journal features

may the fourth be with you!

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2014.05.04

Today we went to the toy store to pick up a scooter for The Boy; incredibly, there was a line up waiting for the store to open.

When I told a staffer I'd never seen a line-up waiting for a toy store to open, he told me it happened every weekend. So it wasn't just their sale on Star Wars related LEGO, titled after the humorously named day on the geek calendar, "May the Fourth be with you". It's not the biggest date on the calendar (which might be either "Pi day" on March 14, or "Towel day" on May 25), but it's still recognized by most denominations.

Anyway, Ken took to the scooter like a duck to water. He was even able to take the ~1km trek to the bike shop with me on scooter - a journey that's entirely uphill in one direction and requires that he uses the brakes the entire way back.

(For the record, I bought a $20 adjustable stem and made my bike even slower and more upright than it already was. I'm essentially making a cruiser out of my KHS Urban Xpress in the name of saving my back.)

rand()m quote

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

—Roald Dahl