Bag of Randomness for Monday, November 20, 2017

  • Here’s the Imgur story behind that picture: In 1995, my great-aunt gave me a stuffed cat. It was my absolute favorite, and slept with me every night through my childhood. When she passed, we found out she had bought an identical cat and kept it in pristine condition for two decades. The years of love certainly left their mark.
  • Thanks to all of you who did the DNA math and help me realize I still qualify for being half-Asian. Just think, as I kid, I wanted to be white so I could be just like the others, then, I thought I was less than half-Asian and I was upset. Ha, funny me.
  • A bit of a ‘Stranger Things’ thing happened Saturday afternoon. BoyGeeding and GirlGeeding were playing with their walkie-talkies and all of a sudden there was a third voice. Some nine-year-old boy named Jay started to converse with them. It was cute and innocent, but suspicious me wants to make sure it’s not an adult pretending to be a kid.
  • Later that night the wife and kids wanted to eat at Chick-fil-A. I recently ate there so I decided to go to the neighboring McDonalds’s and bring my food over so I could eat with the family. I know it’s a bit of a taboo to bring food from one place and eat it at another but I was being a rebel that night. After I finished my meal, I wanted a refill of my beverage but didn’t want to walk back to McDonald’s, not to mention Chick-fil-A’s beverage dispensers are located behind the counter. So in the spirit of the ten-dollar bets (YouTube) from one of my favorite television series, ‘Ed’, I decided to bet WifeGeeding ten dollars if she would take my McDonald’s cup and go to the Chick-fil-A counter and ask for a refill. She smiled, thought about it for about four seconds and went for it. The Chick-fil-A employee politely turned WifeGeeding’s request down but said she would happily do it if she had a Chick-fil-A cup.
  • On another fast-food related note, I saw a young man ask the manager of a Whataburger if he could get a job application. The manager went to the back and returned with a laptop and had the kid do it online. It just reminded me of trying to find a job when I was a teen and having to ask for paper job applications. Times have changed, yo.
  • I don’t want to jinx myself, but I can’t recall the last time I’ve heard a car alarm, maybe over five years?
  • My favorite part of the Eagles/Cowboys broadcast last night was the commercial with Joe Theismann and Lawrence Taylor. At the time, I thought of LT as a big mean “I’ll bite your head off and spit it out” type of football player and for him to react the way he did at Theismann’s injury meant something was really wrong. Obligatory link to the event. If any of you young folk want a quick reference to the play, just think back to watching the Sandra Bullock movie The Blind Side, it’s the first scene in the entire movie and emphasizes the need to protect the quarterback’s blind side, the side he has his back to when he throws.
  • I’m a little late commenting on President Trump’s speech where he reached for a Fiji water bottle, opened it, and drank from it. I’m not poking fun at him, but I finally realized why it felt out of place. Usually at the White House when a president is speaking you see an actual glass of water nearby with a white paper cover/coaster on top, though sometimes it’s actually placed on a shelf inside a podium. (Hey, these are the things you learn when you are into presidential history.) It’s a small bit of detail by the White House staff I always thought showed formality and some kind of etiquette. So I’m wondering if this was a staff mistake or if Trump simply prefers having that particular water nearby or something else.
  • A bit of Dallas history – Backstory: The mid-century bowling craze birthed the Bronco Bowl
    • I got a kick out of this nugget: “When it opened, the Bronco Bowl set a record for having the largest “housewives league” in the nation with 72 teams. They rolled at 10 a.m. on Fridays — there was a free “nursery” for the littles.
  • Spot the differences. Downtown from Reunion Tower in 1987 and 2016.
  • I got a kick out of Troy Aikman calling out a company on Twitter for selling authentic Troy Aikman merchandise that’s not authentic.
  • A friend sent me this U2 article from The Irish Times, which is a good read for any U2 fan, though you have to register to read it. It’s a bit deep and touches a lot of areas. Bono hints he had a health scare, something more than that bicycle accident, that made him and Edge think more of mortality and their time left on Earth. It also touches a bit on politics like the time he met with VP Mike Pence and feels like he can trust and work with the man but doesn’t want to meet with the current president because he can’t take him at his word.
    • There are clues about his state of mind in Songs of Experience, U2’s imminent album, their 14th, which has tracks written for those he cares about most: his wife, Ali; his four children; Jesus. It’s the dark lyrics, full of nods to death, that linger.
    • “My curiosity takes me to dangerous places, and I’ve been nonchalant about that,” he admits. “Partly because of my faith, but then I felt that faith go out of reach. It was last Christmas, and I was surprised. Belief is preposterous, but I have it, and I thought, ‘I’m experiencing fear!’. “It was new, and I realised I don’t want to die. I want to spend more time with my kids. There are songs I want to write, stuff I can be useful for. Then, when I admitted I was afraid, my faith returned.”
  • 83-year-old retired Anderson County Marine keeps promise made in bunker in Vietnam
  • This is one athletically impressive couple:
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One Response to Bag of Randomness for Monday, November 20, 2017

  1. Ben W. says:

    I'm sure you saw already, but on the next new show (Dec. 2nd), U2 is the musical guest on SNL.

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