In Which The Neighbors Taunt Me

Yes, I believe strongly in minding my own business and letting people deal with their own stuff unless they say they want me coming in messing things up. But it’s sorely tempted since I noticed someone’s taped an 8½-by-11 page with close, tight writing on the neighbor’s front door. I mean, yeah, probably it doesn’t indicate anything ore than that talks have completely broken down over the issue of who is supposed to take the recycling bin to the curb on which days, and who is supposed to bring it back the next day after the truck has collected it, Ron, after. But what if it’s something really exciting, like there’s a new policy about when new orange juice will be made from concentrate or a memorandum regarding how many articles of clothing may be tossed into the laundry chute at once without jamming it? How am I supposed to live as though that’s none of my business either?

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A Necessary Correction About City Hall

OK, so the news clarified matters some. It’s not technically a dragon that’s caught in that fifth-floor corridor. It’s instead some cuddly, well-meaning dragon-like creature who embodies the spirit of civic-mindedness or something like that. I’m having trouble following it exactly. Apparently it comes from this obscure series of children’s books from the early 60s that are all about kids who accidentally make things worse but then find out how they can make things better. It sounds a little twee, honestly, but I can’t argue with the sentiments and apparently its nose is this little valentine-heart shape, and I’m a sucker for cute soft 60s characters with that feature. Still looks like some kind of dragon is all.

Meanwhile On TV

Turner Classic Movies has sometimes been showing cartoons before the Tarzan movies on Saturday mornings. Whoever writes the cable guide summaries described one, airing before Tarzan Putters Around In Manhattan For Some Reason, like this:

Wild Elephinks

In this early-1930s precursor to the cult tv series Lost, Popeye and Olive Oyl find themselves shipwrecked on a… New.

So, Wild Elephinks is not a good cartoon. It’s from early on, before the Fleischers realized that Popeye had a personality. It’s also one of the surprisingly many cartoons that start with Popeye shipwrecked, one of those little recurring things that make you wonder exactly how good a sailor he is. He and Olive Oyl wash up on an island with a bunch of animals on it, all of which Popeye beats up, because what’s more attractive in your hero than punching a mink to death?

I appreciate whoever wrote this caption having a bit of fun given how much nothingness the cartoon’s real premise had. But why do they have to cut off all the TV show summaries that early? Has anyone told the summary writers that they have, like, 130 characters to work with? If they haven’t, why haven’t they? Don’t these summarizers ever go home, check on their work, and realize that everything after the first twenty words was cut off? Does that make them angry? Does that make them sail to a remote island and punch every animal? These are all questions I feel I cannot answer.

In The 24-Hour Weather Forecast

So if I’m reading the weather map right they’re expecting rain all over the lower peninsula today. I mean of Michigan. I can’t account for all the lower peninsulas out there.

But it’s going to be heaviest in the southern half of the state, where the rainfall totals should be at least a half-inch. Although if you get into the area called mid-Michigan, roughly the forty miles north and south of Lansing, it’s higher than that. Like maybe an inch or so. If you get even more mid-Michigan they’re projecting higher rain, like maybe two inches. And in this even narrower ribbon they’re warning it might be three inches and from where that is …

Well, if I’m reading this right my block is projected to get about 22 inches of rain over the next day and a half. But I’m lucky not to be on the south half of the block, since they’re going to be really hit, getting somewhere around 21,230 inches of rain. Not sure which house is the center of that. I bet it’s the one that’s got the roof torn off so they could replace the shingles; isn’t that always the way? Ask me about the great Apartment Building Roof-replacement Of ’99 sometime. I should warn you, like most of my stories, it’s a bit weird and vaguely boring although it’s hard to pin down what the boring part actually is.

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And in case I’m completely washed off to sea I just rediscovered this old bit where I read Wikipedia’s article about the Detroit Zoo and somehow ended up worse-informed about the Detroit Zoo than I was before. I liked it; you might, too. I was genuinely surprised by the bit I wrote about Luther Beecher and that’s a great feeling.

