Saturday Grab Bag Housecleaning

Why yes, I changed the look of the blog. Thanks for noticing! It's been long overdue for a while now. Some time in late October I hit yet another blogstone in my 1000th post, which would have been a good time to unveil a new color scheme except for the fact that, in the midst of SPOOKTOBERFEST, I didn't want to jump into the brighter palette. But for NEW-VEMBER, why not?

(There really isn't a theme for the month of November here at the blog, so don't go expecting any more posts about new stuff, necessarily. Maybe a new job? Fingers remain crossed on that one.) +++

Obligatory Toy Story notes: We continue to re-watch and re-watch various installments of the Toy Story trilogy most Saturday nights, as the little guy's special weekly treat. Yesterday I was talking about The Goldbergs, and I mentioned Jeff Garlin's presence in that show as the dad. Jeff Garlin also provides the voice for Buttercup the unicorn in Toy Story 3, which I find inherently amusing.

One thing that always puzzled me about the Toy Story movies is that they got so many famous celebrities to do the voices of the toys, up to and including Michael Keaton as Ken, and yet I could never place the actress who voiced Barbie. Finally I paid attention during the credits after one home viewing and saw the role belonged to Jodi Benson, which only rang a bell vaguely. Last weekend I made a point of Googling her and realized that's the same woman who did the voice (dialogue and singing) for Disney's Little Mermaid. Considering how many times I've seen Little Mermaid alone, and adding in the overdose on the Toy Story movies, I am somewhat mortified that I didn't make the connection on my own.

+++

I must have covered just about everything I wanted to talk about this week already (Pixar notwithstanding), but at the same time I really wanted to get a post up today, abundance of content or no. I am taking a personal day on Monday, which is Veteran's Day, because my wife is working an extra day on Monday (since veterinary clinics get overbooked with appointments when there's a federal holiday which provides them with free time and no family/travel obligations). There's a vet/vet joke in there somewhere but I'm at a loss as to exactly what it is. In any case, we all know that the odds of me posting on Monday are iffy at best, so this is my attempt to shorten the silence of the long weekend. See you Tuesday at the latest.