Did you survive the shopping madness that is Black Friday? I did, so you get more ramblings. Speaking of that, since large TVs are rather affordable now, I was hoping for some great deals on groceries instead, but didn’t find anything really discounted. (I suppose that means I’m officially an adult now, if I’m thinking more about grocery prices than getting a bigger TV on Black Friday.)
Now we’re into the busiest time of the year, but I’ll still make time to share some funny pictures related to Christmas.
I see these every year for Advent / Christmas, but a chocolate-a-day countdown seems like it would be good for a number of other events. What do you think?
Is this a fail? Or genius? Or some points for making a good attempt? Some might say it’s tacky, but is it still better than no car decoration?
This was also listed as a Christmas decorating fail. Granted, monkey flinging poop isn’t exactly holiday-themed, but it is funny.
Again, this was listed as a fail. It’s not Christmas, but it’s neat. If there was a “Star Trek Saves Christmas” episode, it probably did fail by being really cheesy. Seems like a lot of older shows had episodes like that.
It’s log!!!
For the log reference:
Bonus reference: When Phineas and Ferb became toy designers, they created Perry The Inaction Figure, which doesn’t do much. That’s the genius of it, because it can be anything to a kid with an imagination. (Think of how a box of random Lego blocks can be anything, but now so many Legos are kits. You can still build other things with a kit, but people are more likely to build what is on the box. Likewise with other toys — a generic action figure can be anything. But I digress…) After their day of being toy designers, they moved on. The Har D Har Toy Company tried to design another product with a similar ethos, coming up with Brick, which reminded me of Log.
In a recent post about trying to be a responsible adult with a bowl of chocolate, I ended it with the idea of eating “a reasonably-sized piece of chocolate”. That made me think of “fun size” candy bars. That’s a weird bit of marketing. Does anyone think those bite-sized candy bars are actually more fun?
Plenty keeps me up at night. Global warming. The world my kids will inherit. The logic behind calling the smallest candy bars “fun size” when the real fun comes from eating a mass of chocolate the size of a brick. ~ Jon Wertheim
Can’t argue with that. 🙂 If there were truth-in-advertising laws that applied here, those “fun size” candy bars might be called “small enough to make you mad” or “it’s tiny so we can say it’s not many calories” or “try to eat just one”. 🙂 Some of those are so small that you have to make a concerted effort to make it more than one bite.
One time I saw a 5-pound Hershey’s chocolate bar. I think it was at the Hershey’s store in Times Square in New York City. Attempting to eat that would be a lot more fun than one bite of chocolate. It would be so unhealthy and unreasonable, too, but we’re talking about fun. Healthy and reasonable might be eating a salad instead, and where’s the fun in that? (I will admit that it is possible to make a great tasting salad, but healthiness decreases at an inverse rate as tastiness increases, which is a discussion for another day.)
Also, think about how great a gift it would be to give someone a 5-pound chocolate bar. Young kids would not be able to contain their excitement and astonishment. They might even start dancing spontaneously. Some adults may also not be able to hide their excitement, either. 🙂 The recipient might be excited at having so much chocolate to themselves, or they could share it and be the life of the party. Giving away chocolate makes any party better!
We have a big bowl of chocolate candy bars in our dining room. This is not normal, because we try to eat reasonably healthy most of the time. But we just passed Halloween, and for various reasons we had less trick-or-treaters this year. (I’d guess because it was a Monday — a school night — and our closest neighbors decorated less than normal. More people went to the other side of our subdivision, which had more decorations.) Regardless of how and why, the end result is a lot of tempting chocolate in my house.
So what am I supposed to do with all this chocolate? The obvious answer is to EAT IT! But there’s a flaw in the slaw: I’m trying to be a responsible adult here. One of my goals is to lose some weight and be more fit, and chocolate bars don’t exactly fit in fitness. But the counter-argument is that I’m a grown-up, so I can eat whatever I want. And that’s true. Therein lies the dilemma.
Do you remember being a kid and being limited by your parents on things like eating sweets and watching TV and playing video games? You probably dreamed of how one day you’d be a grown-up who can set your own rules and how wonderful that will be. And it is good. But you also (hopefully) learn that there are good reasons to be responsible and it’s better to do those things in moderation. It reminds me of this funny quote:
I don’t think I can talk Jen into installing a deep fat fryer in our kitchen. That’d rock! A short order grill. I can sit home and make grilled cheese sandwiches, hash browns, French fries, and pancakes all day long. Mmm. The fat kid in my brain just got really excited. The adult in my brain has to calm him down. Which really is what “growing up” is all about — telling the kid in your brain to sit down and behave, while the grown-up in our brain says, “You know, it’d be more responsible of us if we did this instead…” Stupid brain. ~ Jeff Schell
That’s the mental battle that we all must endure. But let me caution and encourage you with the word “moderation” in another context. Being an adult — especially when you have children — means being serious and responsible a lot more often than you may want to be. If we go too far on the serious side, it can drain the joy and happiness out of life. We don’t want to become an adult that forgets how to have fun. (I suppose that applies to everyone. But if you don’t want to laugh and be happy, that’s your choice, but I don’t recommend it.) Life is much better when it’s enjoyed. You can still be responsible and serious while enjoying the journey. That’s where moderation applies here — it’s not just about limiting the fun, but it can remind us to be serious in moderation. Allow yourself to have fun, even when life is busy and overwhelming. Actually, being able to enjoy your life makes the serious parts less tedious! So it’s helpful to have fun!
So the next time you’re about to eat a piece of chocolate that you might feel somewhat guilty about, find the balance — set a limit of how much, but within that limit, enjoy it as much as possible. While eating it, don’t think about calories or saturated fat grams or sugar or how much exercise it would take to burn it off — just close your eyes and savor each delicious bite. (You tend to enjoy it more when you eliminate distractions, so closing your eyes actually helps.)
Now go enjoy a reasonably-sized piece of chocolate! 🙂
The other day I had a really random dream. That in itself is not surprising, because I really enjoy randomness (hence why I write on this blog). But what’s odd about it is that it featured a scenario I had never thought of before.
In my dream, I was at someone’s house, and the woman was loading the dishwasher, but instead of standard dishwashing detergent / soap, she poured in a chocolatey cereal, something like Cocoa Pebbles. Unfortunately I woke up and didn’t get to see how the dishes turned out, but I expect it would be the opposite of clean. (A quick glance on Google didn’t find any images to go with this… maybe I just didn’t spend enough time, because supposedly you can find anything on the Internet. So you’ll just have to use your imagination to picture it, old-school style.) [Edit: Mango-Man sent in a picture to go with the post, so here it is.]
I don’t know how or why my brain created that scenario. I’ve never wondered what else you could put in a dishwasher besides soap. Although this does remind me that I heard someone once joke about putting their underwear / drawz in the dishwasher instead of dirty dishes, but I don’t think that’s a recommended usage, especially if there are dishes in there also.
Buffet o' Blog 