RIP Peter Boyle

I still laugh out loud whenever I picture Peter Boyle as the monster in Young Frankenstein doing his little dance number to "Puttin' on the Ritz". Of course, more recently, you'll remember him as Frank on the TV show Everybody Loves Raymond. All the facial expressions and dry comments from grumpy Frank were my favorite thing about the show. Mr. Boyle was 71 years old.

The Light Bulb Quest is Complete!
I finally managed to acquire the necessary light bulb today. It took about a minute and a half to put it in the car. Yay! It's not exactly the same bulb as the original. The shape of bulb 5008 has apparently changed slightly since my car was made in 2003. But it fits into the tail light just fine and it works, so I don't know that I particularly care.

Conditionally Wrong Information:
I have identified another confusing thing in life. I got to thinking about information being acceptably wrong in some circumstances, but not in others. This is not a concept with which I am completely comfortable. Something is right or it's wrong. It's not sometimes right and sometimes wrong. I can't think of any instance where some fact is considered right when given to one audience and wrong when given to another. Well, it happens a lot in politics, but I don't think that's a good example.

Having the right info is important to me. You can't make good decisions without information that is reliable. Opinions and decisions can change, but information--the facts and the data--shouldn't change based upon situations. I have found very few things in life to be reliable except for information. One of the things I have always liked about programming is that the code is right or it's wrong. There isn't any gray area there. And developing the right bit of code or finding the elusive bit of data is one heck of an adventurous challenge. It's a game to me.

The Annual Holiday Card....
I think I actually might get cards sent out before Christmas Day this year. Last year I think it was mid-January or later when I sent them. According to my rules, they're not late until New Year's Day. I might even write the letter to go in the cards this week! Probably should do some of the old gift shopping too....

Gingerbread Houses
I caught part of the Food Network Gingerbread House Challenge tonight. I haven't quite figured out why it's part of the competition to move the finished pieces to the judging table. I guess the audience likes the suspense of the move and the chance that everything will come crashing down. Seems like an unecessary step to me.

I did really like the Victorian Brownstone looking house. It even had bats (or what looked like bats) coming out of the chimney. OK, so technically, they were musical notes. At a distance they looked like bats. I think bats would have been cooler. Maybe for a Halloween gingerbread house, not a Christmas-themed house.

I've always wanted to build a gingerbread house of some sort. I once had a gingerbread house kit that had pre-made pieces. All you had to do was "glue" everything together with royal icing and decorate it with candy. I never built it. I was so afraid of using it up or messing it up that I never used it. I finally opened the box probably 5 or 6 years after I bought it (in high school) and the pieces were kind of moldy, so I ended up throwing them out.

That sort of thing has happened a lot in my life. I learned that you weren't supposed to use really nice things. You were supposed to save them so they wouldn't get damaged or used up. But there's not much point in having something if you don't get to use it, is there. You don't get as much pleasure from just looking at a toy or other item as you do from using it. I try to use things gently, but I don't just let them sit in a corner or on a shelf waiting to crumble with age any more. Some things do get used up or wear out, but at least they get used instead of ruined without ever being used.

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