Okay, so fine.  David does look incredibly mean in this strip and Justin looks like the cartoon from a Sunday School pamphlet.  And yes, this is sort of a pity us with a laugh kind of joke.  It’s the holidays—lay off!

This strip marks the end of the fourth season of Professor Hobo and the beginning of the new fifth season, which will likely bring with it some changes.  So yeah, get real excited about that.  Not too excited, though.  That only ever leads to disappointment.

It’s always a little awkward to give a late present, but what do you do when the present’s been ruined?  Might I humbly suggest you blame night elves and be done with it?  Either the gift recipient will believe you, or they’ll assume you’re insane.  Regardless, since you’re giving them a gift they’ll be too polite to call you on it.

Poor Amanda, why does she have to be present for this?

I often hear preachers talk of the magnitude of Joseph’s faith.  I often wonder about the smallness of his humanity.  What must it be like to be given something so great, and in the process denied something so small, yet seemingly important?  Something most could never quite get over.  I wonder what kind of man Joseph must have been to do so.  And that, inspires me.

Merry Christmas, folks.

Travelling around the holidays is complete submission of all human decency to airlines and hotels.  Because of that, there’s certainly an odd ring of truth to the story of Joseph and Mary.  This is the discussion as it likely occurred, but was later edited out.

The desk clerk has a mustache like the villain from a silent film.  I would not be surprised to see him tying guests to train tracks and running away laughing in an exaggerated manner.

Mr. Mittens filled in for us this week.  He does this of occasion when we’re on vacation, or else just bored doing the strip.  Some might argue the strip improves in quality the weeks he does it, and to that we’d say, “Mom, get off the Internet!”

This is the beginning of a three strip storyline that will culminate in the most important event in the history of man—us finding out what we got for Christmas!  Oh yeah, something else important is likely to happen, but don’t look at us.

It should be common knowledge by now that the sole purpose for most people of social networking is to keep up with the Jonses.  It’s like the ultimate form of reality television, you get to spy in on every detail of a person’s life and compare how much worse it is than yours.  This is especially true for old boyfriends and girlfriends.

Rick’s dog is slowly becoming a recurring character, but yet appears to lack the power of speech that Mr. Mittens possesses.  Odd.

Status updates are the bane of common decency.  The constant pressure to update one’s status means that people inevitably turn to easy, convenient, and thoughtless manners in which to do so.  Not that music lyrics are the worst thing someone could post, but then again, neither are they particularly adding to anyone’s thoughts beyond what Amanda is expressing here.

Jimmy has a real problem with talking while chewing.  That’s a dead end street, man.

Welcome to the future, where you can read up on what anyone you have ever known is having for lunch!  Social networking may be fun and even useful at times, but it’s also amazingly pointless most of the time.  Of course, this has led to every university and corporation trying to get in on the fun.

A site involving badger AI that randomly attacked your profile could be fun, indeed.  It would sort of be like those zombie and vampire games people play on Facebook, but only less annoying.

The concept for this strip doesn’t stray too far from reality.  Many colleges and universities are cancelling traditional literature courses in favor of these types of “pop culture” courses  The argument is to give students what they want, but if that were the case wouldn’t we give them a free degree with a box of doughnuts?  Mmm, doughnuts.

There’s an animosity between President Czar and the faculty that borders on the absurd.  How long has he had this comeback planned?  Surely he has been waiting for someone to complain just for the chance to deliver it.  That sounds about right for most management types.

This is a continuation of our Fox executive storyline.  It adds valuable back story to the second panel, though it works without it all the same.  While we certainly have nothing against universities offering classes students might actually want to take, there comes a point.  Children love dentists who treat them with candy and ice cream.

This marks only the second main appearance in a strip for our beloved Science Professor, though he has had many cameos.