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Weak XXXII

7 August 2013

No. 927 (cartoon)

I feel sad after burying my dog.

It had to be the right thing to do.

She wasn’t dead.

8 August 2013

The Extra Reed in the Quarter

Nancy asked me why a dime has one hundred and eighteen reeds—ridges or grooves—around the edge of the coin and a quarter has one hundred and nineteen.

“The answer is obvious,” I replied, “it’s so blind people can tell them apart.”

I intentionally gave her a facetious answer so that she could have the pleasure of correcting me. I’m generous that way.

Nancy gleefully explained that the reeds were introduced in the days when coins were made from gold and silver, not tin and zinc. Missing reeds would indicate if anyone shaved the precious metal off the edges.

“That may or may not be true,” I responded, “but it doesn’t answer the question you posed. I think you’ll find that additional reed in the quarter was introduced during the Tyler administration in 1843 under pressure from the International Federation of the Blind.”

“I suppose so,” she concluded resignedly.

Nancy has many skills, but fact checking is not among them. That’s one of the reasons we’re such good friends.

9 August 2013

Gratuitous Photo of the Weak: Is Isn’t

I was photographing a van near my studio when a couple of men walked up behind me and politely asked me what I was doing.

“I’m taking a photograph of Is Isn’t,” I replied, referring to the words painted on the back door.

“It’s my existential van,” one of the men told me proudly.

10 August 2013

Dogs Headed to the Hotel

Yumi called me from her car; she said that she was taking her dogs to a hotel. And then my phone battery died.

I didn’t call her back. I was having so much fun imagining the myriad reasons why her dogs would be headed to a hotel that I didn’t want to be disappointed by hearing the true story.

11 August 2013

Know Your Cannibals

An exocannibal is a cannibal that eats enemies; an indocannibal eats friends. I suppose a cannibal that eats friends and enemies is simply called a cannibal, or perhaps an omnicannibal. I’m not a cannibal, and I’m not sure what flavor I’d want to be if one thing leads to another. I’ll follow Ted Kennedy’s example and drive off that bridge when I come to it.

12 August 2013

Thirty Archival Toilet Paper Rolls

A friend bought a package of thirty rolls of toilet paper. That’s five hundred and eighty meters of toilet paper. I thought I could do something interesting with that, but quickly ruled out unrolling them since I’d have to buy replacements. I photographed one end of each roll to come up with Thirty Archival Toilet Paper Rolls. (They’re archival since they were at the Internet Archive.)

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©2013 David Glenn Rinehart