In a syndicated cartoon recently, two teen aged characters were eating pizza on a high diving board as a sprinkling came down from the sky. One character says to the other that it is too bad they have outgrown random spontaneity. The other says, "dude, we're literally eating pizza on a high dive in the rain." And gets this morose response: "Yes, but we're using napkins." Was that quoting something? The phrase "pizza on a high dive in the rain" is not merely a vivid image, it is metrically regular. PIZ - za on a HIGH dive in the RAIN. It sounds like it might have been used in someone's song as a metaphor for, yes, a spontaneous live-for-the-moment life. Either the cartoonist had a moment of genius, or he borrowed from a source that escapes me now. MSN
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I've returned from my travels, so perhaps the postings will seem somewhat fresher for a bit. One of the pre-fab postings you read last week, dear patient reader, involved my three new calendars for 2015. Allow me now to cast my mind back nostalgically at 2014 as it fades into the rear view mirror, and comment on my day-to-day calendar for that year, which involved Dilbert cartoons. On November 27th, this dresser-top calendar illustrated a theme dear to my heart. In the first panel, pointy-haired boss, standing behind Dilbert (who appears to be working on a spreadsheet at his desk) says, "Someone sent me another anonymous email with a link to the article about the world's worst bosses." In the second panel, boss clearly now has Dilbert's attention, and he continues: "I get one of those emails every time I leave your cubicle. Did you think I wouldn't notice the Correlation?" Then he walks away, and we see Wally, in the next cubicle, smilin...
This is neat: Biochemical evidence that life did not originate on earth, that our gene lines may have originated on Mars. Professor Benner says an oxidized mineral form of molybdenum, which on some models would have been critical to the origin of life on earth, would not have been available. Mars had plenty of the stuff three billion years ago, though. This is "yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet."
On June 17, 1981, Johnny Carson made a weather-related observation. "It was 107 degrees somewhere in Los Angeles today. But you know what everybody says? I love this -- 107 today and they say, 'But there's no humidity in California!' There's no humidity in a nuclear meltdown either!" On April 15, 1986, Johnny Carson levelled with his audience on another matter: "California ball players, let's be honest, are a little too mellow. Out here, a player steals a base and he has to go to a psychiatrist to deal with the guilt." And last than a month later, May 8, 1986, he was in a re-assuring mood. He told them: "Do not worry. I want to point out that the radiation from the applause sign is equivalent tro only two dental X-rays."