My Excuse For Today, Which Involves Calzones, But Indirectly

I’m very sorry, but I’ve been staring hard at The Food Timeline and I’m trying to process the information that stromboli can’t be proven to have existed any earlier than the 1990s. I mean, think of all the things that were invented before strombolis: calzones, well, that’s natural enough. But also, like, eight-track cassette tapes, the Hubble Space Telescope, and fajitas. Wait, fajitas were only invented in the early 70s? Well, so you can see why I’ve just been a mess all day.

More Trouble At City Hall

Some more reports of problems at City Hall. So according to the local news today they’ve found a storage closet on the fourth floor that’s just chock full of German-speaking academic types saying “peculiar”. Nobody knows why there’s this collection. For my tastes, just the great way they pronounce that central syllable is justification enough. But I don’t see why the city needs so many of them. Or really any of them at all. You’d think it was something for the community college.

Also in a waiting room on the sixth floor the audio system is always playing Kid Creole and the Coconuts’s 1985 hit “Endicott”. Like, the song finishes and then it starts right back up. It’s a fun enough song, but this is a bit much, considering the room doesn’t have an audio system. The leading hypothesis is the room is haunted by a fan of New Wave/Disco music but who just isn’t that adventurous, or has maybe been locked out of their iTunes account. Part of renovations would include just signing the ghost up for a new account already, one they have a password manager for.

My Excuse For Today

I’d like to go into more detail about anything today. But I’ve just learned from my spell checker that apparently a single piece of confetti can be correctly called a “confetto”. So now I just have to sit down and stare at that all night until the world starts to make sense again.

In Which My Calendar Disappoints Me

Well, this time the activity puzzle on the back was this flop of an idea:

Rearrange the letters in the phrase to discover the related words or phrase.
payment received

This wouldn’t be nearly so disappointing if it didn’t come so soon after the “grimepints” incident. And a couple days later it gave a Spelling Bee challenge to pick out the right way to spell “necessary”. It’s like if the Kinks followed up Arthur with an album where they cover the songs Hanna-Barbera recorded for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids with. I need better from my papers that tell me what day of the month it is.

This Is Mostly For My Sister And Her Husband

Because how would I possibly send either of them a message except on Twitter, e-mail, texting their phones, or calling them, or maybe mentioning to my father so he could send them a note on Facebook? Anyway, the noon news had a quick report about the new-ish roller coaster at Cedar Point amusement park. (They built it using the bones of an old roller coaster is why the “ish”.) In going to break, the news anchor mentioned that the park opens for the season May 5th. And then, teasing the weather report coming up, said that it looks this could be a great weekend to go to Cedar Point. And I don’t know whether they mean because it’d be fun to spend 48 hours with our faces pressed up against the glass window, making sad noises at a gardener who’s just trying to get some azaleas up and running beside the Midway Carousel.

Also they sent a reporter there for some publicity event. It’s the reporter they mention in their house ads as liking roller coasters, so, good use of your staff there. They had video of him on the new roller coaster, but the only person they actually quoted on-camera saying anything about it was somebody I don’t know who said of the ride, “It’s breathtaking. It takes your breath away,” which I admire for clearing the matter up once and for all.

Special Bonus Content!

So I wanted to use an inappropriate metaphor to describe a gardener putting in a funny-named plant. I wrote it out as “a gardener who’s trying to get some new azaleas debugged”, and then I realized, oh, wait. I stand by my decision to treat “azalea” as a funny enough name for a plant since for all I know it would be an appropriate decorative plant in an amusement park. I’m like 85% sure it’s a plant.

In Which I Must Ponder What Kevin Kubusheskie’s Singing Voice Is Like, Again

The host of 80s/90s Trivia asked, “Which child star of You Can’t Do That On Television would go on to be a major international music star?”

And I said, “How do we know any of them might not yet do it?”

I didn’t get the two points, but they’re hoping to get me in finals for the International Slightly Viral Meme Contest for April, motivational/inspirational-quotes division. It’s a long shot for for such an offhand quip but that’s all right. December 2017’s winner for Mot/Insp was itself a long shot, and it’s all about long shots like that winning the International Slightly Viral Meme Contests.

