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Weak XIII

26 March 2020

No. 5,325 (cartoon)

You complete me.

You complete mess.

27 March 2020

Public Service Announcement

After eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two days in a row (I’m not counting, but my computer is) of concocting this self-indulgent twaddle, it’s time to pull my head out of my navel and publish my first public service announcement.

I’ll begin by noting that the virus—you know the one—enters the human body through the nose. And maybe through the mouth, eyes, and perhaps even the ears as well. The details don’t matter since the main line of defense remains the same: don’t let the nasty little bugger(s) near your head.

In practice, that means don’t touch your face. After all, who can remember all the places their fingers have been recently? That simple restriction has proved nearly impossible for people to observe after a lifetime of itching, poking, scratching, and stroking, not to mention the unmentionables.

I’ve come up with a solution that will save lives and farms. It costs less than one thin dime.

Wait for it ...

I give you the humble jalapeño pepper. (Conceptually speaking, that is; you’ll need to go to your local grocer and find your own.)

Just cut a thin slice of the pepper and rub it between your fingers. I don’t know if that will affect the virus, but anyone who then touches her or his face will soon be reminded of the error by a mild burning sensation.

I know my brilliant idea makes me a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, but I didn’t do this to become a Nobel laureate. And anyway, I won’t be able to travel to the Stockholms Konserthus anytime soon.

I’m making my solution freely available: the more people survive the pandemic, the more people I can bore and annoy with future notebook entries.

Simple, no?

28 March 2020

Black Hole Swallows Logic

Hoo boy, it’s a sad day for the tattered remnants of journalism when even The New York Times publishes patently fraudulent articles on astronomy and physics. I could spot the malarkey in the two-part headline:

Infinite Visions Were Hiding in the First Black Hole Image’s Rings

Scientists proposed a technique that would allow us to see more of the unseeable.

What a load of cosmic bollocks! Scientists will never show us the unseeable: if we can see it, then it’s clearly not unseeable.

I knew Coronarama was hammering New York; I can’t help but wonder if it disabled all the editors, fact-checkers, and proofreaders at the Times? Even if that’s the case, it’s not the tragedy one might imagine; I done fine without ’em for decades.

29 March 2020

Pacifying Alleged Artists

Byron’s sitting out the pandemic in Berlin. He speculates that beer and bratwurst will strengthen his immune system should he have to fight off the virus. He doesn’t care if he’s wrong; it’s a great way to rationalize a horrible diet.

The main draw, though, is the traditional one: money. The German government is giving every artist, real and imagined, five thousand euros to keep producing dreck despite the current medical and economic crises.

I suggested that was a foolish waste—as opposed to a wise waste—of government funds, but Byron disagreed. Of course he did; his lederhosen are lined with Deutsche dosh.

“It may seem extravagant to you as an American,” he explained, “but you have to remember what happened here the last time a crappy artist launched a new career.”

I couldn’t argue with the world war thing, so I didn’t, especially after Byron offered to buy me one of those glasses of beer bigger than a bathtub the next time I’m in Germany.

30 March 2020

Downhill All the Way

I ride my bike at least ten kilometers a day. I chose that distance because it’s the smallest two-digit number available in base ten. I use kilometers to be pretentious, plus it sounds a lot more impressive than a mere six miles.

And it’s even easier than the numerals suggest.

The route I settled on begins on Encantado Circle, and takes me down Encantado Loop onto Encantado Road. My circular course is pretty much downhill all the way, and the wind is always at my back.

“Sweet,” as the young people say.

But, you ask, how can you possibly ride downhill for ten clicks and end up back at the same altitude? Yes, I know no one asked that. As any forlorn English major will tell you, that there is what you call a rhetorical question. And the answer, with just a touch of irony, is that it requires one to know a single word in Spanish. “Encantado” means “enchanted.” And let us not forget this velophilia takes place in New Mexico, a hot, arid wasteland, that’s marketed to gullible tourists as, “the land of enchantment.”

In conclusion, I’ll point out that I couldn’t have published this on the Internet if it wasn’t true.

31 March 2020

No Mask? No Problem!

Do you need a GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator precision-guided fourteen-thousand kilogram "bunker-buster" bomb? How many you want? The American government has tons of ’em just sitting there. And at only forty-two million dollars a dozen, why not?

Would you like a seventy-nine cent mask that might save your life? Sorry, fresh out; check back in June.

The current administration has its priorities, and protecting American citizens clearly ain’t one of them. That’s why I’ve crafted my own mask out of home-grown fibers from the crop I’ve been growing on my noggin for years. Given the number of additives in my diet, it’s certainly not organic, but it seems to make an effective filter when pulled down over my face.

Before anyone gets all scientifical on me about how efficacious a hair filter is or isn’t, I’ll point out that it doesn’t matter. The appearance alone is enough to keep people more than two meters from me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it scared the bejeezus out of the virus as well.

1 April 2020

Canceled?!

I just read that April Fool’s Day was canceled. I don’t know if that’s true or not, so this is perhaps the best St. Stupid’s celebration ever!

2 April 2020

Cargo Pants to the Rescue!

The Sans Frisco government is run by “supervisors” who work tirelessly at social engineering in order to achieve the perfect society. For example, they banned stores from using plastic bags for the good of the environment. With no free sacks available, dog owners left their curs’ excrement to pile up on the streets; that may or may not be good for the planet.

Sans Frisco is actually an assisted living facility for lazy rich people; that’s why everyone drinks two-dollar bottles of water and five-dollar cups of coffee instead of frying up their java at home. The supervisors solved the problem of all those recyclable bottles and cups by banning them. Another problem fixed!

Now the virus running amok, and may be hitchhiking on reusable shopping bags and coffee mugs, so the supervisors stepped in with their predictable solution: ban them!

All the restaurants, bars, and cafes are closed for the duration of Coronarama, which has forced Sans Friscans to take desperate measures: shopping at grocery stores. This resulted in the predictable bottleneck: with bags of all flavors outlawed, how can people get their vittles home?

The supervisors figured that one out by issuing every resident a pair of “Bay Britches,” more commonly known as cargo pants. They looks absolutely ridiculous with or without the optional codpiece, and walking around with a kilo of kielbasa in ones trousers is no picnic even if that’s where it’s going. In other words, the supervisors haven’t quite engineered the perfect society yet.

Maybe mañana, conceptually speaking.

But probably not.

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©2020 David Glenn Rinehart