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Weak XXXIX

24 September 2016

No. 2,974 (cartoon)

How can you listen to that crap?

Music is in the ear of the behearer.

25 September 2016

No Degree in Celibacy

Luka told me that her nascent romance with Niklas ended in disaster. No surprises there.

“At least you learned something,” I lied supportively.

“If I learned something from every romantic disaster I should have a degree in celibacy by now,” she replied.

“I’ve never missed having a degree,” I responded, “and I’m glad I never wasted my time getting one.”

I knew that was the wrong thing to say, but at the time it seemed better than telling her that Niklas was a neurotic idiot who offered only the most limited and painful of educational opportunities. She’ll probably figure that out for herself eventually.

Or, perhaps not.

26 September 2016

Petrov Day

I’ve always thought of today as Maia’s birthday since it is. I just discovered it’s also Petrov Day.

The United States and the Soviet Union were having a fractious relationship in 1983. (It wasn’t unmanageable, though, since Soviet soldiers only kept me prisoner for a week in Siberia when I was captured there in July.)

Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov was sitting at his command post thirty-three years ago today, scanning his instruments, when he saw an American missile headed his way, and then another one. Then a third one ... a fourth one ... and finally a fifth one. This is not what you want to see on your watch, but we’re all fortunate Petrov was on duty.

The events of that day aren’t well documented, but Petrov did have a convincing explanation of why he failed to keep his log up to date. “I had a phone in one hand and the intercom in the other, and I don’t have a third hand.”

Petrov realized that if the Americans were going to attack his country, there’d be many times more rockets headed his way. He assumed it was a computer problem (always a safe bet), and he was right.

In a year from now, when you don’t wake up dead and/or with radiation poisoning, do take a moment to raise a tall glass of vodka to toast the man who avoided a thermonuclear war.

27 September 2016

A Debatable Debate

Lily’s not very smart or aware of what’s going on in the world, so she’s not sure who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election: the sociopathic liar or the other liar.

“I suppose you could listen to the alleged debate tonight,” I suggested.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, “It’s too long and complicated.”

“I think I’ll probably vote with my gut,” she continued, “and it’s too weird to imagine having a president who’s had sex with another president.”

It appears that the outcome of the upcoming election will depend on whether people vote with their guts or with their brains.

28 September 2016

Post-Grammatical Stress Disorder

Elias asked me to edit the piece he wrote; I immediately agreed. Two mistakes right there.

About the most positive thing I could say about his stream of unconsciousness was that at least he had some sort of punctuation between sentences. I suggested that we could move on to breaking up his work into more than one paragraph.

He looked visibly dismayed.

“I don’t know anything about writing, do I?” He lamented. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?”

“Nothing wrong with your work that writing a few hours a day for a few years wouldn’t cure,” I advised. “Right now, you’re just suffering from post-grammatical stress disorder.”

I meant my remarks to be supportive, but Elias appeared to be rather disheartened. I suppose that that’s understandable; who wants to work?

29 September 2016

(No) Travel Photographs

I swear I’m not a masochist, but empirical evidence might suggest otherwise. I recently took a commercial airplane flight for the first time this year on the premise that flying couldn’t have gotten any worse.

Wrong premise.

The TSA (Taking Scissors Away) insecurity screeners confiscated the spare lithium-ion battery for my camera. (It seems lithium-ion batteries are exploding and burning with alarming frequency; thanks, Samsung!) I didn’t think much about it; I accepted it as yet another one of the stupid, annoying indignities of air travel.

I rarely use my cameras outside the studio, and go for months between recharging their batteries. I got on the jet with a fully charged camera and arrived with a camera rendered into an expensive necklace because of a dead battery. Anyone familiar with basic physics and the laws of probability could have predicted that.

Even that didn’t phase me. Who takes travel photographs these days? Everybody, that’s who, so I needn’t bother.

30 September 2016

Strobe Lighting

Perfect studio lighting is too perfect by at least half. Strobe lights bore the daylights out of me.

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©2016 David Glenn Rinehart