What The Heck Is Going On With The Grizzwells?

Uhm … so far as I know nothing of note is going on with Bill Schorr’s comic strip The Grizzwells. It seems to be just fine. Haven’t heard anything about it being cancelled or changing syndicates or anything. Haven’t heard anything about it changing artist or writer. Nor about it changing the premise any. It’s just I’ve learned that I get a lot of readers who want to know what’s going on with some comic strip or other. So, yeah, I’m weak. I like the strips where the rabbit turns up. He’s named Warren, which seems like it ought to be inevitable. The porcupine is named Pierpoint, which is kind of inevitable but not so much so as to stand out.

Bill Schorr’s The Grizzwells for the 18th of April, 2018. Conan O’Brien’s birthday, a fact which explains everything, doesn’t it?

But yeah, it’s just carrying on like normal like it’s been since … wait, since 1987? Really? This thing’s been going on since like Star Trek: The Next Generation was new and we were telling ourselves no, this Ferengi episode really was as good as we needed it to believe it was? Huh. Oh, and before The Grizzwells, Bill Schorr did a comic strip about a frog who fools the locals into thinking he’s an enchanted prince. I like that premise but I can also see why it didn’t quite last four years in syndication. Ah well. Also wait, so Bill Schorr rates a page on Wikipedia, and the comic strip Conrad that ran from 1982 to 1986 rates a page on Wikipedia, but The Grizzwells, which has been running since the aliens trans-reversed Steve Dallas’s brain, doesn’t? The heck? You know?

My Extremely Rare Idea For A Video Game People Might Want To Play

Okay, so how about Oregon Trail, only for finding the Northwest Passage? Like, you pick an era of exploration, and what kind of ship and what sorts of crew, and how much you want to invest in stocks to search overland and over ice? And you make decisions about what currents to follow and when to keep poking into a bay and when to give up a path as probably useless? And trying to figure out which is just an estuary and which is a major river and where portages would be useful? Also so that you don’t go in knowing that there’s no finding one you have to go searching the shore of a procedurally generated Canada?

Yes, a good idea, sure. But mostly I say this because I want to get the concept of the “procedurally generated Canada” out there. Isn’t that a great notion? Sure. Just imagine a world where Montreal isn’t an inevitability but must instead come about by a lucky result on a random number generator. What about a Prince Edward Island tucked right in the middle of Baffin Bay? Ooh, there must be the chance there’d be, like, four Albertas, one right after the other, surrounding Labrador like it was ganging up on Saint Pierre and Miquelon? And wouldn’t it be something if the Saint Lawrence River led directly to — let’s say something hilarious here — Edmonton or maybe Churchill? A Toronto that’s balanced on top of Vancouver? And underneath a second Vancouver? Yes, this is a thing we should have. You’re very welcome.

The Most Perfect Sentence I Have Ever Seen In Print This Week

So I was reading Seymour I Schwartz’s The Mismapping of America, which as you inferred from the title is all about the challenges in making an integrated-circuit design and surrounding circuit board that would be lightweight and reliable enough to serve as the Apollo Guidance Computer for the moon landings. In the last full chapter Schwartz discusses the history of mapping the Great Lakes and how we got around to having two Lake Superior islands — Isle Phelipeaux and Isle Pontchartain — which define part of the boundary between the United States and Canada despite neither actually in fact existing. Here “neither” refers to Lake Superior and to the United States, which should be a considerable relief to everyone but the mapmakers. And now consider this following sentence, about the late-1680s exploration reports by Louis, Baron de Lahontan et Hesleche, of the Fox River in what we now think of as Wisconsin.

Lahontan’s text includes an extensive, although improbable, description of domesticated beavers in the area.

And now try to tell me that sentence hasn’t caused you to pause in your day’s worries and allow a gentle, delighted smile to cross your face. You can’t do it, and for good reason. I thank whatever twists and turns of fate led Seymour I Schwartz to the point of writing such a delightful sentence. It’s rare for fourteen words to do so much for the human condition.

