A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

On Pretty Good Authority

By Jimmy Johnson


a
Today’s retro A&J is more antediluvian tech humor from barely five years ago. Presumably today they would both have a smart phone and would both be entitled to their own set of facts. Speaking of smart phones, I’ve discovered a strange phenomenon. My new phone has about four times the square footage of my old flip phone, but I’ve noticed it’s easier to lose! Maybe because it looks like a dozen other gadgets lying around the house. I’ve give some thought to what we discussed yesterday, the future of our retro feature, and I think I have come up with some ideas. I hope you’ll find them rather painless once implemented. Maybe we’ll run some experiments next week.
Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"

Recent Posts

Ghost of Christmas Past

This holiday Arlo & Janis comic strip from 2022 is similar in concept to the new strip that ran yesterday. I thought the latter ...

Spearhead

I have produced a number of comic strips related to Veteran’s Day. Especially in latter years, I have tried to emphasize the universal experience ...

Dark Passage

Remember: it’s that weekend. The return to standard time can be a bit of a shock in the late afternoon, but I rather enjoy ...

What’s old is old, again

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to build a web site, but there are similarities. Everything needs to be just right, or ...

Back to the ol’ drawing board

I don’t have a lot of time this morning. I wasn’t going to post anything, but I’m tired of looking at that old photograph ...

Thursday’s Child

On Sunday, I teased you with the suggestion there are more changes coming here. There are. They will appear soon, and I think you’ll ...

220 responses to “On Pretty Good Authority”

  1. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    We are right next to Arkansas and share the same mountains and fall foliage.

    Reporting on road food, I am eating a piece of restaurant owners raspberry icebox pie with chocolate crumb crust. She makes all the pies personally. She had caramel pecan, Apple, raspberry cream and oatmeal raisin sour cream.

    Almost ate the last one. I need some lemon or lime icebox pie. I will cook chicken fried steak, red skinned new potatoes mashed and white cream gravy, fresh green beans and home grown tomatoes for a pie.

    Money For Nothing is playing. I had great brunch so I need to hit road.

  2. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Finally saw several herds of hundreds of antelope near interstate. Am in Wyoming now. Snow on all the mountain tops.

  3. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Ah, a Reuben sandwich…my favorite. I have so enjoyed the sandwiches made with deli meats and cheese from the deli my Friendly Neighborhood Market has recently added, that I just purchased a new Panini press. (I had about worn the one I had slap out, using it as grill rather than a press.) The only problem is the market does not carry any type of rye bread. I talked to the deli manager, who checked and determined they will have it on the shelves soon.

  4. emb Avatar

    Smigz: ‘. . . and in advance for the icebox pie. I have an acorn squash sitting on the counter that I will try substituting for the pumpkin.’

    Wife regularly made ‘pumpkin’ pie from winter squash. They are more flavorful than pumpkin, and acorn is not the tastiest. May go online to get the names. Have to go there about fall colors, too.

    Peace,

  5. emb Avatar

    Butternut, buttercup, and Hubbard. We grew one or another, most recently Hubbard, at our old house, up through ’05.

    Fall colors: can only cite one URL / posting.

    http://na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/sassafras/albidum.htm

    shows a map of the geographic range of sassafras trees [Sassafras* albidum], a splendid bright orange fall tree. Native range includes only eastern OK, but some may be planted farther W. N MN is way out of range, but S MI, where I did my graduate work is not.

    *See, you already knew the Latin name of the genus.

    Peace,

  6. emb Avatar

    Fagus grandifolia [American Beech] you probably didn’t know. Bright yellow fall leaves. Its geographic range is in

    http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/technical_reports/pdfs/2005/331papers/cogbill331.pdf

    The map also shows its probable range extension from a SE refugium as the last glaciers retreated northward, based on pollen analysis of soils and, perhaps especially, peat bogs. Also, perhaps, aboriginal campsites. One of BSU’s most notable graduates became a Ph.D. ethnobotanist, wrote much on anthropology of Paleoindians of the eastern states based in part on fossil pollen, died too young of scleroderma. She and a roommate lived with us ’68-’70. There will likely be a room in our hospital’s new cancer wing named after her. [5 new words for speelczech; maybe Jackie can teach them to Hal.]

