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Pardon the brief interruption, but: BALTIMORE PEOPLE AND PEOPLE WHO CAN DRIVE TO BALTIMORE! Rifftrax’s Conor Lastowka and I will be co-hosting a LIVE COMEDY EVENT on Sunday, February 16th, at the 14Karat Cabaret in downtown Baltimore, and it seemed like the sort of thing you might want to know about! We will be reading the Internet aloud (not all of it, don’t worry, just the good parts). Featuring an evening of readings and performances:

• SCOTT BECKETT plays Hollywood executive who only listens to movie pitches based on the film’s Wikipedia page
• BARBARA WILGUS and VALARIE PEREZ-SCHERE channel their own robot avatars.
• RAHNE ALEXANDER reveals top-secret emails sent to elite Hollywood insiders by a very special visionary.
• CONOR LASTOWKA shares terrible wartime tales from within the WikiFur community.
• ISAAC HIRSCH confronts the most harrowing person you can meet on the Internet: himself, age 10!
• LYNDA DEL GENIS tries to provide comfort to the saddest Yelp reviewers.
• APRIL PINK looks at the prospects on OkCupid and is thankful that she’s married.
• JOSH FRUHLINGER plumbs the depths of Craigslist Personals and asks: Who is this for, exactly?

AND MORE ACTS AS WELL, almost certainly! Plus some almost certain shameless promotion for [Citation Needed], which Conor and I wrote! Don’t miss it! It’s President’s Day Weekend, and so this is clearly how Secret Internet President Al Gore would’ve wanted you to celebrate. Here is the Facebook event, if you like those.

Also, in non-Internet-reading-aloud but in still Josh-creative-work news, I wrote an article on Medium about Mormons, my wife’s family, and some land we now all own in Southern Alberta. Not as silly as most of what I put up here but I hope you enjoy!

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Am I going to keep complaining about how cold it is in every comment of the week intro? I will, until it stops being so cold outside. Ugh, you guys, I’m old, I should retire to Florida or something.

ANYWAY, warm your bones with this week’s top comment:

“Here you see the genesis of Alan Parker’s next novel: Paradise Leased, in which Satan sells out to foreign investors.” –Droopy Says

And the runners up! Very funny!

“Say, did we ever meet Lisa’s parents, or was she a total Rescue Wife? Funky Winkerbean turned into Mutts so gradually I never even noticed!” –Uncle Lumpy

“I have a feeling that this sassy little wedding is just going to underscore how dull Tommie’s wedding is going to be. ‘Do you, generic British man, take this red-headed bowl of oatmeal, to have and hold, but largely ignore, for as long as you both shall live?’ ‘I concur.'” –pugfuggly

Snuffy’s gleeful gaze upward is the real poke in God’s eye. ‘Who was it created Satan, O Lord, and created me without a conscience?'” –Robot Quasar

“Standing at 9’7″ and clad in his flowing blue ceremonial robe, the looming presence of Intergalactic Love Marshall Kramdar bore witness to the marriage ceremony of human designated units Elroy and Susan. He will be the first to admit that he does not understand this planet.” –Chareth Cutestory

“I, Elroy Arens, take you, the incorruptible corpse of a Catholic saint, as my wedded wife.” –sporknpork

“Mark’s not giving that pelican a fish. That’s clearly a soggy condom full of cocaine. Is Mark a drug smuggler? My god … autistic nature doofus was the perfect cover. He wasn’t protecting the wildlife, he was protecting … his turf.” –bunivasal

“Jessica Canupp, eh? Sorry, Ms. Canupp. I didn’t immediately realize you were female. I apologize for calling you ‘buddy’ earlier as if you were a male intimate. No disrespect intended. I’ll avert my eyes now if you want to do any … uh, feminine things. *cough*” –Joe Blevins

“I love how they draw the moon in Heathcliff, surrounded as it is by a cloud of darkness in an otherwise bright sky. Is the Oculus of Supreme Night the most important character in Heathcliff?” –Mabel

“Why … why is the flounder looking at me? I’ve scrolled down to the comments and yet his gaze still pierces my soul, silently judging. Silently waiting.” –Chyron HR

“Given the pointing ‘THIN ICE’ sign in panel one (‘thin ice, right this way!’), I’m thinking today’s Momma is less about Francis murdering his friend and more about the locals’ addiction to insane risk. Or, sure, murder.” –Compson

“Say what you will about the Amazing Spider-Man, but at least he’s got a sense of fair play. Utilizing superhuman danger-sense and agility is just cheap unless you loudly announce your slick moves in real time.” –Doctor Handsome

