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Weak XXXII

7 August 2011

No. 9,510 (cartoon)

Do you like children?

Those short, bipedal mammals that aren’t apes?

How many do you have?

8 August 2011

The Longest Game in the World

Today, I learned about another casualty of the 11 March Japanese tsunami: the longest go game in the world.

The game began in Nara in 477. Yoshimi Akimoto and Masahiro Nakata began the game with an unusual stipulation: each man would only make one move during his lifetime. The move, along with the name of a chosen successor, was revealed posthumously.

The game ended after over a millennium and a half when both current players drowned, and no records of either their intended moves or successors could be found. Relatives of the late players decreed the game to be a draw, and agreed to start a new one. Hirokazu Nishiura and Tazuko Nomoto started the new game, no one will know what the first move is until one of them dies.

I wonder who’ll win? I’ll never know; the game may not be over for thousands of years. I suspect the competition won’t be very interesting; computers should be able to play a perfect game in less than a decade.

9 August 2011

’Pear Review

Willy wanted to know whether my notebook entry about the extract of the anal glands of a beaver being used as raspberry and vanilla flavoring was really true.

“Of course,” I assured him, “the store was ’pear reviewed.”

“Are you lying about that too?” he asked.

“The story ’pears interesting, ’pears plausible, ’pears amusing.” I replied. “That’s what I call a reasonably thorough ’pear review.”

10 August 2011

Totally Chicken Photos

Fiona was not in a good mood when she met me at my studio. She reported that she walked out of a modeling job when the photographer asked her to pose for some “cheesy pornography.” She was so ill-tempered that I didn’t ask whether the proposition involved real cheese.

I was reminded of a rhetorical question Ellen Steinberg aka Annie Sprinkle asked. “Does anyone know the difference between erotica and pornography? In erotica you use a feather; in pornography you use the whole chicken.” And so, I asked Fiona if she was sure it was pornography and not erotica.

“I’m sure,” she replied. “These were totally chicken photos.”

Chicken and cheese! That photographer knew what she was doing!

11 August 2011

Observed at Mabel’s

The woman at the adjacent booth in Mabel’s Diner is not heavyset; she is appallingly obese, morbidly obese. She is the kind of obese that doesn’t appear in any thesaurus.

She is eating an excellent pastrami sandwich. I easily appraised its quality by observing its impressive bulk, and the stream of warm grease that dripped out it with every bite. Poetry in lubricated motion.

She’s reading a profile of Aileen Wuornos in an ancient copy of Lady’s Day magazine, “How I Lost Seventy Pounds.” I could read the headline, but not the text. I wonder if Wuornos lost all that weight eating cholesterol bombs?

Nah.

12 August 2011

The Wrong Kind of Water

Of all the stupid things one can buy in the United States, bottled water is perhaps the stupidest. Unless one has the misfortune to be in New Jersey or Mississippi, potable tap water is readily available. That’s why I always travel with a water bottle. Always, that is, except for today.

I forgot to grab my water bottle when Minnisha picked me up to go on a hike. Big mistake. And so, when we stopped at a market to buy some bread, cheese, and olives for our stroll, I also spent a couple dollars on a bottle of water.

Minnisha and were well down the trail when we discovered that I bought the wrong kind of water. I thought I’d purchased a generic bottle of water, but it turned out to be chemically-flavored water: “Arrowhead Strawberry-Lime.”

“Bleacch!”

I agreed with Minnisha’s one-word review. I hope I don’t get sued for revealing a trade secret, but I immediately recognized the source of the distinct flavor. Arrowhead Strawberry-Lime bottled water tastes exactly like urinal “fresheners” smell. I wonder if Arrowhead makes those as well?

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©2011 David Glenn Rinehart