When Quizly started showing me their color quizzes, this was one of the first. I'm not sure why they started with pink, but why not?
Think you know pink? I got 16 out of 18. Not bad. There were a couple I just did not know. (And there were a couple that were really good guesses.) Good luck. Let me know how you did in the comments.
I've joined the short video social media ecosystem. I'm not proud of this. But sometimes it's nice to just look at short videos online to wile away the time. (My platform of choice: Facebook Reels. Yeah, I know.)
Today I'm sharing 13 creators (for Thursday 13) who I enjoy. I have included one video from each as well as a link to their YouTube channel. Let me know in the comments of anyone I should find or if you watch these creators as well.
1. Ozzy Man Reviews @ozzymanreviews
He takes videos of animals and adds voices, as if the animals are talking. It's something we've seen before, but it's still funny. This is two rams, one who is angry and wanting to fight.
2. Smosh Pit @smoshpit
When these pop up on my feed they suck me in. He reads posts from Reddit (usually AITA, but this one is a petty revenge), and two others sit on the couch and react. They discuss. It's way more fascinating than it should be. (And there's way more to it than what I usually see, if you follow the link.)
3. Rangsk Puzzles @Rangsk
He does the various New York Times online puzzles. Daily. I like watching his Wordle solves after I've done them.
4. TerryAndKaniyia @TerryJ46
These two kids (well, twenty-somethings) listen to music that they have not heard before (but you most definitely have) and react. In this video, they're hearing Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain". They seem to enjoy most of what they listen to, and it's just fun watching them hear it for the first time.
5. Taylor Black @taylormakesvideos
She has some interesting takes on things. This video is where she's reading the comments section of a question someone posted online. Some of these are pretty funny.
6. Refashioned Hippie @refashionedhippie
This creator has a few different things she does. She finds ridiculous clothing pieces made by famous design houses that are crazy expensive, but you wouldn't want it anyway. And here's a bad design short. Oh, this is very much NSFW. You've been warned.
7. Gabe @gabectomy
He works in a phone store (which he does not name). And he tells stories of bad customer interactions. It reminds me of my days working retail. Yes, customers are this bad.
8. Sums of Anarchy @SumsofAnarchy
She does shorts on math. There's a lot of different ways to calculate things that I find interesting. This short is on where the word square came from (for you math-phobics).
9. Kameron Johnson @Kameronisfunny
He talks a lot about his family, mainly his daughter who must be a teenager. In this short he lists various punishments he can come up with in case she misbehaves. Like chaperoning prom and showing off his dance moves. Of which he has no good ones.
10. Sidneyraz @sidneyraz
"Here's something I wish I knew before I was in my thirties," is how he starts all his life hack videos. Well, I'm in my fifties, and I didn't know some of these. I definitely didn't know this about three fingers on my laptop trackpad.
11. JasonKPargin @JasonKPargin
He finds interesting things to say about all sorts of things. This is about how people tend to move counterclockwise. You'll find this fascinating.
12. Steve Hofstetter @stevehofstetter
He's a stand up comedian (who in this bit is talking about why he shouldn't be). Yeah, funny. Funny is good.
13. John Kotrides @genxjono
And for us Gen Xers, he talks a lot about our '80s childhoods and such. When did we get old?
While in Ohio visiting family, I got a chance to see some of the sights. (Assuming all went well with my flight, I'm at home today.) This is not a travel blog, but I'm going to post about my trip anyway.
I was not the only visitor. My sister-in-law's friend and her 16-year-old daughter were also in town.
On the 4th of July, Priscilla (blog alias) asked the various local friends about what things she should see while she was in town. The Ohio natives gave her a list, and on that list they all concurred that Loveland Castle was something she should see.
Priscilla researched via internet what this castle was all about. (Here are some links: Loveland Castle, Wikipedia Page, Chateau Laroche.) She read out loud stories of this Harry Andrews who was declared dead in World War I, and when he finally returned home (and declared alive), his fiancée had married someone else, and he dedicated his life to teaching his Sunday School boys to camp and fish.
Harry taught the boys the lessons of the knights. The boys said they couldn't be knights without a castle. Harry decided to build them a castle.
Okay, so Priscilla (and the rest of us) drew some Conclusions about Harry based on the stories of his life. (I will not repeat said conclusions, but we highly doubt the assertions that he turned down fifty marriage proposals.) And we gave the castle some inappropriate nicknames. But Priscilla decided she had to see it.
Somehow I got invited along on this excursion. My niece Liv decided to join us. Priscilla's daughter was at her skate camp (the reason they were in town), and my sister-in-law ended up with doctors' appointments, so neither were able to join us.
