Category: Uncategorized
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Exercise Block
Saw this at a local breakfast place.
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Campfire Idea: breed mosquitoes to…
Hey scientists! Design mosquitoes to suck fat or alcohol instead of blood. Let’s focus on making life better!
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Blast from the Past: 42 Pounds of PopRocks
This is a post from 2013. Thirteen years ago. It was the first post on this website. I’m a different writer now, but you can see some of my style in here. And, really, who thinks of 42 pounds of PopRocks. 42 pounds of Pop Rocks The past. The present. The future. Today. Tomorrow. Yesterday.…
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Keeping up with websites: RSS (a.k.a. ditching the algorithm)
In today’s world of social media company domination, the algorithm feeds us what they think we want. But we don’t always want to drink the algorithm’s toxic brew. Or sometimes we come across a cool website that doesn’t post very often so we don’t want to visit it every day. Manually going to each site…
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Making fun of stupid ideas
It’s easy to make fun of stupid ideas. In hindsight, stupid ideas stick out badly. If every idea from a proper brainstorming session were written down, we would all be astonished at how bad some of the ideas are But it has to be that way. We have to have stupid ideas. Because stupid ideas…
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Put gas on
Regional dialects are funny things. Especially for a writer. If we want to add authenticity to a character, we might add some dialect. But we have to be careful we don’t overdue it. The title of this post, for example, is used in northern Minnesota and, as far as I know, nowhere else. “I’m driving…
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Baby Robins
This is on the neighbors power meter. Mom was off getting food and I used the big zoom on my phone camera. They must have hatched recently because it looks like their eyes aren’t open.
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Bacon Maple Jerky
Walgreens had this in their impulse lane. You know, that place by the cash register with all the treats that you’re supposed to avoid? Bacon. Maple. Jerky. The trifecta. At least I only bought one pack.
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Hey MailerLite!
I’m on the free tier so I can’t send in a support ticket or feature suggestion (understandable, but boo!). So here is something that, with a small tweak, would make my life easier. This is really a niche thing so it probably only affects a very small number of users so I understand if you…
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Stupidity is more likely than Malice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor Hanlon’s razor states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Much of the irritations (mild & serious) of life are caused by stupidity, not malice. This is especially true when you get to organization-inflicted irritations. That doesn’t mean we should get angry or frustrated by the irritations. Or that we…
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Dressing simpler
A couple years before retirement I got tired of deciding what to wear every day. I was especially frustrated by deciding between black (pants) and brown (pants) days. Evidently I’m not very good at figuring out what goes with what. So I got rid of everything that wasn’t’ blue jeans or black pants. If a…
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Live Deliberately
Got this at an event at Superstars Writing Seminar 2026. James Artemis Owen puts on an Eggs Benedict breakfast full of life lessons. He handed out cards at the end. No idea if they were different or all the same. Don’t care. Because this one speaks to me. The version I have used over the…
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May in Minnesota…
No, I have no intention of putting the snow shovels away. Why tempt fate?
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Barnes & Noble, Maplewood, MN
If this bookstore stocked my books, they would go here. For the last year, it was right next to Bradbury, but it looks like a new author is sneaking in there.
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Tipping
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/tipping/ (detailed look at tipping by economists) https://theoatmeal.com/comics/tipping_tooting (very funny look at tipping well and why) I am interested in tipping and how it works. My wife likes that I tip more than customary, even if the service is meh. I’m not happy about every single new point-of-sale tap thingy found in stores prompts for…