Jul 23rd 2012 08:19 am Solar panels
We’re going to the beach this week, with cartoons from a series that first appeared in 1995. Summer is taking a toll on the Web site; during the warm months, there always seems to be more to interfere with updating than any other time of the year. I’m going to continue to do the best I can, however.
A&J passed a milestone of sorts sometime over the weekend. Over 45,000 readers have “subscribed” to A&J on the Universal Uclick Web site, GoComics.com. These people have A&J delivered to their mailbox every day. Now, that’s a “like” a person can like.
Posted by jimmyjohnson / Vintage A&J
48 Responses to “Solar panels”
sandcastler on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:25 am #
Congrats!!!
Jeff in Ann Arbor on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:47 am #
I have never been one to lie out in the sun, although when I was a kid, we’d go to the beach or pool and stay out in the sun to the point of occasionally getting a bad burn. I’ve just never enjoyed the feeling of baking.
My wife is a redhead, though it’s now turned a beautiful silver that always gets compliments, so she has always had to stay out of the sun. Those times we go to the beach, she slathers up and we stay under an umbrella or tree when we’re not walking.
I hate using sunscreen, though. I am very hairy and it feels so sticky. I’ll just wear clothes and take my chances on the skin that’s exposed. I’ve had to have spots frozen off my balding scalp and rather prominent beak, so I always wear at least a ball cap, more often a broad brimmed straw hat. Doctor’s orders.
Crickett on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:49 am #
That’s fantastic, Jimmy! I enjoy reading the comments of people on that site when I go over there. Some of them need to join us here. Funny stuff.
John in Richmond Texas on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:55 am #
I occasionally will run my mouse over the A-Z list at comics.com and see the number subscribing to all the strips. Of course, it would be subjective and different for everybody here, but for me, I’m still amazed at the large number for “really dumb ones” and the low number for really good ones. although many do fit with my opinion.
Will Overby on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:02 am #
Congratulations, Jimmy! Glad to see so many people have good taste in comics!
Mark from Maine on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:16 am #
Nice work, Jimmy. it just shows that good work will always be recognized.
And your classic today really dates you, as even up here in Maine I routinely use SPF 70 . . .
John on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:31 am #
Have tried to post three times now and keep getting a message that the page doesn’t exist. Or that I simply cannot connect with it. Shame. I congratulated you, Jimmy, on the growth, and mentioned Mindy’s last au nautural sunburn. The congratulations stand, if this post takes, but I won’t go into detail on the sunburn. Maybe that was Mother Nature’s way of telling me to keep my mouth shut?
Galliglo in Ohio on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:42 am #
Congratulations, JJ!
Mindy on 23 Jul 2012 at 11:03 am #
Way to go, JJ! We never miss a day checking the real-time and retro A&J offerings and we never miss an opportunity to tell people about your work. It’s amazing how many of them later thank us for steering them to you. It’s sort of like introducing a friend to another friend.
And John wants to know is the beach series is going to show any skin. Typical male. He thinks the “sunburn” thing will embarass me, BTW. It won’t. Cause I’m not going to tell the story.
David in Austin on 23 Jul 2012 at 11:52 am #
I almost feel guilty… I never read A & J on the GoComics site or do I have it subscribed. I got in the habit of reading the comics on Yahoo News years ago, and I still read A & J on Yahoo every day.
Bob, near Mark on 23 Jul 2012 at 11:53 am #
I haven’t “subscribed” because A&J both show up at my front door every day of the week. They sit with me at the kitchen table for breakfast. Haven’t asked them to not drop by yet, although they have occasionally been a tad late.
Ruth Anne in Winter Park on 23 Jul 2012 at 12:15 pm #
This blog is one of the first things I put on my Delicious list/site when I started it in 2008 and it’s one of the first places I go everyday. The hardest part is deciding if I should look at today’s A&J or the comments when I first arrive.
Galliglo in Ohio on 23 Jul 2012 at 12:35 pm #
I have my little routine in the mornings… check email… check headlines… GoComics… A&J blog… anything else can wait!
redagainPatti on 23 Jul 2012 at 12:39 pm #
Yea!!!!! Sweet! as the kids say around here.. meanwhile – I say – Congratulations darling..