As I Read About A Merry Subject

I’m reading a book about the medical profession in the United States Civil War, and how all those people needing medicine changed the way doctors did things. It’s in that weird halfway stage. It isn’t quite a pop-science book, since every 25 words there’s a citation and the corresponding endnote might go on for half a page. But it isn’t quite an academic book, since you can read the prose without feeling your life-force drained and left in a puddle that’s then photographed with reticules and analyzed by component square or portion of a square.

Thing is, it’s from the city library. And someone went through and made little notes in the margins. Not a lot of notes. Like, one or two every chapter. I don’t know how this person had the courage. I feel weird enough writing in my own books that are mine and that I have owned since college and figure to go on owning, even if I’m just correcting a typo that confuses me every time I see it.

Thing about this thing that is, is, the comments seem just aimlessly contrary. The note-writer put in the margin “post-hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy ?” and nothing else for thirty pages in either direction. It’s almost sneering at the argument being made, but the ? doesn’t even commit to the sneer. It’s just encouraging the reader to sneer if she or he chooses to. There’ll be twenty pages go by and the only note is underlining “new elite” in the text. There’s usually something in the conclusion section of any chapter, but it’s a comment like “plausible, if not shown”.

It’s almost a work of art laid upon the text. I can picture this little frowny character, maybe looking like a caricature of Red Skelton’s Mean Widdle Kid from 1948, sticking out his tongue any time the author tries to summarize things. So I don’t know what mid-Michigan reader chose to have this terse, slightly passive-aggressive quarrel with a semi-academic book about medical science in the United States’s Civil War. I have to conclude that it’s somebody with a pencil, though, so I’m on the lookout now.

In Which My Calendar Wants Me To Do The Unthinkable

I continue to use up my 2018 hard-won Peanuts strip-a-day calendar at a rate of a bit under one strip per day (they don’t have Sunday pages). And it still has activities on the back. Last week it suggested this:

Unscramble the following letters to reveal this April word.
grimepints

I shall do no such thing. “Grimepints” is a magnificent word. It’s as perfect a collection of phonemes as I’ve encountered in a long while. It would make the world a worse place to “unscramble” those letters into some word that is lesser in every way to “grimepints”.

Furthermore, I choose to believe that Grimepints is, besides a perfect word, also the name of a City of London meeting-hall built in 1475. There the Guild of Pandy-Whelkers, established during the reign of King Edward II, still conducts all its business, including the biennial Benefit for the Sick Infants of Needy Croft-Coddlers. They pay a rent of 6/8 plus “four fynne & true kernels of nutt-megg, the niewest to bee hadd” per annum. And I am working up a history of the building and the Guild’s charming yet dotty history as my Patreon exclusive for the month. So nag someone you otherwise like into reviewing a subscription to something! But unscramble “grimepints”? I would sooner cancel springtime itself than commit such an offense to the language.

Not To Gloat About What A Skillful Adult I Am

But in the past week I have bought four, that’s right, four new shirts that are all nice and clean and have distinct colors and only the number of holes appropriate to fit over my current number of arms (two), heads (one), and waists (one). I am not entering an opinion into how many holes that is in the shirt because I’ve seen people burned on the whole “how many holes does a straw have” question and I don’t want that kind of trouble for myself. And yes, technically, they are all from the same store from which I also get peanut butter and wet-wipes for cleaning the car’s dashboard. It doesn’t matter. These are still legitimate and correctly formed shirts. And I can retire some of the shirts that have weird things like pairs of puncture holes along the neckline, as if the shirt had been attacked by vampire cargo pants. Also yes, I am looking for some newer, less-worn-out cargo pants. I have a great number of goods that need transport to and from remote climes and I don’t know a better place to put my camera when I’m on a roller coaster than in a cargo pant side pocket.

So You Tell Me Funky Winkerbean Was Written By A White Guy?

I apologize, I just have been frightfully busy trying to process the realization that I am about to post my greatest service ever to humanity, or at least the Internet. I mean, you know the feeling when you have run across the thing that you will be remembered for indefinitely far into the future? The thing that will become a heaping mass of links from people in search of a desperately needed answer to their most pressing yet ridiculous question? I’m in that state right now. So I’m very busy enjoying that feeling and meanwhile also trying to get it actually organized.

