I enjoy filling the Night Owl with little bits of interesting oddity, sharing the things and places I’ve discovered with people. Mindful of that, I’m not partial to using obscure national holidays to fill a space for the night. There are enough strange holidays to have such a piece at the drop of a figurative hat, but so many other people and places focus on them that it just seems… well, too easy, I suppose. I’d rather hunt up some odd crimes and put together a PSA or write on some strange sport like toe wrestling (have I done toe wrestling yet? No? Well, maybe another time.)
Tonight, we’re seeing a lot of chaos all over the place. And, while I did want to write on a wonderfully bizarre and vaguely creepy old freeware video game (Yume Nikki, written more than 15 years ago and available for download on Steam – membership’s free if you aren’t already signed up, which you may be because it’s one of the biggest game downloading platforms) I decided I’d write up National Puppy Day instead.
Not that National Puppy Day is coming up any time soon. It’s March 23, each year. It’s a day designed to encourage adoption of pets from shelters, a chance for people to find a companion and to get a dog a forever home. As far as obscure national holidays go, it’s one of the better ones, but we’ve got about ten months until we run across it again.
The reason I decided to write up National Puppy Day was simply because on a weekend like this one, I think just about everyone can use some time with a puppy or a dog. If you don’t have your own to play with or give headscritches, you should at least be able to watch a few on some embedded videos.
Oh, and here’s a longplay walkthrough of Yume Nikki, in case you were looking for a dose of oddity this weekend. I don’t want people to walk away disappointed, after all.
Question of the night: How many pets have you had (neighbor’s kids don’t count)?
