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

Est. 1985

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Counter Measures

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
We’ve had a little extracurricular fun lately, but it’s back to the oldies today, from five years ago next month. Speaking of extracurricular fun, Jim Young, the friend who administers our alter-ego Facebook site “Arlo and Janis Fans,” appropriated the café scene that was the subject of the most recent post here. The café scene for the time being resides at the top of the fan page, which I think is an excellent place for it. I even told the folks there (which, I know, includes a lot of you here) that I’d color it for them, hopefully by the end of the week. I’ll keep you posted. I mean, does life get any more exciting?

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52 responses to “Counter Measures”

  1. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    Since we have a new page today, I have copied the comments I made this morning at the end of “Café Arlo and Janis.”

    Debbe: Thanks for asking… I wrote a long comment yesterday, but it went away into cyber-space!
    I have left Cambridge and now am back in Gallipolis. I was gone only about three months, but now everything HERE seems odd. But I suppose that is normal, under the circumstances. I am in the process of trying to integrate everything I had with me back into this space. I had no idea I had taken so much. But I had been traveling back and forth for several years, so I have a lot of duplicates. It was a lot easier to have duplicates than to keep repacking every week. It will take awhile to get everything sorted thru, put away, decide what to get rid of.
    Personally, I suppose I am doing fairly well. I don’t seem to have a lot of energy and do not want to talk with anyone. But that is probably normal also. My spirit is probably trying to smooth out the empty spaces.
    Everyone’s personality is different and we each have our own way of coping with trials. My way is to be quiet and introspective. becoming stronger before I can face the world again. I have thought several times of the Jewish custom of “sitting Shiva”. Now, I can understand how that can be a healing time

  2. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    BTW Jimmy, love today’s retro!

  3. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I don’t have the background with Book of Faces for that information to mean much to me, but, golly, it sounds middling exciting, nonetheless.

    Last evening, I ran across a recipe for…I swear I’m not making this up…”Chicken-Fried Bacon with White Gravy”. I wish I had found that a few months ago, when I was, if not exactly off my diet, not entirely on it, either. On second thought, perhaps it was better I didn’t, as if I had, I’d likely be recovering from a balloon angioplasty about now.

  4. Steve from Royal Oak, Mi Avatar

    I already tried coloring the strip, but I have a bunch of crayola on my computer screen….

  5. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Steve from Royal Oak, MI, forgot to put the plastic on the screen first?

  6. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Yo Village! I am back from a little misadventure.

    Steve, using Crayolas on your screen leaves it all smuggie. 😉

    Isn’t the colorization of old, b&w cartoons a sacrilege akin to Turner coloring b&w movies?

  7. Ruth Anne in Winter Park, FL Avatar
    Ruth Anne in Winter Park, FL

    OK, so now I know how old Mark is – I had the plastic for the screen too 🙂

  8. sideburns Avatar

    Ghost, that reminds me of a dish I heard mention a few weeks ago on a TV show: chicken fried lobster.

  9. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    Does anyone here file IRS forms on paper? I do, and I just found out that the 100+ page 1040 instruction book is no longer being distributed for pick-up at certain places!

    Long ago, I’d get forms and instructions at a post office (then that distribution was stopped), then at my local library. Now, I need to navigate the IRS web site and specifically order the 1040 instructions and any schedules. Yes, I can print out the schedules – and would – but the instructions include more than 100 pages, and it is unreasonable to try to print that (and would probably do in more than one ink cartridge).

    I really don’t mind paying what the law ordains, but I resent having to jump through hoops just to get the proper papers for filing.

  10. emeritus minn. biologist Avatar
    emeritus minn. biologist

    c x-p: Sounds coercive. Nobody has the right to insist that a private citizen buy a cptr. and printer, or be cptr.-savvy. Also, though we are not poor, it’s also a way to separate the haves from the have-nots. Peace, emb

  11. John in Richmond Texas Avatar
    John in Richmond Texas

    ” does life get any more exciting? ” that’s just the right amount for me, giving me something to look forward to. and the above oldie, that would have been my wife – you’re not going to see it all, you’re not observant, you won’t sweep it all up, etc…… …. … taxes, I had to start using Turbo Tax, I couldn’t make heads or tails of my T Rowe Price statements and you can import them directly in online

  12. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    emb, I would start here: http://www.irs.gov/Forms-&-Pubs

    Just download the pdf file versions. Then print out only what you need. Remember there are currently no refunds going out, system snafu has changed the timeline.

    If you have mutual funds, bokerage, or other invesment accounts you may be eligible to file electronically through their services at little at no cost.

    Others might have better advice. Our taxes never seem to be anything except messy. Easier to farm em out and is nice to have someone in our corner come audit day.

  13. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Oops, that s/b cep not emb

  14. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Meanwhile, in the he had too much free time department. Guy edited 50,000 Wikipedia enteries for which there exists no English language rule of usage. http://www.vox.com/2015/2/10/8013509/comprise-vs-compose

  15. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Until recently, I would have also thought requiring citizens to own a computer and printer to be coercive, but that was back when I thought the US Gubermint had no right to require citizens to purchase health insurance. So much for that.

    I suppose we could organize a protest, but dumping computers and printers into Boston Harbor would undoubtedly get one taken into custody by an EPA SWAT team. (You think I’m kidding? The Environmental Protection Agency does indeed have a SWAT team. So does the National Park Service, the Postal Inspection Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. And NASA. I’m not sure about the Library of Congress.)

  16. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    The horror, sand, the horror. Coming soon to a theater near you…The Night of the Living Obsessive Compulsives.

  17. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    GR6, if you think having your own SWAT team is the ultimate cool, just hire your own private security team. I’ve had a couple trip were company supplied security and sweeping services.

  18. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Or since it’s in PDF format elsewhere on the IRS site, you could just download it to your computer and save it as a file.

  19. Ursen Avatar
    Ursen

    In my area a SWAT team is 10 rednecks with shotguns in a pickup truck.

  20. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    My poor-man’s security team…a GLOCK 23 and two spare magazines of ammo.

  21. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    GR6, two spare mags? That will barely get you past the door security.