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”
GR6, heh. Well played, sir, well played.
I meet every Thursday morning with a group that includes a gentleman that taught both French and Spanish at West Point, and was often used as a translator during his military career. One morning he made some offhand comment in French, I made some quip back in French to his surprise, and now we have a brief chat every week.
One of our running jokes is that since we are the only two people that know what we are saying, either of us can claim that the other said something silly, scandalous or any point in between and there is no defense to that.
Clearly you have made this gentleman’s acquaintance. 😉
Ghost, a bayonet does sound like the most useless accessory for a pistol. After all, if the bullets didn’t finish them off, a bayonet would probably just tickle them. Like I said about the steel coils when I was a guard at the plant, if anyone can pick one up and carry it away in his hands, he can have it!
GR6, a bayonet equipped Glock might be wise in a confined space; saves your hearing.
Evan, always make certain your gig line is correct when meeting with Willy Peter. Else it will result in, Déposez et donnez-moi vingt-cinq!!
Ah, sandcastler was also on the lookout. Of course, I was suggesting that what GR6 MEANT to say was to hit that office scum in the head with a cheese, not that we take my suggested action after consuming the tasty treat he was describing, but hey, what I have forgotten about French would fill volumes…
Et heureusement, il est venu dans le monde pour sauver les pécheurs, dont je suis le pire.
sand, at close range, I’d be less concerned with saving my hearing than I would be preserving my appendages. 🙂
Continuez vos mauvaises voies et le Ghost Rider dans le ciel ne vous bombarder de fromage en grains.
Off topic, but had to show off the happy kitty in her new kitty bed. She never really liked the old one. This one seems to be a hit.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t31.0-8/10365365_10154924681055454_8592709364837326651_o.jpg
I actually know of a case locally where a young (17 y.o.) gang-banger wannabe thrust his pistol into his waistband in the so-called “appendix carry”. In doing so, he violated the first three of Col. Jeff Cooper’s “Four Rules of Gun Safety”.
1. All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target.
4. Identify your target, and what is behind it.
The resulting discharge in his pants (the first one, I mean…the one from the gun) proved the wisdom of Rule #2. I’m sure that young man now gives thanks nightly and thusly: “Thank you dear Lord for giving me two of them.”
Lady Mindy, I think you’d be hard-pressed to actually come up with something that is “off topic” around here. 🙂
For some reason, that photo makes a song run through my head: “Soft kitty, warm kitty…”.
Sandcastler, vous l’avez dit! Mais le Ghost Rider sur terre semble préférer les balles de gros calibre…
I have to laugh at myself, because Sandcastler previously had asked God to have pity on our lost/sinful souls. As I was pondering the meaning of the adjective, I got a mite confused; the French word for “sinners” is “pécheurs,”–the word for “fishers” is “pêcheurs.” I was having trouble connecting “souls” with “fishing…” Yep, that little accent makes a big difference… the difference between being witty and sounding like a lunatic. I am pretty adept at the latter…
GR6, that is a very appropriate prayer for that gentleman. I was afraid you were going to relate that something singular had taken its leave during the incident. He should indeed be grateful!
Speaking of convenience store robberies, Monday night, a young male wearing baggy clothes and no mask, pulled out a gun and attempted to rob the largest store of my company’s in town. He came in and said, “Everyone on the ground!” The three (THREE!) employees working were all “Huh?” The not very scary (5’2″, very stoned) would-be crook got flustered and ran out.
I should add, most convenience stores are louder than you think. Between all of the cooling things (coolers, freezers, etc), electronics, customers, HVAC, the ambient noise level is high enough that unless you yell, your voice isn’t going to carry very far.
Dear Mindy from Indy, good story of the would-be robber, and I learned something I didn’t know about noisy stores. Your cat is very pretty and cozy looking, but I said to myself,”just wait until a spark jumps out of the fire … oh wait, though, it’s not a real fire !!”
MfI, thanks for info on noise level in the store. Now I know why the guy at the counter keeps telling me they have no parakeets when I ask for a pack of Swisher Sweets.
Ghost, was he using ball ammunition?
More likely dum-dums, I think.
My nomination for the most inept armed robbery ever…the man who walked up to the registration window of a motel; pointed a revolver at the desk clerk; and shot the clerk in the left shoulder. The clerk instinctively grabbed the robber’s gun hand to prevent him from shooting again. The robber jerked his hand upwards and away, bringing the muzzle of the gun up toward his face, and managed to shoot himself cleanly in the head. The clerk survived; the robber did not.
Lady Mindy, the stoner probably forgot what he was there for when the employees went off script.
My nomination for the “How Not to Be a Good Citizen Award” goes to the bank customer standing at a teller window who noticed the man standing at the next window was carrying a pistol under his jacket. Assuming the man was a robber (rather than a police office, which he was), he decided the best way to alert his teller without tipping off the “robber” was to turn over his deposit slip, write G U N on it in large letters, and show it to the teller.
Wrong.
“police officer”, that is. The entire “office” wouldn’t have fit into the bank lobby. 🙂
Hello again, Village. I am back awake and cooking pot roast which I hope works out, I took my older daughter’s advice and added the veggies at the end instead of the beginning, as recipe said. Her comment was that most slow cooker recipes were for working women/men who needed to put them on when they left, to be ready when they returned home.
Which sounds sensible.
Youngest daughter says there is a photo on Facebook of the garbage collectors standing over my oldest’s cans of castoffs for 20 minutes pulling out stuff she discarded.
One man’s treasure another’s trash.
Kittens are outside my window behind computer. I wonder if I raised window and took off screen they might come in?
Love, Jackie
My store, being old is really bad. Standing in the “beverage corner,” you can’t hear much of anything. Coffee, slushie, fountain (especially the carbinator), HVAC vent, and cooler – all in a four foot area. And the mircowave is also in this little “zone” as well. When everything happens to be on at once, you might as well use semaphore flags.
sandcastlerâ„¢ Parakeets! If that is true, that is awesome. Oddly, Marlboro and Pall Mall are the worst to distinguish – mainly because around here, Marlboro is pronounced “MAR-brawl.” And, more useless knowledge for you all: “Swisher” is now a proprietary eponym. Much like “coke” is used for soda, or “kleenex” for tissue, a “swisher” is single, unipped cigarello (and in certain sectors, sliced open to introduce “extras”).
*MARL-brawl and *untipped. Stupid auto-correct!
Since I am fairly certain Sand lives in Houston area, it would surprise me if the convenience store clerks speak English. But I haven’t lived there in 20 years, so maybe things are improved. I used to have linguistic problems!
My Spanish is so poor now I am forbidden to speak it but the clerks in Houston were not often Hispanic but from assorted Eastern nations. Now I believe they are often so international it is hard to pinpoint a county of origin.
That is fine with me, so long as they speak English!
Love, Jackie
White River Fish Market Tulsa, OK menu is mouth-watering.
A Brit. would have no trouble distinguishing MARL-buh-ruh from Pell Mell.
Is that ‘hein’ at the end French or German?
What does ‘racaille de bureau’ mean? Or the whole sentence, for that matter, s’il vous plait?