Y’know, summer doesn’t go by any slower just because you don’t have to go back to school in September. I feel like it was just June last week, and then I blinked, and here I am. The moral? Never blink.

Which is not to say I haven’t enjoyed my summer. I have, quite a bit. I’ve eaten some fine food, both at restaurants and cooked right at home. I’ve acquired and played many, many board games, although none so often as the much-vaunted Agricola, which amazingly managed to live up to my high expectations in every way. I’ve even been getting a little culture. I went to see Waiting for Godot (which I’d never seen on stage), and saw a local production of Romeo & Juliet.

Actually, Friday’s column was about the play, which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. (The play, not the column.) And I got to interview Country Joe McDonald for a piece about his Woody Guthrie Tribute concert, which I’ll post here as soon as it’s published. (The piece, not the concert.)

A lot of people seem to be getting married and having babies. Better them than me, I suppose. (The people, not the babies.)

I’ve been getting rid of the favorite objects of my youth, lately. I didn’t know it would all happen in the span of a few weeks, but it sort of shook out that way. Last week’s column was about my Magic addiction, and how I’ve finally started getting rid of all my cards. I think it’s a fairly accurate depiction of the hobby, and have been told it’s one of my better columns. So maybe you should read it.

Nobody has yet made a similar comment about this week’s column, but if you want to read about how I also sold all my action figures to a local collector, and sold all my old Nintendo games to a slightly less local store, go right ahead.

Also, I should perhaps mention that “local” in the previous paragraph refers to Rhode Island. I was back visiting last weekend, and am still a Rhode Islander at heart. Now and forever. Best of all, I got to stop at my favorite ice cream stand, Hill Top Creamery. Pina Colada Glacier Freeze (a slushee mixed with vanilla ice cream) is still the most refreshing thing you can possibly have on a summer day.

“Oh My” is a really weird way to end a sentence.

Anyway, the other week I was playing this ridiculous flash puzzle while procrastinating on writing my column. And then minor disaster struck, errors were made, and I got a column out of it. Said column didn’t run until a week later (it was supposed to run the week before the previous column), but such is the way of things.

Also, RisingPun Productions (aka me) is looking to expand its (my) client base (number of people who pay me money for writing), so if you or someone you know is looking for writing — especially with a humorous slant — you should drop me a line atseth@risingpun.com.

Normally, when I write a column, I’d like everyone in the world to read it. But sometimes that’s not the case. For example, last weekend I was at a wedding. And my column about that wedding should probably not be read by a certain attendee of the wedding. Of course, this is the Internet, so anything I post on here can be read by anyone at all.

So it would be especially foolish to then write something on this blog that even more people shouldn’t see. And yet… some things cannot pass without comment. (Or at least, cannot pass by me without comment.) So it’s hard to say which of the two speeches at the wedding irked me more — the wedding “toast” which exhorted the groom to realize he would be wrong in all arguments (and practice saying “Yes, Dear”), or the priest’s reading during the ceremony that said anyone not accepting Christ will burn in a fire.

The fusion of the two, however, is most excellent. People faced with crazy religious intolerance should smile condescendingly and say “Yes, Dear”.  And people who believe that certain gendered stereotypes or condescension should take the place of rational discourse should churn in a mire. And people who blather on their blogs should stop writing and go to sleep.

At the monthly local creatively-aligned potluck I attend, there are always interesting people. There are various artists of all types, including our frequent host, the inimitable Howard Cruse. There was once even a witch. But there are also two people who really, really care about the welfare of dogs, and vehemently oppose anything that might make canines suffer in the slightest bit. They should not read today’s column. The rest of you, though, should go right ahead.

Acquired some new board games yesterday, among them Power Grid and Caylus, both longish brain-busting sorts of games produced by the fine people at Rio Grande, and both currently on BoardGameGeek’s top ten list. We’ve already played three games, and are looking forward to more. While playing this game, it occured to me that some games are less suited for certain modifications than others. For example, in spite of how many people seem to enjoy it with poker, I imagine that Strip Caylus or Strip Power Grid (a.k.a. “Power Strip”) just wouldn’t be the same.

