One of the best parts of the annual Little League World Series on ESPN is seeing how the latest crop of 10- to 12-year-olds answer the questionnaire about their likes and dislikes. I've never played organized baseball, but because I'm an egotist, I wonder how I would answer those questions if I was in their place, by which I mean how would I have answered these questions when I was 12... in 1987. Let's find out together!

1. What is your favorite MLB team?
Atlanta Braves. (Yes, they were the local team, but I actually liked pro baseball in 1987. I went to games a few times a year until the strike of 1994, which completely killed any desire I had to watch MLB games. I haven't been back since. I'm not mad about it anymore; I've moved on to just not caring.)

2. Who is your favorite MLB player or non-MLB athlete?
Bruce Benedict, catcher, Atlanta Braves (because when the Fulton County Stadium announcer called his name, the crowd howled "Bruuuuuuuuuuuce!").

3. What is your favorite movie?
Star Wars. (Don't ask which one. Everyone knows there's only one Star Wars.)

4. What is your favorite television show?
Bionic Six. (You have probably never heard of Bionic Six. It wasn't even popular in my school at the time. But I still occasionally use Rock-1's catchphrase: "So-LAR!")

5. Who is your favorite actor?
Han Solo I mean, Harrison Ford. (Note: This was almost Michael J. Fox because Family Ties and Back to the Future, but it was not because Teen Wolf. And Han Solo was also Indiana Jones, so he wins.)

6. Who is your favorite artist?
"Weird Al" Yankovic. (It might still be "Weird Al" Yankovic.)

7. Who is the person you'd most like to meet?
"Weird Al" Yankovic. (It is definitely still "Weird Al" Yankovic.)

8. What is your favorite food?
The french fries that came with a Chili's Oldtimer. (The Chili's on Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain is where my parents would take me on special occasions, like birthdays. The chain is a shadow of its former shadow, but back in the day, their french fries and chocolate shakes were *amazing*.)

9. What is your favorite animal?
I've always really liked dogs, but I don't know that's what I would have said in 1987. My family had a Scottish Terrier named Jammie back then. Jammie was great. So let's just say I would have said dogs.

10. What is your favorite emoji?
The only emoji that existed in 1987 was a smiley face, so even though I hated it, I guess... smiley face?

11. What is your dream job?
Architect. (Given that I didn't know much about construction, I suspect that was largely due to Hollywood using "architect" as shorthand for someone who had a job that was creative, lucrative, and allowed plenty of free time. That "dream" would die when I ran into high school calculus.)

12. What is your favorite hobby?
Collecting comic books. (Some things never change.)

13. What is your favorite school subject?
By far, my favorite subject was whatever we were doing in my "gifted" class, which was essentially a period of structured creativity practice, like math games and creative writing. (Do they not have gifted classes in schools outside Georgia? None of these modern Little Leaguers ever answer "gifted class." Although, come to think of it, none of us were great athletes, either.)

14. Do you have a special talent?
Drawing. (I suppose that's been supplanted by "sarcasm." Although, come to think of it, I always had a bit of a smart mouth. At my 7th grade graduation, when my elementary school principal told the assembled cafetorium that my class was all such good well behaved kids, he made a point of looking me in the eye when he appended "most of you." So maybe always "sarcasm.")

15. What would you do if you win the lottery?
Honestly, I have no idea how I would have answered this In 1987. The kids often like to say they'd buy cars, but I was never really a car guy. Money was... an issue between my parents (who wouldn't divorce until 1990), so I probably just would have given it to them. After I bought a bunch of comic books, of course.

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"Love is the most important thing on Earth. Especially to a man and a woman."

My Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged has eight different definitions for the noun form of love, chief among them "a strong affection or attachment or devotion to a person or persons." That pretty much matches the good captain's use of the word. (I'm sure Kirk also loves the fifth definition: "sexual passion or its gratification," which, you may note, does not require any "person or persons" on this earth or any other).

Maybe I'm devoid of strong passion, but my personal definition of love has always been a little more concrete. So far as I can tell, anything you love is something that you value more than yourself. For most people, that's not a lot of things, if any. (It's no wonder I'm still single after all these years.)

The word gets thrown around a lot (especially by starship captains on the make), but how often is it accurately employed? It's a common trope of art and literature that one lover would be willing to die for another, and I accept that most parents (usually) place their children's interests before their own. But how often do you meet anyone willing to lay down their lives for property? Or strangers? Or a whole society? Or chocolate? Maybe we don't encounter those people often because they don't have long lives.

Conversely, my definition of hate is disliking something enough that you're willing to destroy yourself to destroy it (also a common trope in literature, usually for villains and anti-heroes). I've used that word a lot in my life, but like my use of the word love, it has usually been an exaggeration when all I really want is a word stronger than dislike or disapprove. (Despise? Detest? Disdain?) Rationally I recognize that anything I might hate is rarely actually worth my being sacrificed for it.

Obviously, human beings are not governed by the Three Laws of Robotics, which place the priority of self-preservation dead last, meaning that by my definition, Asimovian robots have a greater capacity for love (and hate) than human beings. I don't know what Mr. Spock would have to say about that, but I'm reasonably certain that Kirk wouldn't hesitate to love a machine, assuming it had enough I/O interfaces.

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General Beauregard Lee — who, despite being a groundhog, probably would have been every bit as effective a leader as actual Civil War generals — did not see his shadow today, which comes as no surprise since I literally cannot remember the last time I saw the sun, either actually or metaphorically. 2023 is definitely not off to a good start.

