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I know I am a little late on this, but: today (Wednesday) is a day when Websites everywhere are protesting SOPA and PIPA, two very bad proposed laws that would do bad things to the Internet. By “bad things” I mean “breaking the basic infrastructure of the Internet, and taking away the due process rights of Web site owners, in an attempt to stop piracy, and also those attempts to stop piracy won’t work.” If you want a silly cartoon explanation of the issues, check out today’s The Oatmeal. If you want a more serious explanation, just head on over (today only) to Wikipedia, which has blacked itself out for the day in protest, and also offers you a method to contact your Senators and Representatives (assuming you live in the U.S.). Anyway, do those things!

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Pluggers, 1/18/12

Today I said to my wife the words that any woman longs to hear: “Honey, can you come in here and explain Pluggers to me?” Her take was that pluggers don’t know what an “app” is and assume that it’s derived directly from the word “apply,” and that therefore “applying” whipped topping (yes, obviously “topping,” not elitist whipped cream, what are you, some kind of fancy ooh-la-la gourmet French person) to a pie is an “app.” This makes at least as much sense than my own interpretation, which was “A plugger’s favorite app is eatin’ pie, or maybe just spraying wipped topping straight down their beak-mouths.” Which doesn’t really mean much of anything, but seriously, look at this panel, what the hell.

Gil Thorp, 1/18/12

Boy, Coach Kaz is all dressed up and being nice to everybody, which probably means that a break-up is in the offing. “Welp, good game, kids, but I’m leaving forever to take up my new job as an FBI agent in 1964.”

Luann, 1/18/12

Hey, remember, like, a month ago, when having TJ work for Ann Eiffel seemed like it would be an awesome idea? Well, we changed our mind, so that won’t be happening anymore. Don’t worry, we’ve long established that TJ has no need for a job for his income, so there are absolutely no consequences involved in today’s actions, which is an important element of drama.

B.C., 1/18/12

I’m always vaguely amused that B.C.’s ants are used as the players in various generic domestic melodramas. But they’re still ants! Ants who could be devoured by a predator at any time! I’m not sure if the surviving ant spouse means that the departing ant was appreciated for its nutritive qualities, or that it will at last find unconditional love in the chitinous bosom of some kind of ant-God in ant-heaven, but either way it’s all pretty grim.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/18/12

For a long time Rex has been losing badly to Sam Driver in the competition to see which smug, sexually repressed dick in a Woody Wilson-penned soap strip can have become more financially comfortable due to no real work or merit on his part. But maybe today is the day when the tide begins to turn!

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Dick Tracy, 1/17/12

Hey, everybody, the Dick Tracy gang is on the case, going undercover in a hip (?) nightclub to track down an actual gang, of the drug-smuggling variety, who something something son of old friend of Dick yadda yadda guy named Cueball blah blah cocaine hidden in instrument cases. (Hint to the cops: There are two Cueballs, or Cueball has a twin, or something!) Anyhoo, I mainly want to bring your attention to the little explanatory label in the first panel. Normally these kinds of boxes-with-arrows in Dick Tracy are used to identify bits of improbable high-tech crime-fighting gear, but today’s example mostly seems to be all about assuring us that our law enforcement officers aren’t having even the slightest bit of fun on their mission, so please let’s not have Internal Affairs auditing our expenses, please.

Luann, 1/17/12

Oh snap Ann Eiffel just outed TJ! Or maybe she just intended to insult him in a somewhat homophobic and mildly actionable manner? Either way, even though we’re only like two days into it, I think Ann vs. TJ is going to be less fun than I’d hoped, like everything else that ever happened in Luann ever.