I intended to be here yesterday, and I would have but for technical issues. I still prefer a desktop computer for my work. It seems to me much more suited to the graphic manipulation that is much of my effort. However, the old Dell I’d been using was about 150 years old in computer years. Loading modern Web sites was excruciatingly slow and increasingly futile, and it simply was not powerful enough to run updated versions of some of the software upon which I rely. Worst of all, I couldn’t stream HD movies to run in the background while I worked! So, I purchased a new computer, the latest incarnation of the first computer I purchased back in 1994. I love it. However, the migration has not been easy, particularly getting my scanner to work properly. That’s what I was working on yesterday about this time. For now, it’s working, but it was working once before—perfectly—then my scanner vanished from my new computer’s “friends” list. So we shall see. For now, here’s Vince. We’ll talk more about him and the cartoons next time.
Character Flaw
By Jimmy Johnson
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307 responses to “Character Flaw”
OK, quick! What’s the “name” of the winter storm currently moving across the Mid-West?
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That’s what I thought. The Weather Channel’s practice of naming winter storms just gets sillier and sillier, doesn’t it?
Debbe đ I wish you’d gotten the name of the French rifle. From your description, it may be a MAS-36. Note the odd-looking angle of the bolt handle.
http://armesfrancaises.free.fr/FR%20MAS%2036%201%B0%20type-VD-WEB.JPG
It may be unlawful to own in some jurisdictions, as it is possible to mount a bayonet to it. I understand that curb store robberies committed with bayonet-equipped WWII rifles is a becoming a real problem.
Funny there should be the mention of bacon-onion jam. The other day I was reading the description of a “super bacon cheeseburger”-two bacon-wrapped patties with various cheeses, tomato, lettuce, and Dr Pepper/bacon/onion jam. The rest of the burger sort of made my arteries harden as I read about it, but the Dr Pepper jam sounds interesting. I can’t find a recipe, though.
Once upon a time I read Pibgorn, but gave up on it as it just never seemed to go anywhere, and I got bored. Now the same thing is happening with 9CL. In recent weeks I had forgotten what the plot line was, and why Bill and Martine were wandering around in the woods. I also tend to agree with Jackie, and have thought for a very long time, that 9CL isn’t so much a comic as an exercise in how much soft-core porn McEldowney can get away with, which makes the plot of his play so ironic. For those who haven’t followed links, it’s about a “young atheist who one day finds herself at the center of a most unconventional religious experience”. I’m about to give up on Juliette, Edda, et al, because I’m to the point where I don’t really care what happens to them, and McEldowney’s people are about as realistic as a Barbie doll.
Debbe, I’m glad your cat is safe! There are 4 or 5 sort of feral cats who hang out in my back yard, and I make sure they have a warm, safe place to sleep and food for when hunting is scarce, and if one of them doesn’t turn up for a day I do worry.
For those keeping score of such things, the temp this morning was 27F, and the water in the cat’s bowl was frozen.
My last red heeler who died within year was named “Love” for the truck stop where I rescued her (and the 7 puppies we didn’t know she was pregnant with) It seemed an appropriate name, she was a most loving dog and when all the other heelers had died, she got to finally be my faithful companion, as she had wanted to all those years. I wish it had been for longer.
I also had “Sam” who was a female red heeler I rescued from a Walmart parking lot she had been left in. She was named for Sam Walton actually, not Sam’s Club.
About heelers, they seem to not like each other or so mine seemed. They also want to be the dominant dog and “you belong to them” in their minds. They don’t like anyone else interfering with their humans.
Within the pack of puppies there was one blue and six red heelers and the red ones picked on the blue so badly I had to move her into house to live with me.
Am I the only one who thinks dogs and cats are NOT color blind?
This does seem odd. Right now I have my mom’s old, like REALLY old, Australian shepherd with no hair and my Catahoula Curr female who is a tri-color like a blue heeler. Those two go at each other like wild cats! I have to take them out separately and not let them see each other through windows. Housekeeper took down the sheets I’d hung over windows for that reason and I almost lost a window again just now!
