Lost Puppy Story Has a Happy Ending
Naomi lost her puppy yesterday. Poor Biscuit. He was too little to be left out on his own. He’s only an inch tall, after all.
Naomi’s puppy is a little promotional toy for the Biscuit series of story books we pick up from the Scholastic book clubs. Naomi took an immediate shine to the little yellow figurine and started carrying it everywhere. She put on little dinnertime plays with it as the star: Puppy is hungry. Puppy needs a drink. Puppy needs his Momma, the dinosaur (or cow, depending on what’s handy).
Puppy travels everywhere: to bed, bath, to the grandparents and to daycare (getting Naomi to put Puppy aside at the start of daycare is a bit of a struggle). It didn’t surprise me that Naomi didn’t want to leave Puppy behind for our Sunday afternoon stroll, especially after she had dropped Puppy during a similar stroll in Ottawa the day before. But drop Puppy she did, and she was pretty upset about it.
I retraced our steps, scanning the side of the road, the sidewalk, the snow banks and even the garbage cans, but didn’t spot Puppy. We decided to try contacting the folks at Scholastic and ordering a bunch of back-up Puppy toys.
Dina found the online catalogues, and I made the calls this morning. No luck: the January catalogue containing the specific Puppy figure had expired, and, despite two trips to consult her supervisor, the sales agent couldn’t tell me what happened to all the unsold/undistributed figures.
Oh well, I thought, and left it at that.
Dina went further – she emailed Scholastic and found a willing ear. She also got in touch with Alyssa Capucilli, the kind author of the books and made enquiries. The end result – a new Puppy is winding its way towards Naomi.
If only we can keep her from asking about Puppy until them.
(Naomi has the best Momma in the world!)
Happy Birthday, Naomi!
You are 29 months old today, and you are ready to get out and enjoy the Spring…if only Spring would show up!
Happy Birthday, Dad!
Last Week’s Comics
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Foundation #3 The Foundation’s squads are deployed in New York to prevent a prophesied plot to poison the water supply…except nothing happens. The predicted threat was real, but the Nostradamus quatrain was interpreted incorrectly. Only the disenchanted Valentine survives. Like the agents, I should have seen this coming, but I’m pleasantly surprised. |
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Tangent: Superman’s Reign #1 First of all: kudos to DC for keeping the Tangent trade dress, complete with wonky seals of approval and indicia. Tangent Flash is in the DCU, looking for the Green Lantern and a return trip home…but home is a far less cheerful place, controlled by that fearsome problem-solver: Superman. |
The Tunes are Everywhere!
What’s with the fast and furious release schedule of all these cool albums? Last week was Morcheeba, and this week has Gnarls Barkley and The Raconteurs.
I’m going to have to pace myself…
Happy Birthday Mom!
A Novel Twist on Comment Spam
Say what you will about the evils of comment spam, but they’re awfully creative.
My blog has been bombarded over the last two days with 50-odd spam comments on a handful of posts. Most of them link to the same sites, but rather than repeat the same fake praise/adulation/critique/complaint boilerplate text, these comments are presented as a conversation between different commenters!
Spam A – “I really enjoyed your post on X, but need more information.”
Spam B – “I too thought post X was brilliant. Look to post Y for more information.”
Spam C – “Post Y was well thought out. This forum is genius!”
Spam A – “I am a lawyer representing a national Of you’re COUNTRY…” (and then the conversation meanders.)
Full marks for creativity!
Can’t Quit Collecting…
…and I’m not trying to stop. Sometimes, all it takes for me to embark upon a collecting quest is to realize that I’ve already inadvertently started a collection. Here’s what I’m looking for nowadays:
- CCG Demo decks in print and PDF.
- RPG demo/intro/quickstart/lite/fastplay kits in print and PDF.
- First edition TSR games (Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, D&D white box supplements – but not Boot Hill. Never cared for Westerns.)
- Collectable dice games. I already have Dragon Dice, Star Trek dice and DoomCubes, but I’d like to get my hands on some Chaos Progenitus and Marvel Super Dice…heck, even some Cookie-Fu.
- GM screens (this is definitely a case of “since I’ve already got so many, I might as well be a completist…but not at any price).
It’s good to have goals. Good thing I can’t afford everything I see the moment I see it.
Excellent Customer Service
Here’s to the fine service at my local garage, Auto Evolution. I bought the car in early this morning to have the front brakes checked (I knew they were due to be changed). The lot was busy and the schedule was full, so I asked how long the job would take.
They said they’d get to the car by 11.
Fine, I answered. I told them about needing to pick Ben up at daycare at noon, and I asked if they had a courtesy car I could rent, or if I should just rent another for the day. Automotive work takes the time that it takes, after all.
They put my car to the front of the line and had it ready for noon. On the nose.
Thanks, guys!
Skipping Rent
Here’s my answer to the Open Question about movie rentals:
I recently realized that I haven’t rented a movie since October. I’ve seen plenty of movies in that time, but they were all DVDs that I bought or borrowed in friends. Heck, I’ve been to the rental store multiple times in the last five months, but only to purchase films, not to rent them.
I used to rent movies on a weekly basis. Dina and I would wander the store and pick out two or three films for the weekend, and we’ve have fun watching them. But then, the children arrived, and those rentals would sit on top of the TV, unwatched, until the late fees became quite intimidating. We rented the William H. Macy film The Cooler three times, but never managed to watch it. Still haven’t
The advent of the No Late Fees policy didn’t help…we just held on to the movies longer and longer.
Eventually, the rental place put the extra copies of the new releases up for sale faster than we managed to find the films and rent them. Given the small price discrepancy between the rental price and the sale price, it’s cheaper to buy the DVD right away and hold on to it than it is to rent it first, decide that I like it and then add it to the collection.
(Of course, I suppose I could always consider not adding movies to the bookshelves like so many trophies from a successful hunt, but that’s a different topic [grin]).
Every once in a while, I take a tour of the back catalogue of the store. The rental terms for these films are more generous – package deals and longer rent times – but there’s still never quite enough time to watch everything that catches my eye. I mean, do I really have another afternoon to dedicate to Flatliners?
Renting is now more about experimenting than catching up with media. I’ll rent indie films, foreign films, or films that I otherwise have no intention of owning, but if there’s a chance I’ll want to own it, I’ll just cut to the chase. I’ve found some gems that way.
If I walked into the shop tomorrow, what would I pick up? I’d take a look at Sunshine, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Live Free or Die Hard, and Michael Clayton (though I might just buy that one -it’s a Tony Gilroy script, after all, and you know how much I love the Bourne films).