I Don't Know Why I'm Surprised This Exists

So this is something that exists on Facebook.

And when I say "this," I mean as a niche on social media, because even a cursory look shows me there are many more than just one or two groups where people are swapping - and actively selling - McDonalds Monopoly game pieces.

For the unwashed masses, McDonalds has done this promotion yearly for I don't know how long, where on certain food packages they offer deeds from Monopoly. The idea of course is to collect a set of deeds as in the game to win fabulous prizes.

But these folks are a little, uh, deluded. 

Take selling these pieces for $10 each. Meaning selling the most common pieces that anyone with a glutton's urge for McDonalds food could collect as they wait for that one rare strike to get the one piece that's going to complete the set. Because that's all you're getting on these sites: The common pieces. Spend a half hour in these groups and you'll know which of every deed set is the rarity, and thus the winner. And you know they ain't selling those.

So these are groups for the not-so-bright who think they're going to find the white whale but more filled with people who are selling worthless pieces at $10 a pop to the gullible or lazy or whatever.

Now maybe I'm wrong, but I know I'm right.

(Start at 1:12 for the reference)

Dear Elder Davidson No. 9

1 November 2026

Hello Isaac,

Here’s to hoping we get to talk tomorrow. I just had a lot going on last Monday . . .

So I told you last week about the excitement of replacing the ice maker. This week you get to hear about the excitement of . . . REPLACING HINGES. Yes, the door to the laundry room and the door to the craft room have new hinges, so the doors actually open and close easier now. I can’t forget to say the both doors also have new STRIKE PLATES and the craft room even has a new DOORKNOB. I don’t know how I keep up with the excitement around here. The doorknob for the craft room has a lock on it, but I made sure it was on the inside so Mom could lock us out and nobody could lock her in. Of lesser excitement is the fact that I only had to buy three hinges, as I already had one hinge left over from another project. I also had the strike plate and the doorknob kit, so this excitement only cost us $9 in new dollars. I know this is valuable information that will sustain you as you continue your missionary adventures.

The hinge thing is pretty significant, though. They replaced the hinges on one of the doors to one of the men’s rooms at work. Replacing the hinges did something, but now the door won’t close at all and they’ve had to prop it open with a sign on it saying not to close it. So my project could have gone south really fast and led to me having to post a similar sign on the craft room door, which would not have made Mom think I did anything to improve the situation.

I don’t know what else to say – this may be a short letter.

Thinking about vacation time. Trying to come up with a really good reason to visit Arizona round about Christmas time. Unless of course y’all are gonna get rain. We’re in our second straight weekend of rain now. We should be grateful for the water, and from what I hear it’s actually snowing in the mountains where the snow should be, so really I shouldn’t complain at all. Besides, nobody will listen to me complain anyway.

The dogs don’t like the rain at all. I had to take them out on the front porch again to tinkle this morning. Any time we get a little dry weather and sun, they want to go out and sit in the sun and just soak it all in. They probably wonder what they’ve done to be celled up with a bunch of people who don’t want to hang around outside all day long.

I’m trying to sell a set of ATV trailer ramps on Facebook Marketplace. We got two sets with the trailer. We’re keeping the good set and trying to get rid of the other set. I have them for sale for $25. The same day I put them up, a guy offered $15 and the excuse that “he had to do some work on them” for the low offer. That’s fine, my dude, I told him. $20 and they’re yours. He didn’t like that much. So I still have them. He’ll probably contact me again in a few weeks to see if they’ve sold, and I’m kind of in the mood that I’d rather chuck them in the recycling bin than sell them to him. Sure, I understand you’ve got to modify them a bit to work for what you need them to do. But right now they’re mine, and I don’t really care that you have to put some work into them. I’m of the mind that if I see something for sale, I’ll try to strike a good bargain but I’m not going to tell the seller my story, true or, not as part of the negotiation. The only thing that matters to the seller is price, and if we can’t agree on that, the rest is fluff.

 I enjoy hearing your mission stories. I hope you’re recording them in some way, whether through videos or a journal, as you’ll want to remember them as well when you’re an old man looking back on a life well-lived.

