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Blondie, 6/5/24

The number one thing that makes me feel like an old person is my stiff right knee and hip, but number two, coming pretty close behind, is the fact that so many things, ranging from thoughtful essays to instruction manuals, that 10 years ago would’ve been written out as text now only exist in the form of YouTube videos. I don’t want to watch a video! I read very quickly and find videos that mostly consist of someone just talking to be annoying! Often I am in public and do not want to annoy everyone around me! Sometimes they’re good for real how-to instructional stuff but more often than not a written essay with some pictures would be just as good if not better and also would be easier to search through quickly to find the relevant bits. Anyway, my point is that I read today’s Blondie and immediately thought, “Finally, Blondie accurately depicts what young people are like for once — they all think you should learn everything from YouTube and it fucking sucks,” but then I instantly recoiled in horror. Is this what I’ve become? Someone who cheers when Blondie sticks it to the kids these days? My feeling of deep shame almost, but not quite, wiped all thoughts of how much I hate most internet video from my mind.

Intelligent Life, 6/5/24

I guess I haven’t talked about what Intelligent Life’s whole deal is in the few times I’ve posted it here, so: it’s whole deal is that it’s about a number of unpleasant people who are obsessed with “nerd” franchises (i.e., most of modern film and TV entertainment) in the most boring way possible. Anyway, today’s strip pissed me off because, yes, Meta’s use of user content for its dumb AI offerings is bad, and Emperor Palpatine is bad, but Emperor Palpatine never did anything like the real stuff Meta is doing that they’re talking about here. I saw those movies. He mostly did evil space wizard stuff and evil space politics stuff. He barely ever even used computers! Can we please be serious here.

Family Circus, 6/5/24

Without telling his wife, Big Daddy Keane has been taking Billy to one of those barbershops that hasn’t “gone woke” and starting obeying Big Government’s oppressive laws against trepanation, in an attempt reduce the internal pressure responsible for his eldest son’s grotesquely shaped head. The treatments are unpleasant, but they’re starting to show results!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/24/24

OK, fine, I admit it, I’m a hypocrite: after many years of complaining that Rex Morgan, M.D., doesn’t do high-stakes medical drama, all of the sudden it’s been doing high-stakes medical drama and I haven’t been talking about it. Because it’s drama about an adorable dog, and that’s too high stakes! I don’t want a fictional dog to suffer! I want to see more stuff like the strip’s off-model Jughead knockoff developing a sudden inability to eat sandwiches! Anyway, the dog is going to be fine, according to this competent medical professional. There’s plenty to criticize about the current state of the medical profession, and now I’m going to add “I can’t bring a box of whatever I just ate too much of to the doctor and say ‘my tummy hurts’ and get a diagnosis” to the list.

Intelligent Life, 4/24/24

Speaking of your tummy hurting … you guys ever heard of DoorDash? DoorDash … for when you don’t want to cook food, and would rather just order it instead. DoorDash! [punchline TK]

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Gil Thorp, 12/15/23

Oh, wow, I think this is the first year we’re ever seeing ice hockey take its rightful place in the pantheon of Mudlark sports! And it’s truly a line up of large, beefy boys signing up to participate. You know, I grew up in Buffalo, a huge hockey town, but the school district didn’t run a varsity hockey league because of the liability issues, so instead we had a “club league” that was technically not affiliated with or run by the district, but each team only had students from one school and was coached by one of the school’s gym teachers and had pep rallies before big games in our auditorium. The uniforms were a different color from the other teams, which I guess provided enough plausible deniability? Anyway, the Valley Conference isn’t even doing that sort of charade, though this is the same state where for-profit prisons can legally pit juvenile delinquents against each other on the gridiron, so I guess aggressive tort reform long ago replaced the civil court system with “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

Hi and Lois, 12/15/23

Hey, Hi and Lois, it’s almost the weekend! Lighten up a little, you do not need to go this hard with the Mr. Wavering strips.

Intelligent Life, 12/15/23

Oh no

Oh no

Who’s gonna tell her