Cartoon Saturday

Here we go again ...

The World Health Organization has declared the ongoing outbreak of Ebola in West Africa to be an "international health emergency;" at the US embassy in Moscow, a laser light show with racist overtones was played against the front of the building to mock President Obama on his birthday; speaking of the President, he has authorized airstrikes against the surging forces of ISIS in Iraq; Hawaii is hunkering down in the face of not one, but two tropical cyclones; and in Los Angeles, a 62 year-old woman has been arrested for attempting to board an airliner without a ticket ... days after being convicted of the same offense, which has earned her a description as a "serial stowaway."

You don't need to stow away ... we bring the cartoons right to you!

Our collection of theme cartoons this week features ... fish! You thought something smelt funny, didn't you?

You are what you eat, right? ...

Not just a dog thing? ...

Taking it to the next level ...

The problems of the teenage salmon ...

Fish have party tricks, too ...

You had to see this one coming ...

Your fishy visual pun for the day ...

 Turning to other topics, I can't wait for this scientific breakthrough ...

This one reminded me of Angel's post of a few days ago ...

Finally, there's increasing specialization in stores ...

And there you have it for another Cartoon Saturday. Thanks for joining me for the ya-ha's and get ready to have a good day and a great weekend. Come back tomorrow for Poetry Sunday.

Bilbo

The First Ass Clown of the Month Award for August, 2014

Ah, yes, Dear Readers, we have reached the second Friday in August, and it's time to name our first Ass Clown of the Month.

With a roll of drums and a fanfare of farting trumpets, let's have a round of raspberries for

The Rope Nazi

I see by the blank looks on your faces that you are confused. Here's the full citation ...

Last week while we were at Disney World, we decided to stay late one night and catch the famous Main Street Electrical Parade that was scheduled to begin at 9:15. By late afternoon, workers were busy marking the path of the parade with tape and setting up stanchions to hold up the white ropes that marked the boundary beyond which - for obvious safety reasons - no one could sit or stand to watch the parade. We found a likely spot, parked the stroller and our bags, and sat down to wait for the parade.

Soon afterwards, my daughter spotted what looked like a better position across the street and a bit farther down. She went to check it out while I waited with Leya and Elise and our belongings. She beckoned us to come to the new location, and while the girls ran ahead, I followed with Yasmin's backpack, our stroller, and our other bags of accumulated goodies. The girls ducked under the rope to the new position, and I lifted up the rope to push the stroller underneath. Then, still carrying the backpack and bags, I hoisted a leg and stepped over the rope to get myself to the other side.

Suddenly there came a tremendous roar: SIR!! SIR!! DO ... NOT ... TOUCH ... THE ... ROPE!!

There I stood, one leg on either side and the rope quivering in my crotch, carrying the backpack and the other bags, while a very large and corpulent fellow in Official Regalia continued to bellow at me:

SIR!! I TOLD YOU ... DO NOT TOUCH THE ROPE ... YOU MUST GET AWAY FROM THE ROPE NOW!!

Naturally, when I tried to lift my other leg over the rope, my foot caught in it, and I began to do a single-foot happy dance to keep from losing my balance.

SIR!! YOU WILL GET AWAY FROM THE ROPE IMMEDIATELY!! YOU CANNOT TOUCH THE ROPE!!

I continued to hop on one foot while my daughter and several other people tried to help me extricate myself from the rope, which petulantly refused to let go of my foot.

SIR!! I WILL NOT TELL YOU AGAIN ... GET OFF THE ROPE - NOW!!

Finally, we managed to get me off the rope, and the Rope Nazi went on to bellow at other people committing other grievous sins such as sitting or standing on walls or trying to cross the street at the wrong place. He kept up this performance for the entire length of the parade, marching back and forth on his side of the rope and shouting at children and adults alike.

Now, it's clear that the rope is there to keep people from getting trampled by giant parade floats and reinforced battalions of brightly-lit marching cartoon characters. But it's also clear that The Rope Nazi was a fellow overwhelmed with his own importance and the awesome power of his lordship over 30 feet of white rope. It was pretty obvious that I was trying to get off his $%#! rope, but he continued to loudly bellow and threaten, causing everyone within about 150 feet to gape at him in utter disbelief. What a buffoon.

