CSotD: Squirrel, bird and other brains
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Today's Non Sequitur really touches off my ADD, starting with — well, starting with a sudden association too Andy Rooneyish to bother with, but then going to something more relevant, the last place I had a major birdfeeding thing going on.
The large kitchen window over the sink looked out over the back yard, where there was a large tree from which I hung tube feeders full of sunflower seeds.
Figuring out how to foil the squirrels was as entertaining as watching the birds, but I finally found it: I had a reel of speaker cord, which I would fling up into the tree so it went over a branch perhaps 15 feet or more up there, and came down. Then I'd tie the loose end to a key ring, pull the other end through and raise it up like a flag until it was cinched to the branch.
Speaker wire is more durable than fishing line, but still narrow enough that the squirrels can't rappel down it, but the tube then had to be high enough that the squirrels couldn't leap to it from the ground, low enough that I could still fill it without a ladder, and far enough from low-hanging branches that they couldn't leap to it from there.
You can do a lot of dishes in six years, and this system didn't evolve overnight.
One day I came home and the neighbor said there had been a fisher in the tree. This gave me great hope that I would have an organic solution to the squirrel issue, but he moved on and they stuck around. Ah well.
Squirrels are, indeed, quite inventive. Birds, on the other hand, truly are bird brains. I had to rescue this silly thing two days in a row before he figured out that climbing into the feeder was a whole lot easier than climbing out again.
Admittedly, the squirrels were in the city and this happened at a different place, far out in the country where the birds are even dumber.
Though I'll give them this
No bird, as far as I know, has ever been dumb enough to run for president. Adam Huber isn't the first person to point out the Catch-22 aspect of the American presidency, but he's the first to come up with a solution, which I kind of like.
The Secret Service's job, then, would not be to protect the president, but to keep him from running away.
Of course, the biggest barrier for a bird running for president is being 35 years old, but the ones that do live long enough to qualify for the office are also probably smart enough to hold it.
Speaking of flying vs non-flying things
Not exactly a cartoon, but Medium Large is not always a cartoon and so there.
Like Ces, I spotted these cereals at the store yesterday, but hadn't thought about R-rated versions. On the other hand, I used to shop at a store which had an "adult cereals" sign over one section of that aisle.
Very disappointing, though — None of the shapes or flavors you'd expect to find.
Meanwhile, the movie itself seems to be off to a bit of a rough start. Not particularly surprising that the people who camped out to be first were more pleased with it than the people who were seeing it as part of their job, and I would expect that gap to narrow once the less fervid moviegoers get a look.
My own 13-year-old critic liked it a lot, but the kids volunteer for specific movies, so she's more like the fans than the people who are required to go to everything. Next up for my gang is "The Jungle Book," and I'm kind of hoping someone will ask for the assignment who has read Kipling and not just seen Disney's previous assault on the text.
My prediction is that people who think Mowgli and Baloo are supposed to dance around singing are going to be quite surprised at a dark take much more in keeping with Kipling's vision.
My other prediction is that the home version of Batman v Superman will restore whatever footage had to come out to knock it back to PG-13.
And take a closer look at Ces's picture: Directly under the Superman cereal is a box of Reese's Pieces cereal. Better movie, and the critic/viewer spread here is, I suspect, due to the gathering of opinions over the years from people who feel it isn't hip to like an insanely popular movie.
Okay, fine. But somebody's buying the cereal, folks, because the candy itself wouldn't have lasted this long if those knuckleheads at M&M had been a little more insightful.
Also on the topic of genial cartoon bears
I've only recently been turned on to The Hotel Fred, which seems incredibly eclectic so far. Today's merits mention if for no other reason than that it disproves my theory that Jimmy Johnson is the only cartoonist who actually understands scansion.
Note that the limerick is intended to celebrate wit, not to enshrine Deep Thoughts, and not only should one not expect a limerick to be profound, but you should be disappointed if it were to stoop to such things.
After all, the developer of the form, Edward Lear, is noted more for his silliness than for formal versification, and the point of a limerick is to provide a giggle within its strict and unswerving structure.
This requires a level of wit that, in turn, requires a level of intelligence such that two of its more celebrated practitioners were Isaac Asimov and Oliver St. John Gogarty, the latter of whose penchant for clever, blasphemous vulgarity made him the model for Buck Mulligan in "Ulysses," by a former roommate of whom he wrote:
There is a young fellow named Joyce,
Who possesseth a sweet tenor voice.
He goes down to the kips
With a psalm on his lips
And biddeth the harlots rejoice
Go thou and do likewise.
Now here's your comparison of intelligence with wit:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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