Twitter jokes are easy, omnipresent and dumb (much like Twitter itself) so it’s refreshing to see a comic strip offer a unique take on the subject. This subtle, laid-back dismissal may be me favorite commentary on the social networking service to date. If anything beats it, it would be Stephen Colbert’s interview with Twitter founder Biz Stone during which the Comedy Central host tweets on his phone and says, “I’m sorry, this isn’t rude is it?”
At first glace, I thought the fish in panel four had a tongue that it was using to lick the shoulder of Arlo the April Fools trivia master. Then it seemed to me that this fish was stuck to Arlo’s red sweater in the same way that the kid in A Christmas Story was stuck to a frozen flagpole. After a moment, I realized that the small rectangle protruding from the fish’s mouth was in fact a piece of tape and that Arlo had become a victim of his own April Fish story. It serves him right for making his wife sit through the same history lesson two (and most likely three, four or five) years in a row.
So it’s finally come to this. With the economy in free-fall, people are spending less and less money, causing retail stores to close at an alarming rate. Even so, I’m resisting the calls to spend, spend, spend to revive the sluggish economy. Today’s Arlo & Janis drives home the lunacy of spending money you don’t have on things you don’t need by showing a pair of mall cops kidnapping an unassuming suburban couple. For those of us lucky enough to have jobs, a good rule of thumb might be to spend on the essentials, then save…then save some more, and then finally spend a reasonable amount of money (not credit) on a luxury or two.
Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday and as someone who watches one or two football games a year I feel completely unqualified to pick a winner. But that won’t stop me from rooting for the Arizona Cardinals to upend the Pittsburgh Steelers. I may end up being disappointed in the result, but I won’t be nearly as upset as the cat in this strip. He not only saw the Detroit Lions suffer through a winless season but also had to sit through a playoff tournament in which three of the final four spots were held by birds.
Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. It’s a hackneyed sentiment that makes for easy jokes on the comics page, although rarely with the subtlety of today’s Arlo & Janis. “I’ll impress her with my empirical evidence,” he says, thinking back to previous incidents that contradict her statement. “Empirical evidence! That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,” she replies, barely able to contain herself. The dialogue has the crackle of authenticity, especially coming from a couple that’s been married for decades.
This is a classic riff on the old complaint about satellite TV: there are 500 channels to watch and no programming that’s worth watching. I suppose the same can be said of cell phones. What is the benefit of having access to your entire address book (not to mention IM, e-mail, text, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and a million other networks) if you have nothing to say?
I have a soft spot for animals who need homes, having found my boyhood cat in front of a neighbor’s basement apartment in the spring of 1990. Even though the cat was trained to use a litter box, my mom was unable to find anyone in the neighborhood who would claim ownership. That led me to think that somebody abandoned this cat, a young Calico that I named Tiger and who has lived to be nearly 19 years old. Today, Tiger is on her last legs and her body is wearing down despite a regimen of no less than four medications. She may not be around much longer, but ut I’ll always think fondly of her and thank my lucky stars that I found her when I did.