So please here instead enjoy my noticing that Comics Kingdom has started running Vintage Funky Winkerbean from the comic strip’s start in 1972, long before it discovered misery porn and then depression porn and then, most recently, comic books.

Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean for the 5th of April, 1972, and rerun the 23rd of March, 2018. It’s only a few weeks into the strip’s run and yet Les Moore is already extremely punchable!

(I’m sorry; I know Les Moore even in this form but I don’t know who he’s talking to yet. Might be someone dropped from the strip; might be someone redesigned into a character I’m just not thinking of. The strip hasn’t done much naming of characters apart from the immortal initial fab-four classic lineup quartet of Funky himself, Les Moore, … Roland … and … Livinia? Y’know, I drive past Livinia, Michigan, about once a month for the pinball league at Marvin’s Marvellous Mechanical Museum. Great spot.). (The reason that this is a correctly formed joke structure and is therefore hilarious is that the city is actually named Livonia so you should now laugh uproariously at how one name looks a lot like another.)

How Much Of Rankin/Bass’s “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” I Remember

Referring to the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated special and not the song. From Wikipedia’s plot summary:

Plot Element	Do I Remember This?
Peter Cottontail is a young Easter Bunny who lives in April Valley where all the other Easter Bunnies live and work, making Easter candy, sewing bonnets, and decorating and delivering Easter eggs.	Yes
Colonel Wellington B Bunny, the retiring Chief Easter Bunny, names Peter his successor despite his boasting and lying.	I Guess
Peter, who has dreamed of being the Chief Easter Bunny almost his entire life, gladly accepts.	No; I thought it was an open contest all along.
January Q Irontail, an evil, reclusive rabbit villain wants to be Chief Easter Bunny himself so he can ruin it for children after a child roller-skated over his tail and had to wear a prosthetic one made of iron.	Yes about Irontail but I thought his name was Jeremy and I forgot why he had a prosthetic tail.
Irontail demands that Colonel Bunny hold a contest between himself and Peter to see who wins since the Constitution of April Valley states that the Chief Easter Bunny should be the one who delivers the most eggs.	No, thought the contest was there from the start.
Arrogant Peter accepts Irontail’s challenge, but stays up all night partying with his friends.	Yes
Although he tells his rooster to wake him up at 5:30 in the morning, Irontail sneaks into his house and feeds the rooster magic bubblegum, sealing its beak and Peter sleeps on, not hearing the crows from the popping bubblegum bubbles.	No, thought he just slept through.
Though Irontail tries all day to deliver eggs with unsuccessful results, he is only able to deliver one egg to a sleeping hobo.	No, thought he just didn’t try after giving out one pro forma.
However, it’s still one egg more than Peter ever delivered.	Yes
Therefore, Irontail becomes the new Chief Easter Bunny, passing laws to make Easter a disaster such as having eggs painted mud brown and concrete gray, ordering the candy sculptors to make chocolate tarantulas and octopuses instead of bunnies and chicks, and having Easter galoshes instead of bonnets.	Yes
Meanwhile, Peter, ashamed that his bragging and irresponsibility led to this tragedy, leaves April Valley until he meets Seymour S Sassafras, an eccentric peddler and inventor, who supplies April Valley with the colors to paint the eggs from his Garden of Surprises, from red, white, and blue cabbages and purple corn to striped tomatoes and orange stringbeans.	Forgot everything about this Garden of Surprises thing and knew there was an inventor but I couldn’t have told you his name if you told me his name.
Sassafras then lets Peter use his Yestermorrowbile, a time machine, piloted by a French caterpillar named Antoine to take Peter back to Easter, deliver his eggs, win the contest, and defeat Irontail.	Yes, at least, I remembered there was a time machine in this somehow.
Unfortunately, Irontail finds out about Peter’s plan and sends his spider to sabotage the Yestermorrowbile’s controls, allowing Peter and Antoine to go to any holiday but Easter.	No
Since the contest’s rules don’t specifically say the eggs must be delivered on Easter, Peter tries to give his eggs away at other holidays without success.	Kind of? But how does this rule make sense?
On the Fourth of July, he lies to two boys by painting his eggs red, white, and blue and selling them as firecrackers.	No
When that fails, they crashland on Halloween where Peter meets a witch named Madame Esmeralda and gives her a Halloween egg as a gift making the score a tie.	No and what the heck is a Halloween egg?
When she calls the other Halloween inhabitants, Irontail sends Montresor the Bat out to steal Peter’s eggs.	No but how does this count as Peter not getting credit for giving away an egg?
After getting the eggs back, Peter tells Antoine they have to get back to Halloween, but they can’t go back since Antoine has to land the craft to fix it.	No
After failing to give his eggs away on Thanksgiving, they go to Christmas Eve where Peter, dressed as Santa Claus, tries to sell his Christmas eggs on the streets.	No
But the streets are deserted.	No
Then Peter hears crying from a hat shop nearby where he meets Bonnie Bonnet from April Valley.	No
Bonnie is sad because nobody wants to buy her.	No and wait what? Like, is she a hat? What the heck?
So Peter tells the shopkeeper that he’ll trade her his Christmas eggs for Bonnie.	No
Unfortunately, Irontail steals them again and Peter and Bonnie go after him, accidentally leaving Antoine behind.	No
During the chase, Irontail crashes into Santa’s sleigh where Santa demands to give the eggs back to Peter.	Dimly?
Santa returns the eggs, but Peter is too sad to say thank you since they left Antoine behind.	No and wait, this is getting complicated.
Afterwards, Peter and Bonnie land on Valentine’s Day where Peter meets a beautiful girl bunny named Donna and Peter gives her a Valentine egg.	No
However, Irontail finds the eggs and casts a spell on them, turning them all green, inside and out.	No
As such, nobody wants the eggs anymore; even Donna gives hers back.	No
Peter then vows to be more responsible and they land in the middle of Saint Patrick’s Day where he finally gets to give his green eggs away and wins the contest, becoming the official Chief Easter Bunny, Antoine returns as a butterfly, and Irontail becomes the April Valley janitor while Peter leads an Easter parade with all the characters from the story.	Yes to that later part but the Saint Patrick’s Day thing is throwing me.

