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Weak XXIII

5 June 2016

No. 7,429 (cartoon)

I’m going to a fat farm.

Haven’t you grown enough already?

6 June 2016

The Unexamined Life is Great

Fiona was in a mood most irritable when she visited my studio this afternoon. I only made things worse by being relentlessly cheerful.

“Why are so obnoxiously happy?” she asked.

“The usual,” I replied. “I don’t have a single problem, and not only is the bottle half full, the other bottles are entirely full.”

“I think you should analyze your motives,” she advised.

I wasn’t surprised at the advice that wasn’t really advice at all; Fiona sometimes confuses being impenetrable with being sagacious.

“Why would I want to do that?” I asked. “Socrates was wrong; the unexamined life is free from problems.”

Fiona scoffed; it’s no wonder she’s approaching terminal grumpiness.

7 June 2016

Tim Berners-Lee’s Curious Query

Tim Berners-Lee popped by the Internet Archive today; it’s one of the usual stops on the international geek circuit. After a nice bike ride, he asked me what I did over a beer.

“I’m the artist in residence, so I reside,” I explained. “I spend most of my time enjoying the ideal work to pleasure ratio.”

“How many hours a week do you work?” he asked.

I was gobsmacked. How was it possible that such a brainy guy whose first language is English doesn’t know what “ideal” means?

8 June 2016

Where the Upper Right Quadrant Isn’t

Minnisha told me she was concerned about a pain in her upper right quadrant. I told her that it’s probably nothing to worry about. I added that I occasionally have a sore shoulder, but that the pain usually didn’t last very long.

She patiently explained that the upper right quadrant is in the abdomen, not the upper torso.

Oops.

I wasn’t embarrassed by my medical ignorance; I cultivate it. When I hear that someone I love has, say, cancer of the toenail, I don’t want to know whether that’s a troubling annoyance or a death sentence.

Undistracted by any grasp of biology or medicine, I’m sure Minnisha will be fine.

9 June 2016

The Soul of Twit

Byron may have been prescient in not bringing a period—or full stop if you’re on the wrong side of the Atlantic—to the punctuation party last month

’twould appear that the punctuation mark that dates back to the Middle Ages is being used less and less frequently in electronic text exchanges, in large part because it’s obvious when a sentence has concluded

The period has taken on a new purpose: to express annoyance or irony

For example, if your partner terminates your romantic relationship and runs off with your best friend, you might respond, “That’s great.”

Periods aren’t going extinct any time soon, though, since the Internet won’t function without them

Try going to stare com; you can’t get there from here

I wonder, what will we lose next, the question mark

Brevity really is the soul of twit

10 June 2016

Dumber Than Guano

The National Guano Producers Association sued The Los Angeles Times for slander when a journalist opined that a prominent politician was, “batshit crazy.” Since the legislator in question is, in fact, dumber that a pile of bat droppings, I think the plaintiffs have a convincing case.

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©2016 David Glenn Rinehart