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Weak XXVII

2 July 2026

No. 6,329 (cartoon)

Why did you call me an imbecile?

Saying bloviating numpty shitgibbon was too much effort for you.

I prefer imbecile; maybe you’re right.

3 July 2026

Trash Talk

I stopped volunteering years ago after almost always being treated poorly or worse. I concluded that most people look at the world through the lens of money, and if I wasn’t charging them for my services, then my contribution must be worthless, and that’s how they regarded me.

And so, I was more than skeptical when I heard about Refuse Refuse and Civic Joy Fund. They’re a couple Sans Frisco dogooder organizations that are different than most of the others: they do some good. Specifically, they organize community trash pickup.

I’m not sure if I really volunteered to help them, since in exchange for an hour of picking up litter in my neighborhood, a local bar gives trash pickeruppers a taco with a salad, fries, and a beer. I showed up on time, and the organizers gave me a bright orange plastic trash bag, a fluorescent yellow vest, and a detritus grabber on a stick so I didn’t need to bend over.

Everyone chose where to go, which wasn’t very efficient, but because of that, the effort also didn’t feel like work. I made a game out of it, and an hour later I exchanged a bag bulging with the two hundred and thirty-one pieces of crap I’d grabbed for the bar buffet and beer.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed my hour as a hunter-gatherer. After decades of spending my days and nights rearranging ones and zeroes in my computers, it was pleasing to see analog results.

(And the taco wasn’t bad either, for bar food.)

4 July 2026

Semiquincentennial Percentages

Half of Americans don’t know that the explosives and drinking-all-day holiday is a celebration of the Declaration of Independence.

After New Year’s Eve, today is the most likely day to be killed by a drunk driver.

Americans will spend almost ten billion dollars on food for the observance, including over a hundred and fifty million hot dogs.

I’ve been around for twenty-eight percent as long as the United States.

I am a hundred and seven percent bored with irrelevant statistics.

5 July 2026

Gambling on the Bus

Brian loves to gamble casually. He never goes to casinos because he knows that the house always wins, and rarely gambles with anyone else. Instead, he does it to amuse himself.

For example, he started riding the bus frequently after discovering that he’d be fined a hundred and thirty-four dollars if he was caught traveling without paying the three-dollar fare.

After doing some simple math, he figured out that if he could ride the bus forty-five times avoiding the fare, he’d be a hundred and thirty-five dollars ahead, or a buck in the black if he was fined once.

Bus roulette seems like a stupid game to me, and art seems like a stupid game to Brian. I think it’s wonderful that we live in a world so rich in stupidity; there’s something for everyone.

6 July 2026

Bored?

“Bored? You’re never good enough to get bored!”

That’s a quote from a piece profiling Helen Hunt, a famous actress. I’m probably one of seven people in the United States who’s never heard of her; that’s my all-too-comfortable insular life.

Her line is inspirational or a great putdown, depending on the context. It may also be a corollary to Miriam Adeline Barlow’s observation, “Anyone who’s bored isn’t paying close enough attention.”

I shall certainly repeat it if I remember it; that’s why I just put it in this notebook.

7 July 2026

A Real Funny Cat Story

I could share a cat anecdote daily and never run out. I’m sure it would be a lot more entertaining than my other entries and much less work, but where’s the fun is that?

Some outfit up in Oregon trains dogs to hunt truffles. I’m not sure if they’re dog trainers or fungi wholesalers, but that doesn’t matter since I’m only interested in Larry, the cat who accompanies them on their training sessions in the woods. The dogs start digging when they think that they’ve found a truffle; Larry digs when he’s found dirt.

Sometimes the mutts find a mushroom to please their trainers, but Larry has a perfect track record of digging up dirt to please no one but himself. The mongrels don’t consider Larry to be on their team, and that’s just fine with Larry: cats aren’t team players.

I think that’s pretty dang funny as cat stories go.

8 July 2026

Down and Out in San Francisco

The New York Times ran a story on how difficult life is in San Francisco these days, with some young tech workers who moved here to cash in on the Artificial Intelligence gold rush leaving with their digital tails between their legs when they just can’t survive here on their modest starter salaries of only a hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year.

Yes, really.

When I’m not laughing at them, I feel the slightest bit sorry for the greedy little buggers; it must be hard going through life being so arrogant, unimaginative, and entitled.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2026 David Glenn Rinehart