Author: The Jody

All you parents out there know that when it comes to dealing with kids, there are times you tell them the truth, and times that you protect them with the time-honored tradition of making stuff up. I should have done that this morning.

I’m feeling pretty crappy about choosing “truth” this morning – one look at his horrified little face and I thought to myself “Oh, that wasn’t good.”

See, he was watching Jimmy Neutron, and Sheen and Carl are arguing about where balony comes from. One said balony trees, the other said something else, which escapes me right now. Junior asked me which one of the two was correct.

“Neither,” says I. “It comes from pigs.”

“How do the pigs make it?”

Now see, this is the point where I should have shut the heck up, you know?

“They don’t make it. They kill the pig and make it from the pig meat.”

Insert look of horror here.

“Uh, they, uh, don’t kill the little babies to make it, do they?”

“No, just the big old fat ones.”

“Oh, so they have to kill them because they’re old.”

At this point, I just agree with him, but I do throw in that we get other meats from pigs too – ham, hot dogs (ya, I know they make beef franks), pork chops, bacon, sausage…

I have no idea why I decided this morning was an appropriate morning to explain where meat comes from. But it’s not like he eats it anyway. We didn’t discuss chicken nuggets, for the record.

I had to make a big decision Monday. It was time to choose which candy I’d be giving out to trick-or-treaters this year. We camp at my sister’s house, and it’s a popular spot. The kids know they’ll get a LOT of candy at her house, because there are three families giving it out. This year my sister is actually giving out glow bracelets, so you know it’s going to be the hot, happening house to hit.

I went for M&Ms this year (plain and peanut, I don’t discriminate) because it just seemed like a good idea. Not enough people give them out, and I think they make the perfect snack. Of course, the fact that they were on sale helped. I was going to supplement with something else, but I decided I always have too much left over at the end of the night. If I really need a Snickers fix, I can just buy one from the vending machine, right?

Just wanted to give you a heads up that from now on, when I think of Don Zimmer, I’m picturing Tor Johnson from Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Interchangeable, no?

I love fonts. I don’t use a lot of fancy fonts because, well, I’m a little scared of them. I’ve taken enough UI design and usability courses to know that it’s not all about the fonts I like, it’s all about the fonts people can read.

And I’m no fool – I don’t want to overwhelm my readers and send them into Fun House spasms. Keep it to only a couple of fonts and faces – so if you’re going to start using bolding, or different sizes, that’s it, baby. Oh, and what of the whole serif vs. san-serif discussion?

Sure, I could find someone somewhere who would tell me it’s perfectly okay to add a little more oomph to my page. But like I said, it’s a big scary fonty world out there. I don’t want to pick the wrong one(s). I’m not looking to uglify my life – I don’t want an “Ugly Site of the Day” award. But if I had my way, I’d load up on fonts. New ones everywhere. This place would look like a crappy diner menu.

I’m just sayin…