There is one good thing about being comic-strip characters: if you’re tired of that icky brown sofa, you easily can change it into an icky green sofa. If you don’t like that, you just change it back. The sofa in A&J, which practically is a character actor in its own right, is an almost identical copy of a sofa I owned in 1984, when I was developing the strip. It was easy to draw, which was a big plus in those days, and it was low, ideal for 360-degree viewing. However, I did not do a lot of complicated camera angles in those days. I drew mostly in profile, which required the least skill, and that included the sofa, for years depicted mostly as a square. As I said, it was easy to draw. Occasionally, I still will draw the sofa from profile, usually with Arlo’s head popping out of the top as he’s watching TV, but when you see that these days you can be sure I was pressed for time.
The Remote Present
By Jimmy Johnson
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79 responses to “The Remote Present”
WOW, a Sunday up date. Welcome back, good sir.
Am I the first one to notice? Thanks for opening up the village again JJ.
Actually, Bob, it opened last evening. Look back a day.
Prunella Mountjoy? Really? I won’t even say what image that calls to mind.
Wow! I was shocked – and pleased! – to see another posting from JJ today. Yay!
in honor of a new A&J, I’m watching Airplane! I promise not to call you Shirley..
Hi, Debbe 😉 Glad to see it appears that things are still rocking along on a somewhat even keel for you and yours.
And hello to all the other Villagers. Oddly, I missed you guys. 🙂
p.s. Steve, try not to develop a drinking problem while watching Airplane.
Jackie, I hope you will give some thought to attempting to regulate your daily schedule, meal-wise and food intake-wise. I realize that is often easier said than done, but what you eat is just one part of a successful weight loss plan. And while you are obviously doing well with yours, your metabolism must be as confused as I am after six tequila shots. (Just kidding…I would never shoot a tequila.) A regular meal and sleep schedule can work wonders. Good luck.
Hi Ghost, I agree, along with a regular sleep schedule! I will try to work on all three. My life has been a lot like a roller coaster. I ate that late because I had just rolled in from pedicuring and nails and shopping. I have discovered beef jerry and Diet Coke work as mid’meal rescue snacks and since I get so little sodium works out.
Thank you for caring. Seriously. Awake and going to eat brunch in kitchen. Love, Jackie
Good morning, Villagers, and hello again! I’ve been dropping in occasionally, but didn’t have anything to say, so I didn’t.
I do understand Arlo’s frustration with trying to make an Internet star out of Luddie. I can sometimes get still shots of my cats, but if I try for video they immediately stop what they were doing and begin watching me, which makes the whole exercise pointless.
As to remotes, if I were going to get a universal remote it would be this one: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ee4a/
A bit pricey maybe, but ever so cool!
Steve-don’t eat the fish!
Hi, Jean dear. Good to hear from you…I’d wondered about you to the point of concern. As far as having nothing to say, well, that never stops me from posting. 🙂
Good morning everybody. Jimmy, I just want you to know we’re all counting on you. I’m glad to see you back again. And I’m glad we can talk to each other again here.
Trapper Jean, my smartphone has a remote feature built in. I have programmed in the satellite receiver, tv, Blu-Ray player and stereo so I can work them all with the phone if I want. One ring to rule them all….
Jackie, you’re not the only one with a variable day. I did my laundry last night, miscalculated how long it would take, and didn’t get to bed to 2am.
Jean, doesn’t stop any of us, I mean we aren’t rocket scientists or Ph.D.’s or doctors or lawyers are we? Ooops, that’s right, some of us are! Well, that doesn’t stop us either and we don’t always exactly have anything educational to say although some do.
The point of a Village is the care shown for its’ inhabitants, the saying good morning, good night, how are you, how was your day?
Yes, I missed you all in our hiatus and I miss you all enough to read here every day too, even if I am not posting anything. And when you disappear I worry and wonder. Like, where is Mark?
Where is Sand? If you are on Facebook I check on you over there if I can.
Isn’t that strange, isn’t that odd? Isn’t that funny and weird? Isn’t that a Barbara Streisand song? Love, Jackie Monies
Mark, I have huge pile of laundry in my bathroom, piling up higher. Want to come over?
Am trying to figure out whether I ought to write a simple will (wife gets all; if she’s already gone, the kids get it equally) or a trust of some kind. One professional, an attorney, says to go the trust route; another professional who spent an entire career in the trusts/estates part of banking, says a will will do, that a trust is unnecessary. Both of them know my financial condition and desire to leave the estate as mentioned above.
