I’ve decided the front needs more stones, my wife said.

“I know,” I said. I had looked at the result of the Three Stone Problem, and thought “she’s going to want a complementary array of smaller objects,” and I filed it away for the moment when the Stone matter would return. It only took a day.

We are not going to the place where we got the other stones, though. Not a red cent for those morons. Not that I have any red cents. I have copper-colored ones. Doesn’t everyone? What’s the origin of the idiom? Internet says:

Some unscrupulous people would take silver dimes, quarters, half dollars, or dollars and cut a hole of metal out and replace it with an inferior/base metal before passing it on. This was also known as “a penny in the offing.”

HEY WAIT A MINUTE no, just kidding. I added the last part to admit that I am doing the lame & easy etymology prompt again. The first part is taken from the site, and I don’t believe it. That’s the explanation for the phrase “a plugged nickel,” no?

This site notes that the red refers to the copper hue, and says that “red cent” has the same repetition-for-emphasis-and-effect as “not one thin dime.” That’s more like it.

I’ve had some red quarters, though. You’ve probably had one at some point. Not copper-red, not made of a reddish metal, but painted red. Do you know why? The answer may surprise you! Here’s five reasons you need to know about red quarters (number four is scary)

Sorry, sorry, I’m letting work bleed into the private realm again. I shouldn’t fight it. This is what makes things pop up on search results and then you’re happy because now you’re appealing to people who, a decade or two ago, would be puzzling to figure out the plot of a Baby Huey cartoon book.

Yes, I googled Baby Huey to see if there was anything there worth discussing, and no, nothing is worth discussing, because it’s a big stupid duck in a children’s cartoon, and it’s Harvey. There was a link to Little Audrey, the replacement for Little Lulu, and apparently she predated the comics as a name for a type of mischievous child with a catchphrase: “she laughed and laughed.”

This example . . . is rather dark.

One day, Li'l Audrey was playing with matches. Her mother told her she'd better stop before someone got hurt. But Li'l Audrey was awfully hard headed and kept playing with matches, and eventually she burned their house down.

"Oh, Li'l Audrey, you are sure gonna catch it when your father comes home!" said her mother.

But Li'l Audrey just laughed and laughed, because she knew her father had come home early to take a nap.

Ha ha dad's a twisted mass of blackened flesh oh you caution you

Odd how the memory works, how things stick: the only thing I know, or care, about Little Lulu - aside from the idiosyncratic style - is that my Grandmother gave me a Little Lulu book at the time she was shilling for Kleenex. (Lulu, not my Grandmother; she was a strict Northern facial tissue woman.) The book had a packet of Kleenexes embedded in the cover.

Or did it? Did such a thing exist? If I ask Mr. Atoz, will he find it in a second in the great library?

Took .9 seconds. Right! Magic tricks with Kleenex! Where was this item sitting in my brain, exactly? What precise location, what little piece of electrically charged organic matter contained the outlines and details?

And why didn’t anyone ever name a search engine Mr. Atoz?

Ordinary day. Turned in an architecture piece, worked out. Forgot lunch, so I had to have pizza. Yes, poor poor moi, had to have pizza. I hadn't been to Lobby Pizza for a year, because of the Diet and the Workout and the Carbs and all that, but on the other hand, life is for living. Chatted with the owner like old times. Noted that the price had bumped up: $4.25 when last I went, $5.99 today. Don't blame him a bit. The pizza was delicious.

I had also forgotten to bring a snack bag of nuts for the after-workout protein snack, so I went to the skyway convenience store, which we will now call Markups, and bought some gum and almonds. Ah: right! The MegaMillions! Last week I bought one, and lost the ticket, and had vowed to play again because somehow an incoherent series of omens meant that something might happen. Because of The Narrative, right? The interview I'd give after winning requires a story.

"I never played before, then I lost the ticket, but it wasn't a winning ticket, so I figured the signs meant I should play again."

"By signs, you mean the indistinct, subjective manifestations of the intentions of the gods of fate?"

"No, the sign in the store, it said 'Play Again.'"

Anyway, I haven't checked, I'm sure I lost. But for a while I was reminded that one of the things I would do is give money to friends. But it would have to be a peculiar sum. Give them a million, and they might wonder why you couldn't give them a million-one. But give them $892,945, and it seems like something calibrated for a reason.

Not that any of my friends would balk at a million.

I still like the idea of buying the paper, setting myself up as king, and leading a raucous revolt to revive print. Probably take more than half a billion, so I hope I didn't win this week.

UPDATE: I did not win. Resetting the local media landscape and making a last, desperate, but inevitably triumphant bid to restore the pleasures and strengths of a physical newspaper will have to wait until next week.

It’s 1916.

An nice typeface for the masthead. Clean and modern.

Modern art!

Seriously: modern art. But perhaps better, a critique of modern art. I can see this showing up in a Ditko Charlton comic book where some mad artist who's on a crusade against beauty developes an uglification ray, and it's up to The Question to stop him.

THE REAL ONES KNOW as the tiresome internet phrase has it.

		There has to be a song about this. A 1961 Country-Western Song b y Charlie Pride.
		Below the story on Mr. Morris, an item that seems much more newsworthy:

The story is here, but you’ll hit a paywall before you get to the second installment.

They were acquitted, by the way.

The rest of the paper is quite dull - comings and goings, many letters to the editor that consist entirely of announcements of political campaigns. So we have to fill it out with ads:

Okay. Well. Cooper was the guy who was running circuses in the late 19th century, and he teamed up with a guy named Bailey, and eventually combined with Barnum in 1880.

Whether this Cooper was an offshoot or was trading on the memory of the name, I don’t know.

Renominated!

Robert McDowell McCracken (March 15, 1874 – May 16, 1934) was a United States Representative from Idaho. McCracken served one term as a Republican in the House, from 1915 to 1917.

Defeated in the primary.

While campaigning for a return to Congress in 1934, McCracken died in an automobile accident near Emmett. His vehicle went through a guard rail and tumbled down Freezeout Hill.

Floaters!

		And that’s about all I can take. I’d show you Cottonwood on the Google Street View . . . but it doesn’t go there. Yet.

That'll do! Now for a real gas, man.