Category / Holiday-Thematic

by zbicyclist

Out of Warranty

Tomorrow is our 50th wedding anniversary, so indulge your editor.

I clipped this cartoon out of The New Yorker many years ago, and it hung in my home office. I recommend it as good marital advice.

From The New Yorker in December, 1975, back when a stack of back print issues of that magazine sat in the corner of our apartment. Just a bit of a CIDU.

by zbicyclist

Merry Christmas

Just as in TV shows and movies, we don’t see people on the toilet, there must be part of the Santa experience they don’t show.

Santa – the true story

Yes, Fuzzy Math Gurus, there is a Santa Claus.

There are “facts” floating around the internet, “proving” that one Santa just couldn’t do it all, but they fail too see the obvious conclusion — FRANCHISING!  This also explains why “Santa” is often known as “Santa Claus”. 


Let me explain:

1.  Yes, it’s true Santa would need to make 822.6 visits per second, or 2,961,360 per hour.  However, if we assume that there are 740,340 worldwide Santas (the exact number is known only to the Salvation Army), then each Santa has to make 1 visit only every 15 minutes.

2.  Roughly speaking, this is

5 minutes for travel (footnote below)
1 minute for sorting out that house’s gifts
1 minute for chimney diving / lock picking
3 minutes for gift arranging
2 minutes for cookie eating
1 minute for exiting premises and returning to sleigh
2 minutes “slack” time for unforseen events (most commonly, large dogs)
—
15 minutes

3.  “Santa” is, of course, a very sought after title, and the geographic franchises to be the local “Santa” are subject to yearly adjustments due to population shifts.  The changes in the legal paragraphs governing geographic territories in the “Santa” agreement are called “Santa Clauses”, a term which eventually has been commonly applied to “Santas” themselves.

Thanks for the opportunity to clear this up.

Footnote: The travel time has been reduced considerably in this century by the use of “jet sleighs” manufactured by Boeing.  The original model 7 sleigh, in fact, is what gave the Boeing corporation its name.  Elves, noticing how the new sleighs (with, sadly, aluminum reindeer) bounced from housetop to housetop, cheered “Boing! Boing!”, which in an Elvin accent sounded like “Boeing! Boeing!”. 

[Mike Kruger, December 2003]

by zbicyclist

Veterans Day

Some repeat comics from past Veterans Days, with a couple of additions. It’s a good day to remember.

This one Bill marked “UDIC Frazz Veterans Day” . It was posted as https://cidu.info/2018/11/09/udic/

These two we noticed on sequential days in Maria’s Day. Since that strip is on a reruns cycle at GoComics, the actual dates of the recent appearance were 31 August and 01 September, but apparently the original publication was on 10 and 11 November of some year.

by zbicyclist

Caulfield Guessing Contest: The Big Reveal

Chemgal sends in this first Monday Frazz comic, so we can start guessing what Caulfield is going to dress up as for Halloween.

Tuesday’s not much help.

And now, day 3:

Day 4: our last clue.

And the winner is ….

That matchless short story, Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”, was mentioned earlier, so take a bow on that guess.

I guessed Shackleton earlier, but that’s Frazz’s costume, not Caulfield’s. In fact, Caulfield himself isn’t in costume, which seems to bend the rules a bit.

by zbicyclist

Halloween CIDUs

… and some non-CIDUs

The joke is clear, if hackneyed by now, but what would the kids tip? A 20% trick?

This execution of the same joke is a bit clearer, since it’s the kid asking for money.

Not so much a CIDU as “way too much work”. Post individual clue solutions in the comments. FYI, complete solution is here.

This one tripped me up, because I assumed a Pumpkin Spice Latte only had the spices used in pumpkin pie. This used to be true: introduced in 2003, Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte contained only the spices, and no pumpkin. That made sense. Who thinks steak sauce has steak in it? or shrimp sauce has shrimp in it? Or awlspice has an awl in it? But, in response to complaints, in 2015 they reformulated to add some pumpkin puree. That was really unnecessary, because a bit of pumpkin puree adds little taste. But this does mean Blazek’s joke actually works.

Not a CIDU, but definitely an Ewww.

Not a CIDU, either, but cute.

And one last nod to Peanuts:

And, finally, an OY

There’s this synchronicity, sent in by Nebulous: