Jim Henson's Birthday

Today's post is not about a National holiday... not even a fake internet one. Or one invented by Halmark or even one of those random 'appreciation' days you see every now and then. No, today is about celebrating the birthday of one of the most amazing men the 20th Century had to offer.

Jim Henson (wiki!) is best known as the creator of the Muppets and the voice and the hand behind Kermit the Frog. His contributions to modern pop culture and the influence he had on several generations of children are undeniable. His work and his creations have endured since their inceptions, and nothing to think of the scope of his legacy is staggering.

As an example of his status as legendary in the TV and film making industry, it's appropriate to point out the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There are three people who are double credited there; Walt Disney as himself and Micky Mouse, Mel Blanc as himself and Bugs Bunny... and Jim Henson, as himself and Kermit. That's some pretty big company to keep.

To say he effected a major influence on my life is an understatement. I grew up with Sesame Street, which in turn spawned the Muppet Show, which in my opinion is still the best verity show ever aired on television. A list of my personal heroes includes The Great Gonzo... towards the top. Fraggle Rock was one of my favorite shows as a child, and I've every recent Muppet movie in the theater on opening weekend.

At Henson's memorial service, no one wore black, as per his request. The grievers were given butterflies on puppeteer's rods to wave, and there were more musical numbers than you' expect to see at a funeral. I'll leave you here with two videos in Mr. Henson's honor.

We all still miss you Jim, but we know you're smiling on us from somewhere, watching over all of our Muppet needs. Thank you.

Some of Jim's favorite songs, as preformed by his friends...

And the memorial given by the guy who worked with and knew Jim better than almost anyone... Frank Oz.

See you all next time!

National Cheeseburger Day

I was totally going to do a big thing with cheeseburgers and eating them and cooking them and generally being awesome today. I really was.

Thing is, every Monday I get together with some buddies out Main Street Pub on West Main Street, and we partake of their burger baskets and have a jolly old time goofing around on Monday evening after work. So I really don't feel like eating or cooking another cheeseburger today.

Instead, I'm having a turkey club for dinner. It has bacon on it, and it is delicious.

See you tomorrow for the biggest holiday in all of September!

International Video Games Day and Chocolate Milkshake Day

A double celebration today! And two of my favorite things to boot!

It's no secret I'm a video game lover. I play 'em all, from RPGs to FPSs to side scrollers to MMOs. If you have no idea what any of that means, don't worry. You're probably better off.

To celebrate the video game portion of today, I put a little time into my World of Warcraft account. I played my Forsaken Rogue...

That's right... he sneaks up on people and hits 'em with a SHOVEL. 

 ...and I finished off a zone or two in pursuit of the Loremaster Achievement with my Tauren Paladin.

Tauren Paladin... Holy Cow! GET IT? HAHAHA... I'm not actually funny, am I?

I also stopped by my good buddy Chad's house after work and he and his boys joined me for some Mario Cart on the Wii.

Don't bug us! This is a very important race!

It was pretty close the whole time. Caleb (the one in the green shirt) is an expert Mario Cart player. Logan (the other little guy) isn't half bad himself, and Chad? Dude can whoop me any day of the week. I'm more of a Need For Speed kind of racer myself, but whatever.

I'm really only putting this picture in because it highlights my bald spot really well and I know you like to laugh at that.

Chad ended up taking first overall (4 races) and Caleb took a close second. I finished up with 3rd and Logan wasn't far behind. It was touch and go there for a second whether Caleb would pull the win out or if his Dad would retain his championship crown...

Caleb bites his lip when he's concentrating. 

... but Chad managed to win by a few points, proving the student had not become the master... yet.

After video games, Chad and I took a trip out to Stake and Shake (the boys didn't come because it's a school night...) and ordered up some big fancy chocolate shakes.

That one in front of Chad there? Campfire S'more Shake!

We chatted about the merits of a good milkshake while we sucked 'em down. We decided that the best shakes were the ones that were thick, but not so thick that you couldn't drink them with a straw.

That one in front of me? Triple Chocolate Fudge

It only took us about 15 minutes (and a little bit of brain freeze) to finish the shakes off. They were delicious, so mad props to Stake and Shake for that. We left with our bellies full of icy goodness, and were on our way home.

We didn't mess around. Those shakes were GONE, son...

All in all, a good day well spent. Hopefully I'll see you Friday for another desert-like treat and another celebration! Until then, have a wonderful day!

National Beheading Day

Hey everyone! First video blog EVER!

I was a little nervous. Chad (the guy behind the camera) didn't help with his whooping and hollering. Still, we had fun, and we beheaded the crap out of our guy.

See you for the next one!

PS - Thanks to Chad anyway... we had a ton of fun!

September

Whew! August is over, which means all that time we spent at the childcare center I work at changing over from a summer program to a school-year program is done! I can finally get back to updating this sucker again!

We missed some good ones in the past few weeks... Bad Poetry Day and Toasted Marshmallow Day were supposed to be up here, but life gets in the way sometimes. I'll get them next year.

September starts a whole slew of days I want to write about. Today, the 1st is Emma M. Nutt Day, and celebrates the first American woman telephone operator... I don't have much else to say about that. I guess I could mention that my Great Great Aunt Sesta (I think that's the right number of greats...) was one of the first in Michigan to help organize and set up the infrastructural for the telephone system here, so I do have a kinda-sorta link to this day.

