FIVE SECOND STORIES

In the neighborhood: 

Thanksgiving Day: 

Mr. Young Finch's waistcoat is quite bright:

LG enjoying some thanksgiving peanuts-he's really bulked up:

Inside, we had a simple meal featuring a savory strudel as the main course:

The filling was a mushroom/leek base flavored with tarragon. C's had vegan boursin cheese added, mine had chicken and mozzarella cheese. Served with dressing, roasted asparagus and a tarragon/garlic gravy flavored with garam masala. Dessert was vegan dark chocolate/hazelnut bites. 

11/29-before the snow arrived: it was pretty busy at the Diner. A young nutkin:

 

Once the snow came, only the avians were dining-everyone else went home to hunker down. It was curious how slow and gradual this storm was in these parts. A mellow storm.

11/30: we ended up with 5-6" of snow-wet and heavy as it was 32° at 5 am.

The Diner was busy:

 

The Turkey Bros. were out and about:

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11/28: 100th anniversary of the founding of the Grand Ole Opry, a weekly, live radio broadcast in Nashville, TN.

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End of a giant: it was reported in the LSJ that Sears only has 5 stores left in the US.

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12/1: 70th anniversary of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.

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A well-done cookie:

Every once and a while, one comes across a good baker who creates a chocolate chip cookie that hits all the four corners of flavor, in this order:

-brown butter

-sweet

-chocolate

-dough

C finds these at the ELFCO located at the Allen Street Market. One helluva cookie-rich and satisfying-you really don't need more than one. It's like a fine spirit, consumed in small quantities.

~

Earliest known depiction of human and animal found in Israel from 12,000 years ago:

https://www.bfhu.org/2025/11/20/the-woman-and-the-goose-a-12000-year-old-glimpse-into-prehistoric-belief/ 

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I've been noticing a new Coca-Cola ad campaign reviving Mr. Pibb in the classic "new and improved" path  "centering on its return with a "revived taste,: 30% more caffeine, and a bold new look and brand identity." Mr. Pibb entered the soda market in 1972 as a competitor to Dr. Pepper. 

Frankly, I had no idea Pibb was still around. But then, I never cared for Dr. Pepper to begin with.

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Surreal vid: In The Death Car from the soundtrack from the 1993 film Arizona Dream. Music by Goran Bregović featuring vocals and lyrics by Iggy Pop, channeling his inner Tom Waits.

 

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mADmen: Conquering First World problems by putting a sheet on it, will take care of that little static monster that your basic fabric softener sheet can't handle:

Clever, though my morbid imagination immediately went here with the tagline pun:

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The problem with ChatGPT: I've been working on illustrations using this program and have learned a lot about its capabilities. In particular, one must be very precise when giving a command but even so, robot hallucinations will happen. Case in point: I was working on an image featuring a number of woodland creatures, both feather and fur, gathered together under a tree. Two problems: the robot's work was fairly accurate except for a bizarre cardinal hybrid who had a squirrel's tail! (red circle) Also, the critters were not in correct proportion in size with each other-the squirrel (blue circle)  is huge, larger than the raccoon. This was my fault as I did not include this in my order although one would have thought that this would be a given. The image:

After seeing this, I shudder when I read that government, businesses, schools and lawyers (oh boy) are using ChatGPT. They better proofread carefully!

12/1 Advent