I make no secret of my affection for Rip Kirby, but I don't think it's favoritism to declare today's (well, July 31, 1956's) strip to be the winner for best dialogue.
In the new arc that started yesterday, this actress got a review in which it was suggested she's no longer an ingenue, and she's blaming it on the makeup. My guess is that, if you want to see more of Pancake Murgatroyd, you'd better start following now. I'm just hoping that we get more of this hard-bitten dialogue from the actress, because she could give Brandy over in Johnny Hazard a run for the money in that department.
Though Brandy's younger and cuter. And, given that Mavis Fulton's got Alex Raymond drawing her, I'm not blaming the make-up man for that.
Neverending font of amusement
There are a lot of cliches in holiday humor, but today's Pickles is more of an oldie-but-goodie than a cliche, since it pops up regularly but not so often as to be annoying.
I suspect it will stop showing up at all one day as people no longer need that once-a-year touchstone and update, given that their Facebook feed is already full of pictures of the children of friends they haven't seen in person since before the kids existed and whom they only know because they worked together for a few months at a place that no longer exists in a town where neither of them now lives.
Or perhaps whom they have never met at all.
Live free of seaweed or die
Jeff Danziger is from Vermont and so gets regular glimpses of how things work over on this side of the Connecticut River. I strongly suspect that he's right on the idea that Trump will plummet when the voting actually happens, but I think he flatters Granite Staters by attributing it to our intelligence.
The whole crusty independent streak is real. The state motto, "Live Free or Die," comes from a speech to veterans by their commander in the Revolution, John Stark, whose record was a series of quarrels with the Continental Congress after which he'd stomp out and go home, and then come back again at the head of his boys to kick some British ass and then get pissed and stomp back home again.
The motto is great, cut down from "Live free or die, boys, death is not the worst of evils."
But simply setting the mercurial old curmudgeon as our unofficial state role model works pretty well, too.
Our state motto could never be "Plays Well With Others," because we're so cussedly independent that we've set up our state legislature to make sure towns barely have to share a representative. Our ratio is lowest in the nation, at one legislator for every 3,291 citizens (the average is 59,626), which sounds like it means you really have a chance to be heard.
What it means in practice is that any squirrel who can gather a handful of nuts can get elected, and we are a constant source of merriment for those who like to report on dumb laws.
You know the crazy birther lady from that Trump focus group?
She's not just one of us. She's one of our state legislators.
Fortunately, that same streak of cussedness means that nobody supports anyone else's insane ideas and our legislative sessions mostly consist of members making lunatic proposals none of which escape committee.
Thank God.
On the other hand, we're not completely off the wall: We have a governor, two Senators and two Representatives, of whom four are women, three are Democrats and one of the Republicans is on the relatively sane side of the GOP conservative wing.
For instance, she's called for the other one to resign.
So, yes, I'd say Trump may well stumble when we all settle down and vote.
However, I suspect the decline in Trump's numbers are because his "numbers" are simply a "percentage of people who have decided," and are falling as intelligent voters slip out of the undecided category.
But thanks, Jeff, and I'm willing to chalk it up to our superior intellect.
And the fact that we never, ever steal seaweed on our extensive 18-mile long stretch of shoreline.
Juxtaposition of the Day
I was about to say that, for the past seven or eight months, Friend-of-the-Blog Richard Marcej has been regaling us with stories of his ongoing search for work, but "regaling" is hardly the word, given the overall muted tone of the journal/cartoon to begin with, and the downer subject itself.
What he's been doing is honestly depicting the thing, and since a few people read this blog who may know of gigs for experienced designer/illustrators, I'll add the spoiler that, while the cartoon has significant lag-time, as far as I know, he's still looking.
It's not the kind of thing that yields itself to wise-ass commentary, but I did chuckle at this juxtaposition. At least the expert leader in Richard's real-life group is retired and not a fellow-flailer.
My experience with any of these groups -- writers groups as well as get-a-job groups -- is that, as he suggests, the solidarity is the best part. If you walk away with one piece of actual, useable information, you're doing better than average. And it may not have come from the head of the table.
More specifically, when I was hiring, those gloriously-printed-on-high-rag-content-paper, die-cut-folder-enclosed, action-verb-laden resumes went straight into the semi-rigid plastic, bag-lined trash can.
The only thing I hate more than spunk is gullible spunk.
Just give me a coherent, last-job-first resume that tells what you've done, when and where.
The Best Job Interview Ever:
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