Ghost Rider 6 on 23 Jul 2012 at 12:47 pm #
c ex-p, please! Your definition of “linguaphile” from yesterday will likely get me in trouble with Mindy. Of course, that’s familiar territory for me.
Two guys meet at an eatery for brunch. Waitress comes over and first guy orders the tongue sandwich.
Second guy: “That’s disgusting! How can you eat something that came out of an animal’s mouth?
Waitress: “And what will you have, sir?”
Second guy: “Two eggs over easy…
John: “Last” au naturel sunburn? Didn’t she figure out what caused the first one? (And why are we speaking French again?)
Note to Mindy: As always, if you don’t give details, those out here with fevered imaginations will just imagine the good parts. Of the story, I mean. Maybe.
Tom in Glendora, CA on 23 Jul 2012 at 12:49 pm #
Funny thing. I noticed those counts on the A-Z comics list over the weekend. I was going
to post about it, but Jimmy beat me to it.
Jimmy’s quite high in his count compared to many of the others. I didn’t check them all,
but he’s higher than most.
Hard to beat Calvin and Hobbes with 198459 though. Kind of interesting though, that C&H
has no new content and it seems to be the highest. Same with Peanuts. Nothing new in
that strip either and it has 82365!
Congrats Jimmy!
Mindy on 23 Jul 2012 at 2:07 pm #
Ghost, the first thing that ran through my mind, other than that I needed a fresh cold drink, was that you were being cunning.
Okay, Ghost, first, John uses French [in many ways, but I speak now of verbally] in hopes that I’ll react in the manner of Morticia Addams. We’ll not discuss how often that works. As for the sunburn? Well, okay, I’ll swallow my pride and tell. The au nautural part is accurate. I fell asleep. John, being the male chauvinist swine that he is [I still love him] cut out some tiny cardboard hearts [heavy enough so that they wouldn't blow off if the breeze came up] and put them in strategic places. He did the same with two four-leaf clovers placed strategically in the upper hemisphere so that I couldn’t wear a sundress for ages. John stayed in the dog house for ages as well. Since then, no au natural and no sunbathing. He’s fortunate. He showed me some letters he’d also cut out, but, to his everlasting joy, did not use, referring to … well, never mind that part. His good luck was that they wouldn’t fit space available and for that he still lives.
Dave in MA on 23 Jul 2012 at 2:14 pm #
My son, in his late teens at the time, asked a friend to put suntan lotion on his back. Nothing sexual or suggestive or wrong with any of the aforementioned request. That friend wrote his name in the lotion. My son had a burn on his back, with an unburned “DAN” in the middle of the burn.
We had a good laugh at his expense, but he too found it quite funny. He’s a good sport.
Hoag in MA on 23 Jul 2012 at 2:45 pm #
Congrats Jimmy on reaching 45K.
Speaking of solar panels, I saw a brilliant use of solar panels last week locally. REI installed them in their parking lot – what a great use of space. Demonstrating great benefits to their customers in the sun and rain, plus generating over 60% of their own electric power. Don’t know if this is a popular use in other regions, but it’s the first deployment that I’ve seen up here in the northeast.
Brilliant.
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1222859778/Solar-carport-powers-REI-building-in-Framingham
Hurd in Bay Minette, Al on 23 Jul 2012 at 3:03 pm #
Congrats jimmy. Its to be expected though. Went to the Boy Scout SeaBase in the Bahamas with my son last year. I knew that I sunburned easily so I have long nylon pants and long sleeved nylon shirt and 100 SPF to snorkel in. Burned anyway on the hands and ears. Spent the rest of the trip hunting shade. Not so easy on a 21 ft sailboat with 10 people on it. Still would not trade that memory for anything though.
emeritus Minnesota biologist on 23 Jul 2012 at 3:29 pm #
c x-p: How people put your naughty Greek/Latin observation together we will leave to them. However, we were able to get tongue [fresh, I think] at the butcher counter in the A&P in Ann Arbor in the mid-’50s, and also in the supermarkets in N. MN in the late ’50s and in the ’60s. Now, I think your only chance is in specialty butcher shops, where your may have to tell them to phone you when one is available.