I got to reading my patriarchal blessing over the past few weekends (I used it as part of an object lesson in Gospel Doctrine last Sunday) and it said some specific things about my mission. I’m not sure I prepared myself well enough for what I should have done, so that’s on me. But I also have to rememer that “my mission” in France is only part of the service I could perform as a missionary. Maybe your mother and I will serve a mission or two after we’re retired, and I could be preparing myself for that service.

OK, I think this is it. They’re watching “Ernest Scared Stupid” in the next room and I don’t want to miss any more of it.

Love, Dad

[Snort]

Whoever you are, man, you're my hero.

Haven't Seen Wildwood? You're Satan.

I've seen more than a few posts on social media today from folks lambasting the entire universe that we did not drop everything and see "Wildwood" from Laika Studios this weekend.

By not seeing this move the exact *second* it came out in theaters, we are collectively responsible for the collapse of Western society and are never in a brazilian years allowed to complain that Hollywood doesn't bother with original stories any more.

Y'all are light years from the insufferability of your average Stanley Kubric fan, but you're trending that direction at speed.

I mean, I just barely watched "Coraline," from the same studio, for the first time about a month ago. The stop-motion was top-notch, but the story was middling.

People rave about "Fantastic Mr. Fox" with George Clooney. I enjoy Clooney. I'm a big fan of Roald Dahl. But the movie? Meh.

Heaven forbid I'm watching "Ghostbusters II" right now. What a stinker.

And I'm a big Terry Pratchett fan. But none of the movies based on his books are worth watching.

And that's gonna happen.

There are directors and writers out there I really love, and some of them just don't pan out. But I have never predicted the fall of Rome because the movies I like didn't do well.

Terry Pratchett and the Little Things

I finished re-reading Terry Pratchett's "Jingo" this week, and what a pleasure it was.

With Pratchett, there's the story of course. An island rises out of the sea prompting a rivalry between two powers who are all to willing to go to war or to use the situation to usurp power. Pratchett skewers it all.

But also with Pratchett are the little things that hold the story together and give you a chuckle as the main story makes you think.

First, dismantling myths about others:

Then there's Nobby Nobbs, copper of undetermined species, who goes on a journey of discovery of his own. It's the little stuff that keeps me reading. And the big stuff that makes me think.

Dear Elder Davidson No. 8

25 October 2026

Dear Isaac,

Hey, I have EXCITING NEWS for you this week. Brace yourself:

I replaced the ice maker in the fridge.

The ice maker just stopped working about a month ago. I had no idea why. I thought about calling in a repair person, but they typically want $200 just to show up at the door. So I did the computer thing: I unplugged the fridge and let it thaw out over 24 hours. So we lived out of coolers for a few days, because after the 24 hours passed I plugged the fridge back in and it had to get down to temperature again.

That, unfortunately, didn’t work. So we did the next best thing, which was to use ice trays to make ice while I figured out what to do. I did check the water supply – that was good – and then tried to take the old ice maker out to give it an assessment. That didn’t go so well, and I’m pretty sure I broke it a little further. So at that time since I *knew* at least part of the ice maker was broken, I found a new one on Amazon for $47 and installed it on Friday. It was kind of hard to get to, since it’s low to the ground and I am not a small man. I finally decided to make it a little easier by taking the freezer door off so at least that was out of the way. Mom had to help me with one screw because my meaty hands were too big to get into the little area between the ice maker and the freezer drawer.  But glorious news, I did remember how to put the freezer door back on and the ice maker did indeed make two batches of ice before we had to leave for a weekend of Introduction to Outdoor Leadership Skills training at Krupp, so I annoyed Liam with constant requests for updates on the ice maker pretty much all day Saturday.

So that’s my exciting story. And that photo shows the old broken ice maker, which is now happily residing in the trash can in front of the house.

Mom roped me into going to the council’s Introduction to Outdoor Leadership Skills training this past weekend. They were worried, as with much of the training that goes on in the council, that they wouldn’t have enough people to sign up for it. She wanted to take it, and asked if I’d go along for the ride. Lexi and her mother-in-law also went.

