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Weak XXXII

7 August 2016

No. 8,711 (cartoon)

You’re growing on me.

Like true love?

Like a tumor.

8 August 2016

A Sensible Number of Variations

Clarissa told me that she appreciated my recent work, Forty ISO 12233 Test Chart Variations. She added that I really hadn’t even started to explore the possibilities when I stopped at only forty modifications, and that I could have made “forty to the fortieth power” of different versions.

I asked her to tell me what that number was in plain English, so she did: twelve vigintillion, eighty-nine novemdecillion, two hundred and fifty-eight octodecillion, one hundred and ninety-six septendecillion, one hundred and forty-six sexdecillion, two hundred and ninety-one quindecillion, seven hundred and forty-seven quattuordecillion, sixty-one tredecillion, and seven hundred and sixty duodecillion.

Yikes! I’m glad I stopped at a sensible number like forty.

9 August 2016

Bosch at Five Hundred

Hieronymus Bosch, née Jeroen Anthonissen van Aken, died half a millennium ago today. Or did he? It’s hard to reconcile dates between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, so I’m not even going to try. “Around half a millennium” is accurate enough for me.

10 August 2016

Phillumenists

I learned that people who collect matchbooks, matchboxes, et cetera, are called phillumenists. I shall file that discovery under useless information since that’s a word I’ll probably never use. Also, the people who engage in such activities probably don’t use it in mixed company anyway.

Flame on!

11 August 2016

Wrong Number

I received a most annoying phone call this morning; here’s the transcript.

Caller: Is Charlie there?

Me: I’m sorry, there’s no Charlie here.

Caller: I want to talk to Charlie.

Me: You have the wrong number.

Caller: If this is the wrong number, then why did you answer?

Dang, she had me there. I told her to ask Charlie to explain why, then hung up.

12 August 2016

Lunchtime

As usual, I haven’t had anything to eat today unless thick coffee is food. It’s less than an hour until noon; that’s when I know that I’ll be hungry.

It’s been decades since I lived in the midwest, and I still find it mildly amusing that I usually eat according to the clock, not my appetite. 11:30? Too early to eat. Noon? Time for lunch! No meal by 12:30? I should have had something to eat a half hour ago.

Like most of my idiosyncrasies, eating by the clock isn’t particularly disadvantageous. And like all rules, it’s fun to break. I think I’ll be audacious and take my first bite of quesadilla at 11:50; that should make for an exciting day.

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©2016 David Glenn Rinehart