Dirty 20 — August 15, 2024 – John Agliata

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Damage🎶
Nugs🗞️
D&D🐉

THE DAILY UPDATE

Three Things I Am Grateful For Today:

When leaves start to turn color.
The sound of rolling a 20-side die.
My above-average turkey-carving abilities.

Pursuit of Wordle Godhood: Today’s result: Three. And that’s how you do it, kids.

Wordle 1,153 3/6

⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Pursuit of Connections Godhood: Today’s result: Five. Kinda mad I messed up on “Pal.”

Connections
Puzzle #431
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟪🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨

The song in my head when I woke up today: The Damage Is Done, by Real Friends

Aug. 14: Look How Far We’ve Come, by Joy Williams
Aug. 13: Four Stitches, by Antje Duvekot
Aug. 12: Do You Sleep? by Lisa Loeb
Aug. 11: The Trouble With Wanting, by Joy Williams
Aug. 10: Angels Fall, by Breaking Benjamin
Aug. 9: No Woman No Cry, by Bob Marley
Aug: 8: Follow Your Arrow, by Kacey Musgraves
Aug. 7: Come To My Window, by Melissa Etheridge
Aug. 6: Four Stitches, by Antje Duvekot
Aug. 5: Dreams, by The Cranberries
Aug. 4: Breaking Inside, by Shinedown
Aug. 3: Three Little Birds, by Bob Marley
Aug 2: Long Way, by Antje Duvekot
Aug. 1: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, by U2

Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: The damage is done, I gave it my best/You got what you came for, now I’m choking on regrets/I’m out of breath/It already hurts, you’re making it worse/Why does it feel like you’re just fucking with my head?

Date Night Tunes: Music I listened to while driving to and from my date night with Wifey Poo last night came from John’s Ultimate Chill Song Compendium.

To Last A Lifetime, Del Amitri
The Sound of Silence, Disturbed
Fast Car, Tracy Chapman
Stand By Me, Ben E. King
Winding Road, Bonnie Somerville
Don’t Let Me Down, Joy Williams
Leningrad, Billy Joel
Just The Way You Are, Billy Joel
Kiss Me, Sixpence None The Richer
Learning To Fly, Tom Petty
Daylight, Shinedown
Losing My Religion, R.E.M.
Forever Young, Alphaville
Crowing, Toad The Wet Sprocket
Crash Into Me, Dave Matthews Band
Zombie, Bad Wolves
100 Years, Blues Traveler
Roxanne, The Police
I Won’t Give Up, Jason Mraz
I’ll Be, Edwin McCain

Something I’m looking forward to today: Hopefully some pain relief after a second neck injection this morning. Wish me luck.

Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: 50th birthday celebration at the Lake of the Ozarks this weekend.

Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: A great date with Wifey Poo.

What I’m writing: Yesterday’s two crappy pages involved a whole helluva lot more than two pages. One of the stories I wrote was for a Johnny Boy Marketing client. It’s about a guy who teaches a sustainability class on lifecycle assessments. What those are is pretty cool.

What I’ve written: How did OpenAI come to be? What mistake did drug stores make that are hurting sales? Why do Ralphs look like Ralphs? What’s that smile on Mr. Peanut’s face all about? And why should men everywhere be concerned about what a captive shark is up to? It’s time for News Nuggies!

My never-ending and as-yet unsuccessful pursuit of finding friends took me to a really cool place yesterday evening. It’s called the Dirty 20 Bar, and it bills itself as “St. Louis’ first full-scale nerd bar.” The nerd factor is in the name, and if you know, you know. A Dirty 20 is not a reference to the type of underage clientele a bar might have. It refers to a Dungeons & Dragons dice roll in which a 20-sided die is rolled and, combined with a modifier appropriate to that roll, the total equals 20. This, as opposed to a Natural 20 or, more colloquially, a Nat-20. See. I told you it was nerdy.

I like playing Dungeons & Dragons. I played in elementary and middle school. Then, during COVID, I found a game with some old high school acquaintances that was played online. None of those really good guys and gals lives near me, so that doesn’t solve the “John has no one who wants to hang out with him in real life” problem.

Wifey Poo, justifiably sick of hearing my whining about the problem, did some research and found Dirty 20. It hosts an open D&D night on Wednesday nights. She is very much an “action” type person. So yesterday’s date night was something of a reconnaissance mission.

Just before COVID hit, I had gone to a D&D game at a game shop. While I enjoyed myself, the players were mostly teenagers and young-20-somethings, and that’s not really what I was looking for. I wanted to see if Dirty 20’s D&Ders were of a different demographic. Thankfully, they were. They seemed to be people mostly somewhere in the general vicinity of my age and at least needing to shave regularly.

On top of that, the food was good. They specialize in a huge variety of mac-n-cheese. And it’s got a liquor license, which that pre-COVID game shop did not.

And so, at some point in the near future, John’s Never-Ending Pursuit Of Friendship will take me back there, sans Wifey Poo and with the necessary D&D dice, to go slay some monsters.

Would you please help a brutha out? I’ve created a weekly eNewsletter called News-B-Nuts in which I’ll be sending out news nuggets and witty commentary to subscribers. If you can, would you support this endeavor for just $5 a month via Patreon?

Dirty 20 — August 15, 2024

THE DAILY UPDATE

Share this:

Like this:

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Discover more from John Agliata - Johnny Boy Marketing