And no, I don’t plan to test this empirically, so if you want to find out, you’ll have to test it yourself. But if you do, let me know how it goes.

As promised, here’s my column to chronicle my trip to Maine last weekend. But since you read this, you get an additional story. I save the best story for you because I care. Read the column first.

Back? Okay. So, when the car died and we got it towed back to the farm, we convinced our host to take his truck out and run a chain from the back of the truck to the front of the car. Tom sat in the driver’s seat of the car, our host sat in the driver’s seat of his truck, and I stood off to the side of the road to get a full view so I could warn people if disaster was imminent.

Tom was convinced disaster was imminent because his car was being towed forward but he had no brakes, so as soon as the truck stopped, he might rear-end the truck. Our host was not concerned about this, but given that our host was one of the most easy-going people I’ve ever met, that didn’t comfort Tom overmuch. In retrospect, my ability to avert disaster by shouting “Look out! Imminent disaster!” was probably fairly limited.

What happened, though, was that they started towing, and Tom started shouting out “I have no brakes!”, and our host yelled “Alright,” and just kept driving, and I was walking along to keep up with them, and then running along to keep up with them, and soon I was alone on a dark Maine road (read: no streetlights) in the middle of the night.

Thankfully, I knew the farm was only a two minute drive up the road, so I was able to walk back with no difficulty.

Well, I’m back from my weekend in Maine attending a wedding. The first of four for the year, albeit the only one likely to be held on a family farm while various people gleefully drive a rented golf cart all over the property. These kids were clearly abusing a vehicle meant for transporting deck chairs across the fields and doing other serious work. Personally, I would never condone frivolous use of such a vehicle, especially since I almost fell off while joyriding on the back as we went over some hills at top speed. I may have to write my upcoming column about my trip.

Meanwhilst, last Friday’s column was about the Fourth of July in general, although I couldn’t post it because I was on the road. Fireworks are apparently illegal in the entire state of Maine, so I won’t confirm or deny rumors that there were fireworks at said wedding. It does seem odd, though, that celebrating patriotism is illegal. Then again, rebelling against unjust governance is patriotic too.

I spent last weekend (extending halfway into this week) with my family in Tennessee. This surprised some friends of mine, who know that I don’t tend to enjoy hot weather. Or travel. Or… well, I’ll just let you read today’s column. To be fair, there were some advantages of being in Nashville, such as plentiful fried okra. But I’m very glad to be back home.

Although I could be biased because I’m about to go have some tasty, tasty squid for dinner.

Yes, I know Father’s Day already happened, but it’s only today that my column about it appears in the paper. I’ll actually see my father later today. Hopefully he doesn’t find the column. If you have, let me assure you, I mean nothing further, father. Or is that father further? If you ate lots of beans, would you be the farther father farter?

This is why I should not write posts just before running out the door.

So, I just realized that my previous post, which I edited yesterday, seems to imply that I wrote about my book review on June 10th. This is, in fact, not the case. But I’m going to leave that there because I don’t feel like editing it any more. Eddie edited it*.

I feel confident that I will be able to keep up some weekly blogging here. If nothing else, I’ll be able to give you a new link to my most recent column every week. And in this particular case, the most recent one is about Microsoft, John McCain, and the terrible secret of space**. Now that I’m linking to new columns every week in this here blog, I’ll feel less bad about not updating my giant online archive in my column section. Actually, I may take down the archive and just leave up a “Best Of”, so if you’ve been waiting to squander a few hours reading through my entire column archive, June is a good month in which to do it.

Finally, I’ve noticed that I’ve suddenly fallen in the Google rankings. Searching for Seth Brown no longer returns this page in the top ten results, whereas I used to be first. I coulda been a contenda! I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. Sitting on. Anyway, I’m Jonesing*** for a return to the top of the rankings mainly so I can tell people, “I’m online, just google for Seth Brown.” I’d tell them to search for Rising Pun, but I just noted some upstart House of the Rising Pun humor page seems to have sprung into existence. It’s almost as if other people are on the same Internet as I am. Preposterous!

*okay, he didn’t, but it’s a fun tongue-twister.

**where by “space”, I mean “McCain”.

***See post title.