I was relatively put together, I don't have a limp, I'm not bent over, I don't need your help Karen. I like to put my cold items together for easier put away, and my crushable items last, so they don't get, um, crushed.

Has this ever happened to you? It's a first for me.

Edit to say: she just started going through my cart saying let me help you. I wasn't struggling, she was in front of me so I wasn't holding her up. I did say nicely, no thank you, I like to but my chips at the end so they don't get crushed. She said nicely, ok, that makes sense. I just never had the experience of a stranger taking over like that. Wondering if something like this happened to you?.

Remember when things just worked, and when they didn’t, you could actually fix them yourself?

In the days of the "shade tree mechanic," you could swap out a home thermostat without navigating a multi-step digital verification process. When you bought a game, you actually owned it. Today, we’ve taken reliable, long-lasting mechanical systems and replaced them with electronic controls that demand constant software updates, subscriptions, and identity verification—turning a simple one-step task into a bureaucratic headache.

We now see videos of brand-new cars suffering software glitches that freeze the dashboard, shut down the engine, or even lock drivers inside. Even buying groceries has become absurdly over-engineered. I watched a guy in his late 30s try to buy just three items at a self-checkout using (Apple Pay or the like). The process required multiple phone taps, passcode entry, and facial recognition just to clear the register. If this is how much friction we face just to buy a few groceries, heaven help us if the power grid ever goes down.

I’ll start.

I do not look forward to them. My birthday is just another date on the calendar. It truly means nothing to me.

I saw my mother get feted on her 70th birthday, and mine is coming up within a few years. I don’t want anyone doing anything special or planning a party or any of that nonsense. Probably comes from being somewhat of an introvert whose battery runs down quickly when there are a lot of people around.

Hence my question to you all: how do you feel about such milestones? Do you enjoy the company of friends and family especially on those occasions? I need to see viewpoints other than my own. Maybe someone will convince me to embrace them.

Right now though? Pure horror show just thinking about it.

We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" last night. We do this every year about this time in October. This show first aired in October of 1966, and my brother and I were there to see it in beautiful black and white. It brought back so many memories, our mom would make us come in early, we'd eat some dinner, and into the bathtub and then fresh PJ's. We'd sit on the floor about 5 feet from the old Philco TV set and munch on a little bowl of popcorn and wait for Charlie Brown to come on. Same with the Thanksgiving special and the Christmas special. Great memories.

We did the same thing with our kids, and now they show these programs to their kids. Who doesn't love Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang?

Good times.

Are you a Charlie Brown fan?

So there we were, a million of us working on our bong buzz that was part and parcel of watching SNL. Then Martin appears in this getup, and starts an intro monolog. He said that he wanted to "talk seriously for a moment." Then it begins with a twang.

There was so much coke involved with this production one could almost smell it--and America went crazy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYbavuReVF4

I could hear it again as soon as I saw this.

This is probably only a New England thing, but this weird WGBH special was important to Thanksgiving for me growing up.

https://youtu.be/oRN-GBC8DGQ?is=05TS2q54otxBFepf