The Curmudgeonly Professor

The Curmudgeonly Professor Reads the Sunday Funnies on September 27 2009

For the benefit of those viewers who had to go to Church, or who slept until noon today, here is a recap of the Sunday funnies:

• Baby Blues:  Hammy thinks he'll grow into a mammoth-sized backpack.
• Dilbert: Dilbert told to develop procedure for creating policies, must find white paper on creating policies.
• Pickles: Opal notes daughter and son-in-law keep blinds closed next door as she watches with binoculars.
• Prince Valiant:  Now here is a stunner.  Never has Prince Valiant and the lovely Aleta been treated so crappily.  Summoned to King Arthur, Old Art tells Val that he is stripped of lands and holdings to pay for rebuilding Camelot, which catastrophe apparently Val caused.  Aleta must use her resources from the Misty Isles to support her penniless husband.  But in the last panel, evil dark eyes protrude  "with evil intent."  Wow!  Next week:  "Garden of Doom."  Can hardly wait.  I'll bet original artist Hal Foster would never have gotten the worthy Prince into such a mess.
• Ziggy: cat making cup of tea with catnip mouse.  Yuck.
• Spiderman:  I didn't mention last week that a scantily clad maiden was parading around in Spiderman, a vision that was not repeated this week.
• Rex Morgan, M.D.:  incomprehensible.  Becka and some dude driving through rain, dude tells Becka "I'm a lover, Becka, not a violent person."  Meanwhile, last panel, folks waiting in trailer in pouring rain certain that "someone will be coming soon."  Do not miss this epic.
• Classic Peanuts:  Snoopy dives off dog house into water bucket, gets stuck on head, "thus endeth diving career."
• Zits:  Zits brat has creepy smile after getting driver's license.
• Wizard of Id: regulatory commission on spirts and potions inspects Wizard's stuff.
• Beetle Bailey:  Beetle invokes time-honored excuse "it wasn't my fault, Sarge."  Sarge recounts all stupid stuff Beetle has done.  Beetle laments "Why does this camp have it in for me?"
• For Better or Worse:  Idyllic trip to farmer's market.  Home with bushel of apples.  Rest of family takes off.  Mom stuck with peeling bushel of apples.
• Blondie;  Dagwood tries vizualization technique to get raise.  Didn't work.
• Mary Worth:  wouldn't mention except for Maryworthandme.com person who thinks MW is hilarious.  Here is hilarious today: Two police going from violent shootout with three hundred pounds of heroin, two cops went down, one in serious condition and one didn't make it."  Where is hilarious here?  Also, not a peep of Apple Mary, now at least 150 years old and still meddling in peoples' affairs.
• Doonesbury: After noting ways other governments historically used force, White House concludes "That does it, I'm giving a speech!"
• Sherman's Lagoon: Lunchtime with jellyfish on whole wheat and walrus spread.  Yum.
• LuAnn:  Great excuses for not turning in homework:  tarantula died, inhaled glue fumes in art, lightning hit homework, burglars took TV, computer, and essay; Doc said couldn't do writing.  Better than many excuses I heard for 45 years.
• Hagar the Horrible: Hagar nearing home after long time looting, as ship nears shore early warning swimmer warns Hagar that Helga waiting with big club.

So there you have it.  Free of charge.  Are the funny papers really funny?

The Sunday Funnies for September 6 2009

Don't think I chuckled once today, but here's the rundown:

• Dilbert: wants a change approved, informed answer not coming "until earth devoured by gravitational singularity."  Person supposed to approve change vanishes in vapor.  Dilbert points out that vaporized person forgot approval form.
• Pickles: Earl has hard time peeling banana for grandson.
• Baby Blues: Dad taking kids for ice cream treats, visions of monster treats, sees sign about college funds, gives kids and self little bitty treats, kids steamed.
• Prince Valiant:  What?  Seriously?
• Hi and Lois: sending kids off to school, more time for Trixie
• Rex Morgan, M.D.:   "Peter loves women and women love him."  What's that got to do with medical stuff?
• Peanuts:  Snoopy gets tickled.  Cute.
• Cathy:  can't stand.
• Wizard of Id and B.C.:  forgettable
• Beetle Bailey: up early, wait, wait, wait, discover how unimportant they are.
• Family Circus: kids interrupt adults having nice time around outside table with goodies on lawn, take over and become p-i-g-s.
• Zits: rotten teenage kid reminds mom of "mandatory thing for parents" supposed to have reminded about long before, mother's head explodes, Zits brat asks if can borrow car.
• Dagwood hurries for stress test before work, has to wait an hour for late doctor.  Typical.
• Doonesbury:  Conversation lists theorists: conspiracy theorists, truthists, birthism, JFK grassy knollers, staged moonlandingologists, etc.; only the "reasonists" run counter to these tributes to American gullibility, but reasonists believe in "evidence based world . . .a tiny group, not influential."
• Hagar lost on ocean in middle of day, considering why are we here, "because you dropped the oars overboard."
• Mary Worth:  looked long and hard for signs of humor, as advertised by maryworthandme.com website operator.  Adrian seems genuinely happy, Scott seems to be fine man of character, apparently takes risks on job, job must have something to do with heroin addiction.  Far, far, too heavy to be hilarious.  Only one tiny depiction of Mary.  Sorry, fun isn't in this funny paper.;
• Garfield:  not even a picture of Garfield.

