The "What made you happy today" thread!

Spent the day yesterday with my oldest. She fell off the trampoline and broke her wrist this weekend. Now we got it set properly and a cast on it. Fortunately, it was her off hand, so she will be able to finish school without too much difficulty.

That first break is always the hardest. Finally ruins the "I can't get hurt" youth mentality.

Today I found out a magazine I was published in last year is up for not just one, but two pretty big awards! On Spec Magazine ended their 35-year run with the December 2025 issue, which included my pirate horror story, Seven for a Secret. Well, the 2025 issues of the magazine have been shortlisted for both the Aurora Awards (Canada's biggest SFF awards) and the Hugo Awards (arguably the world's biggest SFF awards). Needless to say, I'm pretty thrilled to be part of this!

I made choccy chip cookies today. BUT! I used some hershey eggies as the the chip. Beat a cup full with a rolling pin until they were appropriately sized.

If I can get another bag on clearance (21 bucks? hug you loblaws. But 10? Yeah. Okay.) I'm making a double batch.

My brother had got me a Switch game for my birthday but I already had it. That was my bad, as I hadn't updated my wishlist. So I had some refund credits to spend on Amazon, and I saw this cheap 1080p projector on sale for around $50. At the time, I was watching Techmoan review some cheap projectors on his youtube channel, and I was impressed with what you could get for such a cheap price. I should point out that I had previously had an Optma HD20 1080p projector, and had that setup in my living room on a 135" screen. However, when baby-proofing the house a few years ago, I was forced to get rid of them. So I have a great spot to test this out in my living room and a standard to hold it to as I used that projector for hundreds and hundreds of hours of TV, Movies, and Gaming between 2010-2016.

Primarily I have just used this to have movie nights with the family. We will break it out of its box, hang the screen or just even use the bare wall if we are feeling lazy. I will mount the projector on the tripod and plug it to my AVR's HDMI 2 output. After that I get a huge screen, around 110" as its slightly smaller than my old one, to watch the latest films with my family. This past weekend we watched GOAT on this setup and even had my father in law over to see it for the first time. He was quite impressed with the whole setup, as it really turns the living room into an epic family movie night.

Cappuccino Fudge Blitz ice cream wasn't in stock but they had Espresso Chip, so I'm still pretty happy.

A dream. I saw my dad again. He was surprised that I could see and hear him, but we quickly got past that. We mainly talked about the things he planned on doing. His dreams when he went on that real estate buying spree that's been crushing me so hard.

It sounds depressing but it was strangely motivating. He could have handled this mess. Last night I believed we could do it. Why the hell can't I do it?

You can handle it, it's just not done yet.

I suddenly feel fortunate that both of my parents have zero ambitions or aspirations whatsoever besides being able to afford their own retirement. And that I seem to have inherited that gene from them. All those movies with the message of "follow your dreams" never mention how badly it turns out for 99% of the people who actually do that.

You are fortunate. If they ever get bad ideas and you need to talk them out of it, feel free to tell them my story. I'm 103 pounds and barely alive. I wish I inherited cash. I'd buy food.

I don't blame my dad though. He thought he had time, and he should have had time. His mother, my crazy grandma (both of my grandmothers are alive; I refer to the one on my dad's side of the family as my crazy grandma, for good reasons) is still strong as an ox. I will never inherit her money because she will outlive us all. She's a freak. I love her.

Anyway, that dream with my dad did me some good. I went over to that house and worked my arms back to noodle status today. I can't do that every day, but today I had to do it, and it felt good.

Pocket said:

I suddenly feel fortunate that both of my parents have zero ambitions or aspirations whatsoever besides being able to afford their own retirement. And that I seem to have inherited that gene from them. All those movies with the message of "follow your dreams" never mention how badly it turns out for 99% of the people who actually do that.

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Those movies never explain how important and necessary it is to actually have a plan to follow your dreams. The universe abhors "winging it".

I mean; the universe hates plans too, but those are harder to destroy.

Having two weird dreams made me happy, the first was a bit of the manga story "The Begining after the end mixed with that time I got reincarded as a slime!!"

The other was seeing the Golden Gate Bridge from a fair distance then sudden switching to two oval shaped bridges and refering to the place as Diamond!

These two dreams made no sense to me but when do dreams ever make sense?

I tried to make something like a Tampa style Cuban sandwich, but on normal sandwich bread because that's what I can afford, and I didn't have pickles so I used sauerkraut, and ever since I've been vibrating waiting for tomorrow's dinner so I can try again. Someday I'll have to get all the right ingredients so I can do it properly, but this was a good flavor combo in its own way.

If I ever get out of my hole and can spend money more freely, the main thing I'm going to spend money on is going to be food.

You and the rest of the world, buddy. You and the rest of us.

Went for a small bike ride today to the site of a old fort outside of my local area, its from a few centuries ago, in terms of structures, there's not much to look at but the mouns are still there marking the outline of the place and it was bigger than I expected, the views at the place weren't exactly great, but the views on the way up, that made the trip certainly worth wild and if it wasn't for some trees in the area, the view would be pretty spectator to look at as you can see for miles around as its built on top of a large hill, well more the edge of a series of hills, but still, lovely views on a nice warm sunny late spring day, coming back down was great as its downhill until I reach the common outside of the old town as its all downhill and you pick up some good speed

I found the most competent Titles & Tags office on planet Earth. They were amazing.

I made half of a chocolate cream pie.

Watched the first of a bunch of DVDs I got in, most of them Looney Tunes outside of the biggest one which is Star Trek DS9 complete series, the first DVD I watched was Space Tunes, majorty is Bugs v Marvin the Marsion with a couple of other shorts, mostly space themed aside from the last two which is Bugs taking on a giant dog after he discovers a giant's farm and a field of carrots, then the last short is Tweetie Pie and Silvester the cat in the Looney Tunes verison of Jekyll & Hyde

Have fun with that DS9 box set.

Stepwise said:

Have fun with that DS9 box set.

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I will, in due course, right now, I'm slowly watching Gene Rodbery's Andromeda and still got three seasons of that to go, I've been taking my time with it and watching late at night before I go to sleep, settle down with a ep of the show, with DS9, its my personal favourte Trek series, its the only one that just felt right to me