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Weak XXXIII

13 August 2025

No. 887 (cartoon)

I love you.

I love you too; that’s why I’m leaving you.

At last, I’ve finally found everlasting love.

14 August 2025

Cassian of Imola’s Legacy

Jim Alley, Lary Lien, and Wayne Brill—my high school art mentors at Interlochen—are largely responsible for my life as an artist and lollygagger. That’s why I skipped yesterday’s feast of Saint Cassion.

Cassian of Imola was apparently a horrible teacher, at least according to his students. On 13 August 363, they tied him to a stake and tortured him to death with their iron styli. I’m too lackadaisical to do any research, but I can’t help but wonder if that violent criticism may have inspired Cassian’s colleagues and over sixteen centuries of other academics to have more positive interactions with their pupils.

Business bores me, but I think almost every student in the world would pay good money for a necklace with an iron stylus. Why, I’d probably buy one myself to wear when I go to university events.

15 August 2025

Inventing Quotes for Winston and Dorothy

The apprentice dictator flew to Alaska for a master class with the überdictator, who taught his protégé how to channel Neville Chamberlain by carving up Ukraine.

When I think of Chamberlain, I remember a couple of Winston Churchill’s quotes about the gullible prime minister.

“You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”

“Poor Neville, history shall not remember him well. I know this, for I shall write it.”

I discovered a problem with the second quote when I was searching for the exact wording: ol’ Winnie never said it.

This isn’t the first time that’s happened; I remember (if I can remember anything, that is) citing a nonexistent Dorothy Parker line for decades, “Everything is either priceless or worthless.”

No one in my family has dementia, so I don’t worry about my untrustworthy mind having a mind of its own. Things could be much worse, and probably will be. For now, an uncertain mind in an uncertain world seems like a comfortable fit.

16 August 2025

Dirty Sensor Daymare

There’s a reason that it seems like there’s an incredible new camera announced every month: that’s because there is. The newest one is a beaut, but you can only find it high in the Chilean Andes at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

It’s a beast as well; it weighs almost three thousand kilos and captures three-gigapixel photographs. That has to be more than enough to satisfy even the most demanding pixel peeper. That seemed to be my ideal camera at first glance and maybe even the second one, but then I discovered the catch. (I wasn’t surprised; there’s always a catch.)

I think a reasonable amount of dirt is reasonable on my clothing, my floor, and, on appropriate occasions, my face. That’s fine, but I live in perpetual fear of getting even a speck of dust on my camera sensor. And there rubs the rub.

The mammoth camera uses a thirty-five square meter sensor; that’s bigger than my studio. I’m having a daymare just thinking about a ten-acre dust magnet, so I’m going to stay with my relatively diminutive Leicas with their .00086 square meter Charge-Coupled Devices.

17 August 2025

Terrorist Urination Strategies

Two dozen years after the kamikazes in commercial jets attacked American targets, there are still no public toilets on the subway in San Francisco for “security reasons.” As a result, the government employs people to sit in each elevator going from the street to the train platform to ensure that people don’t urinate inside.

I have to admit that the expensive program is effective. As a result of the security vigilance, people now urinate outside the elevator doors instead of inside. If you ask me—I know you didn’t, but if you did—I’d say the terrorists won.

18 August 2025

Lard Gold

I’ve been spending a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms, but I’m not complaining: I could be the one in the hospital instead of the person who’s looking after a friend who’s a patient.

I don’t get out much, and just discovered something that may be ubiquitous: wide seats for fat people. (I suppose I could have come up with a word that’s more sensitive and less offensive than “fat,” but I didn’t.) Fat people are everywhere and getting wider every year, so it’s not surprising that the waiting room at Christus St. Vincent Orthopaedic Specialty Clinic offers wide-body seats for wide-bottomed people. If you’re in the medical malady business, abdominous sickies are lard gold.

19 August 2025

Counting on Friends

Rhonda had an epic brawl with her laptop that resulted in the computer refusing to speak to her. That’s when she called to ask me to come over and “talk some sense into the consarned machine.”

Unlike Rhonda, I knew better than to argufy with a computer. Instead I simply reset the Non-Volatile Random Access Memory. After I induced digital amnesia, the laptop forgot about the whole unfortunate squabble and went back to work without complaining.

She thanked me profusely for coming over, and said she’d be happy to return the favor.

“If you ever need help with anything, please remember that I’ll always be there for you, David ... after five ignored text messages and three missed phone calls.”

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2025 David Glenn Rinehart