For his loud, abusive, and unprofessional behavior that was a poor reflection on a workforce that we had up to that time found to be uniformly pleasant, polite, and professional, The Rope Nazi is named as our first Ass Clown of the Month for August, 2014.

And if you visit Disney World and want to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade, for heaven's sake don't touch any ropes. The Rope Nazi might have a taser or a riot baton or something by that time.

Have a good day. See you tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

We Survived The Mouse!

Well, we made it back safely from our trip to Walt Disney World in Florida with our daughter and her two girls. It was a fun trip, if tiring, and the girls had a great time, so it's all good. Here are a few of my observations about the trip*, along with the obligatory pictures ...

Florida is hot, with a capital H. It is beyond doubt the place where God stores all the heat He doesn't need anywhere else in the universe. If the official state sport isn't competitive sweating, it should be. I used sunblock, although not nearly enough, and am still limping because I managed to burn the soles of my feet on the pavement around the hotel swimming pool.

Which leads me to Bilbo's Second Law of Automotive Thermodynamics: if two children are in a hot car, one will be melting and want the air conditioner turned up as far as it will go, and the other will be freezing and want the air conditioner shut off immediately. Both will let you know this at the same time, at top volume.

The weather was beautiful almost the entire time we were there, except for the day we visited the Animal Kingdom. I needed to take Agnes back to the hotel, and on the way there we were treated to a tremendous deluge of nearly biblical proportions ... it was raining so hard I couldn't see to drive, and I knew we were in trouble when we were passed on the interstate by an ark. It was so bad that we gave up and just went back to the park ... where our daughter informed us that it hadn't rained at all! Next time, I'll pay the extra surcharge for a rental car with oarlocks and lifeboats.

We had four-day passes to the various parks that constitute Disney World, and still weren't able to visit everything. We hit the Magic Kingdom, the Disney Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Disney's Animal Kingdom, all of which were wonderful, although the Animal Kingdom had the most shade (refer back to that comment about the heat, above). Agnes and I had one of the employees take a picture of us there ...

On the first day at the Magic Kingdom, I was trying to squeeze into a small patch of shade while waiting for the ladies to come back from one of the rides. Suddenly, a group of Disney characters in costume came running up to me, shouting "Here's Waldo!! We found him!! We've been looking EVERYWHERE for him, and here he is!!" while they ran in circles around me and pointed as other onlookers clapped and took pictures. That's positively the last time I wear a red-and-white striped shirt to a Disney park ...

One of the things my daughter wanted to do was ride the "Twilight Zone Tower of Terror" at the Hollywood Studios park. We got there early enough that we breezed right in without having to wait in an interminable line, and all five of us did the ride ... which is indeed terrifying. The downside was that we only thought to bring a change of clothes for the children ... here are my daughter Yasmin and I, with Leya and Elise, after surviving the Tower of Terror. You will note that I am posing behind the stroller so as to hide my soiled pants ...

If you visit Epcot, be sure to look for the tea kiosk across from the China pavilion. It sells a concoction that consists of half coffee and half tea, mixed with a generous dollop of whiskey and topped with whipped cream. Yasmin and I both agreed that it was one of the high points of the day.

Of course, Disney is all about movie characters, particularly princesses. Leya and Elise bought autograph books, and over the course of our four days in the various parks, they met and collected the autographs of luminaries like Snow White ...

Cinderella ...

Belle (from "Beauty and the Beast") ...

Aladdin and Jasmine ...

Mulan ...

and many others, including Minnie Mouse ...

and Rafiki (from "The Lion King") ...

My daughter managed to arrange reservations for us at one of the "Dinner with the Princesses" seatings, and Leya and Elise got all dressed up to meet with their favorite princesses over dinner (you saw their beautiful dresses in some of the pictures above).

I even made a new friend at the Epcot Center's Norwegian section ...

We didn't stay at one of the Disney Resorts, but at a hotel a few miles down the road, which had a wonderful pool ...

I did have a little trouble with some of the local fauna, though (Leya arranged and took this picture!) ...

In addition to our time at Disney World, we were able to wedge in a visit with my brother Mark and his family, who live in Kissimmee and who we haven't seen in seven years. This is Mark and I with his children, Danny and Valerie ...