Wife and I went on a bargain [= cheap but good] 5-6 day, one-hotel tour of Beijing just after Thanksgiving in the late ’90s. Breakfast in the 4-star hotel was a constant; other meals varied with the day trips. Only a few were on our own. We were adventurous eaters, but some others approached Beijing food differently. On one day-trip, we lunched at a table with seven others, including two college women who did not gain weight on the trip, plus the complainingest couple in our tour group. (We coined “complainingest” because every tour has such a couple.) The appetizers on the lazy Susan at one lunch included some cold cuts. Someone asked, “What’s that?” I said, “Tongue.” We had the rest of it to ourselves.
Except for vanilla yogurt and granola as part of breakfast, we ate Chinese. But the cafeteria buffet had Western food too. One morning, I was finishing off a bowl of noodles and sprouts boiled in chicken soup, with a garnish of chopped green onions [you point to the choices you want and the short-order cook puts it together]. Wife was off choosing her second course when that same couple took the next table. Madam turned to me and said breakfasts were the only good meals we got. Her breakfast: sausages, hash browns, and eggs. Fourteen hours (one way) cooped up in tourist class to fly halfway around the world to eat hash browns!
Ghost Rider 6 on 23 Jul 2012 at 4:28 pm #
Mindy, that story is freakin’ hilarious. Perhaps not as salacious as “some” might have hoped but pure-dee hilarious. Thanks for reconsidering your “don’t tell-don’t tell” policy and sharing. If there was any doubt whether or not you and John are a fun couple, I think that dispelled it.
And I knew if I worked at it long enough, I’d help you get over being so introverted.
My only response to your first sentence…”Moi?”
Robin in Fl on 23 Jul 2012 at 4:56 pm #
eMb
You’re right–one in every group. Amazes me how many people will travel that distance and look for American fast food! having said that, I like going into a McDonalds while traveling because they do offer local items, and it’s fun to see what’s different.
I was in England earlier this month and at a service area on the motorway we found a large display case with Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I shoulda…I shoulda..but I was enjoying a Scotch egg and a bacon and free-range egg sandwich.
Mary in Ohio on 23 Jul 2012 at 5:15 pm #
Congrats, JJ! I usually get to the internet about this time of day, but my morning routine: Open th Gazette, check the obituaries, then read A&J in the print version.
John on 23 Jul 2012 at 5:50 pm #
Ghost, Mindy blushed and ran off trying to find a nunnery. I expect her back any minute now.
Ghost Rider 6 on 23 Jul 2012 at 6:03 pm #
John: To paraphrase Groucho, Mindy probably wouldn’t want to join any nunnery that would have her as a nun.
Bob, near Mark on 23 Jul 2012 at 6:57 pm #
Mindy, you mentioned one of the three words in the English language that my brother despises – cunning. The other two are slather and dollop. Perfectly good words, but don’t tell my brother. Oh well, if we could just have someone get some sunblock and slather a dollop onto a cunning backside, we’d have him really perturbed.
John and GR6;
In Shakespeare’s day nunnery was common slang for an establishment that had nothing to do with sisters of a religious faith. It consisted of sisters of an entirely different type of business. That may make Mindy blush even more than usual.
Mindy on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:01 pm #
I love your turn of phrase, Bob, near Mark. John’s been in more of those slathering nunneries than I have…since I’ve never been in one…unless you consider a certain sorority house on the campus of the University of _________ at _________, ________. And, NO! It was NOT Penn State!
Mindy on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:02 pm #
And does you brother also hate “blither”?
NK in AZ on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:27 pm #
I hope he doesn’t hate “blither.” “You blithering idiot!” is such a great phrase!!!
Mindy on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:29 pm #
NK in AZ, I also love dullard, dolt, dimwit, moron and John.
I mean…..
Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:29 pm #
Can you imagine what would happen if all 45,000 tried to post here everyday?
Ghost Rider 6 on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:33 pm #
Bob, near Mark: I suppose your brother would really to be disturbed to hear of the cunning young lady residing in a nunnery who had dollops of crème fraiche slathered on her muffin. And as I’ve stated before, I always hear about these things too late…in the case of the nunnery, way too late.
Mindy, ref the info about the sorority: Même que ci-dessus. Wait a minute. You weren’t a sister there, were you?
Bob, near Mark on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:37 pm #
Mindy, Don’t know about dither. But then there was Mr. Dithers of Dagwood fame.
And that sorority house you mentioned. Was it the one Dorothy Parker was speaking of when she said, “If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised”?
