Good timing! A week earlier, and the guests would've melted down in the parking lot.

---

Mostly I don't notice the passage of years. But sometimes, it's unavoidable. Such as when you look at the groom and think, "Hey, this is a much nicer ceremony than his parents had..."

---

Ladies, I would never try to tell you not to get a tattoo. While I may find it foolish, it's your choice. But when you do, you should start shopping for your wedding dress at the same time, so you can make sure they look good together.

---

It was good to see the mother of the groom dancing with her ex-husband (the father of the groom) to the same song they danced to at their wedding.

It would even have been kinda sweet, if it hadn't been Van Halen's Running with the Devil.

---

School librarians and teachers are people, too. They just never show it when you're in school.

---

Some family trees are way too complicated for me to follow. And I was there watching much of the complication happen, and it's still too complicated for me to follow.

---

All DJ services are not created equal.

---

All wedding reception meals are not created equal.

(And if I can find the recipe for that cornbread casserole...)

---

All weddings are disasters. As long as the bride and groom never notice, you win.

---

Some people do grow up, but they take a little longer than usual.

---

I've known the groom since birth, so I was happy to give up a night of gaming to be there for him.

And I was only a little envious of the husband who wasn't there because he was at GenCon instead.

---

When the doctor says she won't live to see five, ten and thriving is good. Ten and bouncing around on the dance floor with all the other kids is a miracle.

---

We need a list of wedding reception songs that should simply be retired. I'll start:

• The Hokey Pokey


• The Chicken Dance


• Love Shack


• The Macarena, and all similar group dance routines

---

Hey, Mr. DJ, you're not nearly as funny as you think you are. (But the person paying you thinks you are, so that's what counts.)

And what's with all the dopey hats?

---

Bowing to the inevitable: little metal bells at every table. Much classier than banging the glassware (or the table) with the silverware; and you get to take them home as a memento.

---

When the librarian says, "You got older, but she didn't," the smart husband answers, "You're right."

And when the wife responds, "It's all makeup. Just add more every year," the smart husband adds, "Don't believe it. She never spends more than 30 seconds on it."

So following up on this and this, I figure it's a good time to mention the new beverage I just discovered: Bolthouse Farms® Prickly Pear Cactus Lemonade.

Now I love just about any citrus flavor; and lemonade especially suits my tastes. And I was already a fan of Bolthouse's Mango Lemonade. But I wasn't sure about this one: prickly pear cactus? Still, Bolthouse has never let me down, so I decided to try it.

Not to worry. I don't know how prickly pear tastes on its own; but mixed with lemonade, it adds only a slightly sweet and vaguely exotic flavor. It almost reminds me of melon. And the overall result is a somewhat milder taste than the Mango Lemonade, which is good but packs quite a tang. The Mango Lemonade doesn't sit well with me late at night, because it's so strong (and because I can't resist drinking the whole thing regardless). I don't expect that to be a problem with the Prickly Pear Cactus Lemonade.

My judgment: another winner from Bolthouse Farms!

I should mention that I've tried their other two new flavors as well. Cranberry Lemonade is as good as Mango Lemonade; but it's a flavor combination I've had before, so it didn't seem anywhere near as novel as Prickly Pear Cactus Lemonade.

And Perfectly Protein Mocha Cappuccino? Well, it's almost as good as Perfectly Protein Vanilla Chai; and that's saying a lot! If (like me) you like the odor of coffee but can't stand the bitter taste, then Perfectly Protein Mocha Cappuccino is for you. There's no bitter here, and it tastes like coffee smells, only with cocoa and vanilla blended in.

Those Bolthouse Farms folks sure know their juices!

Let it hereby be proclaimed throughout the land: Diet Pepsi Jazz is good stuff.

Oh, the Strawberries and Cream is a little sweet to my taste. But then. strawberry has never been my favorite fruit flavor.

But cherry, on the other hand, is my favorite non-citrus fruit. And vanilla is a great flavor accent. So ah, the Black Cherry-French Vanilla is incredible! I could consume a whole twelve pack in an evening of coding.

So maybe you could do me a favor? Buy some. Try some. And if you like it, buy more. I want sales to be really good, so Pepsi keeps this on their product list.

I should add: I'm a dedicated Diet Coke drinker. When I'm not drinking Diet Coke, it's usually Diet Dr Pepper. I've never found a Pepsi product that I prefer: I'll drink it if it's offered, but I won't go buy it. But with Jazz, they changed that.

So I pulled into Pinckney pretty late. I knew my buddy Tom Lavey (of L & M Precision Machine) would be asleep already. So I pulled into Busch's (a popular local grocery chain) to get some dinner. Yes, it was almost midnight; but I've shopped at Busch's at all hours. They're a 24-hour place. Only not, apparently, at some of the more rural locations. This one was closing.

Since I was still hungry, I crossed the street to McDonald's. I really wanted something lighter, but I had missed that chance.

Well, it turns out that the Pinckney McD's is also not 24 hour. Oh, I should've been tipped off by all the McD's workers leaving; but the drive-through menu was still lit up. That's pretty much the universal symbol: "Drive through is still open." So I waited for somebody to take my order. But after last night, I wasn't in a mood to wait very long. I pulled around the building; and mine was the last car in the lot.

Still hungry, and knowing from experience that there would be no food at Tom's, I could only think of one place nearby to get food. I drove out to US-23, where I knew the Shell station would be open. It's not the cheapest place to buy groceries, but it was open. And there across the street was another McDonald's, all lit up and with cars in drive-through. So I pulled over there, and into the drive-through lane. Only there, I saw the opposite universal symbol: the drive-through menu was dark. That means, "You still here? It's over. Go home." But darn, there were cars in the line. So I pulled up; and almost immediately, a guy came on the speaker and took my order. When I got to the window, I asked if they knew the light was out. He said yep, it was burned out.

