Halloween is well over now, but I didn’t get around to commenting on it, so I’ll do it now:

I don’t think police caution tape is a particularly scary Halloween decoration. It’s very popular and, I admit, it usually has been modified to say some spooky saying like “Beware” or things that are marginally better than “Caution”, but it is still not scary. If someone has put up caution tape, that means any threat there is known. Authorities have been made aware of the situation. They deemed it such a low-level threat that they felt a little yellow ribbon would be enough protection. Real scary locations don’t come with warnings.

Last year I saw a house that had some drawings of monsters done in crayons by children. That sort of thing is in just about every second horror movie for a reason, and if you’ve got kids it’s a very cheap replacement for lame caution tape decorations. And if you don’t have kids, what are you decorating for, you chump? Just watch some horror movies or something like a grown-up.

Some people worry about keeping Christ in Christmas. I am begging you to keep caution tape out of Halloween.

I don’t go to fast food places all that often, I am ashamed to admit. I went to Wendy’s today, though, because the grocery store is closed because they hate Canada (Why else would any business close on Canada Day if not as a protest of Canada?). Anyway, I went in and ordered my meal and they apologetically told me I’d have to wait while they made some fresh fries. Two minutes later my food was done and they said “Sorry about the wait” like I’d been terribly inconvenienced. I came very close to saying to that employee “I’m a grown up, I can wait a few minutes for food without that being a problem” but I didn’t bother. I don’t want to shatter the business’s worldview.

But it reminded me of a previous encounter with a fastfoodery: I like the milkshakes at McDonalds and once every year or two I remember that and try to get one. About five years ago I went to a McDonalds and ordered a medium milkshake. While drinking that, I realized that a medium was more than I needed to get my milkshake fix. Thus, a year or so later, I returned to get another one. Not wanting to overdo it again, I wisely ordered a small. After I order, a few other people came and ordered food and got theirs before I got mine. When some employee noticed, they gave me a medium as an amends to make up for what, in their mind, was an unconscionable wait for me to have suffered.

Okay, I get that there are probably plenty of people who are into the whole instant gratification that fast food places try to provide, but I don’t like it. I don’t care about my health or anything, so I don’t care about the usual things that are horrible about fast food. It turns out that the reason I’m not all that into fast food is that I don’t like that they think I am a whiny child.

‘Sup, fools? Char’Nagh is nigh. Praise the Dark Lord Char’Nagh and his grudging willingness to let the world continue existing for another year!

Looking at my year-end post from last year, it was basically whining about how I’d had so much work and school that I didn’t feel I was accomplishing anything else. Well, that’s the same this year. I do feel like I’ve accomplished some things, having introduced Beekeeper Reviews to the site and working on a secret project with Kip, but Secret Government Robots has especially suffered, since I’ve been prioritizing it as my lowest thing. That’ll change in the new year, as we approach a big finale story. Let’s go ahead and assume that 2015 will be my most productive year ever, why not?

Behold! The Dark Lord Char’Nagh arises and reviews our lives for another year! Are you confident that he will not find you wanting? You still have a few hours, so use them imploring his mercy! You do not want to face the wrath of Char’Nagh!

2013 went by too quickly for my liking. I didn’t feel like I really got a chance to slow down and do anything other than work and school. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it felt, but it felt bad. On the plus side: I like my job a heckuva lot more than I have any other job I’ve had in decades, and I’m still doing reasonably well in school. Still, I could use a nice break in which I could do more things not related to school or work. I had planned on taking Summer classes, but I’m not so sure now.

Anyway, that’s it for me this year.

Ooooohhhhkay. Detective Made Easy, the latest of John Swartzwelder novel about Frank Burly is out. As is tradition in the Nation of PDR, this means it is National Bookorderin’ Day! That’s the day when I’m supposed to get all kinds of the books I want to read in a single order from the Internet. Here’s the thing, though. I was already given Dave Barry’s Insane City and Max Barry’s (no relation) Lexicon for my birthday, so I don’t need that much. And to make it worse, just today I noticed an email from school saying that the Comics and Cartoon’s class I am starting next week will has changed professors and, with that, changed the books we need to read for the class. This means that four of the books I got and read over the Summer are now unnecessary and I will have to get and read other books for class. Ugh.

So anyway, the moral of the story is that I’m getting Detective Made Easy for National Bookorderin’ Day, but apart from that, it’s all about school.