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Weak XIV

3 April 2013

No. 5,070 (cartoon)

Tell me the truth.

If I did, it would be a lie.

4 April 2013

Giving Sassy the Sassy

The Brignoni family had a dog named Sassy, past tense being the crux of this particular biscuit. Sassy bit off and swallowed Fernando Brignoni’s little finger, so the eleven-year-old’s father Luis got his pistol and did what needed to be done.

“I got my gun and I popped him,” he explained. After killing the mutt, he sliced it open like a trout—or, perhaps more accurately, like a dog—and pulled his son’s finger out of the beast’s belly. Unfortunately, the finger was too damaged to reattach, so Fernando and I are down to nine of them.

Sassy died in vain, or maybe not. Once a dog’s tasted human flesh, no one’s fingers would have been safe from his canine incisors.

5 April 2013

Sashimi for Brains

I’m agnostic when it comes to tools. I use Apple computers and Nikon cameras, but I could get exactly the same results using other manufacturers’ products. Having said that, I’m somewhat embarrassed to have a Nikon camera on my tripod today.

The Japanese company manufactures all sorts of optical products, including rifle scopes such as the Monarch African, “the proven choice for dangerous big game hunting ... for those seeking their dangerous game adventure on the dark continent.”

The dark continent?! Dangerous big game?! Shooting an elephant the size of an elephant from hundreds of meters away with an automatic assault rifle is dangerous?!

I repeat: ?!

I know for a fact that the Nikon factory in Sendai, Japan, is surrounded by a moat filled with hungry alligators. That’s where the sashimi-for-brains salaryman who approved the dumber-than-mucous marketing campaign should go for a swim, taking his Monarch African with him.

6 April 2013

That’s Sarah!

Sarah asked how I was doing, so I told her. As the artist in residence at the Internet Archive, I enjoy the company of brilliant, nice people on weekdays and have the entire twenty-five-hundred square meters all to myself on nights and weekends.

She should have been impressed and perhaps even envious, but she wasn’t. That’s Sarah!

“A dog in a castle is still a dog,” she sniffed, adding that I was long overdue for a haircut and new pants.

7 April 2013

Know Where

Deirdre was quite drunk, gloriously drunk.

“Do you know the difference between you and I?” she asked.

I was tempted to say that I usually know when to use me instead of I, but me didn’t.

“I’m on the elevator and I’m pushing buttons,” she explained. “I might be going up, I might be going down, but at least I’m going somewhere. You can’t even see the elevator from where you are; you’re going nowhere.”

I acknowledged that Deirdre was right; that’s always a good debate strategy. I saw no reason to mention that I didn't need to go anywhere; I've arrived and nowhere is where I want to be.

8 April 2013

Gratuitous Photo of the Weak: Cones Hill

Normally, I hate computer-generated photographic tomfoolery. When it comes to imagery, about the only computer manipulation I do with images is dodging, burning, and adjusting the contrast. That’s what I was doing forty years ago in the darkroom.

On this morning’s bike ride I spotted a dozen orange plastic cones in the middle of a street that was being paved. The only camera I had on me was my phone (I wouldn’t have said that forty years ago!), so I decided to photograph the urban landscape using a new program that takes several photographs at different exposures them merges them together into an image that contains information in both the shadows or highlights.

That was how the program works in theory, in practice I got different results. I didn’t hold the camera steady, so I ended up with two images in the same photograph. I would have rejected the results had I concocted them in my computer, but I liked my accident.

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©2013 David Glenn Rinehart