Happy February, everyone! I hope January was a great beginning to your 2024 and that you are now ready to take on the second month of the year. But first, how about you take on these five topics?…

Scam – I omitted this racket when I wrote about the frustrating practices of grocery stores on Monday, but it deserves mention tonight. Safeway isn’t fooling anyone when they charge a deeply inflated price for a bag of chips but then offer a discounted price…if you buy FOUR of them. What a dishonest, worthless proposition. I found myself with no other choice but to go along with this scam earlier this week. We needed chips for the kids’ lunches and with limited options I wasn’t going to spend $5.69 on a bag of chips so I caved and bought four. I was so mad.

This practice really irks me. As I paced up and down the aisle deciding what to do on Tuesday morning, I took this photo.

These Are Cool – For the first time in my life, I saw these “Exploding Hearts” for the first time. I thought it was a terrific idea! If this is the first time that TNT has made Valentine-themed pop-its, my question is this: What took them so long?! Well, better late than never. I didn’t buy a box but I would be curious to see how “true” the heart shape actually is and whether it packs a louder bang than the original pieces.

I love pop-its and I think these are a great idea.

Sid’s Birthday Cake – Here is Sid’s 32nd birthday cake. As usual, per my wife’s request, it is chocolate cake with chocolate filling and chocolate frosting. Let me now take this moment to reiterate what I have said for the past three years: If you are looking for a superior but affordable cake for any occasion, go with Rosauers. Trust me, Rosauers isn’t your typical grocery store bakery. After all, there is good reason why our good friends selected Rosauers for their wedding cake. You won’t regret ordering from them.

Rosauers always comes through. This is Sid’s most recent birthday cake.

Don’t Mess With Dark Chocolate Day – We have two days to commemorate today. First, it is National Dark Chocolate Day which I find special because my favorite chocolate is dark chocolate. I love the strong, slightly bitter taste. Give me a Hershey’s variety pack and I am picking out the dark chocolate mini bars without hesitation. It is also National Texas Day. Unlike last week where I had a lot of places to rattle off when it came to where I spent time in Florida, I don’t have nearly the track record with Texas. In fact, I can count just two cities that I have spent time in—Denton and Dallas. And although they both start with “D,” they are about as different as you can get. I would like to visit more places in Texas though.

Sloan standing next to an inflatable Dallas Cowboys helmet at the rental car center in Dallas. Can you get more “Dallas” than that? We spent the day exploring the city in January 2022.

Trafficked – I became aware of a television series called “Trafficked” about a week ago. The series, which can be streamed on Hulu, consists of four seasons and investigates various rackets within the global underworld and black market. The host, Mariana van Zeller, is fearless and superb at confronting many of the traffickers across the plethora of different schemes she has infiltrated. There are so many sad yet intriguing topics within the four seasons but the one I just finished was about the illegal ape trade in Congo. The process of kidnapping a baby chimp out of the forests of the country is brutal and cruel. Most of the time, the poachers must kill the entire family to kidnap the young chimp because its parents won’t go quietly as greedy humans take their child. Many of the episodes are tough to watch but it is a reminder of the evil and exploitation that exists in our world.

“Trafficked” is an excellent docu-series. I watch it on Hulu.

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If February seems a little longer this year, there is a reason for that—it is a leap year! From day #1 to day #29, I hope you have an awesome month. Don’t Blink.