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Weak III

15 January 2019

No. 2,221 (cartoon)

In you, I see my equal.

Fuck you too.

16 January 2019

No Amazon Bridges

Lara is back from Brazil, and claims that there isn’t a single bridge across the Amazon River. How could she possibly know? She was only there for ten days or so, and certainly didn’t see all six and a half thousand kilometers of the waterway. Her claim seemed rather improbable, but I didn’t give the matter any thought since I’m not interested in South America. That’s an extraordinarily stupid thing to say even for me, but that’s how I’m feeling this afternoon.

17 January 2019

Unlaughter

I don’t know why people pay to watch professional comedians; academics are so much funnier. Take Brian Myers’ recent paper in Games and Culture, Friends With Benefits: Plausible Optimism and the Practice of Teabagging in Video Games. Why, the title alone is a hoot and a half! And it gets better ...

Meyers notes that some players react to provocations with unlaughter. “Unlaughter is more than just the absence of laughter but is instead the conscious withholding of laughter in response to an invitation or demand to laugh.”

What a great word! I wonder how many other new words are in gestation just waiting for someone to add the “un” prefix?

18 January 2019

Win-Win

Penelope and Gareth were arguing again; no news there. She assailed him for being incredibly lazy; that didn’t require any sophisticated debating skills.

“I’ve worked hard all of my life!” he protested.

“You’ve barely worked at all!” she continued.

That’s when Gareth turned to sophistry and pointed out that it required a great deal of work to avoid working, and accused her of taking the slothful way out by going to a job job every day.

No one ever really wins such inane quarrels, but Penelope and Gareth don’t care. They only squabble to annoy each other, and they both considered the bickering to be a success and quite rewarding.

19 January 2019

Ardeotis kori

Logan knows almost everything about birds. Well, perhaps not everything, but more than I’d ever care to know. For example, he told me that the heaviest living bird that can fly is the Kori Bustard. It weighs almost twenty kilograms, serves a dinner party of fifty, and tastes like greasy maggots.

“I bet most people already know that,” I complained. “Tell me something really interesting about it.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he replied. “If you pick it up while it’s asleep and tilt it just the right way, it will explode.”

“Wow, that’s amazing!” I enthused, “How did you discover that?”

“It’s not true, I just made that up,” he admitted, “but you have to admit that’s really interesting!”

I didn’t ask him to confirm how many people it can serve; a little mystery is a good thing.

20 January 2019

Parts Unknown

Glenn, my late father, used to drive on obscure, random country roads with my brother and me when we were quite young. In addition to keeping us entertained, these excursions had two missions: get lost then find a way home.

I miss my father, but in one way I’m glad he never lived long enough to see the day when most people here carry electronic satellite navigation maps in their pockets. It’s almost impossible to find geographic parts unknown. Fortunately, there are parts unknown that don’t show up on any maps. Maybe that’s where he is at the moment if they exist. I’m not going to worry about it; I’ll get a definitive answer perhaps sooner than I’d like.

21 January 2019

Manual Graphics Generator

There’s a new electronic gizmo available that’s very similar to the old version I already own except it costs twice as much and comes with a digital pencil that allows a user to draw on the screen. I decided it was worth over a thousand dollars so I could revisit drawing and sketching for the first time in decades without using finicky technical pens and messy India ink.

I was about to order the shiny new doodad when I realized that I didn’t have a single idea for a drawing of any flavor. Damnation; foiled by pesky reality!

After an uncomfortable period of rationality, I decided to start drawing again using a manual graphics generator, more commonly known as a pen. I figured I’d get the new digital thingie as soon as I identified something I could do with it that I couldn’t accomplish with a manual graphics generator. That may be a long time in the future, since I have yet to draw my first stroke or line.

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©2019 David Glenn Rinehart