Okay, they can have one now and then!
Two driving comics that arrived in my email inbox on the same 06 September delivery. (The Zack Hill was one in a series about Jan’s assignment to anger management school.)
For a while this felt like it should go somewhere in the “All we needed was the first panel” family of picky categorizations. But then it turns out I would have entirely missed the extra pun, were it not for the final panel telling us exactly what we were missing!
Comics I Don't Understand 
Even with the coincidental author’s name on the second one, I got misled by the possibility of a “Batman” (TV series) reference, and didn’t identify the correct pun until I had looked at it for the about the third time (pronouncing the caption out loud helped a lot).
P.S. I didn’t get the Barney & Clyde strip, either, until I went searching for “bayou”, and the browser’s autocomplete revealed the correct answer.
P.P.S. The “soup” comic looked very familiar, but I was surprised to discover that its first appearance was nearly three years ago (which includes a link to some discussion on Arnold Zwicky’s blog).
I agree with Kilby re: soup.
I agree with him also re: “Na Na Na Na”, except I originally thought it was “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye”. There are too many songs with that “Na Na Na” pattern.
I used to describe Hey Jude as consisting of 3 minutes of song proper, followed by 4 minutes of fade out.
The suggestion in the Bizarro is brilliant! (Even if the pictured UI would be impractical.)
In fact, how about an external low-fi text display, which someone not busy driving could input short messages on – plus a few canned messages for one-click use by the driver, with something like the choices in the cartoon!
Dana, I agree the Bizarro captures something probably near-universal! But my intention to convey, say, a 2 may not sound that way due to vagaries of equipment and touch. So the idea of having them preprogrammed is indeed fun.
(BTW, tho I do have some recollection of being the one adding these two driving cartoons to this collection [and probably at different times], I don’t see now why they would be OY and not LOL,)
Dana Kay – I “invented” (but did not implement) that in the 80s. Besides hostile uses, things like “you have a brake light out” would be useful.
I don’t need six different options, nor explicit messaging, but it would be very useful to have a second (small) horn button (somewhere on the dashboard), which could be used to produce a very short, delicate “chirp“, instead of a full-bore “honk“.
Phil and Dana (or anyone!), do you share my memory of a series of stories, or serialized novels, in Analog?, about life on a superhighway of the future, narrated by a member of something like the Highway Patrol? I recall that these law enforcement people could beam certain commands to any vehicle, for instance requiring them to “pull over and wait” as an actual programmed override. Maybe the name Ben Bova comes to mind, but maybe because he was on the editorial side around then.
Mitch4 –
This is “Code 3” by Rick Raphael. That was the name of the first short story and of the subsequent novel.
Thanks, SteveHL!
Mitch4: Yes! I think you mean Code Three by Rick Raphael. Online at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19111
OK, not sure why I didn’t see SteveHL’s response, sorry for the duplicate. At least GMTA.
I got the Barney & Clyde pun after a few minutes when I first saw it the other day (the pun Kilby refers to as the “correct answer”).
But the comment under the cartoon seems to imply that there are two puns. (“I would have entirely missed the extra pun”.) What is the other pun?
jajizi: I think it’s the “embroider” facts in the second panel.
The Bayeaux Tapestry is a medieval embroidery depicting the Battle of Hastings. They had to repeat the phrase “By you” in case you didn’t get the joke the first time.
Jajizi (13) I assume it’s the “embroider facts” line. I’m not sure that’s actually a pun, though.
About thirty years ago a friend of mine had a small device she could stick to her car dashboard, with a few buttons that set off effects sounds of machine guns, cannon, missiles, beam weapons etc. The other car didn’t hear it, but it gave some satisfaction to her.
This is the nearest I have seen to it online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ate7CFDnHw8
People talking about these on online fora seem to think they are originally from the 80s, though I found a now-expired 1993 Google patent US5314371A for one: “Toy weapon simulator for stress reduction” which is “A toy for mounting on the dashboard of a vehicle in front of the driver. The toy includes a box-like housing that houses a plurality of tone generators. Each tone generator, when activated, produces the sounds of a military assault weapon”
Speaking of not sure if it’s a pun, I’m reading The Thursday Murder Club for book club, and a character in a journal writes: “the newsletter, by the way, is called Cut to the Chase, which is a pun” [they live in a retirement village called Coopers Chase], and I was thinking, is it? It’s a play on words, sure, but a pun? And then I’m left to wonder if the author knows this, but the character doesn’t, and it’s characterization, or if the author is just wrong. (In omniscient voice elsewhere he refers to the Polish / West German border, which never existed.)
Remarkable! I’ve used Gutenberg one way or another just about forever, but have missed some enhancements and am just noticing them now. Such as, expanded coverage — this Code Three is clearly memorable (several of us are remembering it), but I would not have thought it would fall under Gutenberg’s remit. Also I don’t remember them offering downloads, nor in so many formats.
The Wikipedia page for Bayeux Tapestry was helpful on the embroidery point. You can almost see a shaking head for this passage:
https://xkcd.com/851_make_it_better
I have actually seen the Bayeux tapestry in person; it’s described as the first comic book, as in a story told in illustrated form. So for once, I got the pun without help.
That’s wonderful, Keera!
I got the Bayeaux Tapestry right away. As an Astrophysics major back in the day, that is often mentioned in Astronomy classes as it includes a depiction of Halley’s comet.
I saw the Bayeux Tapestry in person, but I did not really appreciate the quality of its storytelling until I saw the animated version of the tapestry on a Viking cruise ship.
There’s a 69 minute version here, that I haven’t looked at yet:
Unraveling the Bayeux Tapestry with Viking Resident Historian Fenella Bazin, PhD | Viking.TV
I am so jealous of those who have seen the Bayeux Tapestry in person!
I know the history of it (and that it is technically not a tapestry in which the design would have been woven in rather than embroidered) and have seen photos many times – including the animated version. I also know that unless that somehow it works its way to the eastern US I will never see it in person. As an embroiderer I would so love to see it.
There have been in recent times some projects to make pieces on a similar idea. There is a piece being done in Plymouth, MA at Pilgrim Hall about the landing of and life of the Pilgrims who landed there in 1620.
(All information about the other piece I know about here in the U.S. has fled my mind as I was just asked if I remembered to make pudding for snack – after which he realized he never suggested my doing so. When the info drifts back into my head I will post about it.)