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Weak XXXIII

13 August 2023

No. 9,720 (cartoon)

Everything happens for a reason.

The reason is usually physics.

Any chance of chance?

14 August 2023

A Genuine Flying Kayak

I’d say that I was cruising on a Toronto highway, but I wasn’t even though I kinda was. In fact, I was a passenger on a bus headed to the United States when I saw it happen. But first ...

I vaguely remember a book about a magic kayak I enjoyed as a young boy. You could fly through the air in the enchanted canoe just by saying the right incantation. I can’t remember the exact words and neither could the Internet, but apparently someone did.

I saw a kayak flying through the air beside the bus; I really did witness a kayak flying through the air. Someone obviously got the spell wrong; it didn’t resist the call of gravity for more than a second or two before crashing to the pavement at a hundred kilometers an hour. (That’s the speed the car to which it was previously attached was traveling.)

Did the kayak tumbling down the highway cause an accident? The canoeless car pulled over to the shoulder of the road; was the vessel salvageable? Does anyone know the right words to safely fly a kayak? Or did that knowledge disappear along with my old book in which it was written?

Lots of questions and few answers—along with a genuine flying kayak—make for a good little story.

15 August 2023

Kitty Litterature

I enjoy a symbiotic relationship with felines. I love the wusses and the wusses love me! (There’s obviously a great song there, but I’m not going to crank up my Moog since I’m sure it’s been done at least ninety times before.) One of the challenges in such a symbiotic relationship is to stay abreast of all the advances in veterinary science.

Two recent articles have just come across my desk—as if I had a desk—that demand my immediate attention. I’m talking about Evaluation of a Smartphone-Based Colorimetric Method for Urinalysis Dipstick Readings in Cats, and Endoscopic administration of Coca-Cola for medical management of a wedged intestinal trichobezoar in a cat. These are clearly must read-read documents. Ergo ipso facto cum laude I must now read them.

Now.

(Even if I have nightmares about wedged intestinal trichobezoars in my grimalkin friends.)

Instead of writing something of no importance about nothing tonight, I’ll conclude this notebook entry having written nothing about something(s) of significant significance.

16 August 2023

Porcine Urination Progress

If you’re urinating while reading this, thank your kidneys. And if you’re not urinating because of kidney problems, then read on. Now that everyone’s with me, here we go!

Surgeons in New York transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man, and it was still working thirty days later, with urine flowing on the first day of the experiment. As one of the researchers never said, “This is a small trickle for one person, but a towering tsunami of yellow gold for humankind.”

The problem with most medical breakthroughs is that they require a modestly intelligent person (a small minority of Americans) to make certain behavioral changes, even if it’s something as simple as taking a pill once a week. But this procedure produces positive results for even a brain-dead person (the overwhelming majority) with piss-poor kidneys.

I hope that I live long enough to see a pig’s brain transplanted into a brain-dead person; that would be progress from which we could all benefit!

17 August 2023

Savey Meal-bot

In the olde days of consumer computing, one might ask a culinary program what kind of meal could be created if all there is in the house is a potato, a carrot, an onion, and a stalk of celery. The application would grind its digital gears for a while as it searched its database then suggest potato soup. That was useful if the user was dumber than a potato. What it couldn’t do in those primitive times was provide good advice, such as, “You need to replenish your larder. While you’re at the store get some tortilla chips and beer for dinner.”

But now we have artificial “artificial intelligence” manifest in the Savey Meal-bot. If you happen to be shopping in a New Zealand grocery story that’s part of the Pak ‘n’ Save conglomerate, Savey Meal-bot will suggest combinations most people would not have considered. Looking for “the perfect nonalcoholic beverage to quench your thirst and refresh your senses?” Savey Meal-bot has an interesting “aromatic water mix” that produces lethal chlorine gas. That might pair nicely with the cookie vegetable stir fry, and a roast potato dish that repels mosquitos.

Many people are excited by the new developments in technology, but I’m not one of them. I know this is only the beginning, and I’m excited to see what our silicon overlords are planning for their meat-based stooges. I think Savey Meal-bot and its “bleach-infused rice surprise” hints at our grave new world.

18 August 2023

It’s Not as Bad as Detroit

The Flint, Michigan, Chamber of Commerce recently held a contest to select a new slogan for the city. The three finalists were “Growth from Decay,” “It’s Not as Bad as Detroit,” and “Your Portal to Ecstasy.”

I photographed a mushroom in front of my mother’s place. It’s not a very good image (I’m pretty much done with f64 so I used f1.2), and Flint’s not a very good city, so I thought it was a good fit in case the rustbelt boosters wanted to license it for a Growth from Decay campaign.

I was astounded that truth in advertising prevailed; the winner is It’s Not as Bad as Detroit. Now that I’m stuck with another useless pretty photograph I’m the loser; life in Flint can be that way.

19 August 2023

Interlochen Means Incompetence

I went to high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy, a boarding school in the woods way up in northern Michigan. Wayne Brill and Jim Alley gave me such a great education in photography that I needed no formal training after that. I was pleased to hear that a friend’s nephew just returned from a summer program there and received an award in photography as well as a five-thousand-dollar scholarship offer. (That’s only seven percent of the cost, and not particularly generous.)

Everything was going swimmingly until I saw his portfolio. Here’s what I wrote to the Interlochen administraitors ...

[Introduction]

I have never seen such horrible work in my life; to describe the work as mediocre would be seriously overrating it. The photographs were all a muddy dark grey as if he’d never been taught to make a test strip. I’ve seen better technique from a six-year-old after an hour of training. The only part of the image that wasn’t dark muck was a white corner because of vignetting from a misaligned enlarger. Who gives a student broken tools? None of the prints I saw should have gone anywhere but the trash can. The young man was clearly intelligent and enthusiastic; to describe his teacher as grossly incompetent would be showering her/him with unwarranted praise.

I could perhaps understand the results if he was one of a hundred students taking a class over the Internet, but to have spent weeks in a class of only three students and then walk away with an education in how to produce complete rubbish is unfathomable. If he were my son I’d demand a full refund. And if I was lawyered up, I’d file a lawsuit for damages as well.

Who reviewed his work and determined that absolute shit merited an award? My guess is that Interlochen has turned from the educational institution that was a catalyst for my charmed life into a greedy little diploma mill.

You may have noticed my outrage. My problem isn’t that Interlochen hired an incompetent imbecile as an instructor; I am beyond livid that Interlochen has robbed a young man of the education that could have changed his life.

I never sent that after recalling the adage (falsely attributed to several famous people), “Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.”

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2023 David Glenn Rinehart