How to Understand the Effect Your Influences Have Had on Your Life

There is no end to the life lessons one can draw from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.

Here are but a few more examples:

When buying a birthday gift, booze will be more appreciated than a book.

If you are searching for a planet that’s hostile to life, don’t beam down to it yourself to have a look. No good can come of that. It is, after all, hostile.

Don’t fall prey to 2-dimensional thinking.

You can get away with the most ham-fisted secret code imaginable if you distract the listener by insulting Kirstie Alley for no reason.

If you’re going to kill Kirk, you’re going to have to go down there. You’re going to have to go down there!

If you maroon a homicidal revenge-obsessed maniac, maybe check in on him from time to time.

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How to Correct a Common Misconception

My understanding is that the Russians ended up buying a supply of space pens from Fisher as well.

One technology the Russians had that we wanted when the Soviet Union collapsed was their ejector seat tech. They had much better ejector seats than we did. What that said about their planes is for you to decide.

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How to Decide Whether to Rent or Buy

We really were apartment shopping, we really did tell the leasing agent that we didn’t need to go out on the patio, as we would not use it much (and it was July in Florida), and she really did just stand there, on the patio, refusing to move and repeating over and over “No, seriously, you have to come check this out,” until we finally knuckled under and joined her outside in the humidity.

We did end up renting the place. It was a brand-new building. The day we moved in I had to go to the rental office to complain because the peephole in the front door had been installed backward. The rental agent and a prospective renter waiting for her appointment and I all had a good laugh about the Seinfeld episode about the reverse peephole, then we lapsed into a silence, looking at each other awkwardly until I said, “But no, seriously, can you please send someone to fix it?”

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How to Give Someone Guidance

Panel one made me laugh out loud. It’s not often a pun qualifies as gross. Well done, past me.

The real person upon whom I based the character Athena is a delightful young woman I worked with at Walt Disney World. By chance, I bumped into her and a guy I also worked one day when I went to a movie theater. I was there solo, and as fate would have it, they just happened to be going to the same showing of the same movie. We all ended up sitting together, then I took their pictures in the lobby to include them in the comic.

Most of you reading this are probably thinking that I rudely hijacked these two young people’s date. I was worried about the same thing and surreptitiously offered to get lost, but was told emphatically that I should stay. And anyway, if it was a date, the lack of romance was not my fault so much as the fact that they went to see Jackass 3D.

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How to Express the Fact That You Are Offended

It will surprise few of you that my favorite band is They Might Be Giants.

For obvious reasons, this comic reminds me of one of my favorite songs of theirs. Friends, I hereby present: “Madam, I Challenge You to a Duel.”

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How to Accept and Appreciate the Ways in Which Age Changes You

To be fair, when I was a kid I think my problem with naps was having my nap time strictly enforced and determined by someone else based (I now realize) primarily on when they needed a rest. Imagine if you disagreed with your supervisor at work and they said, “You’re getting a little cranky. I order you to go put your head down on your desk for the next twenty minutes.”

Even now, I would take that as an opportunity to demonstrate just how cranky I could be.

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How to Find Common Ground

In the font I used for dialog, at the scale in which I used it, the word “Android” followed by a semicolon looks like “Androidi,” which is what they should name the first robot to drive a race car. “Mario Androidi.”

That font is based on Missy’s handwriting. She made one based on mine as well, but it looked so unhinged she decided to name it “Scott Slaughter.”

Note from Missy: you can get the Basic Instructions dialog font, “Boldly Missy,” with a free commercial-use license!  You can also get “Scott Slaughter” with the same free license, if that’s your jam.  Heck, I have a whole bunch of fonts with free licenses, including a couple of feature-packed new ones!

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How to Discuss a Possible New Technology Purchase

I don’t have much to say about this comic, so instead I’ll show you what the real Ric got me for my recent birthday.

BEHOLD!

A personalized Funko Pop! It’s just the thing for the immature egomaniac. He knows me far too well.

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How to Turn the Tables

The real Ric and I were talking about going to San Diego Comic Con a while back, and I considered throwing together a Knifeketeer costume for him. Then I remembered that you have to get any cosplay weapons inspected before you’re allowed out on the show floor every time you enter, and that would be a lot of knives to get checked.

Note from Missy: This one makes me want to play Hitman 3, because there are now “hobby knives” lying around for 47 to use.(Though I’ll probably go back to my classic habit of throwing wrenches at people’s heads.So satisfying!)

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How to Relate to Someone Whose Experience Contradicts Yours

This is completely unrelated to the comic, but the Beastie Boys song “Sabotage” is playing, and it occurred to me that if you’d told me in 2008 that eventually I would hear this song and think of Captain Kirk, I would not have believed it.

Also, you could have easily blown past-me’s mind by telling him that there would be a TV series about an elderly Captain Picard that also features Commander Data and Seven of Nine, and that it was quite good but many people were put off by “all the cursing.”

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