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Apartment 3-G, 8/20/07
WOO-HOO! NERD FIGHT! NERD FIGHT! NERD FIGHT FOR TOMMIE’S LOOOOOVVVVE!
Last we saw Gary Walker, he was some kind of ancillary member of Gina’s Required-By-Court Order-To Remain-A-Minimum-Of-500-Yards-Off-Broadway theater company … the bookkeeper or something? I forget, and Lord knows I’m not looking it up. He mooned mopily after Tommie as she made out with the pencil-mustached director of the play. His hair, it almost goes without saying at this point, was the same sandy hue as Dr. Whatshisbutt, but apparently he’s dipped into the Miss Clairol Sassy and Brassy in a desperate attempt to win Tommie’s heart.
I know that failing New York theater companies aren’t professional, and that their members almost always have real jobs, but I’m suspicious of Gary’s professional geek credentials. (His personal geek credentials are in the clear, obviously.) “Solution package” just doesn’t ring true to me, and believe me, I have to read more of this crap than the average mind can comfortably encompass. “Solution” should be the noun for whatever horrible mass of code he’s going to foist on the hospital’s hapless IT department, modified by one or more of the following: “enterprise-class,” “HIPAA-compliant,” “open standards-friendly,” “Web services-ready,” or “XML-based.” I can only assume that Gary isn’t a systems engineer at all, but is merely willing to type aimlessly on a laptop he’s brought into the hospital for a chance to hover passive-aggressively in the vicinity of the boring object of his desire. Tommie’s quizzical look in the second panel seems to say, “Wait a minute — I’m going to be fought over by these two? I’m sorry, even I don’t find that remotely believable.”
Luann, 8/20/07
Now, the question of “What aspect of TJ’s outfit is the most jaw-droppingly ludicrous?” is one that we can all have a good time debating. Is it his elevator heels? His extra-high-waisted pants? The stripy sweater vest? The fact that Brad non-ironically calls it “stylin'”? The best part is that there are no wrong answers. Still, I’m holding out hope that what appears to be a sort of weirdly dark set of buttons below the collar is actually a tie, of either the bolo or the skinny ’80s variety. Either way, this ensemble is surely an early Labor Day present to each and every one of us.
By the way, I was in the Gap on Saturday and there was an entire rack of black sweater vests in the menswear section. Could Al Scaduto have more control over fashion choices than any of us realize?
For Better Or For Worse, 8/20/07
OH SNAP LIZ CANDACE JUST CALLED YOUR NEW BOYFRIEND FRIENDSHIP PARTNER GARBAGE! By uttering the phrase “angelic little Francie,” Candace cements her place as one of the few remaining likable characters in the strip.
Liz’s word balloon is already taking up a lot of panel four, so there probably wasn’t room to improve its accuracy by putting “who hit on me while he was still married to her” after “wonderful man” and “whom she was passive-aggressively browbeat into having” after “beautiful daughter.” I’m very excited about Liz’s boast that she can “handle” Thérèse. I sure hope she gets a chance to prove herself in physical combat — not because I get off on seeing the ladies fight with each other, but because Thérèse would almost certainly win any such altercation in short order.
Blondie, 8/20/07
I have to admit that I actually laughed at Blondie today. Dagwood’s eating patterns — frenzied bursts of feeding activity in which massive caloric intake occurs in a short period of time, followed by hours and hours of napping — match up pretty well with those of typical large carnivores, so the nature-documentary vibe of this strip, with a feral, hungry Dagwood roaming the corridors of Dithers Enterprises, works pretty well. The question is, who is the weakest member of this herd, destined to be culled by Dagwood’s razor-sharp teeth?
Marvin, 8/20/07
I’ve never raised an infant, so maybe I just don’t know, but someone who has raised an infant, help me out here: Surely it’s not socially acceptable to come into work covered in vomit, just because that vomit came out of someone too young to feed himself? And you wouldn’t relay this information without shame with a sort of heavy-lidded numbness to whoever might ask? Is this what casual Friday has wrought?
