TheSaint

Well, you remember him your way. I'll remember him mine. I miss them both.

Kris Kristofferson has passed. You've heard a lot of his songs, just sung by other people. Also starred in a lot of films in the 70s.

I did watch all three of them. If you could somehow manage to forget that they were based on J.R.R. Tolkien, they were sort of fun summer action flicks. That's about the highest praise I can muster for them.

And then Warner Brothers backed a dump truck full of money up to Peter Jackson's house, and he went on to take The Hobbit, which could have easily been one movie, maybe two, and turn it into a trilogy.

Today was a good day. We got up early (for a Sunday) went out to the shooting spot, only to discover that it was taken. So we went to the alternate shooting spot, set up, and the kids spent the day practicing. (Thing #1 and Thing #3 drew deer tags this year, and hunting season is in two weeks. So they really need to practice.) We came home at about 1:00, cleaned guns, took showers, did church online (sometimes I love technology), and then dinner. Whole chickens were on sale this week, so we decided that Sunday dinner would be Middle Eastern. Yesterday we made tabbouleh, tzatziki, hummus, toum, and pita bread from scratch. And I butterflied two whole chickens and put them in the fridge with toum under and over the skin. So this afternoon the chickens got grilled, and we had the Middle Eastern feast for dinner. Amazing. Then we watched A Fish Called Wanda together after dinner, which is one of the funniest movies ever made, kids had never seen it. Just one of those great days together as a family.

I'm very sorry for your loss. I will say a prayer for you and your mother tonight.

I can tell you that Playalinda Brewing Company and Dixie Crossroads were two of the best places we ate on our entire two week road trip when we were out there in 2022. Other than that, yeah, just do the tours. We did the entire center with tours in one day.

Yeah. Not sure what else to say. Complete legend.

"Anyone who says money can't buy happiness has never bought their dog a bag of tennis balls." - Me.

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." - Gen. George S. Patton

SPECTRE couldn't be defeated by James Bond. But apparently they were undone by building codes....

Apparently I haven't been paying attention lately. I have three to report: Peter Marshall passed away today. My dad loved Hollywood Squares. I think a large part of my sense of humor originated from listening to Paul Lynde's sarcastic answers on that show. But Peter Marshall was the solid center, the rock that anchored us in the midst of the madness. His soothing voice was a memorable part of my childhood. Wally Amos, the man who created the Famous Amos cookie brand, passed away on Tuesday. If you've never heard his story, it is the classic tale of someone who had more marketing skill than business savvy. Greg Kihn, of The Greg Kihn Band, also passed on Tuesday. He wasn't quite a One-Hit-Wonder. But he did pump out a respectable body of work in the 1980s. Okay, @StrandedonEarth, you're gonna have to pick your favorite here.

I picked this up last year: Firefly: The Game - 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition It's shiny! I've actually heard really good things about Star Wars: Rebellion. Probably would have picked it up already, except that, a) in our house only Thing #1 and I really enjoy wargames, and b) four players. But it's on my Amazon wish list all the same.

I remember like five years ago, I was hanging out with a friend of mine. I happened to mention that when we bought our new SUV, I went out and bought a CD player and installed it, because we burn all of our music and audio books to CD. He laughed at me. He was all, "Dude, everyone just uses Spotify and Audible now. What's the matter with you?" I remember a couple of years ago, my in-laws (RIP) bought me the unabridged copy of The Federalist Papers that I had on my Amazon wishlist. My MIL looked at me funny when I unwrapped it and got excited on Christmas morning. She was all, "Are you actually going to read that?" I said, "No," (I've actually already read great swaths of it.) "I just want to have it because I believe that someday you aren't going to be allowed to buy it anymore. At least not unedited." She looked at me really funny after that. I still buy my albums as MP3 on Amazon, download them, and burn them to CD. I buy my video games on GOG, download the offline install files, and store them on my file server, which is on-premise. I buy my movies on DVD/Blu-Ray. Books are either CD audio books, PDFs stored on the file server, or dead trees. If you can't hold it in your hand, you don't own it. That may not seem obvious right now, but one day it will be.