Category / CIDU

by EditorM

The final collection of Oopsies, Quickies, We-can-improve-its, Semi-CIDUs, Mysteries, and flops? (14th Series)

Not quite complaining about the friend’s unprompted question — it could happen, though normally you’d expect a context something like “Why won’t you X? What are you afraid of?” The problem, the detail-complaint, is with the form of Pete’s reply-question, which carefully spells out a pronunciation which marks it out as belonging to no actual regional or demographic dialect or slang.

Oops! Got the underlying myth premise precisely backwards!

And here they got the underlying business terms precisely backward. As an excuse for something like a missed payment, someone may plead that their assets are not liquid.

Okay, one joke is that there would be a rap version of a mantra. Or that she has been rapping it, or improvising it, or humming it or something, enough to disturb her friend.

But the bothersome aspect of this is how it seems to buy into some magical thinking. The dark-haired friend is linking her (later) ability to get the good parking space to performing a successful meditation now, undisturbed by intrusive mantra rapping. (Or could it be Nichiren Shōshū chanting?)

This is a perfectly fine little pun! Oh, except that there is no basis shown or hinted for why the new top provides more relief from the heat.

by EditorM

At the Gallery (repost as a bonus)

This entry was originally posted on 2020-Nov-13. We were reminded of it when reading Tom Falco’s newsletter today (corresponding to this post on his Tomversation blog), which reprints this panel along with pictures and commentary on his recent New York visit.

Tomversation sent in by Ollie. As a CIDU? Didn’t say! Is the joke like those set at modern art galleries, where a frame surrounds a stain on the wall, here turned into a window mistaken for an art object? Or is it just a fond reminder that one can tire of any quality of indoor view and welcome a glance out a window? [2022 comment: Falco’s title “The grass is always greener” would seem to fit better with that latter view.]

Next mystery: Is it meant to be somewhat realistic? So these would be a collection of posters on paper, mounted on somebody’s wall? No? An actual touring exhibition of masterpieces unlikely to be loaned out and then exhibited together? Nah.

Does it remind you of one of those paintings that show other paintings, maybe in a gallery setting? Like this one by Samuel F. B. Morse:

[2022 comment: The Picasso has been identified by commenter Olivier: “BTW, the Picasso is ‘portrait de femme au béret orange et col de fourrure (Marie-Thérèse)’, 1937.”]

And now, for something not quite completely different! Still in the realm of fine arts and popular suspicion, this OY from Cornered, sent by Olivier.

Wrong Hands can be cynical without being mean:

Oh, how those New Yorkers love themselves some art:

And The Far Side on “The Art of Conversation”. Sorry, just a link, not a copy.

https://www.thefarside.com/2020/10/30/2

And just be hush-hush about this, okay? —

by EditorM

“It’s Horace, the guy who tells jokes so sophisticated no one can understand them.”

Sent by Andréa, who also kindly linked this Bernoulli explainer. (Which however doesn’t make the joke really clearer.)

Barney and Clyde have a whole series of these this month. They are obscure, but are they funny? Here’s another. The humor seems species-ous.

And then again there are some, like the most recent episode, which we would gleefully consign to an “Ooopses!” list if we didn’t have this post to use it in.

Let us pass over in silence the syllable count of guacamole, and get right to the point: why isn’t there superscripting? If there’s an excuse in “He’s supposed to be speaking these”, still they should be written correctly and trust the reader to vocalize them appropriately; or heck, even write out him saying “times ten to the twenty-third” and something like “inverse moles” or simply “units per mole”.

by zbicyclist

Styxing it to ’em

Andréa writes:

For 60 years, I lived a few miles from CubLand, but I still don’t get this . . is he giving a raspberry? Does it have something to do with this . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk
. . . if so, the comic is 10 days early, as he was born on 25 July, NOT 15 July.

Here’s a bonus Steve Goodman track, another live performance, the ultimate country song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QUSQJQml40



by phsiii

Why do you ask?

Why indeed? A friend and sometime-lurker sent me this, suggesting it for CIDU, and I have to agree. Maybe there’s something about philately?

Mitch suggests that there may be a joke in the way the therapist is probing for something the guy is leaving out–perhaps his hairpiece is also something he thinks the wife criticizes too much. He also asked: Why does the diploma alternate between an MA and a PhD? What is the significance of the therapist doodling instead of making notes?

by EditorM

Formulaic CIDU (bonus)

Well, I don’t think he was just scribbling. It’s too convincing.

Unlikely that it is a vector-graphics equation for the lines and filled areas that constitute the smiley face. Right?

But if mostly a blur-retrace of something real, then what in particular? An elaboration or derivation of part of Maxwell? [Though that would work better for the “Let There Be Light” referenced in the GoComics comments.] Something from General Relativity? Thermodynamics? We are happy because the Sun keeps shining?