Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak XXIX

17 July 2018

No. 8,234 (cartoon)

I have nothing left to live for.

You never did.

18 July 2018

Analog and Digital Time

My computer offered three options when I needed to rotate the photograph I was processing:

180º
90º CW
90º CCW

I knew that CW and CCW referred to clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively; that’s because I’m an olde person. Schools in England are replacing analog wall clocks with digital versions because kids these days can’t understand the former.

Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders, reports that the old clocks are, “a cause of unnecessary stress for children.”

Kids these days!

Douglas Adams had a great perspective on the “problem” as he described in the foreword to The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

I think analog clocks are a pretty neat idea, but that’s what all the olde folks say.

19 July 2018

Prophylactics

I was taking Helena and her mother Mabel on a tour of the Internet Archive when we came across a folded circular table with part of a wrinkled black tablecloth hanging off the top. Helena pointed to the fabric and asked her mother whether it looked like a condom.

“I shouldn’t think so, dear,” she replied thoughtfully. “I’d have to say it reminds me of a sock.”

“I think we’re both right,” Helena agreed. “After all, a sock is really just a prophylactic for your foot.”

Many of my female friends have contentious and problematic relationships with their mothers, so I was delighted to see Helena and her mother talking like the old friends they are.

20 July 2018

Bison, Golden Gate Park

I’m comfortable with my chromophobia; it’s served me well aesthetically. I’m not a purist, and there’s one thing that almost always makes me reach for something off the greyscale.

Blood.

There’s something visceral about the color of blood that I don’t think can be conveyed in black and white. (As a relevant aside, I suppose that’s why I’ve never found Janet Leigh’s “blood” going down the drain disturbing: it looks like her fountain pen leaked in the shower.)

Bison, Golden Gate Park, is a simple image, perhaps too simple. I presented ground, raw bison meat in the silhouette of Bison bison in the same frame with living ones.

21 July 2018

HR Wars

Julian is at war with his Sandra, his company’s “human resources” bureaucrat. They quite dislike each other; it might even be fair to say that they actually hate each other.

He fired the latest salvo by announcing he wanted to take paternity leave. Sandra started filling out forms and asked when the baby would be born. He explained that wasn’t going to happen since his girlfriend aborted it. Sandra declared that no infant meant no paternity leave.

He protested that he’d done his part by fathering it and that it wasn’t his fault that his partner didn’t want that thing festering inside her. His argument didn’t work, so he tried a different approach.

“If that’s what your little rule book says, then I want bereavement leave,” he demanded.

“You don’t look like you’re grieving to me,” Sandra replied.

“How dare you!” he protested, “I certainly am suffering; she stuck me with half of the abortion bill.”

He didn’t expect that contrivance to work either and it didn’t, but he wasn’t disappointed. He lodged the facetious appeals to annoy Sandra, and his malicious strategy worked rather well.

22 July 2018

Better Without and With

Randall was annoying cheerful when he showed up at my studio for espresso early this morning. He appeared to have taken W.C. Fields’ advice, “Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.”

“What drugs are you on, Mr. Sunshine?” I inquired.

“None,” he replied, “It’s just that I feel so much better when I’m not drinking.”

I didn’t think that would last long, and it didn’t. He suggested that a flagon or several of cheap wine might harmonize most efficaciously with the bowl of fruit I offered. I wasn’t surprised when he pulled a bottle out of his pack.

“What about feeling better when you’re not drinking?” I asked.

“That’s the beautiful thing,” he explained, “I also feel so much better when I am drinking!”

Rationalization is a beautiful thing!

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2018 David Glenn Rinehart