Random Thoughts with Will

     If you grew up in a Christian household during the 1990s or 2000s, odds are there is a certain animated children's show that you're quite familiar with. A show that's been billed as "Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun" with the ways that it teaches children stories and lessons from the Bible and signs off with the message "God made you special and He loves you very much". At the same time though, this show would get silly (they literally had a segment for "silly songs") and creative with the way stories were told. To copy off its theme song, there truly never has been a show quite like VeggieTales .       A lot of beauty can be found in ordinary things. It's that type of beauty that can make the ordinary extraordinary. There's probably a lot of parents out there that never imagined that there kids would learn about God, the Bible, and biblical values from...talking vegetables and fruits. Then again, God works in mysterio...

     Years ago, MasterCard ran a series of commercials that would list the out the cost of a few items. They would list out simple items, like ice cream or a latte, as well as more expensive items, like filling up for gas or filling up with brunch. At the end of the commercial, they would list out an item or feeling that's "priceless". For everything else though, there's MasterCard. Considering that these commercials were well over a decade ago and I can still remember the tagline and that one featured legendary Packers QB Brett Favre, you could say that they were masterpieces, like Tiger Woods' performance at Augusta like last weekend.      Master(s) puns and tangent aside, MasterCard's commercials effectively conveyed how there are some things in life you simply can't put a price on. You can put a price on small items like a cup of coffee (a grande Pike at Starbucks runs for $2.44 in Houston), Double Stuf Oreos (one package at H-E-B runs for $2.98 pre-...

     One of the joys of creative writing is coming with one’s own universe of characters and personalities. There’s nothing like making a list of endless adventures the characters could go on or things they could say. In the past, I’ve written one-off scenes in my own sitcom of sorts, one that I’ve described to a few friends as a mix of shows like The Office and Friends , as well as having scenes inspired by moments and thoughts I’ve had in my own life. When I showed a few scenes to a friend once, there was one line that a friend really enjoyed, one that he said came up a few times: “this is getting weird”. Although that line is said by the sassy but fictional Jessica, there have been countless times in my life I have found myself thinking the same thing.      Life can be weird. We can find ourselves in completely unexpected situations, ones that can be hard to explain (this where phrases like “long story short” or “TLDR” kick in). For me, some of th...