You can see that the funny papers were anything but funny today.  However, keep looking for something worthy of posting on the fridge and forcing all visitors to read and study and comment on.  Good luck.

The Curmudgeonly Professor Reads the Sunday Funnies on August 30

After a lapse of several weeks, the Curmudgeonly Professor once again enlightens readers on the contents of the Sunday Funnies.

• Baby Blues.  Perfect capture of brats, starting with Hammie and Zooey yelling at each other from opposite ends of the couch:  "You stop it."  "No, you stop it."  Ever heard that in your house?  You get the picture.
• Dilbert focus:  "Will new software erase our payroll data?"
• Pickles:  What Baby Blues does for brats, and Zits does for teenagers, Pickles does for geezers.  Opal can't find something, but she doesn't remember what.  She finds it, thanks Earl, he says "Anytime, it was the least I could do."  You may not fully understand if you haven't reached geezerhood yet.
• Garfield.  Not funny today.  Garfield scarfs up the dog food, the dog burps.  Say what?
• Mary Worth.  Earlier commentary here unearthed spirited response from maryworthandme web site, telling me that Mary Worth is funny.  Funny? Here's funny today:  Lady tells Mary two lovers are back together.  Mary wishes it were true, but "there are too many things in the world that are NOT right . . . injustice, pollution, disease, crime . . . if only over were enough to overcome these issues."  Wow!  That is deep stuff from Apple Mary from the 1930s who should actually be about 150 years old today.  I haven't read Mary Worth in 20 years, and only started to give my readers a fair and balanced picture of the funny papers.
• Hagar the Horrible, who is my role model, or at least one of them.  Helga yowling about Hagar's big, fat stomach.  I can relate.
• Sherman's Lagoon, which one of my sons really likes, but which I rarely feel anything from reading.  Not bad today. Hawthorne tells Fillmore he didn't really intend to send Facebook invitation, just a misunderstanding, suggestion made they just give each other a rude gesture instead.
• Doonesbury:  philosophical discussion of change, too deep for the Curmudgeonly Professor.
• Blondie:  Dagood, from his hammock, advises Herb how to mow the grass, Herb gets touchy.
• Beetle Bailey:  Sarge orders men to clean up because bozos from Pentagon are coming to inspect, turns out bozos are standing directly behind Sarge listening to him.
• Family Circus:  Mom and kids parade by row of school buses getting washed and ready for kids.
• Wizard of Id: Rodney's fortune changes as he steps in front of moving carriage.
• B.C.:  Peter floats tablet in ocean asking what formal reception awaits, learns bad stuff is coming.
• Zits:  the teen brat to trump all teen brats snudges his dad away from dad's computer so he can check movie schedule, watch a video, do Facebook.  Then asks if Dad is drinking the Coke he appropriates.
• Classic Peanuts:  Lucy allows as how Linus can't pat birds on the head, but o.k. for dogs.
• Hi and Lois:  golf is like life, and etc.
• Rex Morgan, M.D.  Now we come to one of my faves.  Earlier I commented that some moral censor had written to Salt Lake newspaper complaining about scantily clad maidens on the ancient physician's comic strip (Rex must be in his 110s at least by now).  I have only seen one lady in a bikini in Rex's lascivious playground since then, and today Becka stopped by the hospital to surprise Peter who was talking to a woman  . . . "a very BEAUTIFUL woman", and he looked "like the cat that just ate the canary."  Now, readers, this is hot stuff.  What a powerful analogy.  Swallowing feathers and such.

The Curmudgeonly Professor has admittedly left out a few comic strips, for which the term comic strip is an oxymoron, since they are anything but comic.  So if I have left out your favorite, you will have to look it up on your own.  I am sure my readers have something better to do than spend an hour analyzing the Sunday funnies, but that is my job, my burden.  Have a nice Sunday.

