Angela Lansbury has passed at the age of 96. Best known for playing Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote, her film and Broadway career began decades earlier. Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid of Harry Potter fame) has passed at the age of 72. I’m not trying to sound superstitious but it seems like these things usually come in threes. That’s probably a good example of confirmation bias. If another celebrity passes away in the next couple of days I’ll be like “See, comes in threes.” Confirmation bias interprets new events in a way the confirms what you already believe. It may also be perception bias, which is hopefully just what it sounds like.

I’ve heard it before too. “God helps those who help themselves” falls in the category of not in the Bible. “God is love” and “Judge not lest ye be judged” are factual statements from scripture that are often taken out of context and used to justify all sorts of things that Bible readers know are not God’s will. “God will not give you more than you can handle” is similar to “Money is the root of all evil.” 1st Timothy 6:10 actually says in part For the love money is a root of all kinds of evil. 1st Corinthians 10:13 is lengthy and it reads: No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. The verse is about resisting temptation. There is no biblical text that says God will not give you more than you can handle because… that’s just not true. We often face more in life than we are capable of handling on our own. We are told not to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5) and in several verses that he is our strength and shield, our salvation, and that he fights our battles for us. God gives us more than we can handle and then he handles it.

Netflix suddenly remembers consumer sovereignty is a thing. More than a few customers gave up Netflix over their programming choices in the past few years. As every streaming service expands their offerings of unique content, Netflix has upped their pricing on a regular basis in order to produce more shows with bigger names. After the latest round of price hikes this summer, Netflix is easily the most expensive streaming service on the market, nearly as much as HBO Max and Disney+ put together. With subscribers leaving in droves, endangering the existence of some of those more expensive projects, Netflix will introduce a new ad supported tier next month. The $7 “with ads” tier will max out at 720p resolution as well.

This promotion did so well McDonald’s ended it early. As a matter of fact, Friday the 14th was the last day the Cactus Plant Flea Market box was sold. Some customers couldn’t get them at the beginning of the limited time offer which began October 3rd. There was meant to be a nostalgia component for sure but a lot of media plainly called it “an adult Happy Meal” and I think most customers bought into that concept not having a clue what Cactus Plant Flea Market is. McDonald’s would have done just as well promoting adult Happy Meals for a limited time only with no collaboration whatsoever. Which left a lot of Cactus Plant fans hoping to collect all four McDonaldland tie in promotional items (toys) out in the cold. On the bright side McDonald’s fans can look forward to the return of 90’s style Boo Buckets beginning October 18th. That rumor I hinted at a few weeks ago is true.

He’s going the distance – Cake. My 2010 Chevy HHR already had 58,000 miles on it when I bought it in 2015. It was used but it hadn’t been used very much. Those 2.2 liter EcoTec’s are tough old birds. Sharing this pic on social media, I’m hearing about guys with 450,000 miles on an HHR and one guy that claims 600,000. Apparently I’m just getting this one broke in good.

I got this notification the other day for the church website. There was a time – excuse me while I get a bit wistful – back in the day when The Master’s Table saw that each month, sometimes double those numbers. But I was purposefully trying to grow an audience and doing all the things bloggers do to make that happen. Unity Baptist is a small church in a rural community. The total population of Plainville is a little over 300. The reach of the website extends far beyond our small town, which validates its existence. More people download the Sunday morning sermon each week that hear it live in person. There’s no choir specials, solos, skits, there’s not even a video feed. It’s just me preaching the Gospel. I guess I’m just impressed if you do that people will still listen.

Pineapple upside down bundt cake – Teresa, I love the one you make but I recently found out this is a thing.

The person who wrote this has done a remarkable job learning English as a second language. It’s not so remarkable that I thought for a second this message came from Amazon, but a tremendous effort was made. “Following a step-by-step procedure for solve problems” I marked this as spam and blocked the sender.

It gives the body essential sugars, according to the Soda Pop Board of America. Read the text in that ad. The jokes write themselves, I can’t even.

So I’d rather talk about UGA playing Vanderbilt in Athens this afternoon than what could happen to the Braves up in Philly. Alabama at Tennessee, that should be very exciting.

Southern Living has published their list of the Top 50 BBQ Joints in the South. They’re not ranking the states but highlighting individual restaurants. Also, this list is not to be confused with the reader’s choice list published in March of last year. The article at this link right here was compiled by Southern Living‘s contributing BBQ editor, a position that combines writing and eating barbecue as a profession, which I am just now finding out even exists.