CSotD: Very, very short takes (Honest!)
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Lot of stuff to pass on that doesn't require a lot of elaboration.
For instance, Arlo has always tapped my inner Old Guy and today is no exception, though I don't spend much time on my tablet and have only one or two apps I use. And, yes, they can be a real pain unless you have fingers smaller than a pencil tip and don't mind having to tap a dozen times to get any response. But maybe that's just me.
What I find particularly annoying is that now that we've all updated our web pages to allow for phones and tablets and suchlike, they leap about on the page so that, if you try to read an article, the paragraph you were reading suddenly flies up the page or drops down the page.
Or maybe that's my fault, too.
For trying to use a "real computer" in an unreal world.
Don't fret, Arlo. If the improvements of Win 10 are any indication of intent, they'll stop making real computers soon anyway.
(Bizarro)
And if he can't remember, ask him the name of his first pet.
Or the city where he was born, but I don't use that one. I was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. I now live in Lebanon, New Hampshire. It just doesn't seem like a very secure secret question.
I'm sure people in Springfield will understand.
Two arcs to watch:
(Retail)
Both of these story arcs have been going for a couple of days, so you'll want to back them up to catch up. Marla is hiring holiday help, or trying to, while the initial panel explains what Tina's dealing with.
Are these actually things?
Apparently, Pepe the Frog has been taken over by white supremacists, which I only know because other people are very upset that Pepe the Frog has become a symbol of white supremacy.
Which is to say that, like some other really toxic stuff, it only shows up on my news feed because of people passing it on and saying "Isn't this terrible?"
Yes, it is. But the question it raises is this: Have I over-curated my sources so that I'm not seeing a threat emerge? Or are people who disagree with this crap providing it with more exposure than the people who like it?
I'm kind of a non-combatant, since I didn't know who the hell Pepe the Frog was before he was co-opted, but Michael Cavna has a good rundown on the whole thing.
I'm trying to figure out if this is a phony scandal or I'm just old and out of touch.
Either one works.
Meanwhile, Tank McNamara takes on the new rules about unsportsmanlike conduct in the NFL, which include both taunting and celebratory gestures that suggest violence.
A throat-slash gesture has long drawn a flag, but now you can't pretend to shoot an arrow, either, which is pretty funny in a league that defends your right to call your team "The Redskins."
Anyway, the question it raises for me is not about that but about cheerleaders, because given the number of replays and analytical views available, the TV networks no longer bother showing the cheerleaders as filler between plays and, if you are there in person, you can hardly even see them way down there on the sidelines.
In college, the cheerleaders are placed in front of the student section, which makes sense. But in an NFL stadium, there's no particular place for them to cavort nor any reason for them to do so.
And, contrary to the concerns of the Dad in today's strip, they aren't anywhere near as sexy-for-the-times as the Dallas cheerleaders were when he was a lad, even if you could see them.
Anyway, with the price of tickets and parking and concessions, if I go to an NFL game, I don't need nearly-invisible, certainly-inaudible distant cheerleaders to tell me to cheer. I'm gonna yell and anybody I brought with me had damn well better yell, too.
So, my Old Fart Question: Are cheerleaders really a thing anymore? Do they have any function?
As near as I can tell, they're mostly for selling calendars to sports fans who don't have girls of their own to look at.
In the words of America's greatest analyst: "Sad."
Climate Note:
I don't know where Rex Morgan takes place, but it must be about halfway down the nation, North to South. Further south, this wouldn't be an issue.
But up north, where I grew up, snow on Halloween was so likely that we assumed a costume had to be big enough to fit over a snow suit.
Over.
Not under.
And Fowl Language provides me with my Old Fart credentials for the season because, when I was a kid, they didn't have "fun sized" candy bars.
I don't even have fun-sized candy bars to pass out this year. Now they're called "minis" and they're smaller than those little Hershey Miniatures that we used to get, which I liked.
Anyway, I bought a bag of 205 mini candy bars and I'll likely end up eating a bunch of them, since my apartment is at the back of the driveway and people assume it's just the landlord's back door.
This is the one day of the year that works to my disadvantage. I don't have four visits a year from solicitors, and even the UPS guy tends to deliver my packages to the landlord's doorstep, not mine.
But I like trick-or-treaters and, for instance, last year, one trick-or-treater stopped at the landlord's front door and then walked right on past mine, despite the fact that I was actually visible on the step with my bowl of candy.
This would not have been so bad had it not been caught by NBC Nightly News, thus providing a rich vein of humor for my adult children who pronounced me "Berned."
And, finally
Benjamin Schwartz, from the New Yorker. Clearly a generational thing, because I disliked that movie, to which I brought my delighted children.
But I love the cartoon.
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