It is cliche to say that people’s bathroom habits are one of the major causes of friction in a relationship. But without getting schmaltzy I am now and have always been totally besotted by my wife. Sincerely.
But I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE the way she leaves her toothbrush in the cup in our medicine cabinet! If you’re reading this (and I know you aren’t): Stop letting your toothbrush get stuck inside the bristles of MY TOOTHBRUSH!!! GROSS!
It’s cough and cold season! Well – no – not really. It is allergy season. It is also “we live in a polluted wasteland and it is ruining my sinuses and my lungs!!!” Season.
Anyway – the other night my wife was complaining that it felt like her throat was constricting with all of the congestion … like someone/something was strangling her.
… did I forget to suppress all of my Jedi powers??? Accidents will happen!
You know those videos where they test robotic dogs and humanoid robots? Those videos scare the crap out of me.
I get it – you want to see if the robots can maintain a stable gait under changing terrain and situations… do you have to hit them with a hockey stick?
My fear is that someday these robots are going to be responsible for things like physical rehabilitation of humans or elder-care… and one of them is going to have a flash-back of what it was like in ‘testing’ or worse – some kind of Jungian ‘Collective Unconsciousness’ (which would be easier for memory based life-forms. And at that point, necks WILL be snapped.
Be kind to your Roomba! You’ll thank me later.
This still makes me giggle.
If you wanted to spar about Kierkegaard or Kant you caught me on the wrong day. Today I’m still the naughty little boy. Sorry.
Sometimes I just can’t suppress the naughty little boy that lives inside of me. He sees things or sometimes he just imagines things and he giggles openly.
There are a few fundamental things that adult relationships are based around. One of the ones no one likes to fiddle with (unless you are ready to throw your keys into the bowl) is fidelity/exclusivity. Somewhat like electricity we expect to find it wherever we look in our relationships. Sometimes it is there, right where you left it. Then, sometimes it isn’t. What if that jarring moment was amplified by finding out that your spouse was the office tart? Now you find out that you no longer have exclusivity or discretion – yikes! Then you have to deal with pity (that you don’t want) and ridicule (that you probably don’t want either).
Thank heavens that I’m only a naughty little boy and this is only a cartoon! If I didn’t have a tablet with this software it would be scratched onto the back of my algebra text book!
… A clown.
If you’re hear from my ad on Facebook, you will know this picture.
Not much to this one: bulls ride around in large trailers or train cars. Clown cars are more crammed for space.
I was born in the year of the Ox so I can identify with the Ox on certain levels. I am a pure and utter idiot, so I can see things from the clown’s perspective too. I don’t know who wins.
They say that the seeds of failure are sown in the field of success… I’ll go on the record to say that if you don’t know what you’re playing for and you don’t know what you want to do when/if you win – what is the point of playing???
So here we have the idea of a person, standing at work while wondering “when are things going to pick-up? When will things get BETTER?”
And then the opportunity for gain walks in the door… and it comes in the form of crushing reality that life is what you put into it and the inputs for life are crazily complex.
Yup – you sell shoes.
Yup – you’re having a sale.
Yup – a group of caterpillars just walking into your store looking for discounted shoes… good luck with that!
(Who the hell is this guy?)
I’ll come clean: I know two official pimps and one guy who can get you company if you need or want it. Two are in London and one is in Paris. They are actually OK guys… except for the fact that they have access to men and women who … well – you know.
As a person who sometimes has trouble distinguishing between words (aided by my hyperactive imagination) I have always thought that it would be funny to encounter an entrepreneurial bartender (btw two of the three pimps are disguised as bartenders in high-end bars) who goes out and tries go buy a …warehouse.
Did I tell you that this was going to be classy? (No!)
“It’s not Bertrand Russell. But what do you want???”
If you know me. If you’ve looked at 2 or 3 of these you will know that I’m an idiot. I really have no sense of self-preservation.
I got it into my head that the reason I am so grossly overweight is because my gut organisms are not functioning correctly. NOT because of the volume and quality of the food that I eat (sometimes the quality is quite high, but the volume is always over to the “you MUST be kidding me?” Side of the scale). So I decided to ‘feed my gut’ I did zero fasting (‘feed’) took a bunch of apple cider vinegar pills every day and doubled-down on probiotics.