    Peace,

  7. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    I have now seen thousands of antelope. A friend here says Wyoming has more antelope than any other state. Question for our scientists, they seem to herd, so why are there solitary ones? Outcasts?

    Beautiful sunny day but no trees, just hills and short weeds. And antelope.

  8. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    So there’s another thing we share Ghost. Rueben is my favorite and go to in deli or diner. And grilled sandwiches but I like cast iron with another weighted on top. Have no idea where my electric grill is but I own one. I wore mine out grilling chicken and pork chops.

  9. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Yep, that’s what happened to my Cuisinart Griddler. Going to use this one just as a sammich maker.

    Someone came back from Montana once and gifted me with a bottle opener with a handle made of a section of elk horn. Lest any conservationists assume that some one went out and killed an elk just so I could have a neat bottle opener, I’ll point out that it came with information indicating the manufacturer uses only antlers gathered after the normal shedding process.

    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e5/47/de/e547de339d9e4d58c06de94aaf6d80eb.jpg

  10. emb Avatar

    Jackie: Pronghorns ‘seem to herd, so why are there solitary ones? Outcasts?’

    I’ve seen pronghorns only a few times, in W ND and farther W on trips. Largest # was about 6, so can say little / herding. However, see Social Behavior and Reproduction at:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronghorn
    [contains adult language].

    Was a bit surprised to learn that pronghorns [Antilocapridae, Antilocapra americana] are more closely related to giraffes and okapis [Giraffidae] than to bovids [cattle, sheep, goats, true antelopes, muskoxen, etc.] or to cervids [deer]. DNA analysis and such have helped a lot.

    They are the speediest N.A. mammals, probably fast enough to sometimes outrun American cheetahs. Said ‘cheetahs’, now extinct and known only from fragmentary fossils [sorry, no DNA], may well be more closely related to cougars [Puma concolor] than to Old World cheetahs [Acinonyx].

  11. JACKQULINE MONIES Avatar
    JACKQULINE MONIES

    Dickens and I are safely in bed in Cheyenne, Wyoming with my can of Diet Coke icing in the wine bucket of ice and water. Tired of mini-fridges that never get cold enough.

    Sexy bottle opener for your Coke bottles? Now a horned wine opener to go with it would be cool.

    A friend from Puget Sound asked if Dickens was doing his share of driving? I said no, but he was doing more than his share of sleeping. He played with his red dinosaur or lizard and crashed. If you have a Tractor Supply I recommend their dog toys. These were designed for hunting dogs but have survived a 10# terrier.

    Google maps is sending me back through Kansas which is fine.

    Saw three deer late today to go with thousands of antelope. I do believe antelope out number people here.

  12. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Debbe 😉 In honor of Jackie’s eminent return from the Great West.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKeDcF1v_Y4

  13. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    It’s been awhile, but as I recall it was last used to pop the cap off a bottle of Kirin Ichiban. And the head of the opener pulls out of the handle and becomes a wine opener, one of those that resembles two knife blades of different lengths.

    I once flew commercial to Wichita to pick up a new Cessna and fly it back for a dealer. If anyone ever asks if Kansas is as flat as they say, the answer is, “Why, yes. Yes, it is.” And with the way the property lines are laid out, it looks like a sheet of God’s Graph Paper.

  14. JACKQULINE MONIES Avatar
    JACKQULINE MONIES

    Well darn it, you already have one! I bet you have everything already.

    I loved Ed Bruce. First Taste of Texas or When I Die Just Let Me Go to Texas. He was a favorite. Waltz Across Texas.

    You know I don’t believe I saw any cowboys on this trip. Few bikers but no good looking ones. Not even a decent looking oil field worker. Where have the good looking men gone?

  15. JACKQULINE MONIES Avatar
    JACKQULINE MONIES

    Low of 37 here tonight. But I never get up early enough to feel the cold very often. No wonder there is snow on moutain tops. .

  16. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Beats me. Where have all the females in sundresses gone?

    Playing with my new TV before bedtime. (Tomorrow I’m going to buy a broom or something that doesn’t come with a 300+ page operator’s manual for a change.) Ran across Return of the Jedi, right at the scene where Princess Leia got wounded in front of the bunker. I swear that when Han Solo reached down to help her, he grabbed her left boob instead of her upper arm.

