Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak VI

5 February 2016

No. 1,854 (cartoon)

The only problem we have is our religious beliefs.

That’s impossible; I’m an atheist.

No, you believe you’re god and I don’t.

6 February 2016

Still Alive

Annie constantly mumbles to herself like an eighty-year-old woman with dementia, but not really. She’s less than half that old and not deranged, or at least not any more than most of the rest of us.

She insists that she talks to herself almost constantly to remind herself that she’s still alive. I suggested that living an interesting life full of joy and vitality might be more rewarding, but she pooh-poohed my suggestion.

“I tried it your way and it was just too much work,” she explained. “Mumbling provides sufficient vigor for my undemanding endeavors; you should try it.”

I considered her proposition briefly before rejecting it. I’d soon run out of things to say if I talked to myself that much. And anyway, I figure as well as new words appear here every day I’m probably still alive, at least clinically speaking.

7 February 2016

Killed by a Meteorite

No one knows how many more seconds or decades she or he may have to live. I often preface my remarks on plans for the future with the hypothetical, “if I don’t get killed my a meteorite tomorrow.”

That was not a hypothetical proposition for V. Kamaraj, a bus driver in India. Even though he had the almost suicidal job of piloting a bus through chaotic traffic and insane drivers, he got killed by a meteorite, the first person in centuries to die in such an improbable way.

Or, perhaps it was completely predictable. A car may crush me whilst I’m cycling today; no one could have foreseen that I’d be pedaling through an intersection at the same time a drunk driver sped past a stop sign. Ah, but a meteorite: that’s different.

For millennia, the meteorite that killed Kamaraj has been headed to the spot where he died. Had the unfortunate man taken just a minute more drinking his tea, he’d still be alive. Unless, of course, he got killed by a drunk driver speeding past a stop sign.

8 February 2016

Golden Gate Park Cycling Track

I was cycling through Golden Gate Park, and decided to take a few loops around the cycling track. Every time I went around the northern curve, I kept seeing an obvious photo. I ignored it until I could no longer ignore it. I made the photograph I couldn’t ignore a few laps later, so now everyone else and I can ignore it.

9 February 2016

Black Foam Rectangle

Gemma asked me to photograph a black, foam rectangle for her project, so I of course agreed. I love to make photographs for others. It allows me to enjoy the craft of photography without the need to think for myself.

As is so often the case, I was surprised once I studied the object through the lens. It’s just like Yogi Berra noted, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” The foam certainly has a rectangular shape, but it’s definitely not a proper rectangle. I couldn’t draw or paint anything like that; I suppose that’s why I’m a photographer.

10 February 2016

Low Entertainment Thresholds

Wanda said she had a wonderful, relaxed visit with Joel. She went to his place with nothing she needed to say or hear, and was quite satisfied when she didn’t say it or hear it.

That’s one of the reasons Wanda and I are such good friends and so reasonably happy: we both have extraordinarily low entertainment thresholds.

11 February 2016

Unfortunate Idiots

On the second day of the year, a gang of heavily armed, inbred, redneck idiots took control of a vacant wildlife preserve a few kilometers from Middle of Nowhere, Oregon. Actually; that may not be entirely true; I’m not sure if all the morons were actually inbred or just put on a convincing show.

On one hand, the nincompoops’ demands seemed like a manifesto for the American dream: they wanted to pay for nothing and to get everything for free. They set out to bring down the government, but the government ignored the annoying, would-be bloodsuckers and incarcerated the lot of them. I’m guessing the pathetic twits will have many decades to spend discussing constitutional nuances with their learned fellow inmates.

David Fry was the last to surrender, but not before making an eloquent plea for his cause, for the things that mattered, for the better life he envisioned.

First, he threatened to commit suicide, and that’s not really a great way to frame one’s argument. He ranted about a lack of marijuana. He fulminated about unidentified flying objects. He deplored covert military drone attacks in Pakistan. He warned about leaking nuclear power plants. He railed against the government’s program of, “chemically mutating people.” Having exhausted his grievances, he lit a cigarette then surrendered to the small army of federal agents surrounding him.

Game over.

And that was how the lunatics’ insurrection at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge ended. It might have been different had one of the cretins known that “malheur” is French for, “bad fortune.”

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2016 David Glenn Rinehart