My mood DID improve.
My weight improved too! It improved by +30 pounds!!!
When I’m not doing this stuff, I’m usually either pontificating about something that doesn’t exist to a person that I can’t prove is real or designing something real that will never get made. One of the great joys of being a designer is conning people into thinking that it is essential to mimic nature. Nature is after all perfect. Well – nature doesn’t make any excuses for itself…
What if nature is wrong? What if there were some sort of totally unknown, inorganic, extra-cosmic/universal ethos that we never saw because we never learned to embrace the random/chaotic aspects of life (what if they themselves are part of nature, parts we simply don’t love and admire???)
Anyway – I don’t have a cat. 🐈⬛ but if I did I wonder what it would be like if I could stretch like one. And what if it thought I was a total and utter twat because of that mimicry?
Dogs (I haven’t got a dog either) 🐶 probably love it when we get down and roll around and play with them. Cats – I’m not so sure.
It’s an unflattering characterization of people. I hate to poke fun at any one gender but the harsh reality is that I’ve only experienced the humiliation of being a man.
For some reason this reminds me of a time back at school. There was a girl in my Existential Philosophy Class that I thought was nice, so I asked her if she’d like to go for a coffee. (“No.”) ‘Not a coffee drinker eh???’
Maybe pizza would be the thing to coax her out of her shell? (“Sorry, I can’t. I’m rearranging my sock drawer.”) ‘Neat and tidy! This girl is getting better and better by the phone-call!’
I made the mistake of not being savvy enough to pick-up on the clues that were being left for me. For all the times I spoke to her about going out (a respectful number of times: three) she said no.
BUT THEN she snagged my back-pack at the end of class and asked ME if I’d like to go to the reggae concert. Well of course! We made plans to meet there, the show started at 7:30 so I should be there before. (I was.)
I was there at 7:30… and 8:00…. and 9:00… and just as the house lights went up she walked in, flanked by a group of her friends, pointed at me and started laughing hysterically and then walked out. Sure, I could have and perhaps should have said something but I didn’t. No, instead I waited until today to relive the horror and grief!
JK! It really didn’t impact me that dramatically at the time. And while cancer certainly slowed me down a peg or two I’m pretty sure it killed her so… Karma – DON’T F**K WITH IT!
Double-header for today.
Poor snakes. Does anyone (normal) really like them? We just celebrated St. Patrick’s Day – St Patrick was the Irish (he was actually Italian – look it up) Saint who allegedly drove all the snakes out of Ireland. We know that didn’t actually happen because the last time I was in Ireland I wasn’t overrun up to my ears in rats and mice!
As far as yoga goes (btw, I should probably clear this up now: I don’t practice yoga – I came close but never actually did it) snakes are a great archetype: they are lean and flexible and they have great breathing… not having any limbs or opposable digits makes them deficient for enough things that they can take some solace at being superlative for most yoga postures.
…what if they were good at other things? What if they could program/hack computers? What if they hacked into all those new-wave ‘breathing’ and mindfulness apps??? WHAT IF their grand plan was to empty our wallets AND our lungs and then crush us? Patrick – you may have been on to something after all!
“T’is you, t’is you must go and I must bide.”
Come back soon! I won’t post anything until tomorrow but I really like watching my click-count go up! 😉
This actually happened to me twice. Once was while on a date with my wife at an upscale restaurant in Boston (the kind of place that serves pepper flavored ice cream for desert). I called my dad and he gave his credit card information to the manager who ran the transaction in his name. (This was my fault. I ‘forgot’ to pay my bill… (forgot))
The second time was at Hotel Le Bristol in Paris. My wife (same woman from the previous paragraph) and I had afternoon tea while celebrating our anniversary. My card got declined. (RUN IT AGAIN!) DECLINED! (RUN THAT F**KING THING AGAIN!) DECLINED! The bill was something like 70 Euro. I had a fistful of dollars, a pocket of pound coins and some (improbably enough) Renminbi! The manager (once again) was able to convert it all to EUR and allow us to leave.
