I know, it’s been a few weeks. When The Master’s Table restarted I said not to expect the Deja Vu or Happy Monday, then I immediately started posting every Saturday and Monday. The Monday posts have been pretty consistent but the Satur-deja Vu has suffered from Friday night football games plus the fact that I’ve been under the weather for over a week at this point. But here we go, let’s catch up on the things that kinda sorta matter.

Oh Facebook algorithm, you scamp. Let’s see what violent and/or graphic content you have spared us from this time:

I don’t know why Facebook does some of the things it does. It could be that someone reported this image for real and after the warning was attached conservative patriots shared the heck out of it knowing the warning would show up every time. It is also possible, knowing how people are sometimes, that a description was added to this image that suggested violence or something offensive and it was deliberately sent out into the digital wild by someone that knew a warning would be attached and require a click through. I’m saying that maybe someone was offended by the pic and maybe someone caused it to happen on purpose to make Facebook look bad. Either is possible. *sigh

Nerd alert. Our Daily Bread published a devotional last week titled Excelsior! Here is a link. Marvel comic and MCU fans will recognize Excelsior! as Stan Lee’s sign off quote. Trekkies will recall a ship named Excelsior introduced in Star Trek III and later captained by Hikaru Sulu. So what is the origin and meaning of excelsior and why how does Philippians 3:14 relate to it?

Excelsior is a Latin adjective that means “higher” or “more elevated.” It is related to the word that gives us excel. The state of New York adopted Excelsior as their state motto in 1778 and translate it as “ever upward.” When Stan Lee shouts Excelsior! it may sound a little alien or other worldly but he is really encouraging his fans to do the same thing the Apostle Paul wants his readers to do; keep moving onward and upward.

Hot Pockets go sleeveless. They say they have engineered their product in such a way that it cooks in the microwave the way it should with the metallic concentrater it has needed for the past 30 years. I’m thinking they might save 5 or 10 cents per unit which seems more likely. It could be both, I guess.

I read a lot of comments made by people that did not understand what they were looking at. White spots on this graph represent the most comment 4 digit PIN’s while the darker the color, all the way to black, are the least common. The way to read the chart is to go up the Y axis finding your first two digits, then across the X axis to the location of the second two numbers. The same pair of numbers repeated, such as 2020, represents the diagonal line up the center. The birth year line is interesting but should be easily understandable. From 2000 to about 2005 the horizontal line is just above 20 on the Y axis but then from 1930 or so all the way across it’s just below the 20 line; because all those years are 19.. something something.

I need to sit down. And maybe take a couple Advil, my back hurts.

The Snoopy Sno-cone Machine, who remembers these things? They ran t.v. spots for this when I was 4 or 5 years old and I wanted one in the worst way. This was before Calhoun, GA, had Walmart or even K-Mart. My family did not run down to Atlanta once or twice a week the way I do and it would be another 20 years before Amazon.com would start selling books much less anything else. That’s right kids, I’m older than the internet. This is a case of it’s not what you know but who you know. Our small town did have a Super D and my dad had a good friend that worked in their regional distribution center. He was able to special order one of these and get it to my parents even though our local store did not stock them (and I don’t know if any Super D did). It’s really just an ice crusher and some flavored squirts but it was branded with Peanuts characters and marketed to children. This one retails for $19.97 and was one of a pallet full on display at our local Walmart Super Center.

The yellow flowers are marigolds. Two years ago I tried planting marigold seeds in the spring and I managed to grow absolutely nothing. Last year I didn’t bother but this year I put soil in pots, planted my seeds and tried hard to keep them watered correctly. All summer long I was growing plants but no flowers. These yellow marigolds bloomed just a week or two ago, just in time for fall. The other pot, not shown in this pic, was supposed to be a variety of colors. The plants are over 2 ft. tall but no flowers. I now have five blossoms that will freeze soon from seeds I planted back in April. Next year I will buy marigolds at the store that are already in bloom. Once you have them they are fairly drought resistant and easy to care for. As the blossom wither just keep snapping them off and it will keep putting out more until the end of summer.

Alright, this post is long enough. I will save some of the backlog for next week. Peace, and God bless friends.