Sleep Deprivation Theatre

#213: The Circle of Milk

If you don't get the joke, then you probably haven't seen this song from the Lion king. If you have seen that, and still don't get it, then that's because it's a weak joke.

I distinctly recall that when I was in elementary school, one could purchase a tiny cardboard container of milk from the cafeteria for a dollar. Yes, it was a horrendous unit price, but it didn't go bad because you drank it then and there. Surely these tiny milk cartons exist in some context besides minimum-security child prison, I just haven't been able to find someplace that sells them.

I've got two other things I want to mention today that have nothing to do with the comic above.

First off, I've got some fan art! Do you remember comic #0211 wherein I bemoan people's highway driving habits? Well, Dr. Brinkman, a professor of mine from college (@brinkmwj, derandomized.org) drew his own diagram as a response. Click to Enlarge. This is the first time I've gotten any fan art, and I have to say it filled me with glee. And not a crappy TV show that glamorizes the worst parts of high school, no: actual dictionary-definition glee. I may not have many readers, but I love you both in a totally non-creepy way.

On a sadder note, the guy who draws Calamities of Nature has announced that he's not going to draw anymore. I've long admired Calamities for being a politically charged comic that nonetheless manages to remain funny. I don't do politics in my strips, because I genuinely do not believe I could pull it off. Even though I don't agree with many of Calamities of Nature's political messages, it's hard not to respect someone who has the courage to include them and the skill to make them funny. The site is calamitiesofnature.com, and I encourage you to give it a read.

#212: Relationship Tip 1

My real-life girlfriend doesn't ask me this anymore. She used to ask, but then gradually learned that the things I'm thinking of at any given moment are often bizarre and disturbing.

Recently, I started reading a a pop-psychology book on willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney. I normally eschew such things, but I'd heard Baumeister's name before in connection with scholarly research, and as my sporadic update schedule should demonstrate, I suffer from a severe willpower shortage.

I bring this up because of a particular passage in that book relating to an experiment with heroin addicts and delayed gratification. In the experiment, people were given two writing prompts and asked to invent an ending for them any way they liked.

Joe is having a cup of coffee in a restaurant. He's thinking of the time to come when...
After awakening, Bill began to think about his future. In general he expected to...

Quoting directly from the book:

When Joe sat in the coffee shop thinking of the "time to come," that time typically covered about a week in the stories from the control group, but in the heroin addicts' stories it covered only an hour. When the control group wrote about "the future" for Bill, they tended to mention long term aspirations, like earning a promotion at work or getting married, while the addicts wrote about upcoming events, like a doctor's appointment or a visit with relatives. The typical person in the control group contemplated the future over four and a half years, while the typical addict's version of the future extended only nine days.

It should be said, that in the original book, the prompts and the results were spread out a bit. I, somewhat involuntarily, invented responses for these prompts as I read them.

...rabbits gained sentience, rose up, and became our maniacal vegetable-obsessed overlords.
...put on pants

Now, I'm sure Baumeister and Tierney would have something to say about the fact that my scenarios were respectively in an impossibly distant future and in the next couple of seconds, but I'm more concerned about the content.

My responses above were literally the first things that came to mind, and one of those things involved being conquered by supernatural wildlife. That says something about my overall sanity, I think. It certainly explains why my girlfriend doesn't ask what I'm thinking about anymore.

#211: Center Lane

I really do have very few "pet peeves" about driving. This is one of the bigger ones, and I suspect it's because unlike my fellow drivers, I refuse to change lanes unless I actually have room to do so safely. If I were willing to clip people's bumpers as I jumped from the far left lane to the far right lane, then I wouldn't have a problem.

#210: Point of Sale

I actually like self-checkout machines, mostly because they get me out of the grocery store faster and let me get on with my life. But I suspect that might have more to do with the fact that in the local grocery stores, all of the self-checkout machines share a single, bank-teller-style line.

If the regular, human-operated checkout worked the same way, a lot of the frustration with shopping would simply vanish. Pathetic people who waste time foisting their life stories upon the poor cashiers would no longer hold up everyone behind them. If the store opens a new lane, the people at the front of the line benefit, not the people at the back. And, it'd be impossible to accidentally choose the line with the slow cashier. Even the store benefits, because with one long line, there's more space to put impulse buy items that everybody has to pass and see.

I suspect grocery stores don't work this way specifically because it'd be more convenient.

#209: All-Purpose Political Comic

SOPA and PIPA were "postponed indefinitely" thanks to public outcry, but quickly replaced by something worse with an even more ludicrous name, interestingly by the same senator, who is apparently on a mission to destroy the internet.

Yeah.

When I wrote this comic, it was actually intended to be about the debt ceiling. It's mighty difficult to be optimistic about this country.

#208: Christmas Apology

The moose is the logo of my home-based business. He's appearing here because it was easier than making a "Doctor" stick figure.

If you celebrate something this time of year, have fun with that. I don't, and I'll therefore be having more fun than you by virtue of the fact that I plan to continue doing my regular job. Since my regular job is more fun than a root canal, it is certainly more fun than celebrating a holiday with my family.

#207: Cooking wik Adam!

Actually, all of the cooking fires I've caused have been relatively small and quickly contained. However, the fact remains that I can't cook, and trying to learn seems to consist primarily of eating awful food and gradually coming to the realization that no variation of my ingredients or technique actually results in food I generate tasting good.

Anybody who says "cooking is easy" and/or "anybody can do it" is full of shit. Saying anyone can cook is exactly like saying anyone can drive. How many people have you noticed on the roads actually driving well? What percentage of those people were professional drivers? I rest my case.

#206: Jesus vs. Facebook

I don't use facebook, google+ or anything similar, so I don't really know for sure whether it's possible to "Like" Jesus. I like the joke anyway, so I'll keep it for those of us like me who prefer ignorance to hollow friendships and 21st century chain letters.

#205: Jesus, Mary and Martha

My life will not be complete until I've gotten some hate mail over this.

#204: Sing-A-Longs

No rant today.