Smiling Pile of Poo

Youngest grandson Finn likes the Emoji keyboard on Apple Iphones. The emoji characters, also called emoticons, are little cartoon images that are based on the punctuation strokes on a standard typewriter. They have charm and they send a message that words sometime cannot convey. Finn usually includes the smiling pile of poo in any of the emoji text messages that he sends to me.

FiveThirtyEight, the data/sociological/sports/policitcal website that we should all be reading, listed the top one hundred emoticons in a post earlier this week. Writer Mona Chalabi says that emoticons have come a long way since :) and she is certainly right about that.

Her colleague, Walter Hickey, who is one the lifestyle writers for FiveThirtyEight, tweeted that the smiling pile of poop was actually the best emoji. Check out his tweet. It looks a lot like the text messages that I get from my six year old grandson. Very cool that adults see the value of emoticons, too.

And just to give FiveThirtyEight a bit more of a plug, here's Nate Silver and the In Search of America's Best Burrito project. Nate, the founder of FiveThirtyEight,  is from the Lansing area, so we Michigan people can be rightly proud of his success on the grand marketplace that is known as the internet. And Anna Barry-Jester, the Decider and burrito correspondent for FiveThirtyEight, is from Michigan, too.

Back to the poop. When I saw Walt Hickey's tweet, I knew that I would have to include FiveThirtyEight in this blog post, since I had already completed my watercolor version of the smiling pile of poop and wanted to feature it on the blog.

And, for those of you too lazy to read Mona Chalabi's article, smiling pile of poop is Number 88 on the list of top one hundred emoticons. But you will want to look up the list in her article so you can see what rank your favorite emoticon has.

Anyway, some days are like a smiling pile of poo.

End of sentence. End of week. After all, this is being posted on a Friday.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: To install the Emoji characters on an Apple Iphone, go to Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards and choose Emoji.