I had one heck of a weekend. Friday night: dinner with friends. Saturday: making beef jerky for Dad's Christmas present. Saturday night: D&D night. Sunday: helping Michelle with Christmas cookies. Sunday night: stay-at-home date night of a nice steak dinner and watching "Wake Up Dead Man."

Look at what we have lost.

It was my first car, a 1977 Pontiac Catalina, gold with a cream-colored top and only 60,000 miles on it despite being 22 years old when I got it shortly after getting my restricted license. I drove it my sophomore and junior years of high school. It still ran OK when I traded it in.

Update: We found Pumpkin! She had gotten herself into a fire-damaged, vacant house and couldn't get out on her own. We were able to get her out with help from the non-profit repairing the house.

Pumpkin has gone missing, and I'm worried about her. We haven't seen her since Saturday evening, and she hasn't touched her breakfast from yesterday. We went looking for her in the neighborhood several times yesterday, called the animal shelter, posted her on the lost-and-found pets page.

Between illness and niblings spending Thanksgiving with new S.O.s, we only had 8/13 for my family Thanksgiving today, but it was still very nice to host. The meal came together well and was good, everyone got along well, and we didn't trip any circuit breakers this time around.

"Darling." A sincere "Darling" really hits the spot sometimes.

We had to break this work up into a couple of phases, but now it's done.

I really need a newer AP Stylebook. The one I have doesn't have an entry for "STI" or even "STD." The relevant entry is for "venereal disease." For the record, "VD" is (was) acceptable on second reference.

Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza went for pizza, then got buzzed on gin fizzes and rum swizzles, but before they got dizzy they were dazzled by jazz sung by a mezzo-soprano. They went home early to avoid a blizzard, but it just turned out to be drizzle.

I had a lot of fun at the M:tG Avatar prerelease at my LGS tonight. I had some exciting, back-and-forth games and went 3-0 with a WU control deck. Lots of removal (although all at sorcery speed) and a good number of evasive creatures. These were the cards that put in the most work for me:

Car Size xkcd.com/3167/

Abolish single-family zoning. Anywhere you can build a house, you can build a fourplex (and you could pretty easily convince me to make that an eightplex).

"Seymour, the house is on fire!" "No, Mother, it's just the Northern Lights."

Gordon Lightfoot recorded "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" like a month after it sank and had the steel balls to open the song with the phrase, "The legend lives on." Which became kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you ask me.

Bringing Pumpkin indoors did not work out. She just could not get along with Minnie, so we moved her back outside after getting her vaccines caught up. Today, we insulated her house in the garage, made from an old TV/fish tank cabinet.

Britain? The country made up of 4 countries? One of which was composed of seven different kingdoms? With Celtic, Roman, Germanic, Norse, and French roots? That country is worried about diversity?

I didn't realize how bad bowl tie-ins were in the 80s. BYU was undefeated and ranked No. 1 in 1984, and their bowl game was a Dec. 21 Holiday Bowl against unranked 6-5 Michigan.

The newspaper I work at started as a teenager's Substack (it's an unusual story), but it was focused on local news rather than opinion.

good morning i talked to kansas state AD Gene Taylor and another gambling industry expert to figure out why maybe letting athletes gamble on professional sports might be a bad idea and learned Taylor used to be a blackjack dealer?!? www.extrapointsmb.com/p/this-is-wh...

To get some positivity on the skyline, instead of the worst Halloween candy, what are you favorite Halloween goodies?

Starting with the worst: 2007, 2013, 2016-19, 2011, 2020 Pandemic sucked, but in 2020 I bought a house, got engaged, and laughed so much at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

Please please please please

The newspaper is out, now time for big sandwich from my favorite food truck.

Writing an editorial about that sexiest of topics: municipal utilities.

My wife and I went to a cousin's wedding today, and we realized--as we pulled up to the hotel--that we didn't bring our dress clothes. We picked them out, got them ready, just didn't put them in the car.

So I gather Taylor Swift's new album is the horniest on main she has ever been?

There is no good reason for NPR to wait even one more day to take the gloves off.

Sorry, Arizona State people, but I hope to never visit the Phoenix metro area for any reason other than a bowl game/CFB playoff game.

Somebody has no concept of personal space

How's everybody doing? I went ahead and ruined my mood right away this morning by rereading a 3-week-old email. I guess I'm not getting an interview.

I have perfectly fine leftover enchiladas at home for lunch, but I'm craving something else. An Italian sandwich from my favorite food truck, or a big plate of General Tso's chicken, or entirely too much Taco Bell. Grumble, grumble.

My wife is generally pretty progressive, but she hates paying attention to news or politics because it stresses her way the hell out. She also watches very little current traditional television. This morning she was watching the opening segment of Kimmel from last night.

I realize I'm a couple months behind on this, but Talking Heads just (over the summer) released a music video for a 48-year-old song? And is that Saoirse Ronan in the video?

Does anybody have washing machine recommendations? We don't need anything fancy, I just don't want another one that's going to shit the bed after 15 months.

My all-timer bad movie that I nonetheless love.

ChickenCordonBleuWithSideSalad.meal

I write, edit, and take photos for one of the newest actual factual newspapers in the country. Today, I got to take issue no. 3 to racks.

Werner Herzog's Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Werner Herzog's Ernest Scared Stupid

Every. Single. Time.

I'm sick this morning (tummy hort), but at least I get to listen to the rain from my bed.

Minnie got up on the back of my desk chair and is purring right by my ear. That's good. I need to get up and do other things now, and if I do, the chair will tip back and dump her off. That's bad.

Post a meme made by you (fourpack)

Dear god, City Council meeting is still going at 10:45 p.m. So glad I'm not the one covering it tonight.

More gambling ads

I don't ever actually sing anything, by any artist, with a lot of confidence because I'm self-conscious about everything really. But "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" by Whitney Houston would be really high on the list.

Hank packs a portable camp stove before leaving Arlen for Mordor.

It is D&D day, and you know what that means: civil service appointments, budget management, and public works projects! (I am adapting @paizo.com's Kingmaker Adventure Path, originally published in 2010 and updated in 2022, for my group playing 5E D&D.)