Side note: While we're (marginally) on the topic of Groundhog Day, why don't we celebrate it more? We eat chocolate bunnies on Easter, so why doesn't Hershey's make chocolate groundhogs? Although, I don't suppose that Groundhog Day is really a "holy day." I mean, no one worships the groundhog. Do they? Yeah, they probably do. Superstition is king. All the more reason to eat little chocolate fetishes. All Praise Lord Groundhog!

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Today, the UGA Bulldogs won their first SEC Championship game since 2017 in dominating fashion. Hooray!

But the real news of the day is that I have a new dog.

Like Henry before him, this good boy is a rescue puppy whose first family couldn't care for him. His original name was Ricky, though his temporary foster parents discovered he didn't seem to know it. They renamed him Coco Puff, but he never really cottoned to that name, either. Mom decided we might as well call him something that sounded good alongside "Henry."

(Side note: I might have ambushed Mom with the idea of a new dog just yesterday, so she justifiably needed some appeasing before she would allow another standard poodle in her house run by Audrey the Hungry Havanese — whose birthday is tomorrow! If that means Mom gets to name my new dog, so be it.)

Therefore, allow me to introduce Louis, pronounced like a French king, unless you're my dad, who insists on saying it "the American way."

Of course, I'm particularly sensitive to whether Henry might get his feelings hurt by having a new dog in the house, so I woke up early (for me) to take Henry to the PetSmart in Peachtree City for an interview with his prospective new playmate. As it happens, the Peachtree City PetSmart is right beside a cemetery, and when Henry and Louis (nee Coco) politely paused their inaugural rollicking to let a group of funeral-bound mourners pet them, I was pretty sure we were going to be all right.

I'm quite pleased that Louis is a brown poodle, a first for my family. White poodles can be pretty, but you really have to keep them on their pedestal, especially on rainy days when playing with new puppies in the mud.

Immediately after this picture was taken, I introduced Louis to my bathtub. It was an eventful day, indeed.

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How'd that old commercial go? "You got chocolate in my Batman!"

I didn't know it when I picked this up at my local Fine Foods Store, but this is the third year Hershey's has produced a DC's Super Hero Bar. I think it's a fun idea, even if the candy itself doesn't really seem to understand how sequential art is supposed to work.

This reminds me that back in art school in the 90s, I made a white chocolate candy bar in which each "panel" told a different chapter of my life-up-til-then story. I created a custom wrapper, too. I assure you, it looked better than it tasted.

By the way, don't miss out on International Batman Day 2022, which Warner Bros has decided is tomorrow, September 17. (It used to move around the calendar a lot, but this "holiday" seems to have settled into the third Saturday in September in recent years.) Celebrate it however you like.

Personally, Batman recommends chocolate.

Source: gifer.com

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75/2084. The Beast Must Die (1974)
This which-one-of-these-people-is-the-werewolf movie feels like a made-for-television Hammer horror, and I mean that as praise. The movie literally takes a pause to allow you to make your guess before the big reveal, and I'm happy to say that I got it half wrong.

76/2085. Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
The anthropomorphic personification of Death at the center of this film is a complete ass, and that character deficiency casts an unpleasant pall over the rest of the melodramatic proceedings. I'm sure it makes a better stage play than movie.

78/2087. Dying for Chocolate: A Curious Caterer Mystery (2022)
Another Hallmark Movies and Mysteries original! This one was a little too easy owing to some early seemingly out-of-place exposition during a character introduction, but I'd rather have an easy puzzle than no puzzle at all.

77/2086. The Sapphires (2012)
A spoonful of sugar — or in this case, pop songs — makes the rather harsh medicines of racism, rejection, and death in the Vietnam War go down in this movie very loosely based on a true story. Yes, it's crafted to gather the widest mainstream appeal, but that works in its favor given the subject matter.

79/2088. Born to Sing (1942)
In this Saturday morning matinee kids' fare of the pre-WWII years, a crooked musical promoter steals an ex-convict's songbook then frames the kids who know the truth. The kids plan to turn the tables by putting on the show themselves in a disused Nazi fifth-column meeting house with the help of a gangster with a heart of gold. I wish it was as good as that sounds, but the closing musical number really got on my nerves.

80/2089. Spies in Disguise (2019)
This, on the other hand, is now be my favorite Will Smith-plays-a-pigeon movie. (Snark aside, it certainly doesn't hurt that Tom Holland's protagonist character is named "Walter." That kid has charm.) It's a spy-lampoon that knows what it's parodying and why.

More to come.

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I was hungry (and a little bored), so I decided to make myself a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

Now I'm full (and a little sick). Turns out that you can have too much of a good thing.

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May I present this year's Thanksgiving yard sign, Poppin' Fresh (aka the Pillsbury Doughboy):

For reference for this piece, I bought a Pillsbury™ Moist Supreme® Chocolate Premium Cake Mix. I'm typically a make-it-from-scratch cake guy, but I have to admit, it paired quite well with Pillsbury™ Creamy Supreme® White Frosting.

Hoo Hoo!

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Every time I show a picture of my lawn ornaments in the fall and winter, friend Otto teases me about the sorry condition of the yard. So this time, I'm going to give you the pic of how my latest creation looks inside the studio:

That's Captain Carrot, fearless leader of the Zoo Crew!, painted just in time for Easter.

Last year's Easter painting was the chocolate rabbit. I love it so much, I'm disinclined to subject it to another round of elements. (I've never liked sharing my chocolate.) Tragically, I might love this one even more.

If the flowers come out next week, maybe you'll get a second pic of the good Captain.

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I decided I needed something sweet to eat, so I made the Southern Living Chocolate Pound Cake with Chocolate Glaze. It's an easy recipe, and everything went great...

Until I moved the cake from the cooling rack to the serving dish for icing...

And dropped it.

Dammit. No cake for me.

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