The castle is outside of Cincinnati. My brother lives outside of Columbus. Those two cities are about 100 miles apart, so the journey took us under two hours.
We found a guy sitting at a table, and we paid our fee to get in. He directed us to a small room with a video on loop that showed the guy, at that point in his 90s, continuing to build the castle.
(Not the video, but this shows some of what was in that video. Someone recorded the video, and you can find that here.)
Then we made our exploration. We headed upstairs, a very narrow, very steep staircase. (There was a handrail, which I totally needed.) The whole castle is stunning, but it was a hot, humid day. We were a bit punchy. And our Conclusions were at the forefront.
In the entry, there was a woman running the giftshop and answering questions. Her father had been a Knight of the Golden Trail (KOGT), and she had been visiting the castle since she was a small child. Priscilla expected that she should also be a knight. Apparently, the knights would not allow female members (except for one exception, now deceased).
Priscilla had lots of questions. It sounded like the current knights use the place as a sort of clubhouse. Our guide kept trying to go back to the script (she repeated things we had read online before arriving) and told us about the "security" door (with three different ways to open it and a sword at the ready). I got a picture of a different door upstairs.
The castle is gorgeous. It's amazing how one random guy built this thing mostly from rocks picked up near the river (and from bricks made using milk cartons), even if he was probably a kook and maybe worse?
We wandered around a bit more, taking in the gardens out back.
And finally we were ready to leave. Priscilla had questions for the ticket seller outside. Namely, why the woman inside couldn't be a knight? He hemmed and hawed about how women couldn't be knights, and ultimately, neither saw the other's point. (Priscilla was sure he was cursing her out under his breath.)
 |
| The umbrella covers the ticket seller and his table. |
The trip was definitely worth the price of admission ($5). It is an amazing structure. But Harry was definitely an odd duck.
(We met up with my sister-in-law for dinner. We laughed so much about the whole trip. It was a crazy day.)
One more video, this one is a great description of the place:
Today I'm getting on an airplane (or I'm on one or I'm arriving home--and not getting stuck overnight in Denver like I did last year), so you might not see me today. (I'll be around tomorrow, or Thursday if... Well, I'm planning on being around Wednesday.)
So, like last Tuesday, here's another Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This one is about Bari Weiss being put in charge of CBS News. This happened months ago, but this episode is from when it was new. How well has this aged? Hmmm....
Have you noticed a difference in CBS News?
I'm still in Ohio, visiting family. (I leave tomorrow.)
We've done a few road trips. We've spent some time just hanging out. And I've done a little crochet...
I'm not quite where I was when I ripped it all out, but I'm getting closer. And it's not nearly as ripply. (For comparison, before...)
So, progress.
(I should probably mention that sister-in-law doesn't entirely recall the conversation we had a year ago when she described what she wanted me to make her, so I've kind of been released from making this whole thing an oval. Before I leave, we're going to measure this against her, and then I might just square things off to make the whole thing simpler. Or not. We'll see how I proceed from here.)
The Reluctant Sweater:
When Quizly started showing me the color quizzes, I wondered if they were going to hit all of the colors. It took a while (as they'd show me one and then it'd be a couple weeks before I saw the next one), but it got to the point where yeah, they have a quiz for each color. (I haven't seen all of them as of this writing, but I've seen enough to know that they all exist.)
We should get through most of them this summer.
Today: red.
I got 17 out of 18. Again, some of these I knew via process of elimination, and some of these were lucky guesses. (There were a couple I did actually know.)
How did you do? Let me know in the comments.
So, yeah, it's now become a thing.
In 2023 during the summer, I was bored and looking for topics for Thursday 13, and I thought to mine my phone for the various memes I had saved. When summer 2024 came around I realized I had 13 more memes to share. I did it again last year. So, now it's an annual event.
(Now that I know it's an annual event, I'll be more careful to collect some more. I came up a little short, so the last couple are posters I found in classrooms that I snapped pictures of. Kinda meme-y. I hope you don't mind.)
 |
| 1. I think I saw this on Bluesky, and now I can't find the creator to credit. I showed this to the art students in August as I thought it was something they should see. |
 |
| 2. Same creator as #1. Very good education-type explanation. |
 |
| 3. Also found on Bluesky. You can find the whole comic here. |
 |
| 4. Vintage cartoon. |
 |
| 5. |
 |
| 6. |
 |
| 7. I looked at this. And I looked at this. And then I remembered that that white thing is called a buoy. And then I couldn't stop laughing for five minutes. |
 |
| 8. I love to watch the tracking of everything I order online. I feel this meme so hard. |
 |
| 9. |
 |
| 10. |
 |
| 11. |
 |
| 12. Found in a 12th grade government class. |
 |
| 13. Found in a forensic science class. |
