September 6, 2013

There's an old saying that goes, "A man who isn't thankful for one dollar wouldn't appreciate a million of them." As much as I agree with that, I wouldn't mind a chance to prove it. Just throwing that out there.

Before we take action, it's important to examine whether our motivation comes from pain or misery, because we can easily hide a destructive objective, even from ourselves.

It's unfair to remain angry with someone without telling them what they did. On the other hand, sometimes, telling them is counterproductive. That's when you just let it go.

Most of the people in our lives are there because we share family, or one or two interests, or some shared consequence, like where we live, learn, work, or worship. It's very rare when someone in our lives would be there just because we both want them there.

Fred Stobaugh, 96, submitted "Oh, Sweet Lorraine", a poem he'd written about his recently deceased wife of 75 years, into a writing competition in Illinois. Fred didn't win the competition, but his story made it onto the Internet, which led to singer Jacob Corgan recording the song, which has led to more than 100,000 copies of the tearjerker being sold on iTunes (dwarfing the sales numbers of the latest singles by Justin Timberlake and Miley Cyrus), and tons of lucrative licensing offers, one ore than $100,000. Now that's a positive story of the power of the Internet.

Congratulations to competitive eater Joey Chestnut, who suffered a crushing defeat last month by rival Matt Stonie during a Gyoza eating competition, but reclaimed his title at a Rib fest in Reno, NV, by consuming 13.76 pounds of ribs in 12 minutes (Stonie finished at 11.2 pounds). When it comes to sports, you can have your football, basketball, and hockey... this sounds like my event.

It was all over the news this week: Kim Kardashian is now a blonde. I have been trying to form my opinion, and now I can say without a shadow of a doubt: I don't care.

On the other had, having seen the commercial a gazilion times, I have decided what I would do for a Klondike bar: go to the store and buy them (they come in a pack of six).

I could only think of one word when I saw this picture: adorable.

Agape' -- P