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Weak XXXIII

13 August 2021

No. 7,368 (cartoon)

May I explain something to you?

Please do.

Shut up!

14 August 2021

Never Answer an Anonymous Letter

This is almost certainly a crude hoax, but since it’s borderline amusing and not copyrighted, I’m reproducing it in its imbecilic entirety here.

Dearest Governor Cox,

I do not know if you know this, but when people say your surname it sounds like the word cock. It’s obscene! Us decent people here in Utah will not stand for it. The honorable Republican party will not stand for it. Most importantly, I will not stand for it. Because of your reluctance to change your foul, dirty and obscene surname myself and thousands of other Utahns will be sitting in protest, not standing, until you change your heinous surname to something less offensive. This is a social justice issue and we will not be denied basic human decency! If our simple request is not met we will assemble and do what democracy was made to do by recalling you from office because of your filthy surname. This is not a communist dictatorship. THIS IS THE GREAT STATE OF UTAH! We do not accept sick jokes to run rampant in our civil institutions. We demand a response to this letter and we expect to hear back from your office soon.

Love,

A very concerned citizen

Governor Cox responded, “I never reply to an anonymous letter.”

Lieutenant Governor Ima Gherbilphoquer chimed in, “There’s nothing funny about funny names.”

And that’s today’s news from Utah, where life is always laughable (unless you live there).

15 August 2021

Pandemic Pussy Prerogatives

Veronica called this morning sounding a tad or more inebriated. She said she felt isolated during the latest wave of Coronarama and just wanted to chat.

“Drinking alone before lunch?” I asked.

“If course not!” she replied. “The cat must be around here somewhere ...”

It’s true that you’re never alone when you’re with a cat, although the cat would disagree if it deigned to lower herself to debate a human can opener.

16 August 2021

News From The Land o’ Pi

The crafty boffins at the Graubuenden University of Applied Sciences in Chur, Switzerland, cranked up their big ol’ supercomputer then let it run flat out on all cylinders chewing on pi. After they powered it down twenty-six hundred hours later, they announced that they’d calculated the value of pi to almost sixty-three trillion decimal places, over thirteen trillion more than the previous record.

That’s an impossible number to grasp, so here’s another way to look at it. Let’s say you printed a book five centimeters thick, with four million characters—about the same as a generic bible—in each volume. You’d need a bookshelf seven hundred and eighty kilometers long to hold all of them. (Callimachus was right when he observed, “A big book is a big bore.”)

That too is an impossible number to grasp, so I give up.

I feel sorry for Akira Haraguchi, who memorized the first one hundred and eleven thousand, seven hundred and one numerals in pi. Every time he memorizes more, the computer scientists keep moving the goalposts by trillions of digits.

Oh well, everyone who enters into The Land o’ Pi does so knowing they’ll never leave with a definitive answer.

17 August 2021

Turning the Art Career Corner

Brandon boasted that his alleged “art career” had “turned the pivotal corner.” When I asked him what threshold he’d crossed, he crowed that he sold his last print for twenty dollars more than he paid to frame it.

People who use money as their primary unit of measurement are beyond silly.

18 August 2021

Pasta Quantity Considerations

Anita asked me why I cooked a mountain of pasta for dinner tonight. That’s like asking Edmund Hillary why he climbed Everest. The answer is obvious: because it’s there. And anyway; Sarducci’s Deli wouldn’t sell me pasta in half-kilo bags if I wasn’t supposed to cook that much, no?

19 August 2021

Freedom From The Known

I was poking around Henri’s library when I ran across a copy of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Freedom From The Known. Everybody who’s not nobody knows that he was one very smart hombre. I agree despite not knowing anything about him except his reputation.

I put the book back on the shelf without opening it. I think he would have applauded my freedom from his knowns (except for the bad combover hair on the cover of the book).

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©2021 David Glenn Rinehart