Recent Comments

1. 4 days ago on Luann

   What we have here is a real challenge for Bernice-the-muse. But can she recognize it?

2. 4 days ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   However did we get to this retrospective moment? This club and its name have been in existence for years. Has the trauma of no television sent Calvin into his memories for entertainment?

3. 4 days ago on Luann

   The answer to your question is that the first movie was merely one of a series structured like those serialized stories shown a generation earlier. Its very introduction revealed that it was intended as one of seven episodes, and that it was not even the first episode — thus telegraphing that there were prequels yet to be released as well as sequels in a much larger opus and story arc. Judging the entire opus unfavorably because you disliked your initial narrow view of it is terribly shortsighted. Now, no one could insist that you like the story that George Lucas envisioned. You could still criticize any number of its elements, premises, or cinematic features, but such criticisms may not be deemed credible unless you have seen and analyzed the larger work.

4. 5 days ago on Luann

   Indeed. Bernice missed a perfect opportunity to get away with a bare minimum 2 minutes or so of wrestling on the bed and falling onto the floor playing dead — at which point Shannon would have no choice but to go bother Luann again.

5. 5 days ago on Luann

   I do remember those, which I suppose were hand-grenade simulations.

6. 5 days ago on Luann

   Have you forgotten when she was given a marshmallow blaster? She and Brad and TJ bounced around all over the living room chasing (and, presumably, stuffing their faces with) these harmless projectiles.

7. 5 days ago on Luann

   All of them? It’s not limited to the unflavored or quinine-flavored carbonated water — also called “club soda” — used for “gin and tonic”? My, my,… what would a gin & tonic be if flavored with sarsaparilla (root beer) or vanilla (cream) carbonated waters?

8. 6 days ago on Luann

   And when I was a kid, we also played with toy swords. But since this was prior to the incursion of oriental martial arts films, our concepts of swordplay were pretty limited and primitive. Hence the more familiar cowboy motif and cap pistols were more popular — though I actually inherited from my father a pistol that could be pumped to emit a blast of compressed air. It was particularly good for knocking down houses built of playing cards which were constructed as targets beforehand. The memory of that pistol illustrates the sort of toy that was available a full century ago, though I noted some reiterations of its concept in newly-constructed toy guns decades later. But, setting aside projectile weapons to return to the consideration of contact weapons, there have been the soft ones made of foam — sort of a synthesis between the pillow fight and a baseball bat — and the hard ones that resemble one or another type of actual sword. Some of these emulated fencing foils or other European swords, but the more popular ones seemed to capitalize on the oriental martial arts emulated in the StarWars battles of Jedi knights. Technology seems to have followed this theme to provide toys that actually glow and emit sounds — a far cry from the wooden or plastic sticks that once emulated such weapons.

9. 6 days ago on Luann

   There is an alternative to the necklace or lanyard that keeps an intermittently used pair of glasses handy. It would be a kind of decorative holster worn on an upper arm or on one side of the chest. Those who can wear a shirt with a breast pocket may carry a glasses case there. Or, a waist-mounted holster or “fanny pack” worn on a hip may carry more than just glasses. Such accessories may be tailored for particular upscale fashion contexts, especially since the classic fanny pack is deemed rather plebian. The same sort of glasses case that might fit a shirt pocket could alternatively be clipped to a belt to dangle at the waist against the thigh. A bit of creative thought may resolve this need in some desirable fashion.

10. 6 days ago on Luann

    What do they call Dr.Pepper, or a more generic drink such as Root Beer or sarsaparilla, or Cream Soda? What about other “soda pop” products such as lemon fizz, orange soda, grape soda, or other carbonated drinks? What about unflavored club soda or quinine water? Surely these can’t all be deemed “coke”.