How to Share Your Problems

I learned a harsh lesson about being too honest with my boss when I was a teenager, working in the lucrative fast-food industry. One day I had a terrible cough, sore throat, and a lack of energy, and I made the mistake of letting my boss hear me say that I hoped it wasn’t too busy that day. He explained at great length and volume how it was much better for me in the long run if we were busy.

Yeah, he was right, but don’t start thinking too well of him. I’ll remind you that he was having a conversation with an employee at his restaurant who had bronchitis, and possibly strep throat, and his position was not only that the employee should remain at work, but that he should hope to serve food to as many people as possible.

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How to Pay Your Taxes

I mean, if people could choose where their tax dollars were spent, the wealthiest communities would have the safest streets and the best schools! That wouldn’t be fair at all. /s

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How to See the Best in People

Every generation seems to think the next generation’s music is crap. I know my mother felt that the music I was listening to when I was a teenager was of poor quality, and probably was a bad influence. At the time, I thought she was being silly.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can tell you yes, she was being silly.

Bear in mind, I was listening to Phil Collins, Dire Straits, and Pink Floyd, while she was listening to Johnny Paycheck.

Here’s a fun tidbit from mister Paycheck’s Wikipedia page.

“In 1981, Paycheck was arrested for statutory rape of a 12 year old girl in Wyoming, and appeared on an episode of the television show The Dukes of Hazzard as himself.”

The 1980s were a different time.

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How to Justify Upgrading Your Computer

If you’re using a computer that has a mechanical, spinning-disk hard drive, and you want it to be faster, I strongly suggest getting a Solid State Drive (which, from this point forward I will refer to as an SSD).

I upgraded to an SSD years ago. I told Missy many times that I wanted to upgrade her computer with one, but she wasn’t interested. Something about not fixing what isn’t broken.

Then, one day, she complained that her computer took too long to boot up.

I said, “We should get you an SSD.”

She asked, “Would that make it boot faster?”

It still makes me smile when I remember the look on her face as she watched my computer boot up and shouted, “Are you shitting me?!”

She has had an SSD ever since.

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How to Adjust to Society's "Progress"

I have the same problem with “fee fi fo fum” that I had with the musical Cats. If you’re just using made up nonsense words anyway, it’s unforgivably lazy to not at least make up gibberish that rhymes.

“Fee fi fo fan, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” How hard was that?!

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How to Learn About Yourself

I can’t eat at Hooters. I tried once. It was just no good. I became extremely self-conscious about where I was looking. Every time the waitress got anywhere near my table, I ended up forcing myself to maintain eye contact with her the entire time. I’m pretty sure my efforts not to ogle her gave her the creeps.

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How to Maintain Your Authority

A few commentaries ago I was depressed that the comic in question was still timely. I find it even more depressing that this comic, about a leader who sends a mob to attack someone, only to see that mob turn on him, wasn’t timely when it was written, and still isn’t.

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How to Describe Something

In America, Netflix has a series called Losers. There is an episode called “Stone Cold,” about a Canadian curler who thought of a perfectly legal, legitimate strategy that resulted in an almost guaranteed victory. The only reason nobody had ever used it before was that nobody seemed to have thought of it, even though it had been possible pretty much since the sport was invented. In the end, all of the other teams implemented his strategy and it rendered the game so unwatchable that one year, during the national championships, the crowd spontaneously chanted “boring.” In the end, they had to change the rules to eliminate his strategy and make the game fun to watch again.

It sounds unbelievable, but it is true. Simple, powerful, and sometimes painfully obvious things are out there just waiting to be noticed.

For example, Netflix doesn’t seem to have a way for someone to easily link to a specific episode of one of their shows, or even a trailer for that episode, to make it easier for someone with a blog to direct potential paying customers to that bit of content.

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How to Understand Reality (Shows)

I find it depressing that eight years later this comic is still timely, both because neither income inequality nor reality TV has gotten any better.

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How to Review Who Your Characters Are

I never drew a second pose for Rocket Hat. He just stood around as if he was wearing handcuffs, whether he was captured or not. In a way, it’s fitting that a character who never says anything was drawn by a cartoonist who never drew anything.

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