Today, kiddo is rediscovering her set of Story Cubes. I had forgotten her insistence that the comedy and tragedy masks on one cube face are actually Grey-style aliens.

Even on my second read-through, it’s hard to believe how good the 2016 Flintstones comic actually is.

Steven Peck’s “A Short Stay in Hell” gets better each time I read it.

Kiddo’s uncle is teaching her the Pokémon TCG, which is pretty delightful.

I am skeptical about heavy emphasis on STEM as educational policy, but watching my kid learn to program with her new robot today was a real treat.

Doing some Christmas Eve Geoguessr, and I think I ought to make this a tradition.

I’ve been trying to put words to an idea in my head for a few weeks, and I think I finally have it: A secular Christmas is still definitely Christian in the same way that Homer Simpson is still definitely a white dude.

My reputation as an uncle is increasingly becoming associated with tabletop RPGs, and I’m not upset about that at all.

I’m normally a big “break is break” advocate, but family illness meant being behind on work, which meant taking over my father-in-law’s WFH setup today to finish a syllabus and course shell I needed to prep so other instructors could work off them.

Skipping my congregation’s candelight service today. Can’t go in person because of family sickness, and they’ve made it clear that they aren’t going to make huge efforts to make it Zoom accessible. Bummed to miss it, but playing Mario Party with kiddo instead is pretty fun.

I was really hoping to make something special of Advent this year, but the past three weeks have just kind of sucked, and I don’t know if the next one will be any better. I don’t know that I have a takeaway from this, except that maybe it’s okay to have a sucky Advent.

I think it would be dumb to name my next TTRPG character “John Mastodon,” but I’m not sure that will stop me.

In the Greenhalgh home, Mommy’s been sick for over a week, which means Daddy’s not gotten a lot of work done recently. Final grades are due tomorrow, though, so kiddo might get a lot of screen time today.

a-ha’s “The Living Daylights” came up on a playlist just now, and it made me want to play Axis and Allies. I received the game the same Christmas my brother received a CD of James Bond music, and the two will always be associated in my mind.

Lundi dernier, sachant qu’il serait une semaine difficile, je me suis offert du vrai gruyère suisse. Il y a eu des jours depuis où ce n’était qu’un petit bout de ce fromage magnifique qui m’a permis de continuer.

This semester, my efforts to trust students feel like they’re backfiring. I ungrade, but they don’t take work seriously. I never use plagiarism checkers, but I still have to deal with a last minute case. Not saying I’ll stop effort, but still sucks.

Family has been sick for the last week, and it’s been a struggle to keep up with grading even after cancelling nearly all my other commitments. Thought I was in the clear this morning, only for the first final project I opened to turn into suspected plagiarism. 😩

I got my job largely because I can work with Twitter data, and my tenure application is built on the premise that I do good Twitter research. I probably shouldn’t take as much pleasure as I do from watching the platform fall apart right now, but I was ready to move on anyway.

Je viens de découvrir que les CFF vendent de petits oeuvres d’art faits à partir de vieux afficheurs à palettes. C’est qqch que je cherche depuis longtemps, mais on ne livre pas jusqu’aux États-Unis. 😭😭😭

Streisand Effect must be real, because I’ve never cared this much about a single plane in my whole life.

It occurred to me this morning that one could build Tales from the Loop RPG characters based on Homestar Runner’s Teen Girl Squad, and now I really want to try it.

Je ne suis pas le foot de trop près (ni aucun autre sport, à vrai dire), mais cet après-midi, j’allume RTS La Première. Hop Suisse !

Bien content d’avoir découvert le Calendrier de l’Avent de noelenbd.fr (même si je suis deçu d’avoir raté les premiers jours). Encore plus content qu’Izneo ne défend pas aux non-Français de profiter de l’offre.

This weekend, I read Kate Beaton’s new graphic novel memoir, “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” in a single sitting. It was excellent and really got me thinking.

I’m about to set up a Graceland University login because I’m registering for (non-credit-bearing) courses at Community of Christ Seminary. I know I’m not the first person in history to enroll at both BYU and Graceland during my lifetime, but it still tickles me to think about.