One of my favorite Gramp-related toons from past health-kicks.
One of my favorite Gramp-related toons from past health-kicks.
“Boo”.
It’s interesting, because customer feedback reports and consumer satisfaction surveys have actually cleaned up the dealer-affiliated used-car business. They’re not at all as skeevy as they once were. And even cable and phone guys have gotten (a little) more prompt in their scheduling. (A little.)
But boy…you walk into a gym like Ballys, 24 Hour Fitness, or LA Fitness…and they’re on top of you like a vulture on week-old road kill. Everything is a special-deal-today-only-but-don’t-wait-sign-up-now offer.
And there’s something more intimidating about it than your usual salesman: because not only are they givin’ you the hard-sell, they’re givin’ you the hard-sell with 24-inch biceps and thighs that are the size of your chest.
Those guys scare the Pop Tarts outta me.
Dear Sir:
Though I am amazed and inspired by your presence at the gym, I wanted to take a minute to offer some constructive fashion criticism.
Let me first stress how impressed I am at your ability to get yourself to the gym. Especially in this, your 125th year. You are an inspiration to folks young and old.
But brother, the dolphin shorts have got to go.
Even during their heyday in 1979-1982, I’m fairly sure Dolphin Shorts were pretty roundly made fun of. They are, after all, only three-inch swaths of fabric.
But here you are, in 2007, rockin’ them Dolphin Shorts like the Bee Gees just dropped “Saturday Night Fever”. And on an EFX machine, no less. Wow.
So, in closing:
– Points for getting yourself to the gym
– Negative points for the Dolphin Shorts
In Friendship,
Dave Kellett
The LA Times is a great, great paper. Not a “national” paper, perhaps, in the same way that the NY Times, the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal are, but darn close.
The breadth and scope of its reporting in the last decade has been impressive. The paper has won a slew of Pulitzers for its in-depth reporting; it has a wonderful stable of in-house columnists; it’s one of the last multi-page comics spreads in the U.S.; it’s one of a handful of papers that maintains a stand-alone “Books” sections in the Sunday paper…and the list goes on and on.
But it’s slowly dying. Or, better put, it’s shrivelling down to a lesser version of itself. And it’s sad to watch.
The paper is certainly not “dying” in the financial sense. Like a lot papers, the profit margins at the Times still outpaces most Fortune 500 companies. But ever since it moved from family ownership to Tribune corporate ownership, it’s been under steady stockholder demands for increasing profitability. Tie that to the slow trickling away of readership and the ad dollars that go with it, and the Times’ corporate management finds itself cutting staff, cutting features, cutting print runs, cutting columnists and cutting cartoonists.
And cutting…and cutting…and cutting. And it’s sad.
In a lot of ways, the LA Times is the reason I decided to refocus Sheldon solely on the web. Living in Los Angeles, I could see the writing on the wall as far as making a living in traditional newsprint…just by looking at my local paper.
But when I picked up my copy of the Times today, the paper itself was so thin. It’s not just the missing reports and features that I find myself noticing. The overall paper just feels smaller.
All of which, of course, will drive away the next batch of readers who once took the paper. Which in turn will drive the next round of cuts to staff and features.
Bums me out to watch it happening.
Some of my favorite moments in the strip are when the characters drop their guard a little bit, and we see glimpses of their bruised humanity. It doesn’t happen often, but those strips carry a bit more meaning than most.
If you haven’t seen them before, take a minute to read the two-week storyline where Sheldon reminisces about his parents…or the two-day arc where Gramp thinks back on his his wife. They’re both nice moments.
In fun news, über-librarian Jana Atkins writes to report that the Univ. of Central Oklahoma’s Chambers Library is picking up a number of Cuban CDs based on my earlier post. Jana’s ordered a copy of all the Cuban musicians mentioned, and two copies of Celia!
Drop by the library and check out their collection of Cuban tunes — you won’t be disappointed! And thanks, Jana!
Congratulations to the Sheldon e-mail subcribers and very early-in-the-mornin’ Sheldon readers! You were the lucky winners in the “How Unnecessarily Large Can Dave Make The Strip Look?” Contest.
It seems that I accidentally uploaded the book-ready strip (600 dpi tif file) rather than the web-ready version (72 dpi gif file), and it ended up looking like THE LARGEST IMAGE EVER TO APPEAR ON THE INTERNET.
My apologies! It should be cleared up now.
Though my embarrassment will probably linger for 25-30 more minutes.
My buddy Paul Southworth of Ugly Hill fame just put out a hilarious t-shirt design. It’s one of those “I wish I had thought of that” ideas.