Any villagers out there who can clarify what conditions dictate the choice? At the moment, I favor the will route.
I note, before I submit this, that this site does not think the above “will will” will be acceptable; I wonder how its electrons like three of the same word in a row!
domaucan1 – yep, I thought that duolingo site was pretty nice; glad you liked it.
I’m another person glad to see the site back up. I was also glad to find out about the Arlo & Janis Fans site on Facebook and signed up so maybe next time I’ll get the word more quickly. But . . . I don’t visit there every day either.
Very glad to now have the chance to return the happy birthday wishes to Old Bear for our mutual birthday. There’s a chart online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2145471/How-common-birthday-Chart-reveals-date-rates.html) that shows the percentage of US birthdays. July August and September birthdays are pretty common (my guess is they fall 9 months after the winter holidays). July 4, however is pretty uncommon, and my guess is that OB-GYNs do not like to work that holiday so they induce patients who will likely go into labor that day (that’s the guess of the person who wrote the article, too). My father was an OB-GYN and refused to induce for convenience. He said it doubled the incidence of complications, and although that percentage was pretty small, he didn’t think that convenience was a good reason for doubling it.
This time of year I have lots of work for organizations I belong to (collecting dues and other money, producing chapter yearbooks, preparing for fall workshops) so I’d better get back to it. Plus, it’s time to go fix lunch. Oh, and Mark, my laundry is going as we speak.
Great to be able to visit the Village again! See y’all later.
Crud ex-prof, I set up a trust with my inheritance when my mom died, put everything in it, the houses, properties, assets, stocks, bank accounts. I have access to it and can use the money, spend the money, borrow against the money, whatever I want to do. I have always been a proponent of trusts, I quote Benjamin Franklin, “If one would know a man’s character, share an inheritance with him.”
Even my boats, my car, everything is in that trust, nothing was left out. it has tax advantages but in my case, I am an only child but have children. The controversy and distrust, ill feelings had already begun and were in evidence. Money does strange things and brings out character flaws vividly. I worked with one of best trust attorneys in America, a woman, who was named top trust attorney in Oklahoma by I think U.S. News and World Report or its’ equivalent.
My grandchildren are well provided for with educations. The money passes to third generation through administrators and trustees who will protect me if I become ill or disabled, provide for my care and expenses. It protects both me in my life and my descendants in my death. It is unbreakable and detailed. I would consider one that protected your wife for the remainder of hers, should you predecease her, protecting assets and seeing she has care needed.
Enough said and seriousness. I am going to recreate! Love, Jackie
New material on a Sunday?! Thank you ever so much. I was beginning to worry about the French cat stuck in the capsule so long.
Ah, too true, Jackie. I have seen the comity of more families destroyed by bickering over inheritances than I care to count.
From Jimmy’s old neck of the woods (sands?) one year after Katrina, is a somewhat startling indication of just how ubiquitous “FEMA trailers” were at one time.
http://www.monsterchef.net/2006AugustKatrina/177-Waveland-FEMARolls.jpg
I was offered one (a trailer, not a Rolls) after the storm but was fortunate enough to have other options and therefore was spared having to inhale formaldehyde fumes for a few months.
Come to think of it, Jimmy may well have known the owner of the above pictured automobile.
We are busy performing an act of public service. Learning that training wild bears is rather more challenging than first thought. http://www.outsideonline.com/2011846/yellowstone-visitor-upset-bears-didnt-show?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tweet
I had previously seen that report, sand. My first thought was that someone is so brain-dead they do not understand the difference between Yellowstone and Disneyland, nor between an Audio-Animatronics bear and a real one. (I suspect the story is apocryphal, however.)
Grrr…. Had a somewhat lengthy response to C ex-p’s will question, but couldn’t get it to post. Copied it, tried backing up and pasting it without success, and now the copy is gone too.
Sand: My sister-in-law works at a state park on the coast in Georgia. Her response to the bear story was her own tale of visitors who yelled at them because their website did not warn that there might be bugs.
C ex-p: new version of lost comment – if you have a simple family and situation (we do and it sounds like you do too), a simple will is probably enough. We followed our attorney’s advice and did a “life estate” deed on our house to make things easier for our niece and nephews but still protect us. Check with your state’s laws, of course.
Everyone else – regardless of age, health, and how much you own: make sure you have the paperwork done designating power of attorney for regular and especially for healthcare issues should you need help. We dilly-dallied on this, in large part because the choices are less clear when you don’t have children (or other close family members that you expect to outlive). I feel much better now that we have this done!
Thanks for the opinions.