Saturday Grab Bag Will Never Die

I love webcomics, but you may have noticed that I don't blog about them much (or at all, other than mentioning them as internet destinations I may or may not be blocked from accessing at work). There have been other bloggers before me who have focused on webcomics and not wanting to tread the same well-covered ground is part of my reasoning, but another part is because I doubt I would have anything major to say on a regular basis. Webcomics are the popculture artifacts that I consume in as close to the Platonic ideal manner as possible: I read them every day, in their entirety the day they are released, which means the same day everyone else who follows them regularly is reading them, because it takes almost no time and no effort to get access to them and digest them. They amuse me for a couple of seconds and then I move on, and that doesn't lend itself to hundreds of words of reaction.

Every once in a while, though, those couple of seconds of amusement are intense enough that I will reverse my usual stance. I point you now toward the November 2nd installment of Questionable Content. I'm a big fan of this comic series in general and love this strip in particular. As with most things I gravitate strongly towards, it punches multiple buttons on my personal geek control panel. I count at least nine elements that seem custom-tailored to my sense of humor and/or interests. Try to spot them all!

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Metro Madness Moment: Since Tuesday was Election Day, I left work earlier than normal so I could rock the vote before daycare pick-up. I never knew this before, but there must be a beauty school of some kind near my office in Rosslyn, and I'm guessing the classes get out around 3:15 p.m. or so. As I was coming down the escalator to the westbound Orange line platform, I saw a girl standing below with a female human head in her hands, lifeless eyes staring more or less straight at me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize it was a mannequin head used for practicing hair-styling and to construct the above beauty-school explanation. At least, I hope that's the explanation, although the idea of random Metro riders carrying around creepy realistic severed heads for funsies is not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

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The Biggest Loser was kind of a let-down this week, and I think mostly that was because half of it was dedicated to talking itself up. I'm already on record as saying that TBL is a feelgood show and unironically inspirational, but when the show takes a road trip to Washington, D.C. to "lobby" for the cause (I guess because there are so many pro-obesity senators who need to hear from the anti-obesity camp?) it ends up feeling uncharacteristically hollow. It became one of those nights where my major enjoyment came from observing the reality-show tactics employed to try to infuse the weekly elimination with any drama at all. After Saint Abby's exit, it only made sense that her opposite number, the superfluous yin to her absent yang, Crazy Tracey, would be the next to go. Liz was the other candidate but the final vote was never really in doubt - though the attempts to make it seem less lopsided were interesting. Basically as long as Okie Danny is still there, I'm guaranteed to be sufficiently amused each week. At least until they finally get to the makeover episode - it tends to kind of go downhill from there.

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Last night I was in solo-parent mode with the little one, and as usual I didn't take the time to change out of my work outfit while going through the evening ministrations. It was Friday, so I was in relatively comfortable clothes, anyway. But I might have to start making time to change or suffer increasingly dire consequences. Last night my khakis got hit with the trifecta: milk, snot, and crayon. (Somehow I dodged the spinach souflee.) 'Tis a messy, messy business, this childrearing.


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(For those of you looking for an answer key to the Questionable Content I-Spy Challenge, here's the definitive list: nerd conventions; novelists talking about the writing process; steampunk; monsters; background gags; Furries (Mockery of); six-syllable words; Twilight (Mockery of); sex jokes. Please note that "ironic trucker caps" is not on my personal list - never really got into them.)