  17. JACKQULINE MONIES Avatar
    JACKQULINE MONIES

    Google gave me choice of straight from Cheyenne where I am across Nebraska and south through Kansas and Oklahoma.

    Next choice around Denver and straight across Kansas then south through Kansas and Oklahoma.

    Last choice went across Colorado and Kansas into Oklahoma then across state.

    Opinions?

  18. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    Since you asked, I’d prefer to avoid cities, so would go east into NE, maybe as far as to US 77 or 75, then S. Once you are in OK, you know the area far better than I – I would also try to avoid Ok. City, but you can make your own choices. Wichita is another place I’d rather not drive in/around.

  19. Steve from Royal Oak, MI Avatar

    Up until just a few years ago, antelopes did outnumber people in Wyoming. The herd has been thinning and as of 2013 (the latest that I saw on line) there were roughly 400K antelope and over 500K people.

  20. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    From the Department of Headlines I Didn’t Expect to See: Nude Mike Rowe Sees Drone Outside Bedroom Window, Pulls Shotgun

    And I won’t even get into from whence a nude man would “pull a shotgun”.

  21. Smigz Avatar
    Smigz

    Bob in Orland Park, I may have to consider a convertible for my next vehicle. I’m about due a midlife crisis car (after having only practical cars all my life)…maybe a Mustang convertible…in bright yellow with a black top.

    Late summer/early fall allergens are bad this year, I’ve read. That’s mostly ragweed and molds, in spite of the heat and dry summer. I find that for lungfuls of crud, lots of liquids and 3-4 days of Mucinex help me cough it out. Nasty for a few days, then so much better.

    Honey mustard also great with sweet potato fries, Jackie. And I’ve noticed that often with pack or herding animals, the equivalent of human teenaged males are loners.

    Yep, emb, squash is a wonderful thing! One of my favorite flavor combinations is butternut squash and green beans.

    Ghost, that screen name is my nickname. Born into a Polish family, I was really tiny by their reckoning. An uncle said that there wasn’t enough of me to be a Smigielski…just enough to be a Smigz. Usually pronounced as “schmigs” or “schmig-zee,” since my full last name is pronounced “Schmig-yel-skee.”

  22. Symply Fargone Avatar

    Hello villagers,

    Thank you to all who noticed I had posted again…Symply overwhelming to be remembered like that…

    Do not know how much I will be around but more in and out than recently as the biz is over….thought you folks might like this pphto that was taken after the concert…the guys knew it might be my last event and called me from the crowd to the stage and took this shot…pretty kewl as I can see Gayle in the crowd too(Good luck findin her, she is in a maroon top with a reddish scarf, the last person between the two spotlights on the right in the front of an opening of the empty seats(why the biz is over).

    https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14492364_10209235896207744_2760414433381705271_n.jpg?oh=16ecfd7a1a238cb0efe1a0d31135ef19&oe=588284EC

    From left to right there is:

    Michael Brooks (Fran Cosmo of Boston’s guitarist)
    Chuck D Tilley(Nashville session player and Six Wire drummer)
    Fran Cosmo (singer for Boston)
    John Howard (Nashville session player and Six Wire bassist)
    Randall Hall (Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist and vocalist)
    Kevin Chalfant (singer for Storm, Journey Experience and stand in for Steve Perry for a while)
    Symply Fargone (er ME!)
    Peter Rivera (Lead singer and drummer for Rare Earth)
    Brad Cole (Keyboardist and former music director for Phil Collins)
    Jerry Riggs (Nashville session player and Six Wire lead guitarist)

    It was as interesting as a Rock and Roll show can be! Before the show even started there was a process server at the door trying to serve papers to one of the band(but which one!?!) Nerves were a bit frayed..but it still alll worked out…turns out a friend wanted a band member to testify at a trial and did not call and let him know, just sent someone to serve the papers….end of story lots of relief….after the show I took all the guys out to a local diner for breakfast/dinner depending on what they wanted…it was a great wonderful swan song with some great music and awesome memories…

    Hope I haven’t Fargone bored you good folk!