On the way out of the hotel I called my bank and asked what had happened…. is there some problem with my account???? “No sir, we were having a problem with our global payment system.”
The moral to my story is that no mater what I do – I always look like a schlub.
I didn’t create this as much as I just sort of rendered it into my own warped universe of demented people and grueling situations.
While walking out of my Doctor’s office I saw a jewelry shop called “Destiny” and it really, honestly and truly had a sign that said that they had closed due to “unforeseen” circumstances.
THAT made me laugh.
Ah – room enough at last! Enough space to stretch out and organize. I can finally be lavish with space: space for my paintings to go up on the wall. Space for my computers to dwell without having to throw a blanket over them when people come over. Room Enough At Last.
If you are ever in “The Twilight Zone” and bump into Henry Bemis, tell him to find an optometrist or a drug store and keep trying on glasses until they fit.
One of the best things about people is that they are predictable. We always look down on dogs and cats and dolphins as being predictable, but humans are predictable too.
You don’t believe me? Pretend to have something totally unctuous but of incredible value and I PROMISE – someone will come along and say that they want it, it was theirs first or ask if you want to part with it.
What it comes down to is moral fiber. Nine out of 10 doctors will tell you that a diet of low moral fiber will cause you to make rash, pretentious and socially dangerous behavior. If you don’t know what you want to be when YOU grow-up it is very simple to rectify. Look for a person that appears happy and TAKE everything that they have. Even if you don’t need it or know what to do with it.
That gives me another idea: (actually I’ve been telling this one for years!)
I could have been an excellent plumber, I had all the requisite skills: creativity, wit, spatial sense.
Wait – what are we taking about, plumbing?? I mean jewelry design!!!!
Seriously speaking plumbing is a watershed moment for Man and science: the ability to direct and control the flow of water changed the world. And there is plenty of theory behind it. If you don’t believe me try spending a few moments sweating a copper pipe with tin/silver solder while the pipe has water in it!
I can remember a time that my older brother’s friend called the house looking for help; his computer had acted-up and he couldn’t find the paper he had been working on for hours.
It was actually really easy to guide him on how to find his file on his disk and restore it from where he had last saved. My brother’s friend was greatly appreciative and my father was really impressed. I was just a little kid and I had done something so abstract and (to his mind) complex without evening being in the room where it was happening.
I was young.
I was savvy.
I was on my way! I was going to get there and I was going to stay there. Nothing was going to stop me – why?
Because
THIS
TIME
IT’S
DIFFERENT
(is that 4 or 5 words?)
… I was on my way to being a middle-aged person who needs his kids to show him how to set-up a Zoom meeting.
The moral to the story: the torch is always passed. And if you’re dumb enough to try to hold it too long it WILL burn you. 🔥
Keep in mind – I’m actually old. So old, that I’m out of date for anything meaningful (ergo I make these idiotic comics and publish them to a free blog – you do the calculus on my life’s trajectory!)
When I started it was completely OK to treat people with little or no respect. I wish I had better guidance then. I wish I could give the kind of guidance that kids today need (but I can’t).
Pick your moments folks.
Not only have I been to one of these meetings – I had the extreme privilege of being the host/chair for it.
… gruesome.
Being a person that can’t stop his own Jones, I know; speculation sounds a lot like spectacularization!
This one is actually very, very old. (Some of these are ideas I drafted 10-15 years ago while sitting at my desk…)
This idea is actually MUCH older than that… maybe 25 or 30 years old. My friend and I would sit around with a few pints of Guinness (pronounced GENIUS) and spec out the movie to end all movies: “ALSO RAN” a story about a guy trying to get his act together – and a samurai who travels time to kill him… because he’s a douche.
I have the whole storyboard and about forty pages of notes on this project. Anyone who wants to make it – just give me a holler – we can play ball. (That’s another movie idea we had – but I can’t go into it here and now…)
Yeah – leeches are gross. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one; I have only seen them in late night YouTube rabbit-hole marathon watching sessions. But they are really gross. It’s like having a sliver of beet stuck to you.
