"We are going to Wal-Mart to get a mattress, and NOTHING ELSE." (A Photo Essay)

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TWINKIE WATCH: Day Sixteen!

There are STARTLING REVELATIONS in today's post, plus BONUS SCIENCE, because I am all about value.

I am also all about saying the phrase Jar Jar Dad as often as possible, for Twitter-related reasons and also because even though it's only Wednesday, I feel like it's Friday in part because tomorrow I will be taking another big huge important business trip (to Eau Claire, Wisconsin) so it's kind of like I don't have to work anymore this week.

Which still leaves me time for SCIENCE, and the STARTLING REVELATION:

I moved the Twinkie.

Yeah. Let that sink in for a while.

After having been emboldened by the fact that I wasn't killed by touching it, I decided today to move the Twinkie, only to find initially that it was almost impossible to move.

Well, not really, but if I'd said "It was moderately difficult, for a brief moment, to move the Twinkie," you'd probably have gone off to read some website that featured Robert Pattinson.

I tried to lift the Twinkie, and as SCIENTIFICALLY mentioned, it was almost impossible to move it, but I persevered because I am Shogun Dad, or Jar Jar Dad, and eventually I moved it and found that bits of the Twinkie were leaking out:



You can clearly see the bits I'm referring to; it's the three spots on the bottom of the Twinkie where (I assume) (assumptions = science) the creamy filling was injected, only now it's leaking out.

The Twinkie is slowly dying. And now I am sad for it, because I've kind of come to like the Twinkie. But if Neil Armstrong can give his life for science...*

*If Neil Armstrong is still alive, just imagine I said the name of someone who did give his or her life for science, like Terry Kiser. But don't say Marie Curie, because this is right.

... if he can give his life for science, then so can the Twinkie. That's the kind of sacrifice we as Americans**

**God Bless Us, EVERY ONE.

have come to expect from our snack foods.

In case you were wondering, my delay in updating TWINKIE WATCH was not due to indolence; it was due to OTHER SCIENCE, which is your BONUS SCIENCE of the day, in the form of

My Great Experiment In How Far A Water Balloon Will Roll Down A Hill:







Sorry to say, other contenders. That's a world record, right there.


Day Thirteen of Twinkie Watch Is Here.

This is EXACTLY the kind of work I approve of. (I Get Paid For Doing This)

I have, for some time now, been asking my staff, when they save documents, to give the documents descriptive names. People have maintained the habit of short names that used to be mandated by a lack of computer memory, so that things are saved as "ltr.613," which is pretty unhelpful if you're trying to locate a particular document on your hard drive.

Instead, I say "save it with a phrase that will tell me what's in the document," a directive that my staff sometimes takes quite literally:


In case you're wondering, the letter was a request that a judge not take any action until I had a chance to review something.

Quote of the Day 62:

Sweetie and I went out on a date last Friday, and part of the date was going to a store on State Street where she likes to get clothes.

The store will remain nameless, the reason being the conversation that makes the quote of the day; we were waiting in line to pay for the shirt she'd picked out, a woman near the front of the store had this conversation with a worker nearby us:

Woman: Claire, it moved.

Worker: It did?

Woman: I was gonna pick it up and it scooted into a corner.

For the rest of the night -- and certainly while we stood in line, we wondered what had scooted into the corner.

And because I know you're wondering, the answer is yes, Sweetie toughed it out and bought the shirt. Corner-Scooting-Monster or not, she wanted that shirt.

Bonus Reason Why Sweetie and I Are Perfect For Each Other: Later on, talking about that moment, we realized that the first animal we'd both thought of when we heard it was... turtle.

We held the water balloon fight in the front yard because the bees are in the backyard. (A Photo Essay)

Pictures by Sweetie...