More importantly, you should see more of me this month. There are several month-long observances that I'll be trying out as well. This is Self Improvement Month, so expect a few updates about me finally trying to get in shape again (I've gotten a little thick about the middle if you know what I mean) and maybe even a few about me eating broccoli. You know how when you're a kid, they tell you, "Oh, just try it. You'll love it when you're older." Yeah, never happened for me and broccoli. We're arch enemies to this day.

Also this month we see Honey Month, Classic Music Month, Fall Hat Month, Chicken Month, and National Courtesy Month, among others. I'll see what I can do about some of those as well.

As of right now, expect to hear from me tomorrow for National Beheading Day. No, really, that's a thing.

I'll end this post with a little Classic Music for you to start this month off right!

National Tell A Joke Day

No seriously. This is no joke.

Or, it is, but the day is real and it's not... oh for crying out loud. You know what I mean.

I'm a pretty funny guy in writing (that's why I have a blog) but I'm not the type that just comes up with jokes off the top of my head. So I'm not going to try to come up with my own joke for today... no, I'm going to leave that to the experts.

I recently read an article on Newslite (which is the best news source EVER) that was about researchers who discovered the worlds most funny joke. Now, I'm sure if you did this study again and polled a different 36,000 people, you would get different results. There's no scientific way to determine the funniest joke ever. Still, it's a pretty good list.

My favorite is actually number 14. It goes like this...

A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named 'Amal.' The other goes to a family in Spain, they name him Juan'. Years later; Juan sends a picture of himself to his mum. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wished she also had a picture of Amal. Her husband responds, ''But they are twins. If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal.''  

Knee slapper that one. I laughed out loud.

Most of these jokes aren't dirty, and they're all pretty funny. The link is here, and I encourage you to go check it out today, and tell a joke to someone you love. Or, if it's a really bad pun, someone you hate.

Either way, have fun and I'll see you next time!

Book Lovers Day

I guess there's some controversy over which day of the year is Book Lovers Day. Some sources say it's today, August 9th, while others seem to think it's the first Sunday in November.

I really don't care one way or another. Maybe I'll do another post November 3rd too. I just know that I love books and wanted to celebrate them.

I decided that on Book Lovers Day, I should visit a local institution known as Kazoo Books. Here's their website - http://www.kazoobooks.com.

This place is awesome. It's one of those rare gems of a bookstore that carries new and used books, all mashed up together. Parking is around back of the store front off a street called Book Street. It's situated in a couple of converted houses, and just looks really cool inside and out.

Kazoo Books!

Walking up to the store, you instantly get the sense that this is going to be small, cramped and full of books inside. Once you step inside, you quickly realize... you were right, and it's one of the best places you've ever been. 

Pretty much every wall looks like this.

I browsed around for a bit waiting for my buddy Joey to show up. We've been friends for ages and ages (more years than I care to admit, really) and we share a love for the written word and old book smell. With both of us owning Kindles now, we don't get out to enough book stores, and boy am I glad we decided to go to this one. 

Every detail of the place jumps out at you and screams, "quaint little bookstore where you can find anything." The decorating, the way the books sit on the shelves, the signs, the cat that wanders around (I'm told there's a bigger cat at their second location...) It's all you've ever wanted in a small bookstore.

This whole little room off to the side on the main floor is painted with cherry blossoms. They wrap around the corner.

The few section signs there are, are printed on an inkjet printer and hung from the ceiling with mismatched chains. 

Told you. Bigger cat.

These little nooks with comfy chairs are situated throughout the store, giving people ample room to just pull of book of the shelf, sit down and read it. How cool is that?

I chatted with the owner, Gloria Tiller, for a little while about the store. She told me all about the author signings (there's one tomorrow for Jim C. Hines and his new book Libriomancer) and the book clubs they do, as well as the writers groups (maybe I should join one of those...) and huge verity of books they get in. 

The books all around the store are situated in a random kind of organized way. Sometimes you get whole huge sections...

The children's section!

...and other times you get little ones so specific your brain doesn't quite know what to do with them.

The small Tales and Legends section...

... not to be confused with Children's Fairy Tales and Legends.

One of the book club tables. There's a kitchen with a sink and a stove right next to it, so people can brew tea and coffee.

The atmosphere of the place just never stops. After going upstairs and finding even more extensive shelves filled to bursting with books, I walked across an outdoor deck (Gloria told me they do poetry readings out there sometimes) and discovered their poetry, old books, and antique books. 

As a student of literature, this was my favorite room. There were chairs to sit in here too, and a radio on a side table buzzing out NPR at a volume loud enough to hear, but not loud enough to distract.

Joey and I wandered about for a bit, chatted with Gloria a bit more, and then it was time for her to close up shop, so we decided to get out of there. Not before one last look though...

I apologize for the scruffy appearance... I'm growing my beard back.

And I even bought a used book (new to me!) for $3.18. How awesome is that?

So thanks Gloria, for talking to me, and thanks for having such an awesome store. I'll be going back, as often as I can get away to do so.  

Viva la books!