cry from DMV visits in the past. No longer an exercise in torture filled with assholes. Everybody was actually nice.

While I was waiting for my appointment time, I was looking at Facebook and this popped up on my feed...

Kinda embarrassing to be laughing in the waiting room of the DMV.

Annnnd... just like that, the snow from the weekend is gone.

It had a good run, but was already melting away on Monday, was mostly gone by Tuesday, started disappearing from the hillsides by Wednesday, and now you'd barely know it was here and the weather is so warm that I've been wearing T-shirts.

So while I was thinking we might get a few extra weeks grace from drought, now I'm wondering if it was enough snow to make a difference. I guess it all depends on what's going on in the mountains.

On the up-side, the good thing about having a dead lawn is that you don't have to mow it.

With each passing day humanity seems to dumb-down to entirely new depths.

From flat-earthers to anti-vaxers to the idiotic "us vs. them" divisions that plague us, I grow more and more disillusioned with our ability to survive an increasingly hostile future. You have to be smart... be able to think your way out of situations and move forward... but it's tough to do that when science is being vilified and critical thinking has become passé.

And it all starts with people buying into misinformation idiocy...

I haven't related to a cartoon more than this one in a long while.

And I'm beginning to wonder if I'm relieved that we're becoming too stupid to continue.

We kinda deserve it.

The first non-meat burger I ever had was at Johnny Rockets in Santa Monica. I was in L.A. for work, staying at the lux Miramar Sheraton Hotel. Wanting something to eat, I wandered down the nearby 3rd Street Promenade and was draw to the smell of Johnny Rockets, a restaurant chain I had never heard of before. I was only a few years into being a vegetarian, and thought for sure that I would be ordering a grilled cheese with a side of fries. There just weren't a lot of vegetarian options at a hamburger restaurant, and that's what I almost always ended up ordering.

But there was something strange on the menu.

It was called "The Streamliner" and claimed to be vegetarian? How could I resist that when the smell in the place was so intoxicating? So I ordered one, hold the grilled onions, expecting the worst. Veggie burgers of the day were always either 1) made from unappetizing chunks of vegetables and mushrooms or 2) some soy monstrosity which had the texture of shoe leather.

Imagine my absolute shock to find that it was actually a delicious burger with a sublime texture. It was everything I ever wanted in a burger that was reminiscent of a beef burger, but without having to kill a cow. It was love at first bite, and I would be going out of my way to visit Johnny Rockets at every opportunity... announcing it to anybody who was reading my blog "Rockets, bitches. Rockets." And I did that for many years.

After a while I learned that the burger Johny Rockets used was called Boca Burger and though it wasn't the same, I found them in stores and started buying them to eat at home.

Then one day I went to the Johnny Rockets at the Maine Mall... minutes after landing and picking up my rental car at the Portland International Jetport in 2018... only to find that The Streamliner had been discontinued. Replaced with a gag-inducing "burger" that claimed to be a "black bean burger" but was unlike any good black bean burger I'd ever had. I was absolutely gutted. A once favorite food had been destroyed. I never ate at Johnny Rockets again.

Then a miracle happened. Burger King unleashed their "Impossible Whopper"... something I discovered on one of my many work trips to Las Vegas in 2019. It was incredible. And, because Burger King was everywhere, a lot easier to get than Johnny Rockets. And so there it was. No matter where I was traveling, I was ignoring local specialties and buying Impossible Whoppers. What a great time to be alive.

But then... something changed over the years.

The burgers tasted the same, but the produce would vary widely. Sometimes the burgers were perfect, sometimes you'd get wilted lettuce, unripe tomatoes, or stank onions, and the experience was terrible. And I started ordering the Impossible Whopper with cheese because otherwise they'd take it out of the tray instead of off the grill and it wasn't hot. If you ordered cheese, they'd at least microwave it so it was warm when you went to eat it.

So now I go to Burger King rarely, the experience having been ruined. I understand that Johnny Rockets eventually realized their mistake and are now using Impossible Burgers, but there's nothing local and it's just not worth going out of my way to get there. Not any more.

Buying burgers for home was equally depressing. Boca Burger was bought out by Kraft and utterly destroyed. Morningstar Farms was never great, but I preferred them over other options because usually burgers released by Impossible or Beyond were an inch thick and you have to choke them down.

But then I discovered Beyond Stack Burgers recently, and everything changed.

I don't stack them (because multiple burgers causes me intestinal distress)... but I do smash them. Not from frozen, but I microwave them for 30 seconds so they're smashable. It's important that you coat the food-turner with the oil that melts out of the burger first so it doesn't stick to the burger and destroy it, but the result is 100% delicious, and I eat them way more often than I probably should.

The fact that the burgers come 8 per pack, thus matching the 8 buns you get in a bag of buns is just a bonus.

So of course I'm now living in fear that Beyond Foods will go out of business or discontinue their Stack Burgers or "improve the formula" or some such bullshit. History has taught me it's an inevitability.

One of these days, I really need to try making my own burgers. Usually when doing this I find a recipe online that's close to what I'm looking for and adjust it until it's to my liking. But I have yet to find a recipe (or more likely a "copycat recipe") which is even remotely like what I'm looking for.

In the meanwhile, I'll just keep buying my beloved Beyond Stack Burgers and enjoy them while they last.