Daily Grind :: Hats on Heads, Toys in The Hall and A Dog Day At The Beach

I haven't been slacking over here at Ventipop Headquarters. I'm a one man show so I have to do it all which includes all the behind the scenes grunt work you never see. I really need to hire a few grunts. Please, take a sec and reward all my hard work by clicking one of the support options in the sidebar or on the Ventipop support page. Even the tiniest of clicks are appreciated. (Thank God for proper letter spacing in that last sentence.) Anyhoo, now that all the gears have been greased, the monkeys fed and the ads placed, it's time to get back to the fun stuff. In this latest edition of the grind, we delve into hat etiquette (because my son asked), manners (you know nothing, Emily Post), the Toy Hall of Fame (yep, that's a thing), the new McDonald's Nutella Burger (yep, that's also a thing) and the world helps a man say goodbye to his dying dog. Yep, get your Kleenex box handy. Embrace the Grind. G'day.

Walking home from school today, my son asked me why it's impolite to wear a hat indoors. I thought I knew the answer and confidently told him. He looked at me with a whole-hearted lack of faith in my answer and asked if I'd look it up and get back to him. This is increasingly how a lot of our conversations go. Here's the correct answer (which is a distant, incestuous, mongoloid relative of the answer I made up.)
Because I'm an outstanding father when not making up stuff, I even went a step further and found out when it's considered okay to leave your hat on inside. The less formal the situation, the more likely it's fine to keep your hat on. The more formal, the more likely you should take it off. The hat can stay on: Cafes, libraries, bookstores, clothing stores, hanging out in a friend's apartment. The hat should come off: Opera, the ballet, dining in a Michelin-starred restaurant, in a job interview, in a business meeting.
Who was Emily Post and where did she become the Dr. Phil of manners? You can learn everything you would ever want to know about a person from their New York Times obituary.

He's such a gentleman and she SO hates him.

Dungeons & Dragons has been inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame. Two things, 1) You'd think D & D would have already been inducted and 2) I didn't know there was a Toy Hall of Fame. The Strong National Museum of Play is located in Rochester, New York. It bills itself as a great place for a family vacation. To date, 62 toys have been inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame including Alphabet Blocks, Play-Doh, marbles, erector sets, Tonka trucks and Fisher-Price little people.
While delving into the Hall of Fame of Toys, I found a fascinating blog post about the history and origin story of Play-Doh. It was in people's homes for 20 years before ever being played with. Originally marketed and sold as wall paper cleaner, a Cincinnati based company was about ready to go out of business when it worked out a deal with Kroger grocery stores to manufacture a ready-made wallpaper cleaner to be sold in their stores. Sadly, we'd have to wait thirty years for the fun factory.
Want your search engine to stop tracking your every move? Try DuckDuckGo, the little search engine that could.
In the 1980s, paramedic Chris Porsz snapped pictures of random people in the eastern European city of Peterborough. 40 Years later, he tracked down the same people and recreated their photos.

When the FDA allows food manufacturers to put the word "Healthy" on a product's wrapper, what exactly does that mean? And why is the FDA redefining their definition of the word "healthy"?
I doubt "healthy" will ever grace the packaging of Italian McDonald's new Nutella Burger.

This Holiday Season, Amazon is switching out wrapping paper for reusable cloth bags at no extra charge.
3D Coffee...with just a squeeze and some hot water...coffee is served.

Gives a whole new meaning to "instant" coffee.

...The Last Drop

The world came together to say a final goodbye to one "very special" dog. Mark Woods encouraged people on social media to join his dog Walnut, an 18 year old whippet, and him on their final walk together at Porth Beach in Cornwall, Walnut's favorite beach. Hundreds showed up. Woods said the reaction from people around the world had been "incredible".

He later wrote on Facebook:

"Walnut passed away this morning at 11.56am. The family and our three whippets, Monty, Nelson and Charlie were also in the room. He went very quickly and in my arms. I am writing this post because I owe it to everyone who has supported myself, my family and most importantly Walnut. Thank you to the hundreds of people that attended the walk this morning and to all those that had their own walks with their beloved pets at 9.30am all around the world. God bless you all."