Mindy on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:47 pm #
That’s the one, Bob, but, no, to Bob and Ghost, I was NOT a sister there. Or elsewhere. When the rush was over, I was still in the Student Union eating a cheeseburger and reading J. P. Sarte. Some day I may even finish that book.
But was “sister” a cunning pun playing on the slathered word previously used, “nunnery,” or am I suffering some sort of malaise? [Another wonderful word, as is "nonplussed." I always wanted to know if there is also a "nonnegatived" to go along with it?]
emeritus Minnesota biologist on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:53 pm #
About that sorority: There are two lions in front of the [old?] Museums bldg. in Ann Arbor that roar every time a virgin walks by, and Andrew Dickson White and Ezra Cornell, on either side of the Arts Quad at Cornell U. get up and shake hands in the middle of the quad whenever . . .. Every once in a while one must, because there their tracks are on the sidewalk. And that was in ’47-’51. U. Mich. was a bit later: ’53-’58.
Then, for real, on the troop ship that took me to Europe in May or June ’52, I was told that the NCO seaman that ran the projection booth was renting it out to couples coupling: husbands who had just waved their wives on the pier goodby and wives who were going to Germany to join their husbands who were already stationed there. Didn’t dispel my cynicism any.
Ron in NW IL on 23 Jul 2012 at 7:58 pm #
@Bob, near Mark: I also have A&J at the breakfast table each am. Today my first thought ‘thank you Jimmy for not making the waitress blonde’.
Jerry in Fl on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:02 pm #
Speaking of slathering, buttering your buns has a nice ring and it contains two of those whatdoyoucallums, like when you say passed instead of died.
Jerry in Fl on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:12 pm #
And Jeff, if you are having some discomfort right now just remember that I am now 5 years free of prostate cancer. The doc says that without a doubt I would be dead without the surgery. Get that lab work done and don’t listen to any of that “won’t kill you” bs.
Jeff in Ann Arbor on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:48 pm #
Jerry in Fl – Thanks for the encouraging words. Recovery has been pretty easy, but recovering full functions will take some time.
eMb – the Exhibits Museum is still there, and the lions still guard the front door. They never fail to roar when appropriate. But the originals were crumbling, so they’ve been replaced. http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/5849-historic-pumas-return-to-the-u-m-exhibit-museum
Jeff in Ann Arbor on 23 Jul 2012 at 8:49 pm #
In order to stay out of moderation, I am posting separately this link to pictures of the museum, including two of the lions (pumas).
http://michiganexposures.blogspot.com/2011/03/natural-history-museum-building.html
Ghost Rider 6 on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:13 pm #
eMb: It’s said that a large state university in this area had planned a March of the Virgins but had to cancel at the last minute because one was sick and the other refused to march by herself.
Jeff: You made the right decision, IMO.
Mandy: If one becomes nonplussed, might one recover and become plussed?
Mark in Boston on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:29 pm #
Regarding vacation food: A long time ago I read an article with a name something like “Science Fiction and the Rhetoric of Ideas”. The point was that readers won’t accept too much that’s different in a book. In normal fiction the plots and characters are new and interesting but the settings are the same old familiar ones (contemporary London or Paris or New York or your typical small town and so on). In pulp science fiction the settings are imaginative and different, but the plots and characters are the same old same old.
So I suppose many people just can’t take much change all at once. If it’s your first time on a ship and you’re meeting all these new people, you want SOMETHING to be exactly the same as last week, even if it’s only Cheerios.
Mark in Boston on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:30 pm #
Ghost Rider 6: And if a goat ate the seats on the train, they’d be non-plushed?
David in Austin on 23 Jul 2012 at 9:39 pm #
MiB,
The passengers might even find themselves rammed into a corner.
Bob, near Mark on 23 Jul 2012 at 10:47 pm #
I must have disturbed some power that is when I posted that Dorothy Parker quote. Just as I clicked on “submit comment,” the power went out in a large portion if the city for about 3 hours.
David in Austin on 24 Jul 2012 at 7:14 am #
I must have disturbed the comic gods with my comment about using the comics section on Yahoo News… Nothing is updated there today, all the strips still have yesterday’s comics.
My day, at least my morning routine, is ruined!
Mark in Boston on 24 Jul 2012 at 4:34 pm #
Mindy, was that by any chance UCRI? (The University of California at Rhode Island)