Today’s strip is fairly autobiographical. It actually went up a little late because I was drugged out on pain pills from a root canal. It’s amazing what pain can do to a good-hearted person. The type of mean it can bring out. And then there are people like me who don’t need an excuse to be mean. I suppose such pain reaffirms out meanness was right to begin with.
There’s a sadness to scrolling too far down on a story you’re reading and discovering the comments section. For most major news sites this area is a festering cesspool of racist, homophobic, and misogynistic diatribes. Most people don’t speak this way in everyday life, so is it the anonymity of the Internet that opens up this hidden side to the public? I guess, but doesn’t anyone have anything better to do?
This amused me that within days two people called press conferences to announce that they wouldn’t be doing something. How bizarre is that? That’s politics, and honestly is probably a bad sign when the populace is begging people to enter the race and they will not.
Yesterday was a sad day with the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. When I heard the news it just made me incredibly sad. I wasn’t sure why at first. Certainly I have no real connection to Jobs. While I use some Apple products, I hardly consider myself a diehard fan. Nor would I be as sad to hear of the passing of many other corporate giants (not that I would be happy, either).
No, I think Jobs touched something deep in the cultural psyche. He was an inventor (even if often over-credited with Apple innovations). He was a guru of technology. He was an icon. He’s what so many of us aspire to be, and all of us admire. The reason I was sad about his passing when I wouldn’t be with others’ is because he was unique. Something deep down told me that we wouldn’t see another Steve Jobs ever, or another of his kind for a long while.
It seems like every couple of months there’s an overhaul to a major Facebook feature and people freak out in response. I’m not entirely sure why people pretend to care about how they receive their status updates, when in truth Facebook is just there to feed into their narcissistic worldview. I suppose anything that inhibits that is frustrating. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to update my Facebook with some clever pictures of cats.
If people really were reincarnated, I wonder what would happen when they met their nemesis from a prior life? Hollywood uses ideas like this for romantic comedies, but I’d rather see a thriller. Can you imagine John Wilkes Booth the dog catcher chasing down mailman Abraham Lincoln in a battlefield of suburban sprawl? Eh, maybe not.
One-upmanship is always a bit humorous to watch. The problem is that the people participating never seem to realize it’s one of those childhood games that can go on forever.
For example, if you were to tell me you can eat six hamburgers, I could say seven. If you were to say eight, I could punch you in the throat. If you happened to be eating one of those burgers, you’d probably die. But since we’re both lying, the game simply continues with you kicking me in the spleen. No one wins.
There’s something funny about people being nostalgic for business that shut down. Sure, sometimes places shut down because they’re managed poorly. More often, however, I’d wager they shut down because no one ever goes there. I’ve seen this happen a few times, and when pushed on the matter the nostalgic always admit they rarely, if ever, went there.
You can’t please everyone, but meetings at universities often come down to this. I suppose this isn’t much of an issue if your school attracts a particular type of student, and only that type of student. Larger state schools do a constant dance trying not to step on toes. It’s like a ballet, but fun to watch.
I’m always amused at a meeting how many ideas sound suspiciously like plot lines from the past week in television. The people who write TV tend to be quite clever, so this isn’t always a bad thing. However, there are some shows you shouldn’t look to for inspiration. Law & Order and Breaking Bad are two such examples.
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