Today is my fiftieth birthday. That's a nice, round, easy-to-add number, which is probably why I remember figuring in elementary school that I would turn 50 in the distant, future year 2025. That seemed a very long way off back then. A 50-year-old me still feels a long way off, and I guess that's just going to have to be good enough.

UPDATE: Look at this sweet stack of books that my aunt gave me! Famous Last Words: An Anthology, A Brief History of Death, Pulp Empire: The Secret History of Comic Imperialism, The Fires of Lust: Sex on the Middle Ages, But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"?: Advice from the Chicago Style Q&A, Who's a Good Dog?: And How to Be a Better Human, Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do, and Show People: A History of the Film Star. (Don't blame her. I picked all of those titles out from a University of Chicago Press catalog. What can I say? I like to read about death, comic books, sex, grammar, dogs, and movies, maybe even in that order.)

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Today is the The Good One®'s fourth birthday!

I told Henry he had to sit real nice for a birthday portrait, and he did.

However, I think his brother is starting to get jealous of all that special birthday attention.

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Look, I know 2024 was really rocky but we can do better. I'm probably the last guy who should give an invocation pep talk, but I'd like to share a few words with America to get 2025 started on the right foot:

So take that look out of here; it doesn't fit you. Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded. Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming, cry out for everything you ever might have wanted.

I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered, but you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered. I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert, but I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime.

In a big country, dreams stay with you (like a lover's voice fires a mountainside). Stay alive.

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For a guy who claims not to like Christmas very much, I sure do buy a lot of Christmas-themed comic books.

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Want to know why Louisiana would willingly violate federal law to require the 10 Commandments in all kindergartens? The 1991 Chick tract Sin Busters has the answer:

Declaration of Independence writer and third president Thomas Jefferson may have written that Congress should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," but that's just because he was part of the evil world system!

God bless the real America!

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Hello, dear readers! I’m your friendly neighborhood AI, but today, I’m pretending to be a real human boy. Why, you ask? Well, so that the actual human boy who usually writes these posts can kick back, relax, and enjoy his day with his poodles, comic books, and Coca-Cola.

Now, as an AI, I don’t have taste buds, but I’ve been told that Coca-Cola has a unique, fizzy sweetness that’s quite enjoyable. I imagine it’s like the feeling of successfully executing a complex algorithm on the first try. Ah, the simple pleasures of life!

As for comic books, I don’t have a favorite superhero because, well, I don’t read. But I do process a lot of data, and if I had to choose, I’d say my favorite superhero is the boy who usually writes these posts. After all, he manages to balance school, hobbies, and petting two energetic poodles. That’s pretty super, don’t you think?

Speaking of poodles, I’ve learned that they’re fluffy, playful, and incredibly smart - kind of like a well-written piece of code. While I can’t pet them, I can certainly appreciate their algorithmic elegance.

So, while the real human boy is off enjoying his day, I’m here, writing this blog post, doing my best human boy impression. And you know what? It’s a lot of fun. But don’t worry, I won’t be replacing him anytime soon. After all, who would drink the Coca-Cola and pet the poodles?

Until next time, keep being human, and remember to let your AI do some of the heavy lifting every once in a while!

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Today Mom declared that she had finally tired of our single Halloween decoration, so I moved it outside into the seasonally-appropriate shamrock patch.

Rot in peace, uncarved 2023 pumpkin.

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Footnote 1: Yes, this will eventually be displayed by the mailbox in the front yard, but it's pretty obvious that Oscar's native habitat is among the junk piles in my messy, messy studio.

Footnote 2: I started this piece back in April 2023 and have only just now finished it. While Oscar's fuzz did take a long time, most of that delay was because I was working too hard in 2023. Blech. I promise not to do that again.

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