Some Thoughts on Sundays

Sunday is the proverbial day of rest.  Rest means that we rest from the following:

• Trips to WalMart
• Trips to Costco
• Matlock reruns
• Dave and Conan
• Keeping our ox out of the mire in the first place for heaven's sake.  Don't be dumb.
• Thinking about the chores my wife has asked me to do for several weeks (months?) now.
• Going to Olive Garden for the luscious bagged lettuce salad.
• Eating lunch at the Costco free samples.  Which actually means we have to labor to fix something.
• Getting another ton of junk mail and sorting most of it immediately into the garbage can.
• Eating the great $1.29 hamburger special at Carls' Junior.  Who is Junior by the way?
• Stopping at Arctic Circle for the 69 cent cone or the Huckleberry shake.  Which we never buy anyway.
• Cursing morons and imbeciles on the highways.  Unless we have to go somewhere.

Things to do on Sunday:

• Go to church and learn the meaning of time elapsing at minimal speed.
• Count up your sins, faults, and shortcomings and see if you have more, less, or about the same as last week.
• Evaluate the severity and magnitude of your sins, faults, and shortcomings to see if any of them have diminished in magnitude or simply gotten worse.  Much, much worse.
• Feel guilty for sins, including the quantity and quality of sins.
• Vow to repent and, perhaps, actually give up, even temporarily, one bad habit or fault.  Others will be shocked.
• Wait for fall football to start.  Meanwhile, watch water dripping from a faucet, slowly, slowly, slowly as the day speeds along at warp slow speed.
• Sing hymn with the words "Angels above us are silent notes taking, of every action, do what is right."
  Grief.  Mercy.  No kidding?  Does that mean there is one dead angel for every living human being, since how could one angel keep track of every action of more than one sinner?
• Be grateful for what you have, even for a day.
• Look at flowers.
• Tell kids, wife, husband, parents, whoever, that you love them.
• Help someone in need.
• Run countdown clock for Sunday football.  Does watching Sunday football constitute breaking the Sabbath day?
• Prioritize sins and shortcomings, and work on easiest one first.  Moving out of state of denial that you have, actually, any sins and shortcomings is important first step on road to righteousness.  When you become righteous, do not brag about it or even act too righteous since others will wonder if you are sane.
• Look forward to Monday, when Matlock, Olberman, nightly news anchors, Letterman, O'Brien, will return from their restful weekends.  Junk mail will return and you can go eat the free samples at Costco.  You can forget about sins and such for another week and can rest up from your hard labors and guilt trip you went through on Sunday.
• Chastize granddaughter who posted Kobe Bryant picture on family blog just to antagonize her grandpa.
• Wonder whether you plan to waste 4,000 hours watching Utah Jazz and pro basketball another winter.

The Curmudgeonly Professor hopes his viewers and readers find these guidelines helpful.  These lists will be appended as inspiration strikes.  Meanwhile, don't complain, and do smile, laugh, and be considerate of those around you.  Except for moron drivers on the highway.  Have a nice Sunday and repent.

Thanks to our Philippine Friends

Thanks again to our faithful Philippine friends who have been following this blog and making frequent comments.  If you have a way to do it, email one or more photos of Philippine flowers and just mention a little about yourselves.  But, keep following us.  I appreciate your continue comments!  Best wishes.

The Ladies at the Pool are the Ultimate Authority

My wife prefaces many of her statements throughout any given day with the words "The ladies at the pool . . ."  The ladies at the pool are more proficient and efficient conveyors and disseminators of useful information, we dare not call it gossip, than are cell phones, Twitterers, bloggers, texters, or any other method of transferring information, ancient or modern.

The one activity my wife can still participate in and enjoy is water aerobics.  So almost daily, she joins the sisterhood of the Ladies at the Pool for exercise and reveling in the weightless feel of moving through water.  As soon as she gets home, I inquire, "So what did the Ladies at the Pool have to say today?  What dirt did you pick up?"  Even on days when she claims she didn't learn anything, several hours later I will hear "Oh, I forgot to tell you the Ladies at the Pool said such and such and so and so."  Well I'll be danged, I say, I can hardly believe that.  Actually, I thought they were supposed to be exercising and not engaging in "Did you hear about so-and-so or such-and-such?" type conversations.  But the Ladies at the Pool perform a valuable function in our little retirement community, since much information would never be transmitted without them. 