Somehow, something's just not right tonight...

Like new!



Look at that fender!



Look at that headlight!



Look at that door!



No deer poop!

It's ready to take on the road!



Sandy said she never knew Mazda made a special Tablet PC Edition of the Mazda 3...



You'd never guess it was my car, huh?



Well, maybe you would. It seems to remember the way...

OK, you folks at Panera, I have a question for you. I love your homey little atmosphere. It's well documented that you're one of my favorite places to eat and go on-line.

And I love the little gas-powered fake fireplaces you have in every store. They give the place a warm, inviting air on a cold winter night where curling up in front of the fire with a warm beverage, a warm cup of soup, and a warm laptop is just ideal.

But why, pray tell, do you run the things when the temperature is 96 degrees outside?

At my favorite Panera, the best chairs in the house — the comfy chairs next to the spare power plugs — are right next to that stinking fireplace!

Oh, there are chairs just as comfy on the other side of the table, chairs that can just as easily reach the spare power plugs; but those chairs are right next to a comfy couch. They clearly form a conversational circle. It would seem to me to be a violation of your courtesy request for a lone laptop user to occupy one of those chairs.

Please, in the months of summer: turn off the fireplaces!

(But hey, at least I get my Largo IC Mango in under nineteen minutes...)

UPDATE: Panera responds. Which is one more example of how they're a smart, customer-focused organization. (Somebody else hasn't rsponded yet...)

An excerpt:

As a franchise organizaiton, there are somethings we can change and some we can not. I will however investigate the fireplaces being on in the summer. This to seem silly to me as well.

Even before I received this very polite response, I had decided to add a specific category for Panera. It's in jest, because I post about the place so often (and at the place as well — and by the way, the fireplace is kinda warm right now); but I also think it's deserved. Think about that, Panera folks: I mostly read DC comics, but those posts just go under the heading of comic books; but you folks, you get your own special sub-category f Dining. That's brand loyalty. And it's awfully smart of you to work so hard to earn it.

OK, I'll admit: sometimes I'm patient to a fault. If waiting is called for, I'm your man. I'm seldom in such a hurry that I get impatient. And sometimes I get hooked: I get curious about just how long the wait will be, and so I have to keep waiting to find out.

Case in point: last night, it was hot (gee, there's news); and so on the way home, I wanted a cold shake. So I stopped at Steak n Shake in Grandville (link provided as a customer service advisory), and ordered a large banana shake. That's all.

Now I like Steak n Shake. Good food, great shakes. A little pricey, but not bad. But I sometimes find them a bit slow.

Well, last night, they gave slow a whole new meaning.

It took five minutes for the car ahead of me to get served. Considering that the little digital display said their total was only $9.71, that seemed a little long. But again, Steak n Shake can be slow. (To be fair, in part that's because their food is always, truly made to order.)

Then I pulled up to the window. There was no window guy there; but he showed up shortly and took my payment.

Then he left the window. And I began The Wait.

Again: I can be obsessive about waiting sometimes. And I had finally figured out the air conditioning in the loaner car, so I was enjoying cool air for the first time in a week. I had no place else to be, so I didn't mind waiting.

At six minutes — not six minutes after I ordered, six minutes after I reached the window, or eleven minutes after I ordered — somebody put my shake and another shake on the counter near the window.

At eight minutes, I was firmly fixed in The Waiting Game. And Rule One of The Waiting Game is: you never remind them that you're waiting. That would interfere with the experiment.

At ten minutes, I began to wonder if they were being robbed or something. Still no one at the window. I also wondered if anyone would apologize for the wait. Rule Two of The Waiting Game is: you never expect an apology; but they get bonus points if you get one.

At twelve minutes, I saw people leaving with that tear-off-the-tie-and-pull-out-the-shirt-tails behavior that's indicative of workers getting off shift, and I thought: what business do they have getting off shift when I've been waiting twelve minutes for a freaking shake that has been on the counter for six minutes? But Rule Three of The Waiting Game is: you never lose patience. You chose to play, and this is how the game is played.

At fifteen minutes, I decided I was going to ask to speak to a manager. Rule Four of The Waiting Game is: you never complain, and you never ask to speak to the manager. You chose to play, and this is how the game is played. But fifteen minutes for a freaking shake?

At nineteen minutes, a manager came up to the window, looked at the food queue, and said, "Oh, my God! I can't believe this!" See, many fast food joints set a performance goal based on how fast orders are fulfilled. A local Taco Bell keeps their average wait on a white board; and every time I've checked, it's between one and two minutes. So this guy just watched his entire performance review fly out the window (the only thing that "flew" out the window last night).

Then he left the window to check it out, and to chew people out.

But he came back, quickly enough; and he apologized before I could complain. Bonus points for that; but really, did he have any choice?

But then he handed me both shakes and a bag of fries, and said it was all at no charge; but I handed the extra food back, and explained that all I ordered was a banana shake. So he checked, and saw that I had already paid for my shake. So he took my name, and said my next meal was on the house. And he apologized again. I told him it was OK. I told him that every staff needs a teachable moment now and then (a mistake so egregious that the manager uses it to teach a lesson, often involving a fair amount of yelling and chastising), and this was going to be a big one.

We'll see if they learned from it: when I pick up my car today, I'll have to go right by that Steak n Shake. Anyone care to place a bet on whether they know I'm supposed to get a free meal?

You chose to play, and this is how the game is played. You wait. But nineteen minutes for a freaking shake?