For God’s Sake Archive

Looking around our home, post-Christmas, I noticed something – we have a lot of empty cardboard boxes.

In addition to a nice collection in our garage, we have a fine display of sturdy, reliable boxes in our dining room, a room we rarely use. I know what you are thinking – somebody got a load of presents this Christmas.

An essential industry tool back when I worked as an animator was the character sheet. The character sheet displayed sketches of the cartoon character we were animating.

The character designer produced it to show the animator what the character should look from different angles, in different poses and emotions.

My wife and I had a strange, wonderful experience recently. I was working from home when our doorbell rang. What used to be a childish prank – ring a doorbell then run away – is now the norm for package deliverers. I opened the door and propped up against the wall was an enormous, thin […]

I am from Canada where, as I say far too often to my wife, we speak the Queen’s good English. The first time she met my family, she was slightly intimidated by their precise diction and greatly amused by their accents and “quaint” vocabulary.

There is a dog food commercial that makes me laugh. It begins with slow-motion footage of a sleek wolf bounding through the woods. The wolf leaps effortlessly over a log but then mid-leap, is transformed into a golden retriever that nails the landing and bounds off.

A voiceover explains that inside every dog there is the spirit of a wolf, so buy this company’s dog food. What makes me laugh is that, nearby, our “wolf,” a 15-year-old, 20-pound snaggle of fur, is laying on the floor snoring loudly and sporting a “male wrap,” which is kind of a doggie diaper.

Do you have friends on social media who forward “fun” online surveys to their entire friend list? The surveys ask things like, “List the states you have visited” or “Which of the following have you done: Skydive? Gotten a tattoo? Rode a motorcycle?”

I am basically inept when it comes to home repairs. Admitting it has kept me out of the emergency room and has, on occasion, paid some tradesman’s mortgage.

One time, I tried to change out an exhaust fan in a bathroom. An easy job, right? I was glad that I had read the instructions because I learned to shut off the circuit breaker to avoid electrocution.

The National Day of Prayer was established in 1952 when President Harry Truman signed a bill into law saying that the president should declare one day a year a National Day of Prayer.

Back in the mid-1970s, I had an after-school job driving a delivery van for a small furniture store in my hometown. One of my co-workers was a man named Cliff, a conservative Christian. Since I was not yet one myself, I found Cliff to be a really, nice guy with some odd ideas.

We’ve all heard of the two certainties in life, death and taxes. You only die once, but April 15 comes around every year! I don’t know anyone who enjoys paying income taxes. We do whatever we can to pay as little as possible. Humorist, Will Rogers, quipped, “The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.” The Jews in Jesus’ day cared even less for taxes; they were paid to Rome and were a bitter reminder of their subjugation.