It's Saturday Morning

One of the quintessential bits of warm musical nostalgia that has stayed with me forever are the words and music to the song "Come Saturday Morning" by Dory Previn and Fred Carlin, sung by the Sandpipers in the soundtrack of the film "The Sterile Cuckoo."  I don't think I've gone through a Saturday morning since the 70s without humming that song in my brain and remembering the words:

Just I and my friend\We'll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles/And then we'll move on/But we will remember long after Saturday's gone.

What I Found on My Morning Walk on the Jordan River Trail

Here's what I noticed on my morning walk:

• The snail armies were out in force this morning, slowly sliming their way across the trail.  Sorry, I couldn't resist that.  Has a nice ring, doesn't it?
• Always a few stupid thoughtless idiot morons who believe they have a constitutional right to let their dogs do their business on the trail and just leave it there.  Jerks.
• Still see the creep who runs two big dogs unleashed, thinks it is his right to do so.  Super jerk.
• Spring and early summer blooms about gone, waiting for cycle of mid-summer and new blooming stuff.
• You can smell the wild roses 20 yards away.  Sadly, they are almost finished for the year.
• Escaped rain.  Where is the Weather Controller in the Sky?  Why drought in Seattle and heavy rain here in the desert?  Come on, this is the land of sagebrush and rattlesnakes.
• Canadian thistle about to bloom.  Gross, ugly, wickedly stickery plant, but with the most gorgeous, regal purple blossoms.  Why is that?
• Only one duck in the duck ponds.  Do ducks converse before they get up, quack a lot, soar majestically around in circles, then splash back to earth to do their waddle?
• Took 150 photos.  Will likely delete 100.
• The lowly tamarisk, the trashiest of trash trees, has donned its early summer foliage, queen for a day.
• Morning glories are spreading, pink and white.

Always something new to see every day.  Nature is never boring.  Just look and see what you can find.

A Barbershop Story to Warm Your Heart

Aaron Falk, writer for Salt Lake's Deseret News newspaper, writes a touching story about Lew the Barber, apparently soon to retire after 61 years of barbering, 51 of which were at the Little America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.  And now his barbershop is being swept aside to make room for conference rooms.

One of his last haircuts was for an old man in a wheelchair.  Lew the Barber ignored the man's comments about money and told him "It's a free one today."   Go here to read the story to see who the old man was.

My Sister Liz Has Cast Aspersions on my Messy Work Environment

My sister Liz has made a comment about her relative thankfulness that she is not as messed up as I am.  I detect a note of superiority here.  I challenge her to provide a photo of her color coordinated fabric closet here just to prove how much time she wasted on this project when she could have been doing something more productive.  I save so much time by not wasting it sorting stuff and putting it away where I would never be able to find it.

The Best of the Sunday Funnies for April 12 2009

When we were children, one of the most exciting times of the week was Saturday night when Dad would often come home for a day after being gone all week working wherever he could find a day's work during the Great Depression.  And one of our greatest joys was the expectation that Dad would bring home the Denver Post because we would have the week's funny papers.  We hoarded these precious comics, saving them, and poring over them again and again.  Little Orphan Annie.  The Katzenjammer Kids.  Gasoline Alley.  Dick Tracy.  Tillie the Toiler.  Terry and the Pirates.  Prince Valiant, now undecipherable.  Blondie, who has endured forever.  Apple Mary, now a reconstituted and anemic Mary Worth.  Snuffy Smith.   And the rest of our favorite funnies.  We weren't sophisticated enough in those days to call them "comics"--we knew these wonderful pages simply as the "funny papers."

The funnies often aren't that funny or that clever any more, but a few of them are worthy of note, and I always read most of them anyway.  Except Rex Morgan, M.D., which has outlived his medical and entertainment usefulness.  And Prince Valiant isn't worth reading any more.  Then a bunch of no-name, non-funny funnies take up a lot of space.

But here's the best of what I saw and learned this morning from the Sunday funnies:

