John Agliata – Johnny Boy Marketing

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Evil Angel🎶
Nugs🗞️
Car Guy🚗

THE DAILY UPDATE

Three Things I Am Grateful For Today:

1. Chess.
2. Meetingless days.
3. The Atari 2600.

Pursuit of Wordle Godhood: Today’s result: Three! That’s two threes in a row, and this one I actually was more than lucky on!

Wordle 1,216 3/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Pursuit of Connections Godhood: Today’s result: Five. Shoulda been four

Connections
Puzzle #494
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟪🟦🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪

The song in my head when I woke up today: Evil Angel, by Breaking Benjamin (are you seeing a trend here????)

• Oct. 16: Without You, Breaking Benjamin
• Oct. 15: Everlong, by Foo Fighters (acoustic version)
• Oct. 14: Dear Agony, by Breaking Benjamin
• Oct. 13: Crawl, by Breaking Benjamin
• Oct. 12: Failure, by Breaking Benjamin
• Oct. 11: It Not Over, by Daughtry
• Oct. 10: Outside, by Staind
• Oct. 9: These Dreams, by Heart
• Oct. 8: Complicated, by Avril Lavigne
• Oct. 7: Complicated, by Avril Lavigne
• Oct. 5: Slide, by Goo Goo Dolls
• Oct 4: Evil Angel, by Breaking Benjamin
• Oct. 3: Right Here, by Staind
• Oct. 2: So Far Away, by Staind
• Oct. 1: I Will Follow You Into The Dark, by Death Cab For Cutie

Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: No
Don’t/Leave me to die here/Help me survive here

Youth Group Tunes: My drive to drop off and pick up Boy The Younger from his church youth group last night was done to music from my John’s Ultimate Chill Song Compendium, and if you’re on Spotify and not following that playlist, you’re a jerk.

• Zombie, Bad Wolves
• Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, Guns N’ Roses
• Beautiful Stranger, Marcus King
• Sweet Caroline, Neil Diamond
• Dream On, Aerosmith
• Hey There Delilah, Plan White T’s
• I’m With You, Avril Lavigne

Something I’m looking forward to today: Time alone. I’ve had just about enough of people at the moment.

Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: Trivia night on Friday night with my co-workers.

Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: A much-needed after-work nap.

What I’m writing: Yesterday’s Two Crappy Pages involved some work for a Johnny Boy Marketing client on the draft of a story about a dude fighting misinformation on social media.

What I’ve written: Five out of four Really Smart People recommend starting your Thursday with News Nuggies. Today’s serving is chock-full of news about Muricah’s ineffective healthcare system, how Elon Musk is going to get us all swallowed up by a black hole, the science behind choking under pressure, the last Blue Light Special, and how to fix a broken rhino. You know you wanna click the link.

I am not what anyone would call a “Car Guy.” When manly men divert conversations into things under the hood or, god forbid, underneath the actual vehicle, I might pretend to know what the hell they are talking about, but in truth, I just want to go back inside and write or sleep or play chess or something.

And so it was that, upon exiting Panda Express with my chow mein, bourbon chicken, teriyaki chicken and egg roll, I was not in the headspace of being Car Guy. I was in the headspace of eating the hell out of my Panda.

“Excuse me. Can you help me?” said a young woman seated in a car I was walking past. She looked to be of Indian or Pakistani descent, except she had these really, really, really piercing blue eyes, which is neither here nor there except it was the first thing I noticed.

“Um, that depends,” I replied, which made her chuckle. But seriously … “Can you help me figure out how to get to Wal-Mart?” is a lot different than “Can you help me by donating a kidney?” So I was firmly non-comital.

“Can you help me jumpstart my car?” she replied. Little did she know that that’s closer to the “kidney” ask than the “Wal-Mart” ask, when you consider my lack of Car Guy abilities.

But I’ve jumped a car or two before, and I’m confident enough at this point in my life that I’m not going to either blow up my car, the other person’s car or myself, so I replied: “I don’t have jumper cables …”

“I do,” she replied, hopefully.

“Then let’s do this thing.”

I went to my car, carefully and lovingly placing my Panda on the floor by the passenger seat, and drove my vehicle next to hers. Proud was I that I remembered where the hood-release lever was. We were off to a good start.

Soon, she had put her side of the cables on her battery, and I had put my side of the cables where I thought they should go on my battery, and she cranked her key.

No luck.

She tried again.

No luck.

“Oh. Wait. Is your car on?” she said.

As I said, I’m not a Car Guy. “Oh. Yeah. Let me do that.”

Vroom.

Turn the key.

Click-click-click-click.

It was then that I noticed her black cable was on the battery instead of something metal. Proudly but not smuggly, I let her know that. I was feeling good. Maybe I was a Car Guy after all!

“Um, are you sure your red cable is on the right part of the battery?” she said.

Never mind about that Car Guy thing.

After a quick adjustment to put the red cable snuggly on the right post of the battery, she cranked her engine again, and after a bit of a protest, it started.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “You’re so kind.”

Awww shucks. I am kind, aren’t I?

Of course, here are two thoughts I had during this encounter.

1. When she first asked me if I could help her, the thought raced through my head that this was part of a trap to rob me and/or kill me. I blame my birth parents and the made-for-TV movie from the 1980s about Ted Bundy for this thought. My parents thought everyone was out to get them, so DNA/nurture has hamstrung me, and that Ted Bundy movie showed how that psycho faked all sorts of things to get his victims close to him.
2. When she cranked the engine the first few times and nothing happened, I admit I did think, “So how long exactly am I committed to this effort? That Panda ain’t gonna eat itself.”

Had I told her those two thoughts, I would think she wouldn’t be thinking I was so kind. Internal monologues are fun, aren’t they?

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?