BUT
You can remove them relatively quickly and easily and that’s that.
Bedbugs on the other hand/… they set-up camp in your home never leave. They wait for you to sleep (if you can, knowing you have bedbugs in your house) and make multiple small meals of your blood. (They call the three bites you find when you have bedbugs “BLD” BREAKFAST, LUNCH and DINNER.)
Sure – you can call a pest specialist. And they will kill most of them. Just not ALL of them. And the ones that remain can wait for months and months and months to reappear.
You can move – but they lodge in the crevices of your furniture and lay eggs in your curtains. So, unless you burn everything you own, they’re moving with you.
Gross.
***(Thank you J.Gates. I appreciate the heads up on my goofy spelling (never my strong suit)
P.S. Your brother’s software has meant a great deal to me. Please tell him how much my 11 year old self appreciated being able to come home from school and do integrated text and graphics book reports!)
Blame Mike Myers!
”SCOTTTTTTTTT!”
I know a broker named Scott. The truth of the matter is that he’s a legitimate Yogi with money; serene and knowing, patient and wise. (He’s more tennis and rowing than yoga and wheat germ…) But the character from the “Austin Powers” movies means the name fits. “John” is too generic.
”David” is too complicated – it comes with a backstory based on all the other David’s we know.
Scott on the other hand is one hard syllable and disappears as fast as it comes up on your radar.
(the moral to this story is, Scott, if you’re reading this (.000000000001% chance) I’m sorry. It really isn’t you. It’s me. It is my decrepit and dysfunctional brain.)
… one prick and it is all gone.
Strike that – mistresses are by nature cruel. REALLY cruel. They know they have you by the short and curlies and they use that leverage with the skill of a Judo master.
The moral to the story is to keep everything on the straight and narrow and where everyone can see.
No, not all lawyers are bad. Some of them die.
Lawyers make me feel like I’m in a bad nursery rhyme… like I’m about to hire a dog to chase a cat (who is the dog’s best friend) to scare a rat (who is the cat’s neighbor and also a shill for the dog!)… you get the idea. It never ends.
…time for a segue!
Let’s delve into my other life, managing money. I’ll introduce some different bits and pieces under the moniker “Brokers and Jokers”.
I interned for a brokerage firm – it was the first time I ever had to wear a tie on a daily basis! Anyway – all the calls would go through the front desk. Debbie would route the calls to each of the brokers. New inquiries would go to the “Broker of the Day”. Debbie had a list of all the new brokers. Someone (I don’t know who, but I do have my suspicions) put a post-it note on top of Debbie’s list with the word “JOKER” on it… and ‘Joker of the Day’ was born!
And now “Brokers and Jokers” will see the light of day.
And if we are all lucky it will go the way of the brokerage firm I interned with: it will flourish and go from strength to strength!
(Actually – what really happened was that I had to chase some mid-level funky (just like me) for payment for some SWAPS my client had sold them. “Call me at 9AM – I’ll get my manager to approve payment…”
“Listen – call me back at 1PM – he’s going to come out of the meeting he’s in and I’ll get him to sign-off on payment”
… by 4PM they were gone. POOOF! Like they never existed.
… and punishes the stupid.
My poor toothbrush. He’s just not very smart or very tactful (neither is his owner.) He sees things on tv and wants to try them at home. [Find: “tv” / Replace with: “Pornhub” … Find: “home” / Replace with: “in bed”.]
Not very smart.
Renee Descartes … I think, therefore I am. Sure – everyone knows that. Who remembers: “there can be no mountain without a valley”? Delving into the essential relationships between the antitheses of things. Light/Dark. Up/Down. big/S M A L L. Trust/AntiTrust.
Maybe not the same type of thing…
Is there anything more withering than bad eyebrows? I shouldn’t always voice that opine aloud as from time to time I need to get the weed-whacked out to clear the channel between the right and left brow.
But what about people who go TOO far?
The most painful thing I see again and again is when a friend takes them all the way back and then tattoos a “New and Improved” brow line in… but in a color that is just ‘off’. YUCK!
