I love these cat cartoons from Simon Tofield. Too funny …

It’s good to know I’m not the only one with odd interests. Dave Lafferty, over at davelafferty.com hosts the “Dante Explorer.” A cool blog about all things Dante including articles on sections of the Inferno. Use that site and my own Virtual Tour of Dante’s Hell and you’re set to be an expert … an expert of the afterlife.

Toy stores … there used to be one for every mall. Now, where are they? I was at a (sarcasm starts) brilliant mall today called Fayette Mall (yeah, you know it - and no, no link to it) and they have a really cool little indoor playground with those big rubbery things kids can climb on and efficiently spread germs. But NO toy store. I guess the playground is there to distract kids of this fact.

The mall in my local town just closed its toy store, one that had been there from its opening over 20 years ago. To me, it’s no longer a mall anymore. If a mall doesn’t have a toy store, it’s not a real mall. But where have all the toy stores gone? The mall’s answers:

1. No room … bull crappy malarky - at Fayette I was flabbergasted when on my right was an Abercrombie & Fitch (I guess it’s all clothes in there, dunno - instead of window displays they have blinds - ooo what’s next? A freakin’ bouncer?) … and on my left was an Abercrombie. Huh? Did they split up? Are they competing? Where’s the Fitch store? Nobody likes him? (or her?) What is the point of this repitition? I feel like Montgomery Burns on The Simpsons when he encountered ketchup and catsup. This is like having a KFC across from a Lee’s Chicken - like having a Logan’s Steakhouse across from a Texas Roadhouse - or a Taco Bell next to a toxic waste dump. Do we really need something as stupid as this classified as a paradox?
2. Go to Target for your piddly toys … unless you’re in my town, go to Wal-Mart.
3. Go to Toys R Us … if you can find one (and if you do, find how to get to their parking lot - all of them seem elusive like trying to exit a casino).
4. Go to the Disney Store, there are toys there … well, um, ok, yeah …
5. We need another Limited Too, Also … sheesh we’re not lacking in clothes in society are we? It’s like looking at those car dealerships - do they really sell all those cars?

Who knows why the toy stores have left the mall. I guess they just weren’t cool enough - but that’s what made them cool.

Since my old blog, Todd Man Out, got wiped, this is one post I wanted to bring back from the dead. It’s a keepsake. I had a quick discussion about yams today and how they are different from sweet potatoes. True or not, it makes no difference in my level of disgust for them. So, let’s do this one more time:

The Yam Song

I love to eat some chocolate chips
And smack them on my lips
I love the way that Whoppers taste
I eat them fast, in haste

Honey Buns are good with glaze
Sends me in a daze
Rolls of Cake, from Swiss they come
Makes a dinner done

Taco supper is the best
Beats out all the rest
But, a certain veggie invades my feast
To which I’d rather drink some grease

It grows inside the ground below
Not a friend, a dreaded foe
Disguised in name and shape and look
To something that is normally cooked

It’s pulled from Earth to torture kids
And those who never tell a fib
It’s not a steak, an egg, or ham
But goes by the name, the disgusting YAM

Don’t say that word, oh please do hush
It’s another word for barfy mush
It’s sometimes called a Sweet Potato
Don’t be fooled, that ain’t no tater

It’s hardly “sweet” in all that gunk
Nor is it a “potato,” yams are junk
Taters are white and made to French fry
Yams are orange, same as puke pie

But oh my sweet tongue, the worst thing of all
The awful thing I wish not to recall
Is when they serve it, with things they think dandy
And make the impossible claim
“It tastes like candy”

So keep your yams away from me
Content without them is what I’ll be
Don’t ask if I like them, to that I’ll say
“YAMS ARE POISON, SO KEEP THEM AWAY!”

You put trash by the road in your trash cans and the garbage man takes it away. Simple. But what if your trash can is the trash? Not so simple. You put it by the side of the road and the garbage man won’t take it.

They don’t make trash bags big enough to fit a trash can. So, you have to signify that it’s trash another way. Perhaps a sign that says, “This is trash.” Hmm, not sure if that would work. That would look like a sign for the owners of the trash can, not the garbage man; I don’t want to insult him. Maybe I should just not put anything in it on the next garbage day? Well, that would look stupid and he still may not take it. Sheesh, what to do? How do you throw away a frikkin’ trash can?

And while I’m at it, how do you recycle a recycle bin?

Hi there! And we’re back from the dead … yup, it happens to everyone at some point, your server crashes. In this case my hosts’s webserver crashed and lost everything–and I mean everything. See ya not! This site, and my todd man out blog died. And I’m looking at the proverbial Game Over screen with no extra lives and no continues. So, I’ve pressed Reset and starting all over. Big boom! Welcome to the afterlife.

Luckily I had a lot of things backed up on my hard drive and at the SDF so I have started to rebuild this all in pieces. But how much do I want to rebuild? Well, not everything. I’d like to make a nice new clean start, reshuffle the deck, go back to square one, and <insert other starting-over idiom here>.

I think I want to focus everything here on foxtwin and not have other separate sites. I still want to post to my todd man out blog, but why don’t I just post it here and keep it all in one place? I was going to just put my online projects on foxtwin and do my blogging elsewhere, but why not just have it one place? … because I really like the title todd man out! But, alas, perhaps this crash has taught me to simplify things. So, for now at least, here is my one simplified and minimal site. What’s dead is new again.

Now … to cause some mischief …