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17 December 2025

No. 3,203 (cartoon)

Depression is the new happiness.

I’m very happy to hear that!

18 December 2025

Booze Means Babies

The Chinese apparatchiks enforced a one-child per family planning law from 1979 to 2015, and it worked. Thanks to a lot of dead baby girls, the policy ended the population explosion, and now there are tens of millions of lonely guys out there who can’t find a gal. In practice, that means that now there aren’t enough new babies to prevent a population implosion.

Oops.

The administraitors have a solution to that problem. Of course they do. The Politburo Standing Committee imposed a thirteen percent tax on anything related to birth control. Too little, too late.

Oops again.

Most of my cameras, computers, electronic gizmos, and fingernail clippers are made in China, so here’s a bit of free consulting for my friends across the Pacific.

Pay attention, comrades, it’s only two words: free booze. That’s where babies come from, regardless of your politics. Lots more factory fodder in twenty years. Problem solved.

You’re welcome.

19 December 2025

Ignorani Über Alles

What in the hell is wrong with you people? I’m talking to you, you effete wankers at the Oxford University Press. Last year your “word of the year” was “brain rot,” and this year it’s “rage bait.”

That’s stooopid, even for a Brit: that’s two words. I repeat: that’s two words, not one; count ’em and see for yourself. (On a positive note, at least they didn’t select “hawk tuah.”)

I copied the previous paragraph verbatim from a year ago today. I went on to praise the Macquarie Dictionary editors for declaring that “enshittification” is the word of the year, but now the Aussies are just as moronic: their word [sic] of the year is “AI slop,” an acronym followed by a word.

It looks like I’ll have to come up with my own word of the year, so I will. The word is “ignorani.” I’m not going to define it, but an ignoranus who doesn’t know the difference between singular and plural is a great example.

Postscript: I wonder if the whole word-of-the-year balderdash is just rage bait for curmudgeons like me.

20 December 2025

First-world Blackout Blues

Alicia arrived at my studio late tonight after being stuck in a rainy San Francisco blackout. The absence of traffic lights turned the huge fleet of self-driving cars into random graveyards of self-fucking-up cars that shut down and blocked intersections and main thoroughfares when their little ’puter brains couldn’t figure out what to do without their red, yellow, and green cues.

I tried to be empathetic, but my first response was to think about the Ukrainians under constant assault from Russian bombs, missiles and drones, who have no electricity or heat in the freezing weather. Oh, and no traffic lights, either.

My second response was to keep my mouth shut and let Alicia enjoy her self-pity after the trauma of first-world inconvenience.

21 December 2025

Navy Coffee

My father died on the winter solstice thirty-four years ago today. I poured myself a large cocktail and remembered one of the few pieces of advice he ever gave me: buy the cheapest vodka because you can’t taste it. He learned a lot as a cook in the Navy during WWII.

We had a great relationship, and by the time he left us I said and heard everything that I wanted to say. Or at least I did until I read about how to make Navy coffee. Use the cheapest coffee you can buy, put twice the recommended amount in the percolator, then let it boil for eight hours. I wish I’d asked him if that was true.

I don’t believe in hell, but if there is such a mythical place I’m sure they’re drinking Navy coffee, and envious of the angels in heaven quaffing cheap vodka.

22 December 2025

Not A Better Mousetrap

First thing: Ralph Waldo Emerson may have said (but probably didn’t), “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”

Thing number two: Intruder Incorporated makes and markets a product called A Better Mousetrap, but it clearly ain’t. In fact, rodents will beat a path to your door to raid it.

The last thing: A Better Mousetrap is made from plastic, so the mices chew through it to eat the tasty bait after one of their mates has set off the spring-loaded trap.

Helena discovered this when she went to her mother Mabel’s storeroom and found that the meeces had turned her worthless traps into feeding stations.

Too bad Mabel is allergic to cats and relies on lesser mousetraps.

23 December 2025

Somebody or Nobody Thinks This is Humorous

I asked the souped-up Internet to summarize the preceding six entries, and here’s what I got:

The author shares a series of humorous observations and anecdotes from December 17th to 23rd, including commentary on Chinese birth control policies, word of the year selections, a San Francisco blackout, and a mousetrap mishap. The author also reflects on their father’s advice and the concept of “Navy coffee.”

I was prepared to snicker and rant at the results, but I have to admit that’s a concise recapitulation. I was surprised that the electronic editor thought my writing was humorous. At least somebody does, even if the somebody is a nobody.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2025 David Glenn Rinehart