Feral mama cat is outside my window eating breakfast with Russian blue kitten. And the apricot one just appeared. Last night I looked out and a young possum had his nose stuck thru the grill work of shelf and was sucking up cat kibble! Then he turned the bowl over,solving that mystery of the cat bowl on its’ side every morning.
You guys, talking computers like that! I know you probably speak Russian too!
Love, Jackie
I would suspect they may have used the Dr. Pepper where Ghost’s recipe used vinegar, Jean.
“. . . itâs cold out there, 17 degrees!” Low here of +2F, temp. now 5F, expected high 20F. Mostly sunny, but probably not enough to melt the 2-3″ on the ground. One can hope. Cold enough so roads will mostly not be slippery. Happy November.
Today’s newspaper comic is right on. We never had a fixed intercom in the bathroom, but that kind of treatment on both of our parts was usual, whatever we were wearing or not. Gratitude. Peace, emb
“. . . an exercise in how much soft-core porn McEldowney can get away with, which makes the plot of his play so ironic.” Be careful, we don’t want JJ to be accused of “as much naughty innuendo as he can get away with.” He cannot be accused of graphic porn, though I think there was once a dot on a distant mermaid.
eMb, yes, but innuendo is one thing; mostly naked young people shagging on a piano bench is completely different.
Jackie, I suspect you are right.
Back to the bacon jam/marmalade. I knew there was an old Southern recipe for Dr. Pepper jelly, which I found on net, but I have never made. I also knew there were recipes for tomato jellies and jams, which I used to make, and some of the bacon jams also use tomatoes with the onions. Some of the bacon jams also use bourbon or whiskey in them and I would suspect that there are still those who will not cook with alcohol but will cook with soft drinks.
That is how you ended up with Coca Cola and other soft drinks in a lot of recipes back when I was a kid/younger as the South was full of non-drinking non-cooking with alcohol Christians, like my grandmother.
There are a lot of Southern ham glazes that use soft drinks, like Coke or Dr. Pepper, and I even found one that used brown sugar, bacon and onions and sounded a lot like the bacon jam/marmalade mix but it had Dr. Pepper in it!
Today’s younger restaurant cooks/chefs are not cooking the older, traditional “French” or European dishes that were around in the 1960-80’s in upscale restaurants. They are experimenting with lots of things and actually revising and using things their great grandparents might have cooked with farm ingredients.
Come on JJ, back to Gene and Mary Lou and Gus and the new restaurant or bistro or whatever. And have them serve bacon jam on brie cheese and toast as a homage to Ghost.
Love, Jackie
Parry, jab, thrust. What is the motto of the bayonet? KILL!
GR6, Thanks for the trip down the olive drab memory lane.
Jackie, there are also cakes which use various soft drinks. Had a very good Coca-Cola ™ chocolate cake at an old-time cafe in Franklin, TN.
Here is a Dr. Pepper jelly recipe I found with internet search: http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/sauce-spread/jam/dr-pepper-jelly.html
It’s probably the same one you saw, Jackie. Wonder how it would be with Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale. Bet that would make a good ham glaze! That drink is not too sweet and has a ginger punch like British ginger beer.
I loved Franklin, TN. When next to last company hired Mike they told us we were going to Tennessee, so I got ready to move to Franklin, my choice of great Southern town. Sent out about 1000 letters to all our customers we had saying how much we would miss them, we were moving to Tennessee. Company fired salesman from Texas-Oklahoma and called us saying forget TN, so I had to send out letters saying “Sorry, we are staying after all!”
There was an awesome café there I loved but it has been 20 years now, so of course I forget the name. But I am from the town in Louisiana that is home to the original Coca Cola bottling and candy company, so they cook a LOT of things there with Coke. Hams and cakes being two, of course.
I am mildly defeated, I have been trying to find restaurants in Tulsa area that serve oysters, especially po’ boys, for Mike as he has to do radiation daily now and is starting chemo we assume next week as well. I did find one, S and J Oysters which we used to eat in when we moved here, it shut down, has reopened in an abridged form. And can’t find another one of any kind except a couple of raw appetizers and he doesn’t do raw now.
