Yankee Candle Halloween Preview

Yesterday Yankee Candle had a special one-day preview of their upcoming Halloween 2014 collection, and we dropped in to get a look. Thanks to PerkyJewels on Twitter for the tip-off!

Halloween Has Arrived at At Home

Garden Ridge recently declared bankruptcy, and are now being reincorporated as At Home. But true to form, the seasons still come early there and stay late.

My dear wife noticed yesterday that one of the nearby stores had been refurbished, so we decided to drop in and check it out. I of course had high hopes for what to expect, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Dropping Quarters

There is a little independent retro gaming store in Plano that is the closest thing to a real arcade that I’ve ever experienced with the kids. There are still a lot of places you could call “arcades”, mostly attached to chain family restaurants like Chuck-E-Cheese or entertainment complexes like Fun Zone or Amazing Jakes. But the key differentiator for me is that the machines take real quarters, preferably only one per play. I always hated changing tokens, and to me the idea of plopping tokens into a machine screws with the mythology somehow.

Restroom Tissue Dispensers

(Works best if you read this in an Andy Rooney-esque whine.)

This keeps happening to me over and over and over again lately. I have to make use of the public facilities (seldom a delightful experience anyway), I go to the sink, wash my hands, look up, and see this mess —

Now what is wrong with this picture? Take a look at how this works.

New Orleans Food Review

New Orleans is, of course, a city known for its food, home to some of the best chefs in the country. I was in town recently, so I figured I’d check out some of the local establishments and give you guys a virtual sight-tasting tour. Let’s start with the hotel vending machine.