“I have no idea what Jeffy might have seen in that telescope that would make him hate clouds — clouds, for chrissake! But that’s the point, isn’t it? This trip is transitioning from The Family Circus to Jeffy! and getting more and more indecipherable, in a race against Heathcliff for the lucrative stoner comic strip audience. Anyway, ‘I sure wish God had never invented clouds’ is the new all-purpose phrase — kind of like ‘Christ, what an asshole!’ But less aggressive, for the stoner audience. Try it anywhere, in any strip.” –Dr. Mabuse

“Funky’s Credo: ‘What doesn’t kill me is a waste of my time.'” –Spunde

“I don’t think Crock is actually going for innuendo here. I think that they both believe that women, in general, have detailed databases, or at least Excel spreadsheets, about their sexual partners, past, present, and anticipated. But Billie Jean isn’t that kind of girl. She just notches her bedpost and moves on.’ –Lily Sincere

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And, just as an advertising program note, I’ve started using BuySellAds as a platform for you to buy ads directly on my site on a CPM basis. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.

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Hello everyone! Today’s top comment is here … for you to enjoy.

“Say what you want about New York City, at least every time your physical safety and even your life is pointlessly threatened, there’s a nearby deli to provide a nice pastrami on rye. In the wasteland of Santa Royale, your only option for overcoming existential panic is the Bum Boat and it closes ridiculously early.” –Gabacho

And the runners up are very funny as well!

“For those of you who haven’t seen the Mary Worth comic before, here’s some helpful annotations. Yes, that is a quote from Anais Nin, and no, no one knows why. Yes, that looks like the bones of a housecat on a dining room table, but it really is supposed to be a dinosaur in a museum and really really cool. Yes, Mary says stuff like ‘in previous times’ instead of ‘before.’ Again, there are theories, but no one knows why. And the five foot tall sea anemone in the last panel is a bedspread … or a scarf … or something, but it’s not a tree or a building. Hope this helps.” –Mustang

“Forget ‘Face-Time.’ I want to know about the technology which allows J. Jameson’s disembodied head to appear, uninvited, in people’s living rooms and spy on them as they watch their gold-plated, wall-mounted TVs. The family members here demonstrate the proper mixture of horror and amusement as Hitler Gym Coach Man hovers over them, Wizard of Oz style.” –Joe Blevins

“Dagwood’s posture in panel two seems like it would be an ergonomic nightmare and a chiropractor’s new set of golf clubs, but it’s important to not assign our normal human posture recommendations to bizarre bipeds with knees that jut in front of the rest of the body and are roughly 15 inches above the ground.” –Chareth Cutestory

“The Slylock-verse version of the Riddle of the Sphinx: what walks on four legs immediately following the breakout, on two legs after passing the tree, and on three legs as it hides in Slylock’s closet, waiting for the moment of vengeance?” –Nekrotzar

“So you think, ‘In a world where escaped criminals leave big black footprints wherever they go, who needs detective rodents?’ Well, look at the police dog, too out of shape to get over a short section of wall, too stupid to go around it.” –Dr. Mabuse

“Welcome to Rex Morgan, proud to be the only comic that takes legal ethics less seriously than Judge Parker!” –Master Softheart

“I see that the Keanes’ school has done the kind thing and put all the ugly, pug-faced kids in a separate class, for their own safety and self-esteem.” –pugfuggly

“The Mary Paradox, by which a biddy with a strong sense of what’s right and wrong for others makes her own personal life decisions like a cat reacting to momentary stimuli rather than based on abstract concepts such as loyalty and prior commitment. It is weirdly ‘so Mary’ to stay in New York until one random incident with a cab causes her to flee, while both of the men involved still have no idea the other exists. Look for her to bill this process as noble in hindsight next week.” –anty a

Apartment 3-G: “Wow Tommie, are you sure that woman is really your mother? No, seriously. I grew up thinking Roberta was my mother, Lu Ann recently learnt her real mom is Aunt Ruby. I’m just saying, have you ever asked to see your birth certificate?” –Horace Broon

“If you want a picture of Mark Trail’s future, imagine a flapjack being devoured by a human face—forever.” –Voshkod

“My kids had a DVD of the Heathcliff cartoon that came free with a box of cereal. Heathcliff talked, competed with a cat gang, and had a cat girlfriend with human breasts.” –Rusty

“I don’t get why Rusty keeps getting kidnapped. Isn’t the kidnapped person suppose to have some value?” –Sequitur

“Mary Worth ain’t no brassy New York gal. She couldn’t possibly handle the breakneck pacing of, say, Apartment 3-G.” –Doctor Handsome

“Ken Kensington has the bold confidence of a man who has already cloned his potential paramour.” –Revenge4Aldo

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