• Dogbert in the Dilbert strip gives the clearest definition of hedge funds I have ever seen, to wit: "It's simple.  I take your money and then use math to turn it into my money while destroying the overall economy."  Brilliant.
• For comics printers who don't chop off the first panel of Garfield, the challenge of Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, is to come up with a new and even more clever Garfield name panel each Sunday.
• Peanuts.  Always.  Any strip.  Over and over.  Peanuts cheers us every time we watch the world of little kids, share their humor and Charley Brown's angst, laugh at Snoopy and the yellow birds.  Just keep reprinting them forever.
• Zits.  Some times really funny.  Must have experience with teenage boys to truly appreciate.
• Baby Blues.  Must have experience with little children (dare we say, brats?) to fully appreciate.
• Pickles.  Opal and Earl.  The quintessential geezer retired couple.  If you are a retired geezer couple, some of Pickles is all too painful, all too humorous, all too dead-on.
• Hagar the Horrible.  Always my idol, my role model.  Recalled today from the flower-studded meadows , singing birds, and wonders of spring by Helga who reminds him that it's time to pay the taxes.
• Blondie.  Some times hilarious.  The Dagwood sandwich is good for about 40 yucks a year and never wears out.  And Blondie becomes younger, more beautiful, and more volulptuous each Sunday.
• Beetle Bailey.  Miss Buxley.  Sarge. Gizmo.  General HalfTrack.  Otto is a bit much some times.  Otherwise, perfect.
• The Born Loser.  I can usually relate.
• Doonesbury.  Not so hot today.  Some times clever, some times funny, some times who cares.

But the Sunday Funnies still provide moments of cheer and respite from the haranguing of talk shows, the noise of bloviators, and the cares of the day and the world.  So keep them coming.  And surely there exists enough comedic and artistic genius in the world to come up with some improvements over some of the non-funny funnies that take up valuable space in today's Sunday Funnies.  Come out, wherever you are.  We need you.

A Church for the Doomsayers From Lee Child's Novel Nothing to Lose

The Curmudgeonly Professor is dedicated to providing all the assistance he can muster to help the doomsayers and Henny Pennys who have seen the future if the Obama budget bill passes and already know the sky is falling, the end is in sight, and we are all doomed, doomed.  I came across Lee Childs's church named Congregation of the End of Times on page 162 of his novel titled Nothing to Lose.  A scripture from the Book of Revelation 1:3 is posted on the wall pronouncing The End is Near.  This church sounds perfect as a means of providing spiritual sustenance while the country goes south in a handbasket thanks to the Obama budget.  Don't buy the green bananas.  Buy your magazines one at a time at the magazine stand instead of subscribing.  Buy your life insurance one month at a time.  You may not need to take a shower tomorrow.  Write your memoirs.  Time's a wasting, as I believe L'il Abner used to say in Al Capp's comic strip, or maybe it was Snuffy Smith.  Whatever.  Just trying to take a positive and helpful approach.

My Friend Jack Sends a Poem to Illuminate the Flowers on My Blog

My friend Jack, who has endured insults and rude behavior from me since our undergraduate college days at the University of Wyoming, always was smarter and a better memorizer than I am.  Jack suggests that an added dimension to my flower posts can include poetry and so he sent me the following poem.  I hope it is not copyrighted, and apologize in advance if it is.

Smells (memorized) by Kathryn Worth
Through all the frozen winter
My nose has grown most lonely
For lovely, lovely colored smells
That come in springtime only.

The purple smell of lilacs,
The yellow smell that blows
Across the air of meadows
Where bright forsythia grows

The tall pink smell of peach trees,
The low white smell of clover,
And everywhere the great green smell 
Of grass the world over.

This poem reminds us that we can visualize and appreciate beauty in all of its manifestations, not only through sight and smell, but also through words that touch our hearts.

Happy St. Patrick's Day One Day Late

Things You Need to Know: Free News from the Curmudgeonly Professor

In the interests of keeping his blog readers fully informed as to matters of importance and general interest, and to provide real benefits for the time you are spending (wasting) surfing blogs today, here is the pick of today's events:

• Microsoft will issue Windows 7 some time this year to overhaul bugs in Vista.
• Pay attention to the "Super Bowl flush" urban legend, which warns you that all of those gluttons out there who gorge on buffalo wings, nachos, tacos, dips, cheese, beer, and who knows what have a tendency to clog kitchen sinks and toilets. Beware particularly of half-time and game end when 100 million people will flush simultaneously. 
• According to MSNBC, France is the world's largest consumer of frog's legs and people consume so many zillions of the tasty little critters that they may be getting scarce.  So do your duty and quit eating so dang many frogs. 
• According to NFL on Fox, the recession has hit the Super Bowl, leaving eateries and bars in the doldrums, causing GM and Fed Ex to cancel their ads even at lower rates, and worrying scalpers who may have to sell at face by game time.  Oh yes, and Fox reports Playboy has canceled its annual party.  Gee Whiz.
• Be sure to buy your Snuggies before the Super Bowl game.  Or, do the economy Snuggie by finding an old ratty blanket, cutting a hole for your head, two for your arms, and there you have it, voila, a snuggie!    
• Check back often for informed tidbits essential to your daily life.