CSotD: Tuesday Titters

Start with a confession: I like this Off the Mark (AMS) because, once he’s found true love, they can get married and produce blended offspring, all of which I will like more.

I’ve tried a number of single malt Scotches and they’ve convinced me that wise distilleries blend their whiskies to create a better tasting beverage.

BTW, I’m assuming we’re talking about Scotch. Canadian whisky in the days of Prohibition was blended with grain alcohol, which is a different matter entirely. You can buy unblended grain alcohol, which we call “vodka” or “aquavit,” but I don’t think anyone sells single malt Canadian, given that even rye whisky is a blend of various things.

To which I would add, glancing at the clock, that if you find yourself discussing whisky at six in the morning, you should probably rethink more topics than just that one.

Better you should contemplate being abducted by extraterrestrials, because Wallace the Brave (AMS) makes a couple of references to things I doubt Wallace and Spud are old enough to have thoroughly explored.

Though Spud is right that Wallace would likely be abducted by Robert Preston and sent off to use his mastery of video games to save the universe. And he’s right that one could do worse, particularly if you get to come home to Catherine Mary Stewart.

He’s also correct that it would not be fun at all to be a POW and then marry someone drab who kills your soul.

But, then again, when you finally arrive at the Space Zoo, you get to shack up not with Cliff the Vegan but with Montana Wildhack.

Life is full of compensations, Spud my boy.

Of course, as the Argyle Sweater (AMS) notes, there is a seemingly long and potentially embarrassing stage of life before you ever get anywhere near either Catherine Mary or Montana.

And while we’re dwelling on sources of inner torment, Barney & Clyde (WPWG) taps into my dreamworld. Younger readers — and most of you are — will be sorry to learn that you never do outgrow those dreams in which you suddenly realize you forgot your pants, though you do get to a point where it seems like the least of your worries, so that’s a little compensation.

But while that is less a part of my dreamworld these days, it’s because I have a growing tendency to start out with an interesting dream but then have it end up with me endlessly wandering the dank streets looking for my car.

When I was a little kid, I used to have medicine dreams. Now I just have Metamucil dreams.

Of course, being a little kid is different these days. Guy Venables plays with a hot topic in Britain, where there is a proposal to ban cell phones in school. I like that his little girl has no idea what you’re supposed to do if you become unplugged, because the whole thing does get into that question of how you explain “wet” to a fish?

The proposal includes allowing diabetic kids to keep their phones because they are often monitoring their blood sugar through an app. This is an example of how interwoven cell phones are in young people’s default lives, and it also reminds me that one of my sons had a profoundly deaf classmate who wore a receiver paired with a mike the teacher would put on at the start of class.

And sometimes would forget, so that the teacher would be down in the office talking to the principal while the student gave play-by-play reports to the kids back in the classroom. They didn’t think of her as disabled. They thought of her as having a super-power.

Anyhoo, I’m not against collecting phones at the start of the school day. Kids would adjust to the change.

But my guess is that you’d get pushback from parents who want to keep those apron strings tightly attached.

Watson brings up a super power that makes us all envy our dogs, though only Lewis Grizzard discusses it.

Only now I’m thinking I should go clean under the dog’s bed and look for hidden videotapes.

Speaking of whom, the Other Coast (Creators) reminds me of how lucky I am to have a young, healthy dog, because she doesn’t need pills very often but is a master at discovering them.

There isn’t a lot she won’t eat, but, of course, pills top that very short list.

This Bizarro (KFS) hit at a good moment, because there’s a pub down the street that runs trivia contests frequently, but I was driving by the other day and realized I’m too old to play.

That is, I can fetch up state capitals easily enough, but my pop culture references are mostly in the grandparental category. Ask me anything about Sid Caesar or Bobby Rydell or the Life of Reilly and I’m your man, but I don’t know squat about Silver Spoons or Michael Penn or the Real World. I only knew about the Last Starfighter because I took my kids to see it.

I gave up on trivia contests after losing a squeaker because I said Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake within a single nation’s boundaries. They wanted Lake Superior, which has a greater surface area but contains less water and is sure not within a single nation’s boundaries.

I’m not just too old to know 80s and 90s trivia. I’m too old to argue with the sort of knowitalls who run those contests.

Which brings us to this Jonesy cartoon: By responding to every comment and question on-line, you’ll gain plenty of followers, but who are they? Like Lake Superior, they’re all surface area; depth isn’t a factor.

Though it does remind me to say that I’m at @csotd.bsky.social on BlueSky, now that they’ve opened up membership to anyone without requiring an invitation. I’m not blown away by it, but presumably when they get more members it will feel less like a small group talking to each other.

This is the kind of trivia I do enjoy: The Barn (Creators) planted a most pleasant earworm in my head today.

Actually, several, but here’s one that includes sheep and one fantastically authentical-looking band. (“Lime juice tub” refers to the British ships those brand-new chums arrived in)