Lactose Intolerant

Monkey, after reading your last post, I thought you should see this comic strip.

You're last post confused me quite a bit, and seemed to contain at best a 1:5 ratio of information to words. In fact, I think you might be keeping poor company, after all. For your story held for me a rambling incoherence not dissimilar from this Babyshambles song:





In any case, I finally have been able to take a breather from Cooties Camp. Not only have I missed blogging, but I had to digest your last two posts all at once. Of course, this is only a momentary respite, as we have quite big weekend plans for the boys. Tomorrow we're heading up to the 'burbs to take them to the Kohl Children's Museum, where they will be challenged to not touch anything despite whatever encouragements they might receive from museum staff.

Then, the real test will come on Sunday, when we take them to the Shedd Aquarium,where, not only will they have to avoid touching starfish, but we will provide them with repeated tales that dissuade them from any draw the sea or its various creatures may have upon their impressionable young minds.



To wrap up our camp, we have planned out an evening full of surprises for our adepts of "the Cootie-free life"

I'll let you know how things go once it's all wrapped up.

Meanwhile, the faculty lounge has provided some interesting conversations. I just learned that one of my fellow faculty mentors was holding a workshop on "Unlearning Grey's Anatomy" At the end of a busy day, when we all gathered round to bang the drum a little bit, I asked one of his pupils what he learned in that workshop. All he could do was keep repeating "Isaiah Washington was right." My colleague later explained to me, "These boys' mothers watch a lot of Grey's. Sometimes I worry, that if they don't keep repeating it, these kids may start to grow breasts."

I'm like, "Dude! Haven't you heard of the SciFi Network?"

Curtis' take on Reverend Wright controversy

Ray Billingsley offers this savvy take on Jeremiah Wright:

Basically, you hear what you want to hear, until you don't. And when you don't, you call the pastor "Crackers."

Meanwhile, Dagwood doesn't wait even one whole day before breaking Passover.


And, I'd like to ask all my readers who work in the national security milieu to verify whether Defense Department lunches are always like this:



P.S. ASM, dude, I'm working you out of a job here. You're little Menage-a-Lederhosen better be worth it...

Back from Switzerland

As you may be able to tell from the post before last, I have returned from Switzerland with some small success. Most of the negatives had been -- alas -- overexposed. But I was able to salvage a couple of items from my collection.

All, in all, however, it's been kind of a tough day... First, getting over jetlag... Then having to wake up Easter morning without Johnny Hart to remind me of my own personal responsibility in killing Jesus... or my quaint, superseded faith (see below)


It is unfortunate, however, that one brilliant Easter comic strip (2001) should outshine the work of a lifetime, such that it is now somewhat challenging to find the many many many examples of Mr. Hart's theological insights in several years of Easter, Palm Sunday, X-Mas and whenever strips. But such is the price of prolific genius!

Then, of course, there was the pain of seeing Hibbert's Hoya's get bounced from the tournament -- and by the eminently likeable Stephen Curry, too!

But then, like a miracle cure to a Hoya hangover, I was able to watch the entire Pistons-Wizards match-up this evening, and beam with pride and wonderment at how amazingly efficient the DC half-court offense has become. It's a testament to what a brilliant coach Eddie Jordan is!

But -- whew -- that long flight has really done me in... I'll have to try to throw in some more on the Wizards' victory tomorrow.

Sunday Papers: Comics R Gud

Speaking of Sunday Papers: Whatever happened to Joe Jackson? Everybody seems to like that Jack Johnson fellow, now. I guess there are just 2 kinds of people in the world: Canadians and people who hate Canadians. Like, I hate Canadians, except for Bryan Adams, because he's actually Maltese, and the Maltese make good things with honey, similar to Erykah Badu...

But, as everybody knows, my least favorite Canadian (after Celine Dion) must be Lynn Johnston... and I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a certain amount of Schadenfreude in learning that her retirement plans were waylaid by a certain marriage ending dalliance that her Canadian husband had... I mean who could live for so long with a woman who has traded in Schmalz for nearly thirty years!!!!!!!! (Yes, this is a post I've been procrastinating on for, like, four months. So what?) I mean, can you imagine their dinner table conversation:

"Honey, how many gay friends did you say hello to today while cleaning up after your dog while laughing at the moral lessons our young imaginary daughter has learned by playing in a band and teaching eskimos? By the way, did you get a chance to visit your drooling father at the nursing home, while thinking about the irony of mortality and how sometimes the greatest life lessons we learn bloom like dandelions through concrete, rather than like daffodils in pastures?"

Gimme a BREAK!!!!!!

Anyway, today, Lynn obviously tried to get revenge by re-issuing an early strip in which Mr. Dentist character tries to starve an infant Elizabeth. Of course, don't worry: we all know Elizabeth turns out OK other than being brain-damaged like every other For Better or For Worse character...

In other interesting developments, Mooch -- of Mutts fame -- somehow counterintuitively uses some kind of backscartcher to pull down a vase from an armoire, when we all know that cats are capable of jumping onto armoires.

Rose continues to be Rose in "Rose is Rose." However, there is a more mystical bent to today's strip, with one of the younger character surrounded by an ominous necklace of green skulls which is never fully explained.

Opus is HILARIOUS as always. And Blondie prooves more astuste at dissecting office politics than the overrated Dilbert.

Blondie haunted by past indiscretions

We have long known the Blondie and Dagwood series of comic strips as a source of male chauvinist stereotyping of women and profligate sandwich-making, but the true assault on America's morals perpetrated by second wave artists Marshall and Young has never bared its canines (so to speak) with greater menace than in yesterday's comics section.

What's next, Dagwood pulling a Portnoy with the pickle loaf? Bleech... disgusting!