So in summary:

Plot Points I Remember	11
Plot Points Available	30
Percentage That I’ve Got Down	36.7%

Today’s Wikipedia-Based Excuse For Not Doing Anything

I’m sorry, but I just ran across how “Witchcraft,” made famous by Frank Sinatra, was recorded and released after Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” and that just doesn’t make any sense. Like, “Heartbreak Hotel” is old, sure, but it’s clearly way closer to the present day than “Witchcraft,” which sounds like it ought to have come out during World War II as a revival of some tin pan alley song originally composed during the Era of Good Feelings. But there the record is: more time elapsed between the publishing of “Heartbreak Hotel” (27th of January, 1956) and “Witchcraft” (“Late 1957” sometime) than between “Witchcraft” and David Seville’s “Witch Doctor” (1st of April, 1958). The heck, right? Also I guess it’s the 60th anniversary of the proof that singing-chipmunk technology was at last practical? Is that a good thing? Anyway this is why I can’t figure out which of my 18 folders marked ‘php’ contains the php code we actually need.

As Long As Someone’s Got Me Started With Wikipedia’s Article About Fangface

So I’m still thinking about that article on Wikipedia about the 1979-80 Ruby/Spears cartoon Fangface. If I were younger and stupider I would quibble with the article’s assertion that Fangface was “highly derivative of Scooby-Doo”. I mean, the whole point of Scooby-Doo was the protagonists solving a mystery, clues coming to the viewer as they did the characters. With Fangface there wasn’t any particular mystery; there was some nefarious evildoer, established right away, and the point of the episode was figuring out how to overcome his schemes. There is a much clearer line from Josie and the Pussycats to Speed Buggy to Fangface and oh what point has my life brought me to now? Someone please wrestle me away from the computer.