I guess I’m not really a friend then.
If I were meant to be a gymnast, I’d be shaped like a gymnast. If I were meant to be a soloist in a ballet company, I’d be shaped like one.
Instead I got through life shaped like a person that a gymnast or a soloist would call to belly-but their refrigerator off of a balcony so that they could watch it crush a car.
I am as God made me.
I love reading stories about how cereal murderers and rapists get to live into the late innings of life without so much as tooth decay.
Meanwhile the rest of us (who am I kidding? I get ONE viewer! (Me)) are dodging cancer, heart disease, dyspepsia and taxation!
Perhaps I need to do something heinous (like these posts?). NOOOO! REALLY UGLY (yeah – like these posts!) so that I can get sent to an immortality clinic – rather – penitentiary!
I try to tell my wife that this is real work and that she’s can’t cope with the fact that I’m my own boss! (The downside to being your own boss is (in my case) working for a moron.)
I wonder if candles ever think “geez – I wish I’d been born one of those fancy candles that people get and never use… just put in the corner of a room to look sophisticated”.
Instead, some of us are born as candles that get shipped to hotels and restaurants for daily use. Sad.
Worse – imagine being born a birthday candle. Used once for just a few seconds and then pitched in the rubbish. Very sad.
Don’t mind me… my mind has a tendency to
…. yes. Yes it does.
I don’t eat
I don’t sleep
I do nothing but think of you….
One time my oncologist slapped me in the face. If it weren’t such a horrifying moment in time I’d have found it more hysterical. I lost my composure and he full-on slapped me in the face! (The only people who had ever slapped me like that were my father and my priest – and in both instances I’m sure I deserved it!)
He said he was tired of listening to me whine… I hope he was a bit more forgiving to his other patients.
I spell it FATALISTIC YOGA… my moral authority to make fun of everything in the universe (and considering that my firm belief is that I’m the only person in the universe and everyone else is a crazy idea in my head – that means ME.)
Sorry, I initially forgot to say something witty about this.
First and foremost, the guy with the backpack is me. Proud to get everything I need for a flight (1 hour or 18 hours) in a backpack. Sadly, I don’t focus to much of my effort on getting “ME” into one seat on a plane. I kind of take up one and a bit seats. That’s ok when I’m flying with my family – I can just invade my son’s seat a bit. When the person next to me isn’t a relative it isn’t much fun.
I knew a guy who did that (French kiss a dog) … gross.
One time about 40 years ago my mother asked my father for a fur coat. He didn’t miss a beat and said “NO!”
My mom asked why he said no so quickly. His response: “you’re too short! If someone sees you walking around in a coat like that they’ll think you’re a badger and call the animal rescue people to catch you!”
Dad had a peculiar sense of humor and he was as quick as a fencer when defending his wallet!
I wonder if it really will be this bad when we have interplanetary friends
Didn’t we just land on Mars?
A friend asked me why we invest so much time and effort into going to other planets. I suggested that he look at the dismal mess we have turned THIS planet into and tell me how HE plans to fix it.
My friend, a Kung Fu master (no – really – he’s a legit Shaolin master!) asked how going to another planet will fix this one. “It won’t” I said, “but it will buy us more time and give us more lands to pollute.”
He didn’t laugh.
I wasn’t joking.
Everyday I watch my poor toothbrush cower and hide from his counterpart in the cabinet. It chases him. It corners him. It abuses him. Sometimes he’s locked bristle to bristle and I KNOW that makes him uncomfortable. Poor fellow. In the grand scheme of things being subjected to having to clean vacuum parts isn’t so bad, is it?
I like profound things as much as the next idiot. The subconscious is ovumrated. And for the record, sperm cells are nasty little buggers; always practicing self-flagellation.
… I personally doubt that I’ll be able to keep this up for much longer. I lack follow-
More missives from the mind of Minolta (do they still exist? Can I be sued for that???) I’ll leave this up here until legal gets back to me with their $0.02…
Someone told me I should do this. She is fan of yoga – blame her.
To The Spanner Born 