...IF CURSES ARE YOUR THING!
I don't know about you, but with how my work week has gone I am both ready for the weekend and wishing I knew some powerful hexes to cast upon my enemies.
I'm pretty certain that if Sisyphus knew the crazy-making misery of live chatting with Tier 1 customer support across a rogue's gallery of social media and tech behemoths for weeks on end and he was given the option to swap punishments he would look at his boulder and say "nah, I'm good."
I realize the Mac "beachball of death" is a dated technological reference, but it gets the point across.
GIF courtesy Alex Kao
So what is a frustrated would-be witch to do? I guess I will just have to take solace in the carby comfort of National Cheese Toast Day, National Double Cheeseburger Day, and National Linguine Day. Maybe a carb coma will cure what ails me. Fingers crossed!
With any luck I will be able to get back to working on new art next week, which would be timely since today is also National Doodle Day!
While I was doing research for this email I learned all about the convoluted history of the word doodle. It originally meant "fool" or "simpleton," and the song Yankee Doodle was created by British military officers to mock disorganized American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Over time doodle evolved to mean "do nothing," but its modern connotation of describing absent-minded scribbling was first used in the film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (later re-made as the Adam Sandler comedy Mr. Deeds) and this meaning has stuck ever since.
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While you are waiting for your cheese toast to achieve optimal crispy meltitude, give a listen to the latest episode of the Boredwalk Podcast!
This week my brilliant co-founder Meredith sat down with Tess to read and react to some nice (and some not-so-nice) feedback from customers and trolls, and discuss follower comments on some recent Question of the Day posts from Facebook & Instagram, and traded questions from one of the NEW Delve Deck expansion packs that will be released later this year!
This week they shared about the worst places they've ever lived, their biggest pet peeves when hosting houseguests, and reflected on the unintended but interesting ways in which people are using the Delve Deck, including in classrooms!
Click here and listen on your favorite podcasting platform!
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Now let's send you off into a carb-induced fugue state with a few famous September 15th historical facts and notable birthdays to impress (or annoy) your friends with this weekend:
• On this day in 1835 the HMS Beagle reached the Galápagos Islands with Charles Darwin aboard. His journal of the voyage established him as a popular author, eventually leading to the publication of his theory of evolution (with compelling evidence to back it up) in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.
• Birthday burgers all around for: Italian merchant, explorer, and swimming pool legend Marco Polo (1254), novelist and historian James Fenimore Cooper of Last of the Mohicans fame (1789), 27th President of the United States William Taft (1857), English crime novelist Agatha Christie (1890), singer-songwriter & fiddler Roy "King of Country Music" Acuff (1903), Canadian-American actress and ape enthusiast Fay Wray of King Kong fame (1907), jazz saxophonist and bandleader Cannonball Adderley (1928), children's book author & illustrator Tomie dePaola (1934), actor Tommy Lee Jones (1946), filmmaker Oliver Stone (1946), television producer and MTV co-founder Fred Seibert (1951), Misfits guitarist & songwriter Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein (1964), English comedian Jimmy Carr (1972), and English actor Tom Hardy (1977)
• Pour out some creme de menthe (because it is also National Creme de Menthe Day, and because it is disgusting) for: Jazz pianist & composer Bill Evans (d. 1980), guitarist and punk rock icon Johnny Ramone (d. 2004), English singer-songwriter and Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright (d. 2008), actor Harry Dean Stanton of Cool Hand Luke and Pretty In Pink fame (d. 2017), and Cars singer-songwriter & guitarist Ric Ocasek (d. 2019)
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OK, that's it for this week! We'll be back here in your inbox on Monday with another email and a fresh customer Q&A! If you'd like to be featured in an upcoming email reply to this and let us know!
Peace, love, and potent potions,
Matt
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