In a continuing celebration of my chunky dog Murphy’s twelfth birthday, I’ve got some more Murphy videos for your enjoyment. These videos are feature Murphy doing what she does best (besides eating): lounging like a French duchess.
In a continuing celebration of my chunky dog Murphy’s twelfth birthday, I’ve got some more Murphy videos for your enjoyment. These videos are feature Murphy doing what she does best (besides eating): lounging like a French duchess.
My old bull terrier, Murphy, turned a whopping twelve-years old this past Sunday. The average life expectancy for bull terriers is between eleven and thirteen years, but Murphy shows few signs of slowing down. Granted, she’s always been pretty slow, but she still gets the zoomies before bed and loves her rawhides (now she eats “rawhide-free” pork chomps, which are safer and better for her stomach).
Murphy has relaxed more as she’s gotten older, but she gets anxious around other dogs. I’m going to inquire about putting her on canine Prozac—Dr. Fiancée assures me it exists for dogs, and that Murphy would benefit from it—just so she can relax a bit more when she’s in unfamiliar environments. Like most modern Americans, and especially American women, Murphy may soon be taking an SSRI.
Regardless, Murphy is relaxed when it’s us hanging out. She spends more time sleeping now than she used to, and enjoys sticking to the bedroom, especially since I tossed the rug in the den (she doesn’t like the wood flooring on her nails and paws). But she is still a sweet, albeit sassy, old girl, and I love her dearly.
With that, here is “TBT^2: Happy Birthday, Murphy!“:
After last week’s LEGO space craft, I decided to rebuild it into a wider craft. I was watching a video about the station wagon (lol) on YouTube, so I decided this build is something of a space station wagon.
I am a sucker for the station wagon, and bemoan their disappearance from the market. But could the people of the Star Wars universe have carted their kids and Ewoks around in station wagons?
Apparently, I failed to make videos for all of the pieces on Leftovers IV. Indeed, I neglected to upload a lot of the goodies that I usually include with digital purchases of albums; that has now been rectified.
So I am back to looking at some tracks from that short EP. This week I’m sharing a piece that’s a bit of a Celtic jig.
Yours portly ventured to his local cinema last week. One of the glories of summer vacation is that I can go see the movies at 11:40 AM on a Thursday morning, which is exactly what I did when I went to see Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025).
Why such an early showing? Well, the movie—and this point is my chief complaint about it—is nearly three hours long. Like every major film release these days, directors seem incapable of shooting and editing a film that is under two hours. A small handful of super long films don’t feel long, and I welcome their three-hour runtimes, but those (like Goodfellas [1990]) are very much the exception to the rule. What happened to the tight, 90-minute flick?
M:ITFR gets a bit of a pass because it is the final (allegedly) film in a franchise that dates back to 1996. Think about that—this franchise pre-dates the birth of Dr. Fiancée by two years. I was eleven when the first film released; I’m forty now. It is a testament to Tom Cruise‘s longevity, dedication, and fitness that he was able to play Ethan Hunt for so nearly thirty years. Cruise famously and frequently performs his own stunts; seeing a man of his age (he’s 62; he’ll turn 63 in July) perform them is impressive.
The flick was filmed back-to-back with its predecessor, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), but the writers’ strike delayed production of M:ITFR until 2024. That means Cruise played Ethan Hunt for twenty-eight years—dang!
But I digress. Is the impossible length of this film worth accepting the mission?
Last Sunday I linked to posts vaguely about and/or related to Scandinavians; today, I look at the French:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
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Yours portly has been flying more frequently, which is out of character for me. My older brother lives in Indianapolis, and I’ve flown up there twice this year so far for various events (and will do so a third time this summer).
Between the two trips, I’ve somehow set off TSA’s full body scanner three times. No, dear reader, yours portly is not some kind of chaos agent attempting to smuggle more than three ounces of shampoo into the airport. For some reason, my manly area is setting off the scanner.
At first I thought it was the pants I was wearing. I wear these Member’s Mark mason pants (just $15 a pair at Sam’s Club!) and they have a brass (or some similar metal) button above the zipper. I figured those were setting off the scanner.
So on the way home from Indy, I wore a pair of shorts with a plastic button. Surely, I thought, I’d be immune from setting off the scanner, but I set it off nonetheless.
Is it the zipper? We’ve all heard of microplastics; are there micrometals? Is my personal area full of tiny particles of metal?
Regardless of why I keep setting off these scanners, let me explain to you, dear reader, what it is like to be fondled by Uncle Sam.
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My old bull terrier, Murphy, turns twelve this Sunday, 15 June 2025. I adopted Murphy when she was eight, so we’ve been together for nearly four years.
After a bit of a hiatus, I have some fun new Murphy videos. She is doing very well for her age, but the old girl is slowing down a bit. She can handle stairs fine, but sometimes she has to do them at her pace.
So, settle in for a couple of videos of Murphy in her battle against steps (and canine aging):
One of these days, I’m going to head up to Maine and do this tour of the Solar System. I was talking to Dr. Fiancée, and she is onboard, as she is with any travel proposal. The real question is now will we do it, but when we will do it. That remains to be seen. At this point, it’s as amorphous as an intergalactic gas cloud.
With that, here is 13 June 2024’s “TBT^2: Touring the Solar System in Rural Maine“:
I’ve been having some fun getting back into LEGOs—perhaps the last gasp of man-childishness for yours portly—especially since Minecraft Camp last week. Today, I’m going to look at a little spacecraft I built late last week.