Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak IX

26 February 2022

No. 3,889 (cartoon)

I’m essentially a wonderful person.

You’re in prison for murder and cannibalism.

I never claimed that I was perfect.

27 February 2022

Rinehart’s and Stein’s Laws

Herbert Stein came up with Stein’s Law in 1986: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” That’s not a law; that’s just a simple tautology. I thought that was a joke when I read it for the first time, but preëminent morons think it’s a “law.” That’s funny, so that proves that it’s a joke.

I wonder what I could come up with for “Rinehart’s law?”

If it doesn’t emit or reflect light, it’s dark.

If it’s heating up, it’s not cooling down.

If something can’t possibly exist, then it doesn’t.

Nothing can go on forever, so it won’t.

That was too easy so I’m stopping after four! But then being stupid never takes much work.

28 February 2022

A New Era of Electronic Air Blowing?

No more spitting on the lens and wiping it off with my shirt sleeve for me, no sirree. From now on I’m going to use my new electronic air blower to keep the dust off my camera equipment. The company* claims the rechargeable gizmo is, “the first rechargeable duster,” but when I opened the box I was greeted with an embossed invitation in silver foil.

Begin Your New Era of Electronic Air Blowing

That confused me. How could I start a new era of electronic air blowing when I never had an old era?

*I’m not going to mention the brand name until the company pays my invoice for product placement.

1 March 2022

A Tour de Farce of Rationalization

I had a lot of tedious tasks and chores to do today: shopping, cleaning, paperwork, et cetera. Please note the use of the past tense in the previous sentence. That’s called foreshadowing; I learned that from Mrs. Elber when I was relatively wee.

I looked at dreary drudgery and decided to prioritize my menial chores. I needed to do laundry, but that would be better tomorrow after my bike ride; then I’ll have a full load. I shouldn’t buy more groceries until I finish off the leftovers that have piled up after the last couple of dinner parties. Katia’s coming over for lunch tomorrow, so I’ll do the dishes in the morning so she’ll walk into a clean kitchen.

By the time I was done I’d decided it would make sense not to do anything boring today; what a tour de farce of rationalization!

2 March 2022

The Size Thing in Gigapixels

It started innocently enough, when engineers affiliated with a Japanese camera company made a mammoth digital copy of Tawaraya Sotatsu’s painting, The Wind and Thunder Gods. It weighed in at over four billion pixels.

Not to be outdone, some Eurogeeks needed over ten billion pixels to have an extraordinarily close gander at Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam upped the ante in the space race and announced that it has a seven hundred and seventeen gigapixel photo of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch.

That’s just whacked. Few people can access a monitor capable of displaying more than eight million pixels at the same time; that’s only about a hundredth of a percent of all the data in the ridiculously bloated file.

I have no doubt that it won’t be very long before some researchers insecure about The Size Thing will come up with a hundred-gigapixel scan that no one will ever see in its entirety. That’s what passes for progress these days ...

3 March 2022

She Never Bothered Me for Much of Anything

“I rode a sawhorse to the market one day. Never made it as I recall,” Dr. Hayes reminisced. “Loved that horse though. She never bothered me for much of anything.”

I wonder how much of that lovely story actually happened, what portion was wishful thinking, and whether the rest was just dementia. Questions like that sure liven up the odd declarative sentence or two. I’ll try to remember that when I start to reminisce, which may not be for quite some time since I can barely remember a damn thing.

4 March 2022

SCULPTURE

Last week I published a photograph of a tree up against a building wall at the edge of a parking lot. Once again titles matter; SCULPTURE is engraved on the Barclay Simpson Sculpture Studio building.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2022 David Glenn Rinehart