CSotD: Tuesday Short Takes
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I don't know why the funny comes in bunches, but it seems to be feast or famine around here and, while yesterday was a holiday, today is a feast day.
So we'll start with Agnes to which I have absolutely nothing to add. One ought not to gild the lily.
Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
By contrast, I could go off on a true rant over today's Loose Parts.
Back in the days before on-line dating sites, I answered a classified in the Montreal Gazette because it said she didn't mind a little baggage but no steamer trunks. We went out a couple of times and it didn't catch fire but she remains one of the most entertaining and interesting people I've dated.
Funny, attractive, creative, smart — no wonder we didn't click.
My experiences with Match.com were not as positive and mostly left me grateful for the ridiculous stories that resulted, and I'm sure that's a factor that works for both genders. I'm inclined to view "BaggageClaim.com" as truth in advertising.
I did correspond back and forth with a woman who was separated but not yet divorced and I finally suggested that she wasn't clear on what was happening in her life and might want to pause and rethink.
Two or three years later, I was doing a teacher workshop in another city and a nice looking woman approached me, introduced herself and thanked me: She'd taken my advice and she and her husband had reconciled.
I wish the others had such a nice ending but — phew — not the case.
People do meet on-line and hatch wonderful relationships, but not on dating sites. They just meet the way nice, non-desperate people meet in real life, serendipitously and through shared interests.
Though I get a kick out of the low-level clerical workers on Match.com whose favorite places are Greek islands. See "Agnes," above.
And this 45-minute documentary on Ashley Madison is worth the time because it's so laughably bizarre.
Not the idea that someone hacked a database of people looking to have extra-marital affairs — that's just karma — but the fact that the overwhelming majority of willing, lovely female clients turned out to be bots programmed to get foolish men to pay money to talk to them. Essentially, a salacious Eliza.
Anyway, I met my wife because we lived in the same apartment house and I met my two long-term post-divorce relationships at work, by happenstance.
Meanwhile, those Ashley-Madison bots seem to have migrated to Facebook.
Juxtaposition of the Apocalypse
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(The Hawaiian fiasco reminds me of the weekly tests at the radio station when I had my talk show.
I'm not adept at remembering which switch goes up and which goes down and while management didn't mind me screwing up volume settings or leaving hot mikes enabled, my inability to successfully complete a test of the Emergency Broadcast System inspired the hiring of an engineer for the show.
So I'm sympathetic to the poor slob who hit the wrong button.
And wotthehell anyway. When I was doing that sort of thing, it was in a studio through the window of which I could see Cheyenne Mountain. If there were a nuclear attack, we were gonna be jelly and whether or not we knew it 20 minutes before it happened was largely immaterial.
No matter how thick the door or how much dirt we piled on top of it.
Though I'd note that Dave Granlund is making a historical reference, given that radar did pick up the Japanese planes prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and misidentified them, failing to sound the alarm.
The lesson that day being that, if you're gonna screw it up, a false alarm is better than none at all.
It's the most wonderful time of the year
Tank McNamara begins the annual search for "Sports Jerk of the Year," with an acknowledgment that it's less a crowded field this year than a field greatly overshadowed regardless of how many potential nominees there are.
I mean, the word "spurs" makes a lot of people think of a jerk, but it doesn't necessarily makes them think of San Antonio.
Now I don't have to write this
I've mentioned the partnership formed at Rhymes with Orange between strip creator Hilary Price and former Tina's Groove cartoonist Rina Piccolo, but I never got back to deliver any details.
Never mind: This Smashpages interview more than covers things, at greater length than I'd have had space for.
It's a good read, and, if it leaves you with any questions, Rina's currently doing an Ask Me Anything session over here.
Other Juxtaposition of the Day
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I told you it was a day full of laffs, though these fall under the Dark Humor category. At this stage, I'll take whatever laffs I can get.
We've talked many times of how the Internet has let bigots and other under-the-rock types find each other, but having a leader who is not only a conspiracy buff but who is not firmly anchored to even his own statements has really brought the Cliff Claven know-it-alls to the forefront.
Never mind "mansplaining." Let's talk about "trollsplaining."
The difference being that a mansplainer carefully, condescendingly explains in great detail something you already knew, while a trollsplainer uses the same patient, dutifully rational manner to explain in detail something that you would have to be both utterly uninformed and completely out of your mind to believe.
I prefer the ones who froth at the mouth and flail on the floor.
Meanwhile, don't worry: These days, a sense of impending doom is the rational response.
So consider the alternatives
I don't know where Piranha Club is going with this, but, given the current state of the world, they sure sparked a welcome flashback:
Here's a bit of an update on Shelton.
For our readers who prefer cartoons in audio format:
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