None of the “sea food” restaurants have oysters and there aren’t too many when they list Captain D’s and Popeyes as seafood choices in top restaurants in Tulsa! Not that I wouldn’t eat at either one, I am no snob, but I need one with oysters.
Love, Jackie
Jackie: “Am I the only one who thinks dogs and cats are NOT color blind?” No, and biologists agree with you. Dogs and cats, like most mammals, are dichromats. They have two kinds of cones [color-sensitive cells] in their retinas. Present day primates, including us, generally have three. Tens of millions of years ago, a genetic mutation occurred in an ancestral primate, duplicating a site on the X-chromosome that contained a gene for a protein that is most sensitive to light at the red and green end of the spectrum. Dogs and cats and the rest have just one gene at that position, are therefore unable to distinguish red from green; they are red-green colorblind. In the lineages leading to present day primates, one of those red-green sites duplicated. Then one of those two mutated, making it more sensitive to red or green than the other one, so we can distinguish red from green.
Other mutations, of course, can destroy their color sensitivity, but these are recessive. Some of us, females, have two X-chromosomes, so can still distinguish red from green if there is a normal gene on their other X-chromosome. Others of us, males, have only one X, so will be red-green colorblind if we get a color-defective X from mom. We get a tiny Y-chromosome from dad, which is what makes us male, but has no color-sensitive site. Therefore, red-green colorblindness is much rarer in women, because that will only happen if they get defective red-green genes from both folks. There will be a quiz next time.
[No, but if I can find it and it’s not too long, I may post an excerpt from a column I wrote about an instance of this that came up during a lecture in Intro Biology.]
Peace, emb
My husband, Mike is color blind, my daughter’s husband is color blind. Will my grandson Jack also be color blind? Or will it depend on what type color blindness each male has?
[“Hey, emb, there’s no school Saturday.” OK, don’t read this until Monday.]
Three nuggets from high school or college biology. One: Many genes come in alternate forms, called alleles. Sometimes one allele is “dominant” to another; if so, the other is “recessive”. (E.g., the allele for blue eyes is recessive to several alleles for other eye colors.)
Two: Women normally have 22 pairs of ordinary chromosomes (“autosomes”) and two X-chromosomes, total 46. Men normally have 22 pairs of autosomes, one X-chromosome, and one Y-chromosome, total 46. When humans make egg or sperm cells, chromosome pairs separate. A woman’s normal eggs therefore have 22 autosomes and one X-chromosome. Half of a man’s normal sperm have 22 autosomes and one X-chromosome; the other half have 22 autosomes and one Y-chromosome.
Three: Dad thus determines a normal embryo’s sex. If an X-bearing sperm fertilizes an egg, that plus Mom’s X will produce XX, a girl. If a Y-bearing sperm fertilizes an egg, that plus Mom’s X will produce XY, a boy.
Autosomes range in number of genes from relatively high to relatively low. X-chromosomes are large, and carry lots of genes. Y-chromosomes are small, carrying few genes. X-Y sex determination results in “X-linked” inheritance. The traits controlled by X-linked genes need not relate directly to sex, but their inheritance depends on whether you inherited one X-chromosome or two.
A simple example, red-green color vision, works well in large biology lectures. You ask for a show of hands of all men who know they are red-green colorblind. About 5 to 8 % of the men will raise a hand. (Note: âwho know they are red-green colorblind”. Red-green colorblind people see colors; they have two of the three kinds of color-sensitive cone cells in their retinas. They cannot distinguish some reds from some greens, but they have no way of knowing that until they are tested in an eye exam.)
Then you get a show of hands of all women who know they are red-green colorblind. Rarely does a hand go up; most women who inherit a colorblindness gene from Dad get a normal gene from Mom, and red-green colorblindness is recessive.
