June 20, 2014: Vanilla Milkshake Day? Sign me up! As the Barenaked Ladies once sang, vanilla is the finest of the flavors. People say it’s boring, but vanilla is actually pretty darned exotic. Today is also National Flip Flop Day, although it’s late enough in June that I bet a lot of you have already brought out your flip flops for the summer. (We always called them “thongs” when I was a kid, and that’s what my brain still calls them. Although the fact that there are undergarments with the same name makes me not want to say “I’m wearing my thongs” these days.)

In canine news, it’s Take Your Dog to Work Day (which always falls on the Friday after Father’s Day, since dads … like to take their dogs inappropriate places?), as well as Ugliest Dog Day. At the time of the writing of this commentary, the site has 2013’s champion on the main page, and I gotta say … that’s not the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen. Come on, people. You can do better. And by better, I mean uglier.

EDIT, YOU GUYS — the site now has voting open for this year’s ugliest dog. And there are some doozies. I voted for Peanut, because he looks like he wants to eat my face off.

EDITED EDIT — and now the voting is closed. Which was apparently just for giggles anyway; the real dog judging will be done by some sort of professional judging panel at 6:00 PM Pacific time today. GO PEANUT!!