I’m in shock no one got Beauty and the Beast. I thought the swatch of blue and yellow combined would be a dead giveaway. Alas, no.

It was a good weekend. I mean, of course it was Halloween, which can improve the outlook of any say, however bleak. And we had great weather pretty much all weekend after what was pretty close to a week or two of rain.

I got some reading done this month. Some I planned, some I didn’t. Recap?

I've been a fan of comic books for pretty much my entire life. But, admittedly, much like any other for-fun reading, the interest ebbs and flows.

I saw Denis Villeneuve's take on Frank Herbert's classic Dune tonight with some friends. I'm not going to say much about it because, well, spoilers and because sooooo many others have covered it in-depth enough (I recommend Dave2's review) that I really don't need to do the same. Plus I'm tired and it's bedtime. 

Ah crud. Another one of those weeks where I missed whose guess came in first and timestamps on FB and IG are so uninformative they may as well be nonexistent. Sooooo, Matt and Stacey both win!

Take it from Uncle Kevin, kiddos… hot glue guns and fingers don’t mix. So not good. I’m gonna need a needle, match, and alcohol wipe. Stat. 

These are a bunch of images I've collected over the last few days that I thought I would share. Enjoy!

It amazes me what nuggets of knowledge kids possess. Not the normal stuff, but the oddball bits you wouldn’t expect.

As part of my anniversary gift from Katie, I received this bad boy…

This screen grab was shared by a coworker of mine from the Forbes Influential CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) list of the year. I'm just gonna leave this out there for you...

I guess I should apologize to my Facebook fans because I forgot to post last week’s challenge photo there. I still got plenty of guesses and correct ones at that. 

I just thought I’d share some random photos I snapped this weekend with y’all. Just ‘cause.

I know I've expressed a lot of concern over the upcoming Dune cinematic release/remake. Most of it, as you would expect, centers on Timothée Chalamet as leading man Paul Atreides. 

As a person who works in the web development industry, there are few things I appreciate more than when someone has a little fun with their website. One of my favorite things is a creative 404 page. Mostly because coming across a 404 means the page you want is gone or you have the wrong URL. It's a frustrating thing, so if a creative dev can make it less frustrating (even just a little bit), that's good.

I stole this from my friend Allison on Facebook. Of course I don't post it there. Why would I? It's, ick, Facebook.

Dear Katie,

People say that time flies when you’re having fun. That must be what’s happened here because today is our 20th anniversary.

Back to Monday! Although the urgency of only having six days to guess clearly didn’t motivate any correct guesses. Booger. 

I am so confused by the weather right now. We’re still getting 80+°F temperatures here in Chicagoland… in the freaking middle of October!

It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally effin’ here! Our couch! Our couch!! (with apologies to Roy Kent Nation).

I almost titled this post "Snippets 2021.01" because I thought it had been so long since I wrote one that this was going to be my first of the year. In October. Yikes! But, even so, given how I used to do these weekly (remember "Snippet Wednesday" anyone?), the fact that this is only my third such post of the year is pretty amazing.

Hey, look! It’s Macro Monday… on a Tuesday… again. I was wondering why no one had taken a guess. Then I realized I forgot to post it. D’oh!

It always amazes me how that old maxim “the more things change, the more they stay the same” remains true pretty much no matter what. The latest example?

Here are some more fun little tidbits I've gleaned recently to file under Today I Learned!

Hey, so the reading was a bust this past month. I think I did pretty decently on my goals otherwise. Check it!

Well… I’ve made progress on my list of books for the month. I mean, I did read a couple of them, but life happens, right?

After catching my nearly 100th viewing of Hidden Figures last night on TV (that's a movie I can watch from any point at any time in any mood and love it), I had a hankering to listen to some tunes today from Ms. Janelle Monáe (Mary Jackson in Hidden Figures). I've always loved her music and knew her as a musician for many years before she made her first foray into acting.

My friend @storywrtr won last week’s #minimoviepostermonday with Baby Driver! If you need a good heist film, this is it. Thank me later. 

Aw man, I totally forgot to mention that this past Monday marked the 20 year anniversary of Katie and I deciding to move to Geneva, IL, and live in sin in our first apartment.

Back when I was changing jobs, I was contacted by a training and professional development agency asking if I would be interested in taking courses to improve my marketability to potential employers. I hesitantly said yes because I've received requests like this before from some pretty dodgy characters. 

Nathan asked an interesting question as we tuned in to the latest episode of Marvel’s What If…

Stacey piped up with the correct answer to last week’s #MiniMoviePosterMonday over on FB.

I don’t know how it happened so quickly but, as of about an hour ago, Nathan is now nine years old!

If you've read my blog at all, you know I'm a fan of the Matt Fraction and David Aja Hawkeye comics. Heck, I've read the first half of the series three times and finally finished the entire series a few months ago. They're not perfect comics, but they're pretty damned good.

Nathan had an orthodontist consultation. This is the first of two consultations we have scheduled to deal with a tooth that has refused to come loose for a couple years. better to have two opinions and the consults are free.