And so ...

We spent far too much money, sweated off enough weight to create at least two new people, took many hundreds of pictures, and had a great time watching our grandchildren have a wonderful experience.

But I think I'll wait a few years before doing it again. Maybe about 20 or 30.

Have a good day, fellow Mouseketeers. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Those of you who are my friends on Facebook may already have seen some of what's coming. Sorry about that.

Watch This Space ...

We got back from our vacation trip to Disney World in Orlando last night, and I have to go back to work this morning. Ugh. If you can hold your excitement in check, I'll get the pictures organized and give you a full-details rundown in a day or so.

Watch this space for The Rest of the Story. I promise I'll be back soon.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Hot for Teacher. Not.

When I moved up from a phone that just let you call people and talk to them to a phone that lets you do all sorts of things and has an operating manual that weighs as much as the front line of the Dallas Cowboys, I discovered that I had broad new horizons for wasting time playing games. There was "Bejeweled Blitz," "Tetris," fifteen kinds of Solitaire ... and my favorite game, Scrabble.

Now, for those of you who may not know about Scrabble, it's a game in which you draw random letters and use them to form words on a board. The letters have various values which reflect how difficult it is to use them (Q's and Z's, for instance, are worth ten points; P's and B's are worth three; and vowels are a measly one point each. You use the tiles to build words on the board, which is dotted with special squares that let you multiply the value of the letters you place on them as you build words ... there are spaces that double and triple the value of the letters you play on them, and other spaces that double and triple the value of the words that cross them. If a word you play crosses or adjoins another word already on the board, any other words that are formed must be legitimate words in the English dictionary. The object is to use all your letters to get the maximum score.

Got all that?

Now, if you use the version of Scrabble that plays on your iPhone or iPad, it contains a special feature called "Teacher." After you have made your play and received your score, if you press the "Teacher" icon, a snarky window pops up to tell you how many more points you might have gotten if you'd played the Teacher's word ... which is usually something that looks as if it came out of a 14th-century Old Church Slavonic dictionary and will net 17,856 points instead of the 6 you finally managed to eke out.

I hate the Teacher.

Another thing you should probably not do if you play Scrabble online is play against a retired English teacher*. Unless your name starts with PhD, you should probably seek a less formidable opponent.

Nevertheless, Scrabble is a fun game, on the kitchen table or on your digital device. If your name doesn't start with PhD and you're looking for someone to play against, send me an e-mail and we'll get it on.

You'll be more fun than the Teacher, and I might have a better chance of making a decent showing.

Have a good day. Build that vocabulary. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Kathy is a wonderful lady and a dear friend, but a ruthless Scrabble competitor.

Charlie Dore and I on the Radio

As some of you know, for nine years I had a radio show - "The Audio Attic" - on the Fairfax County Public Access radio station, WEBR, 88.5 FM (nowadays called Radio Fairfax). I'd always wanted to be a radio DJ, and when the opportunity arose to have my own show, I jumped at it.

The theme song I used to close out each of my shows was the 1979 hit by Charlie Dore about a young woman and her favorite DJ. The song was called "Pilot of the Airwaves," and because it just popped up on my random playlist that's going in the background, I thought I'd share it with you in case you haven't heard it ...

She's still beautiful and going strong today ...

Just a little musical interlude to start off your day, from one of my favorite artists. I hope that day is a good one.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

Last week, we talked about remembrances of love in a poem by Jack Gilbert. This week, William Baer takes a look at a love that didn't quite work out as planned ...

Letter of Resignation

by William Baer

Dear [blank]: After much deliberation,
without qualm, scruple, or further delay,
I hereby tender my formal resignation
as your lover and future fiancé.
The job provides too little satisfaction:
too many hours of unneeded duress,
a paucity of productive interaction,
uncertain working conditions, and endless stress.
Pay-wise, I'm undervalued and disenchanted:
advancement's slow, the bonus is routine,
my "on-call" overtime is taken for granted,
and benefits are few and far between.
This document, I'm hopeful, underscores
my deep regret. I'm very truly yours....

Well, it's better than a 40-word tweet ... isn't it?

Have a good day. Don't resign in haste.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

I may be on the road, but I can still keep you in cartoons, even if I don't have the time to do the usual survey of the news ...