I was a little cranky about going, and then when I found out it was going to be another downpour weekend, I was really cranky because since it was IOLS, they were insisting we sleep in a tent for it. So I packed our tent, and brought another one because someone called to ask if we had an extra one, and I was contemplating a cold soggy night and having to set up and dry two tents on the weekend. But, thank heaven, when we got there it was rainy and dark enough they let us sleep in the cabins at Krupp. So I went from stressing about two tents to having the only stress be the quarter-mile round trip for the bathroom, since the bathrooms in the cabins are off limits and the ones at the Farmhouse were locked. We did end up having a good training, though.

I still don’t know how to tie the knots we’re supposed to know. That’s pretty much the thing I struggle with in Scouting, knots. I just can’t seem to get the knack. I know if I spent a lot of time tying knots and knowing what knots to use, I’d be better at them. But right now I’m content to be bad at knots and bore my youngest as I talk about how bad I am at tying them.

Exciting news at work: I got a new computer and a new keyboard. I think that’s the first time they’ve given me a new keyboard since I started working there 20 years ago. It’s nice to look at the keys and first of all be able to read the text on all of the keys, and second of all to look down between the keys and not see two or our other peoples’ collection of keyboard crud. Yes, I do continue to lead an exciting life.

We did our tithing declaration today. Bishop Pullins asked, of course, how you were doing, and we said you were doing great. I mentioned that you had a miscommunication with a barber and ended up with a buzz cut. He told us the following story: He was in Mexico with his trainer, living with three Mexican missionaries who didn’t speak much English. They were getting ready to go to his first zone conference and he decided he wanted a haircut. He was having a hard time communicating with his barber and ended up with a buzz cut as well. He said is companion looked at his haircut and could see Elder Pullins was pretty stressed out about it. So he told the barber to give him the same cut, so he wouldn’t feel alone. He said that companion, with whom he served twice on his mission, became his hero, and that they’re still in touch. I thought that was a fun story.

I have to go back to work in the morning. I remember as a kid my dad getting what we call the “Sunday Scaries,” where he said the weekend was never long enough and he didn’t want to go back to work. But he did, week after week after week. That’s what you have to do. You may find missionary work to be like that from time to time, but the only way through it is to work and keep working.

I won’t preach at you anymore. Hoping you’re learning lots.

Love, Dad

PS: Your hair will grow back. Eventually.

The Ice Maker Cometh?

Here's to hoping the new ice maker works as long and as well as the old one.

Best part: I am only guessing if this'll fix the problem, though the new one did fill which gives me faith the plumbing is still good. We'll know in about 12 hours.

UPDATE: We have ice.

Right Turn Only?

Just noticed this in the illustration being used in the news concerning the Ammon First Street project. I hope this is *just* an illustration, and that they don't intend to make the outside lane a right turn only at Curlew.

There's already a bottleneck at First and Hitt with two lanes going into one, which this project will fix. We don't need the same kind of bottleneck further along.

Little Bits

I'm re-reading Terry Pratchett's "Jingo," and with this little bit - in fact, with many little bits - I'm reminded that Pratchett's genius lies not only in his sharp satire but in the little moments like this that really set me to sniggering.

I hit on this bit while I was using the restroom at work, and I had to stifle the giggles.

Jabbar gave him an appraising look.

The sniggering stopped.

"Then it is true that you can see further than most," he said.

"So can this food," said Vimes. "My father told me never to eat anything that can wink back."

There was one of those little hanging-by-a-thread moments, which might suddenly rock one way or the other into a gale of laughter or sudden death.

Then Jabbar slapped Vimes on the back. The eyeball shot off his palm and into the shadows.

"Well done! Extremely good2 first time it have not worked in twenty year! Now sit down and have proper rice and sheep just like mother!"

And as I've read a lot of Pratchett, I have to remind myself that this kind of thing comes with much practice. He makes it look effortless, but in reading his earlier works it's clear it's something he had to work at.

That inspires me to keep on working my own craft.

Oh Boy! 3 am!

I can't decide which is the worst way our dogs wake me up at night:

Daisy - Increasingly loud whimpering and crying until one of us stirs, then on to the yapping if we don't respond quickly enough.

Dottie - Stare quietly at Dad - and Dad alone - and breathe on him until he becomes startled and takes the puppies downstairs.

Update: A new one this morning. Dottie sneezed on my forehead.