Non-Gaming Stories

Got pizza with my wife and sons yesterday. The youngest boy is really into sharks...Baby Shark, Mommy Shark, Daddy Shark, SharkDog, Shark Truck, Clark the Shark, sharks that look real, just sharks... and dinosaurs. So, there we are eating pizza and he has his slice and he's trying to feed it to one of his Shark's and saying (in toddler-speak) Pizza Shark. I have decided that somewhere in the multiverse, Pizza Shark is a chain of stores with a chef hat-wearing cartoon shark, probably with a pencil thin mustache as their mascot. (image based on a picture from Clark the Shark and the Big Book Report)  

I have made no secret of the fact that I truly enjoy Phineas and Ferb. I have written several   entries   based either on   characters , the   Tri-State Area   itself, or   scenarios   I think would have been entertaining had they appeared in the show. Today, it hit me...

You know how sometimes you are looking at one thing but you see something else? It used to happen to me all of the time. Or, at least often enough that I started making pictures to show everyone what I saw. Here are some of those things...

Baby Fight Club Doctor comes in with med student to examine our newborn... Doc (to student), "You will see that there is some bruising around the top of his head." Me (silently to myself), "Baby Fight Club will do that to you..." Post-Partum Pizza Thoughts Me last night - looking to warm up some leftover pizza at the hospital... "It would be nice if they had microwaves in the room...." Also me last night - "They can't do that because they are afraid some postpartum mothers might try to microwave their babies..." Also Also me last night - "𝘑𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘴 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵! How did I come up with 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏? 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙒𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙢𝙚?" Naming Guidelines So the hospital gave us a sheet of "rules" to use while naming The Child. 1. Numbers are fine as long as they are spelled out...i.e., we could name the baby 'Twelve' but not '12' and not Tr1stan. 2. No symbols or emojis so ...

Given how stressed out over the myriad problems the world is facing right now, I thought that I would share a little reminder that no matter how bad you have it, no matter how hopeless you think your situation is, that even though you think you have exhausted all hope and just can't go on, that you should be thankful for what you have and where you are because Things Could ALWAYS Be Worse.

Many people do not realize the importance of Ground Hog’s Day, they think only of a silly movie when they hear the name spoken aloud.  This is a shame for the holiday has special significance.  It marks the end of the Virgin Mary’s 40-day purification after the birth of Christ.  It is also the mid-point between the beginning of winter and the beginning of spring, when the weather begins to improve and life returns to the Earth. Notably, there are other animals are used (although not on the same day) to "predict" the end of winter - most notably, bears and badgers. I can see it now - two guys standing outside of a bear's cave with the news crew there to catch everything and one guy hands the other guys a stick and says "Ok, Jimbo, now you go into this here cave with the stick and look for that bear.  When you find him, wake him up by whacking him with the stick and getting him to follow you out here so we can see if spring is coming."

I am hard on my shoelaces. It seems that I tie them way too tight - so much so that the laces for the work boots I got in August are extremely worn and frayed. I have therefore decided to upgrade to Kevlar-Reinforced Laces . These things are Twice as thick as the standard issue wimpy laces the boots came with. They're beefy enough that getting them threaded through the grommets was a bit of a challenge at first but once started, the process went pretty easily. Only time will tell if these improved ties live up to their hype on Amazon.