Have you heard of Funko POP! vinyl figures? They're a series of collectible figures mostly about 3.75" tall (with exceptions) that have exaggerated features and are designed to represent characters from comic books, TV shows, movies, books, and other pop culture outlets.

For many generations before and many generations yet to come, you made it cool to like science, science fiction, logic, space, space travel, time travel, and, basically, everything about being a geek and being different and being ourselves. And we will always love you for it.

Rest in Peace, Leonard Nimoy.

One of the things that many people might not have realized was a side effect of Disney taking over Star Wars and all other Lucasfilm Ltd properties last year is that they also obtained rights to publishing all Star Wars comic books.

For a few years now, I've been hearing about this web service called IFTTT (If This, Then That). Simply put, you could create what they dubbed "recipes" that create a reaction based on an action. For example, I hit this button, then that happens. See where I'm going?

Everything is awesome!
Everything is cool when you're part of a team.
Everything is awesome when we're living our dream!

While I like and can appreciate YouTube, I'm not the sort of person that can spend hours upon hours browsing videos. I know a lot of those people and it's cool what they find, but I'm afraid I may get lost. I'd much rather remain found by my endless browsing on Google Maps.

I apologize in advance if this one disturbs any of you. This was not an easy one to write.

Do you remember the top menu bar on my old blog design? The one that offered links to my Homepage, a bio ("Me"), RSS/email subscription options, my monthly and category archives, a list of blogger friends and other links ("Blogroll"), and my monthly goals?

First question: Would you use a service such as this? Out in San Francisco, an Uber-like service has spawned to transport kids from school to afterschool activities or daycare centers or whatnot.

This has got to be one of the coolest things I've heard of in a while. A kiosk that will be located in stores or in mall hallways or just about anywhere else that will 3D print a customized copy of a design chosen by the user. Select, pay for, print, watch, and take all in one place. That's the PieceMaker for ya.

This past weekend, not realizing it was scheduled to be released on DVD/BluRay yesterday, Katie and I saw the film The Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Stephen and Jane Hawking, respectively.

I think I've said this somewhere before, but I love EPs. Just a short, very much on-point album. Much like a short story, there's no room for fluff.

Dear Mommy,

Thank you for being the best mama I could ever hope for. I love being around you and cuddling and playing and reading and everything else we do.

Happy birthday, Mama!

Love, Nathan (and happy birthday from Kevin, too!)

swish swish *SMACK* *CLANG* swish swish

Happy Valentine's Day from Nathan!

At the library last night, I discovered something pretty cool. They call it "Blind Date a Book." They wrap a bunch of books in brown paper, write a one-sentence description on the paper, and you check it out title-unseen.

Ever since getting my first iPhone back in 2010 (the iPhone 4), I've used the native iOS Mail app for all my emailing needs. It easily integrated all my email accounts into one location. With the occasional rollout of new features, I really felt no need to try anything else.

My plan was to review the new(ish) Red Velvet Oreo cookies today.

Do you remember the good old days of browsing albums and cassettes and CDs in racks at a record store? I do. I miss them terribly.

It's always kinda fun to look back on a list of intended goals and correlate those to how well it all panned out... if you're a sadistic idiot! No! It's not fun at all! It's depressing. Alas.

[Author's notes: This story is not a reflection of my feelings having seen Disney on Ice: Frozen. We had a good time even if Nathan was a little antsy. it was a well-done show. Thanks for the tickets, bro. Also, I'm sorry the photo is so blurry. I'm still not comfortable taking shots of people who have zero expectation of having their photo taken. I'll get better. ]

Katie has to work a very rare weekend day tomorrow. I will, as a result, be home with Nathan. This, of course, means I've got all sorts of ideas floating around in my head for what I would like to get done.

Believe it or not, I have been pretty busy trying to fix things here on the blog and trying out some new functionality. Howsabout I detail a little of my work of late?

Do you remember last month when I mentioned the Criminal podcast? The other day, I listened to their most recent podcast, titled "He's Neutral," and it is easily my favorite of the bunch.

There are cool toys. Ones you want to collect and display on your desk and take pictures of in cool little dioramas...

I got a call at work that Nathan was sick. Today is his day at our home with my MiL and he threw up three times on the loveseat. Then he cried hysterically, ran to the kitchen, tore a towel off the stove handle, and tried to clean up after himself.

I really got a little tired of all the formatting work that would go into setting up these recaps the last few years. Because I tend to post using a mobile browser, I hand code all posts in Notepad so they're all pre-formatted and ready to go. It seems many mobile posting apps or websites tend to negate RTF formatting functionality, so it's really good that I know HTML. But it's time to simplify this post as well and make it more truly "readable."

These are actual runners from the Geneva Park District's fifth annual Super Shuffle 5K that I took part in this morning. As a note, we had very little snow on the ground prior to 7 p.m. on Saturday. We got eight inches overnight prior to the race. It was still snowing throughout the morning.