Reconsidering Penguins

OK, first, I stand by my Statistics Saturday post about the nations of the world as you find them in amusement park figures and art.

But on Saturday, after I’d had it scheduled to post, and while I was out waiting behind someone who was trying to figure out how to work a Coke Freestyle machine, I realized something. “Santa Claus” is a funny nation. “Penguins” make for a funny nation. But “The Santa Claus-Penguinarian Empire”? That would be much better. And from a start like that I could play on all kinds of Austro-Hungarian Empire jokes that readers would love.

Too late now, that’s all. Pity. Someday I’ll have my second thoughts when it’s not too late to do anything with them.

National Cheese, Penguins

According to Missy Meyers’s comic feature panel Holiday Doodles the 20th of January was both “Penguin Awareness Day” and “National Cheese Lovers Day”. I had no idea, indicating the need for Penguin Awareness Day awareness campaigns, but I spent at least the later part of the day ready to notice any penguins that happened to be hanging around mid-Michigan. I didn’t notice any. I may not have the adequate holiday spirit.

Cheese, now, I’m always ready to be aware of, since it’s one of the things I feel good about eating. (Other things on the list: pretty much everything except octopus. I’ve tried octopus — and squid — repeatedly and haven’t liked it any time, and since it ends badly for me and worse for the octopus I’m done with eating them, and I imagine they’re even happier to be done with being eaten by me.) I don’t know what “National Cheese” tastes like, but I’m going to go ahead and imagine that it’s “kind of like cheddar”.