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Weak XL

1 October 2026

No. 2,694 (cartoon)

I saw a scary cat on the way to the hardware store tonight.

What’s scary about a cat going to a hardware store?

You don’t know much about cats, do you?

2 October 2026

Your First Ten Thousand Stinkers

Here’s my favorite headline d’jour:

David Bowie: The Shel Talmy Recordings review—these unheard 60s tunes are actually pretty flimsy

Poor David Bowie. He’s been dead for over a decade, and there’s apparently no one around to stop opportunists from trying to sell every minute of music he ever recorded—no matter how mundane and forgettable—including the Shel Talmy tapes he made when he was eighteen.

I agree with Henri Cartier-Bresson: “Your first ten thousand photographs are your worst.” If someone hasn’t said, “Your first ten thousand minutes of recording are your worst,” s/he should.

3 October 2026

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

I’ve never gone to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival even though the musicians are great, admission is free, and it’s a short walk from my studio. The problem is that it’s just too dang overpopulated.

Today, the event was so packed that organizers closed the gates; the park was full. I wonder if more people will come to the same conclusion that Yogi Berra did: “Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

4 October 2026

* (National Poetry Day)

It’s National Poetry Day, and I’ve decided to take a break from berating the wordy wankers and publish a poem I just wrote.

Okay, now lissen up and lissen up real good: on with the show, this is it.

*

See, that wasn’t that bad, was it? The Internet says, “There is no widely recognized or published one-character poem that consists solely of an asterisk (*).

Ah, but now there is! And with that, I’m done with this pottery crap for another year.

5 October 2026

Comparing Millennia

Four hundred and forty-four years ago today wasn’t October 5.

I wonder if I may have been swindled by being born in the wrong millennium after looking at the stats:

First Millennium: 365,242 days
Second Millennium: 365,243 purely proleptic days
Third Millennium: 365,242 days

I had to look up purely proleptic days too. That’s how many days we would have had if Pope Gregory XIII hadn’t robbed us of ten days—5-14 October, 1582—to correct for miscalculations in the Julian calendar. As a result, the millennium in which I was born only had 365,233 “historical” days.

Feh! I was robbed; my birth millennium should have been the longest one by a day, but it turned out to be the shortest.

I may be kvetching, but I’m not complaining very loudly. Since this is my biggest gripe of the moment, I figger I’m doing real good, real good indeed.

6 October 2026

AI Ain’t Kosher

Another day, another pope. This one’s Leo XIV, who denounced AI art last Friday.

“In this age of artificial intelligence, we urgently need to distinguish human art from what is produced by machines,” he proclaimed.

I don’t believe he’s inflammable, and I do believe he’s wrong. I’m too lazy to do any research, but I bet Pius IX (pope from 1846 to 1878) probably said the same thing about photography. Who cares if a human or a machine produced an image, as long as it looks good on the wall behind the couch?

7 October 2026

With Lettie, Lake Cleawox

I rarely photograph cats or dogs; pusses are too easy, and dogs usually aren’t visually appealing. Lettie, a forty-kilogram Great Pyrenees mutt, is an unusual pooch, so I braved the sand creatures to make With Lettie, Lake Cleawox.

8 October 2026

The World Gurning League

I’m usually not interested in competitive activities, but I’m going to make an exception for gurning, “to show or gnash the teeth in rage or scorn; to snarl as a dog, to look savage; to distort the countenance.” In other words, making funny faces.

There’s more to gurning than just distorting your face until hilarity ensues; you have to wear a braffin, or horse collar, while doing so. That’s where the skill comes in, I suppose.

I just discovered gurning; I wonder why it’s not more popular? That’s a rhetorical question; the answer is obvious. Almost all popular competitive activities involve a ball; that’s why archery and darts are rarely mentioned, let alone broadcast.

If I wasn’t free from ambition, I’d consider starting the World Gurning League. Contestants would have to put balls in their mouth; I haven’t figured out how many or what size. No, make that uncooked chicken eggs for great entertainment value..

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2026 David Glenn Rinehart