This week's set of theme cartoons deals with that old standby, crash test dummies ...

Speed dating for dummies ...

When the risk assessment doesn't go in your favor ...

At the clinic ...

There are different kinds of crash tests ...

This ought to be some party ...

Moving on to other topics, like terrible puns ...

Agnes has her own way of greeting our visitors ... 

The perils of online dating ...

I need to have a few thousand of these made up ...

This one's for all you mothers out there ...

And finally for this week, I think resurrection is out of the question.

We are continuing to enjoy the heat and humidity of a Florida summer here at Disney World with our granddaughters. Last night, we had dinner with the princesses, which was a very nice experience. I wonder if they have any of those princesses at the gift shop ...

Have a good day and a great weekend. Be back tomorrow for Poetry Sunday.

Bilbo

Dipping Once Again from the Well of Editorial Wonders

Ah, yes, Dear Readers, it's time once again to delve into the collection of amazing things found in print. Accidents of editing? Clever witticisms? Who cares? Let's go ...

I know what they meant, but it's still a bit odd, don't you think? ...

This will be useful once we just admit defeat and unite with Mexico and most of the countries of Central America ... 

There are fish fries and there are fish fries ...

I wonder if they'll play any polkas? ...

You may have seen this one on the news a few weeks ago. I don't want the illegals either, but it would be nice if the permanent residents could learn to spell ...

It appears to be a fund-amental problem ...

Do you have the reversal dinner the night before the divorce? ...

Americans are not noted for their detailed understanding of history. Or editing or grammar, either ...

I don't think this toilet gets much use, do you? ...

And finally, as real estate ads go, this one probably isn't one of the best ...

We need more editors. Or, as I call them, Raiders of the Lost Arts.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

No Place to Hide

As we approach the 2016 presidential campaign season, we will be inundated as never before by relentless barrages of political ads, most of them highly negative, hoping to induce us to vote for one bloviating buffoon or another. Hour-long TV shows will shrink to 20 minutes of program and 40 minutes of foul attack ads, the radio will blast out misleading campaign ads between every pair of songs, your mailman will need a forklift to deliver the bales of scurrilous junk mail, your telephone will ring off the hook day and night with  annoying robocalls, and reinforced platoons of earnest yet clueless young campaign workers will beat a bath to your door to encourage you to Vote for Blotnick because the other candidate is a lying, scum-sucking, big-spending pedophile who will take away your guns, force you to submit to a gay marriage, and turn over the US government to the United Nations. They don't tell you what Blotnick stands for ... just that his opponent is the personal trainer for the Antichrist, and if you vote for him, you're stupid and you hate America.

And that's just the beginning.

According to this scary article from OZY, the characters who plan political campaigns are already working on the next generation of ways to find and target you with their ads, no matter what stratagems you employ to avoid them. There will be more campaign ads targeted precisely at you - crafted specifically to your age, sex, religion, zip code, hobbies, shopping habits, marital status, and all the other personal information about you that's been hoovered up by the collectors and amalgamators of Big Data*. Campaign commercials aimed right between your eyes will appear on your Facebook page, and in the margins of every website you visit. Do you have geolocation enabled on your phone or tablet? If so, you may received unsolicited ads that try to guide you to the nearest office or campaign event for Senator Blowhard. Did you use your local grocery store's frequent shopper card to buy milk or cheese? You will start getting ads telling you Representative Gasbag's position on dairy issues. You will receive ads precisely calculated to push the buttons that campaign planners know will make you respond in a certain way.

Gone are the days when you could have an honest, face-to-face discussion with someone running for office. Nobody cares what you think and care about, except insofar as certain elements of your personality and beliefs can be used to channel you into a specific, targeted group. You've already been gerrymandered into a carefully designed, ludicrously-shaped voting district designed to minimize the power of one party and maximize the party of the other ... now they're going after your brain.

You are no longer a person. You are the sum of your data. And there's no place to hide from the people who collect and abuse it ... and the worst offenders aren't in the government.

Have a good day. Keep your digital head down. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Worried about the NSA? At least they get Congressional oversight and legal reviews. Did you hear Mr Snowdon squealing from under his rock in Russia about the violations of your privacy by Big Business? I thought not.