Funny how three seconds of earnest eye contact — nothing more, nothing less — can give the whole day such a perceptible lift.

Like a lot of kids, I grew up devouring H.A. Rey’s Curious George books. I must have had four or five of them at one point; I think my favorite was “Curious George and the Rocket” (I was really into outer space as a boy).

However, I’m not sure how enamoured I’d have been of the little monkey had his name remained “Fifi”.

Now I’m wondering about that man in the yellow hat…

Reading about the increased number of cancer survivors remaining in the workforce these days, I instantly thought about a conspicuous cancer patient at my workplace: St. Petersburg Times editor Barry Bradley.

I don’t know him personally, and I probably run into him less often around the elevators than I do other Times employees. But he’s hard to miss when he is around.

I can’t pretend to know what he’s going through. At various stages of life, we experience breakdowns from our bodies, to varying degrees: Getting overweight, breaking a limb, physiological annoyances. Cancer is a whole other order of magnitude in our bodies’ betrayals. When your body is killing itself, finding solace in your surroundings is minimal compensation.

I don’t know why I’m such a sucker for these silly little lo-fi Flash games, but I am. Tobby is a Mario-wannabe of the canine persuasion. See if you can finesse the floating trampoline platforms to get this pooch sky-high!

I’m guessing “Tobby” is named after parent company Toshiba Corp.. This is likely just a giveaway gamelet for promotional purposes; but maybe the dog has a future as a corporate mascot…