A BlogSnax© post
Is it just me or is it weird that the phrases “fill out” and “fill in” mean the same thing? You can fill out a form or fill in a form. Same result. What’s with that?
(Sorry for the terse post. I’m busy trying to get book #10 ready.)
Category Archives: blog snax
The NFL Blame Game
A BlogSnax© post
It’s football playoff time. Like a lot of guys, I spend (too) much of my weekends watching overpaid, overhyped, often overweight men pound each other into the artificial turf in pursuit of their big dream: dating Taylor Swift. No, not really. Well, yes, really, but the other dream: a Super Bowl©® championship, which entitles them to wear an immense, cumbersome, ostentatious ring causing their knuckles to drag on the ground for the rest of their lives. But at least they can flash them when making commercials for Subway©®.
One football scene that always amuses me is when there is movement at the line of scrimmage before the ball is hiked. The flags are thrown and action stops while referees confer about whether the offensive line had a false start or the D-line was offsides. Meanwhile, the players on the field blame each other. Seriously, it’s hysterical to watch mountainous men wagging their fingers at each other. “It’s not my fault, Mommy! He made me do it!”
Case in point (pun intended) is this screenshot from the Ravens/Texans game on 1/20/24:
No doubt the refs counted the number of fingers and made their decision based on that. Or maybe they responded as any frustrated parent of juveniles would, yelling, “Kids, stop arguing or we’re going home right this minute!”
By the way, on an only tangentially related note: Football was made for watching on TV.* At the stadium, it’s cold, it’s crazy, and you can’t really see the game. Unless you like to be surrounded by drunks painting their faces and chests and wearing pirate, S&M, animal, or other insane attire like rejects from a junior high costume party, stay home where you can eat anything you want anytime you want and at reasonable prices, see endless replays from every possible vantage point (including that of a slug crawling along the goal line), and you can easily get to the bathroom whenever you want. (Never underestimate the value of an easily accessible bathroom.)
[*On the other hand, baseball was made for viewing live. There’s nothing like sitting in the sun in a non-obstructed view seat, hot dog and favorite beverage in hand, while the greatest sport ever leisurely unfolds before you.]
Happy Gripesgiving!
A BlogSnax© post
In Disney’s delightful 1951 adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland”, the following discussion takes place:
Alice: I’m sorry I interrupted your birthday party…
March Hare: Birthday? Hahaha! My dear child, this is not a birthday party!
Mad Hatter: Of course not! Hehehe! This is an unbirthday party!
Alice: Unbirthday? Why, I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand.
March Hare: Its very simple. Now, thirty days have sept- no, when… an unbirthday, if you have a birthday then you… haha… she doesn’t know what an unbirthday is!
Mad Hatter: How silly! Ha ha ha ha! Ah-hum… I shall elucidate! Now statistics prove, prove that you’ve one birthday.
March Hare: Imagine, just one birthday every year.
Mad Hatter: Ahhh, but there are 364 unbirthdays!
The same can be said of Thanksgiving. It takes up 1/365th of the year. The rest of the year is spent complaining and griping. Why not make it official and declare every day except the fourth Thursday of November to be “Gripesgiving”?
All this is put forth with tongue firmly embedded in cheek, of course. But we probably do gripe about 365 times more than we give thanks, so this isn’t as far-fetched an idea as you might think. We should either celebrate consistent with our behavior or reverse that ratio. (Try this idea to get things started.)
[Confession: I thought I’d come up with this original thought but it turns out many others have used the same idea. Oh, well. It was new to me. And maybe to you.]
Money back guarantee!
This quick post is to assure you that I will never use AI, artificial intelligence, to generate any post on “Scribbling in the Sand”. I will always use good old GI, genuine ignorance. It hasn’t failed me yet.
That’s a personal money-back guarantee from me.
You can take that to the bank.
For what it’s worth.
Spoiler Alert! (Not!)
A BlogSnax© post
People watch a lot of Hallmark Christmas romance movies this time of year. I’ve heard that they created 41 “new” ones this year alone. The word “new” is qualified here because none of them are really new. Even the people who watch them (people like me, I confess) will admit that they only have three plots—the undercover royalty, the big city business person who rekindles an old flame in her small hometown while trying to put a local institution out of business, and the person posing as a fiancé[e]/girlfriend/boyfriend to fool the family—with a rotating ensemble of about six actors who do nothing else. (I’m looking at you, Danica McKellar!)
So how come when you read people’s reviews of these dogs on IMDb, they sometimes say “spoiler alert”? News flash, folks: There’s nothing to spoil!! A spoiler alert for one of these holiday train wrecks is as useful as a spoiler alert for Scooby Doo—Hey, it’s not a real monster. It’s a guy dressed up as a monster! Or Gilligan’s island—No, they don’t get off the island. Gilligan screws up again and they remain stranded on their three-hour cruise for which they packed three years worth of clothing and supplies.