One spring, a young woman’s hand went up in the second row. It was “Edna” and I said, ” ‘Opal’ must be a carrier”. (Opal is Edna’s mother.) But how did this weird prof know that Opal was not herself red-green colorblind, and thus have to pass colorblindness to all her daughters? I knew the family. Edna was the middle of three sisters, each of whom took my course. “Mabel”, the eldest had sat down front a year or two earlier, and not raised her hand. So Mabel was not colorblind. Therefore, Opal must have both alleles, one on each of her X-chromosomes. Opal could distinguish red from green, but was a carrier for the recessive allele, which Edna got.
Edna, of course, had gotten a colorblindness gene from “Edward”, a fellow biology prof. Edward, having only one X-chromosome and a colorblind daughter, was therefore colorblind. Later, the youngest daughter, “Ethel”, also sat down front, and did not raise her hand. In addition to helping me demonstrate X-linked inheritance, the three also confirmed a common phenomenon: “A-students sit down front”.
Possible multiple choice question: If either Mabel or Ethel bear a son who can see, what is the probability that he will be red-green colorblind? a. 0 b. 25% c. 50% d. 100% e. Cannot tell, because we don’t know if his father could tell red from green.
GR6, an even bigger red flag came when Janis accepted, without reservation, the snarky depiction of Arlo being made by another man.
A&J was already in 1993 the best comic strip in our newspaper by a wide margin, and I really, really enjoyed it. When I saw this strip, I muttered some expletives and was certain we were now in A Very Special Episode of Arlo and Janis.
I was quite exercised and not optimistic for a second as to How This Would All Pan Out. Thank God that Our Bard was made of sterner stuff than I had assessed him of at that particular time. I hope Our Bard does not find my lack of faith (at that moment) disturbing.
Well, I for ONE do not like the looks of this office “boy” who looks about as old as Gene as a teenager. I know, I know, Janis was younger then as well, but he just looks immature! And not to be trusted either. OK, I know this ends well but I haven’t seen it I think?
Jackie, I couldn’t remember the name either so I looked it up. It was Dotson’s and I think it has been in the same family since the 1940’s or ’50’s.
Have a look at this site: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g51697-d407824-Reviews-White_River_Fish_Market-Tulsa_Oklahoma.html
If you look under the address at the upper left you;ll see the word menu in blue. Click it and you can see what they have. I see both oyster poor boys and fried oysters.
Thanks Mark. I am going to drive Mike to both places and we will try them out. His arm is hurting so we will have to drive him now, they are doing radiation from three directions but it is the tumor in spine causing the pain. And he is on pain medications which aren’t legal to drive with. Daughter will be here this week, then I take back over.
While I was looking for a pot roast slow cooker recipe, guess what I found? Coca Cola Pot Roast! I had forgotten that one too. All this dates back a least to the 1950’s I suspect, as I remember that one as a kid.
I also remember a jellied salad made with cola and Jello powder?
All our “old family recipes” seem to have originated on the back of the products’ cans.
Love, Jackie
Jackie, actually that would be “Lard confiture sur le fromage de brie et de pain grillĂ© de le FantĂŽme”, and it might indeed make an excellent appetizer at the bistro. Besides being “Frenchified” enough to suit ML.
GR6, peut-ĂȘtre vous avez voulu dire, “Frappez cette racaille de bureau dans la tĂȘte avec un fromage,” hein? đ
I’m sorry, Evan, but did you say something about a “cheese-flavored iced coffee drinks”? If so, that sounds hideous.
You’re welcome, sand. I actually saw an ad for what would have to be (to me) the most worthless possible accessory for a GLOCK pistol…a bayonet. Unless perhaps I were a pirate needing to forcibly board one sailing ship from another sailing ship.
Of course, if bayoneted pistols catch on out on the mean streets, it will likely do away with the habit of robbers thrusting their pistols into the front waistbands of their trousers. Or at least decrease the probability of armed robbers who do that having baby armed robbers.
What do you call a pirate’s vacation?
Arrr & Arrr!
Seems GR6 and Evan are up to some stange behavior. They are going to consume toast slathered in bacon grease, then go to the head office to hit some guy with a cheese. Seigneur, ayez pitié de ces ùmes pécheresses.