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What's new Scooby-Doo?

I woke up with the “What’s New Scooby-Doo?” song stuck in my head today. After listening to it on repeat four times, I thought about how in every Scooby-Doo episode, they unmask the ghost, and it always turns out to be some human who’s been in the episode all along. Maybe if I unmask the ghosts in my own life, I might also realize that I am the face behind the masks, the sole architect of all my troubles.

Anyway, it turns out there is actually something new today because of the changing calendar year. I’m not a big New Year’s celebrator, but there’s something different about this one, it’s the first time in my life I’m going to be alone on New Year’s Day. Yikes. I decided to mark the occasion by doing exactly what I’ve been doing for the past year: putting on my running shoes and going for a run.

I walked outside my apartment for a bit before starting, played my 2025 top songs playlist, and started singing along to “About You” by The 1975, out loud. It drew a concerned look from an old man walking in the opposite direction.

I ran 9 miles. Dallas surprised me by pulling a warm-weather card in the middle of my run. The weather here lately is like a blindfolded person randomly choosing a number between 20 and 120 on a board. It flared up my rhinitis allergy, and I ended up with a runny nose and watery eyes when I got home. And to top it all off, I started feeling concentrated pain in my left knee when I loaded it a certain way. At least I know this allergy and pain are old friends from 2025, and they will not stop me from running again tomorrow.

But I had already planned to go to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science by myself in the afternoon, and I knew I was going to feel miserable there, with a lot of sneezing and limping involved. And that’s exactly what happened. But below are a few pictures of interesting and random exhibits from that museum.

1. If you’re going through an existential crisis, here’s something to complement it. If you aren’t, I hope this gives you one.

2. If people could accept Ptolemy’s faulty model of the universe for 1,500 years, then they should have no problem tolerating the silly, harmless mistakes fellow humans make today, but that’s not how it works, is it?

3. One of my favorite concepts from high school physics. I was on track to become a quantum physics nerd until my high school physics teacher observed my enthusiasm, and it vanished (No, his name wasn’t Schrödinger.)

4. This is the holy grail of modern computer vision. Computers see the world as RGB pixels, and honestly, they probably see better than I do without my glasses.

5. How romantic would it be to tell someone you’d travel light years just to catch a glimpse of them, whether it’s in the softness of morning sunlight or in the glow of night city lights!

6. Here’s the thing: this confuses me even more, since I don’t understand American football or the whole “yard” terminology.

7. I saw a middle schooler do the “6–7” meme after noticing that Venus is 67 million miles away from the Sun.

8. Don't let this guy bug you!

9. I can attest to this as someone who runs with their mouth open on trails.


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