Just had to get that off my chest before the new year.
A couple of turtle pictures…
A BlogSnax© post
Can there be enough turtle pictures? Here’s my contribution:
From the No-Brainer Department, seen on a local road:
Repost of autumnal biking perils…
A BlogSnax© post
It being autumn, and me being slothful and uninspired, it’s fitting to recycle a post from my old blog, Limping in the Light. It’s appropriate not only for the season and seasonal activities but also because, sadly, I’m limping again. 😦
(Note that the original post was published in spring but this particular activity is more common in the fall.)
I’m Being Followed By a MoonShadow
A BlogSnax© post
Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, a.k.a. Steven Demetre Georgiou—obviously a man with serious identity issues—created some of the most memorable music from the soundtrack of my life. His masterpiece, IMHO, is the sensational “Teaser and the Firecat”. So enamored was I of this collection that the LP cover once adorned the entire wall of my bedroom in my younger days, reproduced there in precise detail by myself and some friends. Here’s a photo of the actual wall:*
The song came to me today as I rode my bike along a puddled post-rainstorm bike path. Lines from the song shook me like never before:
If I ever lose my hands...
If I ever lose my eyes...
If I ever lose my legs...
If I ever lose my mouth...
Then the song’s name echoed in my brain, slipping into and filling my heart.
MoonShadow
The initials of the two components of this fabricated portmanteau are MS, which can also stand for, among many other lesser things, multiple sclerosis, an often crippling disease of the central nervous system that can cause a victim to, in essence:
Lose her hands.
Lose her eyes.
Lose her legs.
Lose her mouth.
I’ve always adored the song. It’s even more meaningful to me now. It turns out that the artist who at the time went by the name “Cat Stevens” was inspired to write it when he literally saw his shadow cast by the moon. When we listen to music, it becomes our own as much as to its original creator. I’ve decided this will always be mine as an MS encouragement.
I really am being followed by a MoonShadow.
* It took weeks to get the expression on Teaser’s face just right, eventually requiring the assistance of a Genuine Artist. Compare it to the original. It’s a very good knockoff.
We did this without the permission of Cat/Yusuf, who painted the original cover. He never chased us down for residuals. I wish he had. I would have thanked him for what all his wonderful music meant (and still means) to me. Sadly, this treasure has long since been painted over. 😦
Missed OCD connection
A BlogSnax© post
I’m a consolidator. When I see two or more things that can be combined into one, or at least that match well enough to belong with each other, I have to put them together. It’s a symptom of my low-level, high-functioning OCD.
A while back, I was in the parking lot of my local supermarket. My shopping was complete and my car was loaded so I proceeded to perform one of my favorite pastimes: consolidating the shopping carts in the cart corral. Usually, thoughtless shoppers have shoved them in there any which way but loose, all randomly askew, taunting me, challenging me. They’re begging to be organized, i.e. consolidated. The juices start to flow and I get to work.
As I’m blissfully carrying out the task, a guy comes up to me and says, “Isn’t that the best part of going to the grocery store?”
He gets it!! He’s a kindred spirit, as Anne Shirley would call him. I was too stunned to say anything. How I wish I’d had the presence of mind to invite him back to the house to have some snacks and share exciting tales of consolidation past!
If that was you, drop me a line and let me know what you’ve been consolidating lately.
What’s Poor?
A BlogSnax© post
I had an interesting experience recently. I use the term “interesting” against my better judgment because, as Ben points out in “Captain Fantastic”, it’s a non-word. I’m simply at a loss regarding how else to describe it. I’ll tell you and you can come up with your own assessment.
I was reading a picture book I’d written to a class of kindergartners. The book, “The Little Red Boat Came Back”, is about a little girl living in Haiti. Her mother leaves to seek out a new home for them. Introducing the book and its topic, I gave a short spiel about Haiti, a topic about which I’m passionate. I told the kids that the inhabitants of Haiti, which is on an island not far from the US, are very poor.
At that point, one child hesitantly raised his hand. Delighted that this child was sufficiently engaged to ask a question, I stopped my presentation to hear his query. To my amazement, he asked,
“What’s poor?”
I was dumbfounded. Maybe my expectations were too high but I assumed, even at that tender age, the concept of poverty would be understood. I gave as good an answer to his sincere and reasonable question as I could muster at the time but, in retrospect, I think I could have done better.
I’m not sure what the child’s puzzlement says about him, his upbringing, his community (an affluent one), his school, or our society but I was troubled at the time and I remain so.
I can’t even tell you why.
Scribbling in the Sand 